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Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad

by Brett Martin (Goodreads Author)

3.82 · Rating Details · 2,111 Ratings · 298 Reviews

A riveting and revealing look at the shows that helped cable television drama emerge as the signature art form of the twenty-first century.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO an A riveting and revealing look at the shows that helped cable television drama emerge as the signature art form of the twenty-first century.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the landscape of television began an unprecedented transformation. While the networks continued to chase the lowest common denominator, a wave of new shows, first on premium cable channels like HBO and then basic cable networks like FX and AMC, dramatically stretched television’s narrative inventiveness, emotional resonance, and artistic ambition. No longer necessarily concerned with creating always-likable characters, plots that wrapped up neatly every episode, or subjects that were deemed safe and appropriate, shows such as The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Deadwood, The Shield, and more tackled issues of life and death, love and sexuality, addiction, race, violence, and existential boredom. Just as the Big Novel had in the 1960s and the subversive films of New Hollywood had in 1970s, television shows became the place to go to see stories of the triumph and betrayals of the American Dream at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

This revolution happened at the hands of a new breed of auteur: the all-powerful writer-show runner. These were men nearly as complicated, idiosyncratic, and “difficult” as the conflicted protagonists that defined the genre. Given the chance to make art in a maligned medium, they fell upon the opportunity with unchecked ambition.

Combining deep reportage with cultural analysis and historical context, Brett Martin recounts the rise and inner workings of a genre that represents not only a new golden age for TV but also a cultural watershed. Difficult Men features extensive interviews with all the major players, including David Chase (The Sopranos), David Simon and Ed Burns (The Wire), Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm (Mad Men), David Milch (NYPD Blue, Deadwood), and Alan Ball (Six Feet Under), in addition to dozens of other writers, directors, studio executives, actors, production assistants, makeup artists, script supervisors, and so on. Martin takes us behind the scenes of our favorite shows, delivering never-before-heard story after story and revealing how cable TV has distinguished itself dramatically from the networks, emerging from the shadow of film to become a truly significant and influential part of our culture.

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Hardcover, 303 pages

Published July 3rd 2013 by Penguin Press (first published 2013)

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Jul 12, 2013 Kemper rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, tv-movies, 2013

Damn, could that sub-title be any longer?

This is the second book published recently that takes a look at the wave of shows that changed television since the turn of the century, but there’s a couple of key differences from Alan Sepinwall’s The Revolution Was Televised. Sepinwall gave a wider overview about the shows and their cultural impact while Brett Martin’s focus is more on the men considered the new auteurs of TV drama who were both the main creative forces and showrunners of their project ...more

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Jun 10, 2014 James Thane rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

As the subtitle of this book suggests, Brett Martin sets out to describe the story of a creative revolution in television that began in the late 1990s and early 2000s and produced what Martin describes as the third Golden Age of television.

This revolution occurred principally on cable and was led by the amazing success of "The Sopranos" on HBO. In the wake of that success came shows like "The Wire," "Deadwood," "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," "The Shield," "Six Feet Under," and others. These shows we As the subtitle of this book suggests, Brett Martin sets out to describe the story of a creative revolution in television that began in the late 1990s and early 2000s and produced what Martin describes as the third Golden Age of television.

This revolution occurred principally on cable and was led by the amazing success of "The Sopranos" on HBO. In the wake of that success came shows like "The Wire," "Deadwood," "Breaking Bad," "Mad Men," "The Shield," "Six Feet Under," and others. These shows were riskier, more literate, and more challenging than most of the television shows that preceded them, although glimmerings of what was to come could be seen earlier in shows like "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue."

The characters that populated these shows also differed dramatically from most of those that had inhabited earlier shows. The leads in these programs were almost exclusively male. They were often seriously flawed, morally complex, deeply human characters who looked nothing like traditional leading men, save perhaps for Jon Hamm who portrays the advertising executive, Don Draper, in "Mad Men."

