Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation

"The patriarchal world, through Kipnis's eyes, is consistently and quietly funny . . . Her coolheaded, ironical assessments of modern masculinity read like perfectly timed eye rolls."-The New York Times Book Review

It's no secret that men often behave in confusing ways, but in recent years we've witnessed so many spectacular public displays of male excess-disgraced politicians, erotically desperate professors, fallen sports icons-that we're left to wonder whether something has come unwired in the collective male psyche.

In the essays collected here, Laura Kipnis draws out the angst and emotional contradictions implicit in what look like exercises of male privilege, revisiting the archetypes of wayward masculinity that have captured her imagination over the years, and scrutinizing men who have figured in her own life, alongside more controversial public examples. Slicing through the usual clichés about the differences between the sexes, Kipnis mixes intellectual rigor and wit to give us a compelling survey of the affinities, jealousies, longings, and erotics that structure the male-female bond.