Jessa Crispin's new book asks ‘What Is Wrong With Men?'
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This sense of displacement, Crispin adds, 'feeds into these stories of grievance,' the sting of lost status translating into anger at women and immigrants as seen in Douglas's lost, angry character in 1993's 'Falling Down.'
Is there really a crisis in masculinity? Yes, Crispin says — 'as evidenced by addiction rates and suicide rates' — but most are looking at the wrong culprit to blame: 'There's a kind of stubbornness in men's culture [that keeps them from] really looking at what is behind these trends. It's not the fault of feminism. It's not the fault of immigration.'
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Crispin has seen a photo of the actual Michael Douglas posing with the book, but she says she hopes he doesn't read it ('it's like your crush reading your diary entries about them'). But for the rest of us, she says she hopes readers will come away ready for 'a better conversation about what is going on with men.
'We really have a system of haves and have-nots, of increasing inequality not just of money but of quality of life,' she says. 'I am desperate for there to be a wider acknowledgment of that and to try to fix some of the stuff, because the effects are obvious and it causes a lot of suffering — and not just for men.'
Jessa Crispin will read at 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 22, at
And now for some recommendations….
Katie Yee blends comedy and heartbreak in her spare and elegant debut novel, '
In '
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If this hot summer has anything to teach us, it's that human beings can only thrive when we have access to shade, whether in the form of tree canopies or the low overhang of a building's roofline. In his new book '
Kate Tuttle edits the Globe's Books section.
Kate Tuttle, a freelance writer and critic, can be reached at
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