In another departure from tradition, viewers were often expected to sympathize and root for the bad guys--people like Tony Soprano, Al Swearengen, Walter White, and even Vince Mackey, a seriously corrupt cop who cold-bloodedly sets up and murders another cop in the very first episode of the series.

The men behind these series (and those in charge were nearly always men) were often almost as troubled and as complicated as the characters they created. These were the powerful writers and show runners like David Chase, Ed Burns, David Simon, David Milch, Alan Ball and others who were given the power to create and develop these shows. Many of these men imagined themselves as auteurs, along the lines of the great film directors that many of them idolized. Martin suggests that while most of these men were gifted writers, producers and directors, they could be, at times, impossible to work with.

Martin tells a very engaging story, that will appeal to the large numbers of fans of these various shows. He has interviewed virtually all of the principals involved in these programs, along with a host of other people, and one finishes the book feeling like he or she has been given a look deep inside this revolution.

One caveat: Inevitably in a book like this, there are a lot of spoilers. In discussing and dissecting these shows, Martin gives away a lot of important plot points and so if you are late getting to some of these programs and still intend to do so, it might be a good idea to save this book until you've actually finished watching them. ...more

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Aug 08, 2013 Phil Simon rated it liked it

Shelves: pop-culture

Difficult Men is well written and researched and I did enjoy it. While reading it, though, something began gnawing at me roughly 50 pages in. Difficult Men feels like two separate books fused into one, and the result is ultimately unsatisfying.

I'd wager that nearly 70 percent of the book is about The Sopranos, clearly the show that spawned what Martin calls "the creative revolution." No argument here. Matthew Weiner of Mad Men has a Sopranos' lineage. And Vince Gilligan has said that there would ...more

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Jul 29, 2013 Meryl rated it really liked it

Difficult Men was a highly entertaining chronicle of the men who created, starred in, and were portrayed in the past decade of quality drama series. Showrunners, once unknown scribes, took on the role of "auteur" stamping each series with their own personal mark and agenda, and creating universes that showcase their preoccupations through flawed complicated characters. Reading this book as I watch Anthony Weiner, someone I know both personally and professionally, caught for the business of his a Difficult Men was a highly entertaining chronicle of the men who created, starred in, and were portrayed in the past decade of quality drama series. Showrunners, once unknown scribes, took on the role of "auteur" stamping each series with their own personal mark and agenda, and creating universes that showcase their preoccupations through flawed complicated characters. Reading this book as I watch Anthony Weiner, someone I know both personally and professionally, caught for the business of his alter ego, Carlos Danger in a second act of narcissistic hubris, I can't help thinking about Tony Soprano and Don Draper, who are doomed to repeat the same behaviors time and again without an arc or redemption. In Season 1 of the Sopranos, Christopher wonders what his arc is, Pussy tells him "You know who had an arc? Noah". These auteurs dared to show lead characters who did unlikable things time and again, and made viewers root for them, even when their actions conflicted with proper societal behavior.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the many Davids (there is an alarming number of Davids who became showrunners) who used autocratic methods to create quality television, and understand that Martin wanted to concentrate on dramas about men, I take issue with the way that he turned the many quality television shows about women into footnotes of the era. He does state in the prologue that he is going to focus on men because they have made many of the hour-long dramas he wishes to discuss, while many women star in thirty minute comedies, but I think he may need to look at why he considers stories about men and masculinity to be more complex, richer and more classically American than shows about women. Emily Nussbaum defends Sex and the City against Brett Martin's condescension in her New Yorker column, for being just as relevant to HBO's rise as The Sopranos was. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics.... Later in the book, Martin mentions Lena Dunham, somewhat gratuitously, without giving her any credit for continuing HBO's commitment to difficult characters (some of which aren't men). In his epilogue, he snidely states "When the final polygamous Mormon of the underrated Big Love let the screen, we were left with the liberated pansexuals of True blood, the spoiled Brooklyn strivers of Girls, the twee Brooklynites of Aaron Sorkin's the Newsroom. Watching HBO, it seemed, was now less about discovering new worlds and hearing new viewpoints and more about seeing oneself." I am left wondering why he felt the need to be so condescending to these various worlds in his brief mentions of them, when he never wrote off Tony Soprano as a murderous villain. The sexism in the way that Girls, Sex and the City, and any other show that reflects the lives of complicated women is reinforced by this book. However, if you'd like to read a gripping account of some fascinating characters, which sheds light on the shows they created, I'd highly recommend it.
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Aug 29, 2013 Daniel rated it liked it

DIFFICULT MEN is one of two books about the prestige cable revolution in the past year (along with Alan Sepinwall's THE REVOLUTION IS TELEVISED). Martin is a reporter as opposed to a TV critic, and as a result his account focuses primarily on a behind the scenes account of the making of the standard TV drama canon (The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, The Shield, Mad Men, Breaking Bad).

Martin's behind-the-scenes account is well reported and very interesting. It includes lots of information that isn DIFFICULT MEN is one of two books about the prestige cable revolution in the past year (along with Alan Sepinwall's THE REVOLUTION IS TELEVISED). Martin is a reporter as opposed to a TV critic, and as a result his account focuses primarily on a behind the scenes account of the making of the standard TV drama canon (The Sopranos, Deadwood, The Wire, The Shield, Mad Men, Breaking Bad).

Martin's behind-the-scenes account is well reported and very interesting. It includes lots of information that isn't well known (Sopranos creator David Chase was once considered to be the showrunner for The Wonder Years, for example), and Martin is entertaining in bringing the main creative figures to life, and trying to recapture the tense, competitive, emotionally fraught atmosphere of a TV writers' room or the business swordplay between rival networks. But circumstances forced some strange lapses even here: I have no doubt that Mad Men creator Matt Weiner is every bit the prick that he seems to be, but at the same time Martin's primary sources seem to be writers who were fired by Weiner.

(A quick Matt Weiner story that I found very entertaining, though: Weiner was introduced to the producer of a big network show, and the two began to talk. As the conversation wound down, Weiner said to the man, "I'll see you at the Emmys." "Actually, our show wasn't nominated this year," the producer replied. "That's right," Weiner said tartly, "you weren't." Mad Men writer Chris Provenzano calls Weiner Queen Bitch, and it's easy to understand why.)

But this kind of inside-Hollywood story is as old as the hills. Legendary director John Ford used to demean John Wayne during shoots, frequently reducing the star to tears by calling him a pinko or a homo. Hitchcock terrorized any number of leading ladies. Many comedy writers list working with Mary Tyler Moore as one of the worst experiences of their professional lives. I like gossip, at least to a degree, so I find tidbits like that fascinating and I want to know. But ultimately, it's not as important as the work itself: I defy you to watch Stagecoach and wonder how John Wayne was treated on set.

And when it comes to appreciating the vices and virtues of the cable TV pantheon, Martin isn't well equipped. His opinions are often conventional wisdom, and his consideration of individual shows is often brief and a little shallow. (And I'm pissed at his dismissal of John from Cincinnati.) There's a more incisive critique to made here; Maureen Ryan wrote an excellent article in the Huffington Post demonstrating the architecture of the male anti-hero show can often reduce women to unlikable nags or distractions from the fun genre material that the audience is there to see. (See: Carmela Soprano, Betty Draper Francis, and Skyler White.) A related issue is the fact that many viewers of shows like The Shield watch for the power fantasy and find the critique largely easy to ignore.

Alan Sepinwall's THE REVOLUTION WAS TELEVISED is probably a better book on this (now apparently waning) era of American televison. Unlike Martin, Sepinwall is a quite good TV critic, and even his appreciations of shows that I didn't much care for were compelling enough to make me want to give them another shot. (Sepinwall's focus is also broader, including 24, Lost, Friday Night Lights, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Battlestar Galactica in his pantheon of shows; the Lost chapter will give you a lot of sympathy for Damon Lindelof even if you're still pissed at how the show ended.) I found Martin's book to be fun enough, but not particularly essential. ...more

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Apr 27, 2015 Leseparatist rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: research, 52-52, 2015

This, to me, was a profoundly annoying book. It must be said that Martin indeed writes a compelling story of the so-called Third Golden Age of Television, full of anecdotes, fascinating tidbits of information and gasp-worthy moments. At the same time, however, his account of "how television became great again" is full of gaping holes and profoundly biased, based on an unexamined assumption of what constitutes good television. Sure, he starts off with disclaimers - he is interested only in 1) cab This, to me, was a profoundly annoying book. It must be said that Martin indeed writes a compelling story of the so-called Third Golden Age of Television, full of anecdotes, fascinating tidbits of information and gasp-worthy moments. At the same time, however, his account of "how television became great again" is full of gaping holes and profoundly biased, based on an unexamined assumption of what constitutes good television. Sure, he starts off with disclaimers - he is interested only in 1) cable, 2) drama [because that's where it's at]. Only in 3) 60-minute long shows with 12/13 episode-long seasons [because that's where it's at].

And if these precise restrictions coincide with the most male-dominated parts of television, that's merely a) because somehow tv about men is so much better (it's a pity but there you have it) and not b) biased on the level of constructing the sample. And if, even more aggravatingly, Martin so happens to summarise influence of female writers engaged in the process and the storylines of female characters, much more briefly than that of male counterparts, well, the title should have prepared me for it. (It did, but it didn't quite help.)

Martin seems to regard such series as Sex and the City or Girls as obviously inferior to drama about mobsters or ad executives, or drug dealers. Whenever forced to mention network television, he's willing to do so in the broadest strokes (his one-sentence summary of Private Practice - a series I hatewatched - managed to actually make it sound much worse than it was). He says broadcast networks produce teen dramas and procedurals and "more family-friendly cable networks" offer "bland, populist, nominally 'quirky' shows", as though programmes such as Lost, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 24 or Veronica Mars had had no influence on the television landscape, no effect on stylistic risks allowed showrunners on AMC, and as though The Shield and Rescue Me had nothing in common with Law & Order in its numerous iterations.

The complete omission of The Closer or Saving Grace (or even Battlestar Galactica) - TV series that fit most if not all of his criteria - irked me in particular (perhaps he didn't want to branch out to TNT), as did the statement towards the end where he claims that in 2012 when all the Emmy Best Drama nominees (Downton Abbey excluded) were cable shows it was a foregone conclusion because broadcast networks no longer kept "a spot on their schedules for prestige, quality drama, even if just as award bait". That was the year NBC would try Awake, and the/a year The Good Wife (a definitive prestige quality network drama!) was snubbed (but still got an Emmy for Female Guest Star).

TL;DR Networks tv is not as bad as Martin would paint it, cable not as universally good or pushing the envelope all on its lonesome. I'd rather watch Jane the Virgin, The Good Wife or even Hannibal than Game of Thrones or Dexter on any given day (I know these particular examples are more or less outside the scope, but still - would prefer Veronica Mars over The Sopranos, there, I've said it). ...more

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Sep 03, 2013 Joy rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, saw-it-on-tv, mad-men, library-has-it

I am a huge fan of The Sopranos and Mad Men so naturally I was happy to see another book that covers both shows (I had recently read The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever). This book covers The Sopranos in more detail since Brett Martin wrote a companion book for the series and had interviewed David Chase quite a bit. The Sopranos was the start of a new type of TV drama with anti-hero's like Tony Soprano and later Don Draper, and the me ...more

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Jul 13, 2013 Scott Wilson rated it liked it

The big draw is Martin's access. He gets a lot of people to say a lot of things, some of which are jaw-dropping in their hubris. But even those quotes after a while blur together in a way that too conveniently supports Martin's "Third Golden Age of TV" thesis (a case he sometimes attempts to bolster by applying his own limited critical observations about the quality of this or that show, at jarringly arbitrary moments).

His thesis is demonstrably true given the shows under discussion here, yet th ...more

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Apr 17, 2014 F.R. rated it liked it

This third golden age of television has been great. An incredible time we will one day wax lyrical about to our grandchildren, where quality American TV show has followed quality American TV show (okay, CSI still exists, but you can’t have everything). This week my lovely fiancée and I have watched ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘True Detective’ and are gearing up for the new season of ‘Mad Men’ (that may give a terrible impression of couch potato tendencies, but rest assured that we have been going out as ...more

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Feb 27, 2014 Edmole rated it really liked it

Without trying to be too dense with detail about the shows themselves (there are companion books for that), this book does a great job of summarising the key stories of the key shows in the '3rd Golden Era of TV', where a season was more 12 chapters of a dense novel than 24 chunks of filler between the ads.

As someone who has derived tremendous pleasure from the four key shows explored, The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, it was a pleasure to read the stories behind them. Martin has ...more

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Oct 13, 2014 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2013, pop-culture

In the Third Golden Age of television (as Brett Martin calls it) things have changed drastically. With the rise of cable television, channels like HBO, Showtime and so on, are able to push the boundaries not afforded to network TV. Shows like The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men allowed the writers to offer something more complex or unpredictable. This saw the rise of the difficult men, characters like Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), Walter White (Breaking Bad) and Don Draper (Mad Men) offered a char In the Third Golden Age of television (as Brett Martin calls it) things have changed drastically. With the rise of cable television, channels like HBO, Showtime and so on, are able to push the boundaries not afforded to network TV. Shows like The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men allowed the writers to offer something more complex or unpredictable. This saw the rise of the difficult men, characters like Tony Soprano (The Sopranos), Walter White (Breaking Bad) and Don Draper (Mad Men) offered a character study never seen before by viewers.

Brett Martin’s book Difficult Men looks at the stories behind some of the greatest shows of our time, mainly focusing on The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire and Mad Men. This is a deeper look into the evolution of modern story telling. The male protagonist within the Third Golden Age tends to be an enigma; complex, impulsive and so much more real. The type of characters that frustrates you with their mistakes but you can’t help but continuously watching.

The problem with this book is that it makes me want to watch all these shows. I have only gotten through half of The Sopranos and I haven’t found the time to try The Wire or Treme. All these shows look really great but finding time to binge watch them has become a real problem. I love reading about pop-culture and how it changes over the years and Difficult Men gave me everything I wanted. I enjoyed the insider information and the stories behind the stories. I can only hope that this evolution will start to extend toward better female leads. I would like to see the same treatment the Third Golden Age of television has give to men offered to woman as well.

What I enjoy about these types of shows is not that the men are difficult but the way they tackle real issues and treat the protagonist as a real and flawed human being. They can explore ideas of life and death, love and sexuality, addiction, race and violence and the protagonist often struggles or makes mistakes. They often evolve as characters but it doesn’t mean they grow, there are times when I think Don Draper (Mad Men) or Hank Moody (Californication) have finally grown as a person but there is often slip ups or a spanner thrown into the mix, this makes for compelling television but also feels more real.

A huge section of Difficult Men is devoted to The Sopranos and James Gandolfini which is worth checking out. Gandolfini, in his own right, wasn’t a stereotypical leading man and there was a big exploration into his mental state. Playing the role of Tony Soprano was a very taxing role and what made James Gandolfini great at the job is how he didn’t act the role, he became the character. This ended taking a huge toll on his psychological wellbeing and this raises some interesting thoughts about the effect a role has on the actor.

Fans of television, pop culture or these shows in general will enjoy this book but I think a look into the psychological effect on the people involved will make this something to sit up and take notice. Hollywood is a complex industry and the effects can be damaging; all you have to do is walk down Hollywood Boulevard to see how it effects people. I am a big fan of the ground breaking changes these shows made towards the television industry but I didn’t realise the side effects. Brett Martin did a good job going behind the scenes and getting the back story.

This review originally appeared on my blog: http://literary-exploration.com/2014/... ...more

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Apr 15, 2014 G rated it liked it

There's a great book to be written about what the rise of antiheroes like Tony Soprano and Walter White says about contemporary masculinity. This book isn't that, doesn't try to be that, and doesn't even claim to be that, but that's kind of what I wanted, so I came away a little disappointed. But that's on me.

More objectively, the book tries so hard to back up its title that the result is a little lumpy. There's lots and lots about The Sopranos and The Wire, partly because they were groundbreaki ...more

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Jul 23, 2013 Mal Warwick rated it it was amazing

Visit the writers’ rooms at The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men

Chances are, if you have any tolerance at all for television, you’ve watched at least one of the signature dramatic shows that have cropped up on cable during the past decade. I certainly have. I’m a sucker for this stuff, and I didn’t fully understand why until I read Brett Martin’s Difficult Men, a superbly constructed tribute to these programs and their creators.

Martin argues that The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Bre Visit the writers’ rooms at The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men

Chances are, if you have any tolerance at all for television, you’ve watched at least one of the signature dramatic shows that have cropped up on cable during the past decade. I certainly have. I’m a sucker for this stuff, and I didn’t fully understand why until I read Brett Martin’s Difficult Men, a superbly constructed tribute to these programs and their creators.

Martin argues that The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, Breaking Bad and a few other high-quality TV shows are “the signature American art form of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the equivalent of what the films of Scorsese, Altman, Coppola, and others had been to the 1970s or the novels of Updike, Roth, and Mailer to the 1960s.” His thesis is hard to argue with, and I say that having devoured much of the output of those filmmakers and writers.

Difficult Men dwells largely on the creators of those four celebrated dramas—David Chase (The Sopranos), David Simon (The Wire), Matthew Weiner (Mad Men), and Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad)—plus a few others, especially Alan Ball (Six Feet Under) and David Milch (Deadwood). If you’ve watched any of these programs, you will easily agree with Martin’s assertion that their protagonists “belonged to a species you might call Man Beset or Man Harried—badgered and bothered and thwarted by the modern world.” As Tony Soprano said, encapsulating the meaning of life for all these men, “’Every day is a gift. It’s just . . . does it have to be a pair of socks?’”

The conceit in Martin’s title derives from the indisputable fact that Chase, Simon, Weiner, Gilligan, Ball, and Milch collectively possessed enough neuroses, inner conflicts, self-doubts, disappointments, psychological wounds, and personality quirks to match the six leading men of the dramas they brought to the screen. In short, Tony Soprano and Don Draper have nothing on these guys—and Martin amply demonstrates that by recounting the sometimes colorful but excruciatingly frustrating paths most of them followed to sell their shows to HBO, FX, and AMC.

At least one of the six, David Milch, would qualify for the Neurotics’ Hall of Fame. Martin describes the time when a writer on one of his shows arrived for his first day of work “to see a man in the second-floor window peeing on the flowers below. ‘Oh, must be Milch,’ the receptionist told him.” Milch had (and presumably still has) a reputation as a genius, but he tended to drive everyone working with him around the bend. “At some point,” Martin reports, “Milch stopped committing scripts to paper at all, preferring to come to set and extemporaneously dictate lines to the actors.” Can you imagine being one of those actors?

Martin draws an interesting parallel between these contemporary serialized television dramas and the work of the Victorian writers—Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, and others—who gained the 19th century equivalent of superstardom on the strength of their serialized novels. In both cases, format enabled artistry, allowing the creators to develop complex, fully fleshed characters and story arcs that weren’t limited by the 42-minute stricture of today’s network-TV “one-hour” dramas.

To my mind, the most fascinating chapter in Difficult Men is the last one before the epilogue. Martin describes sitting for days on end in the writers’ room for the show Breaking Bad along with creator (called “showrunner”) Vince Gilligan and his crew of very gifted and extravagantly paid screenwriters. That chapter alone is worth the price of the book. You’ll never look at TV drama again the same way if you read it.

Difficult Men is a well organized, skillfully crafted, and insightful look at one of the most-watched cultural phenomena of our time.

According to his website, Brett Martin is a correspondent for GQ. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and many others, as well as on public radio’s This American Life. ...more

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Jul 03, 2013 Andrew Huff rated it liked it

Given that this book covers most of my favorite shows from the last 15 years, I was coming into this realizing I would likely be disappointed. It was actually a pretty good read. The organization and overall theme could have used some work. It very much reads like a collection of features on each show and then the author tried to jam some sort of connection between them on top of it.

Martin does a good job with the background on the cable drama revolution, especially how it started at HBO and bra ...more

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Oct 22, 2014 Dana King rated it it was amazing

Difficult Men is Brett Martin’s brilliant and entertaining look behind the key shows of what he calls the Third Golden Age of television, a period spearheaded by HBO with the prison drama Oz laying the foundation from which The Sopranos would become a phenomenon.

The title has double meaning. The programs that make up the core of Martin’s third golden age focus largely on the lives of forty-ish men in crisis: Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Walter White, Don Draper, and several cops, politicians, and Difficult Men is Brett Martin’s brilliant and entertaining look behind the key shows of what he calls the Third Golden Age of television, a period spearheaded by HBO with the prison drama Oz laying the foundation from which The Sopranos would become a phenomenon.

The title has double meaning. The programs that make up the core of Martin’s third golden age focus largely on the lives of forty-ish men in crisis: Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Walter White, Don Draper, and several cops, politicians, and drug dealers in The Wire. Those are the guys the public saw. The men responsible for their creation were forty-ish themselves, and they were, by and large, the truly difficult men.

The biggest takeaway, for me, was, “Why would anyone want to write for television?” Even if you overcome innumerable hurdles and are lucky enough to get on a first-rate show, you may get to work for a David Chase, a David Milch, or a Mathew Weiner. Chase never got over the idea he was too good for television. Weiner comes off as an arrogant an asshole ever to draw breath. Milch is such a whack job he makes James Ellroy look as eccentric as Jimmy Carter.

The stories of how all these men achieved their positions are fascinating. How events, timing, critical masses of people, and the pure luck of pitching the right idea to the right network at the right time came together to create something special. How HBO owned the franchise until it got a little complacent and FX leadership decided maybe that network didn’t have to be an afterthought at Fox, after all. AMC’s good fortune when looking for a program with gravitas, but not a crime show, which had done the heavy lifting to that point. Martin talked to a lot of people in position to know, and what they told him was too good to have been made up.

Not all the showrunners were off the rails. David Simon comes across as argumentative, but fair, and extremely loyal to both his people and his vision, which could cause friction. Shawn Ryan (The Shield) called in personal favors from friends for his pilot and to keep the cast together—casting his wife as Vic Mackey’s wife because “I know I can get you back”—and using the guerilla film tactics born of budget necessity to create something special both onscreen and off. Vince Gilligan appears to be a mensch. So, no, one does not have to be a neurotic asshole to be a big success, though it doesn’t seem to hurt.

Difficult Men is a great read for any fans of any of the shows cited, and for anyone curious about how shows get made—or, more often, don’t get made—in Hollywood. A quick read, written by Martin in an engaging manner with the perfect distance from the subject matter. Not so distant he looks down on his subjects, yet not so close he fails to recognize the lunacy. This is pretty much a pitch perfect tale.

One last thing. Despite giving David Chase every opportunity to justify the ending of The Sopranos, when all is said and done, it was still chickenshit ...more

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Sep 07, 2013 Ian rated it it was ok

I realized about 100 pages in that, despite loving The Sopranos and The Wire, I only really picked up this book to read about Breaking Bad. I simply could not bring myself to care about the writing and production aspects of The Shield, for example. In the end though, I'm not sure why this book exists. It isn't long enough to really get very in-depth with any of the shows it talks about, and seeing what various writers did before they had their hit shows is about as entertaining as (and, in fact, ...more

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Jul 21, 2013 Simone rated it liked it

Shelves: 2013-read

I'm probably not the person to review this book, in part because I'm not the target audience. I guess I didn't read the title closely enough, I thought this was going to be an analysis or an argument about the rise of the anti-hero on post-Sopranos "quality television." Instead it's just a lot of behind the scenes stories (most of which are also recounted in The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever and comments only vaguely on why so many ...more

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Jul 26, 2013 Kirsti rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, mayhem, business, arts-and-photography, baltimore, eccentricity, los-angeles, anger, journalism, drama, hissy-fits, nervous-breakthrough

"The worst TV show you've ever seen was miserably hard to make." --Vince Gilligan, creator of Breaking Bad

"This isn't like publishing some lunatic's novel or letting him direct a movie. This is handing a lunatic a division of General Motors." --anonymous TV executive explaining what a showrunner does

"Big money, big toys, and a kind of warfare. What's not to like?" --Barbara Hall, showrunner of Joan of Arcadia

"Do you realize how long I spend lighting these things?" --cinematographer John Toll, ra ...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Eva rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2013

Excellent book on some of the most popular television series and the people(read men) behind these successes. The majority of the book deals with David Chase and the mega-phenomenon The Sopranos. We find out about David's early childhood, how he came to television and writing and how The Sopranos came about. There are interesting snippets about the actors lives as well, which I found very entertaining.

Alan Ball and the hit show Six Feet Under, garnered the second slot achievement award. David S ...more

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Oct 14, 2013 Meaghan rated it liked it

Shelves: american, non-fiction, pop-culture, television

This is a "behind the scenes" look at what the author calls the Third Golden Age of Television, that is the cable and antihero dominated run of shows that began with The Sopranos. Martin focuses on seven of these shows: The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad (all of which I've watched except The Shield). The book comes with a spoiler warning but it's actually not too bad -- you might learn a couple of major plot points here and there. The ending o ...more

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Aug 14, 2013 Nadine rated it really liked it

This book was a great read. The author has a lot of inside information on current trends and people in television. His anecdotal evidence of an emerging trend is highlighted by his first hand knowledge.

Difficult men refers not only to the conflicted characters now living on many cable stations' series, but also to the writers and show runners who developed them. Writers who previously would never have thought to write for television are shown to flock to it. Television offers a creative license ...more

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Jul 13, 2013 Anna rated it really liked it

This book was good and made me feel good. It is very similar to The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall, which I read a couple of months ago: both feature basically the same set of dramas, and have the same basic point about how good TV has been lately. The difference is that while Sepinwall's book is more about the shows themselves, tracing the changing dynamic of TV drama since Oz, Martin's focuses more on the individual show-runners: the creators and writers (and sometimes actors) who ...more

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Jan 29, 2014 Troy Blackford rated it it was amazing

This was a fascinating look at the modern renaissance of quality storytelling on cable. I admit I am painfully unaware of most of the shows that this book covered, but the the information about how the shows were made, the creative process of the writers, and the history of the movement was fascinating. I'd say that three quarters of the country are more aware of all of these shows than me, and they would love this book even more. The only one I've seen all of in here is 'Mad Men.'

At any rate, t ...more

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Aug 17, 2013 Matt Lee Sharp rated it liked it

When reading this book, I had to first come to terms with the fact that this was not a text with any pointed message. It does not try to make much of an argument. The book is just a peek into the process and people behind the great shows of the last decade. And if that appeals to you, this is definitely worth a quick read. I want to stress again that there's not much of an argument being made, so by extension, there's not a whole lot of structure to the book either. It moves chronologically, but ...more

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Sep 03, 2015 Sebastian A. rated it really liked it

This is really good. If you have the slightest interest in the now concluding golden age of TV and the machinations behind it, you'll get a lot out of the book.
The book explores the relevant stages of the big showrunners, TV execs and stations trying new ways to establish their brands to culminate in the great TV shows we got over the last 20 years.

The most interesting thing I learned from this book is that most great TV stems from iteration and re-imagining of older material paired with lots ...more

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Jan 20, 2015 Cecilia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ensayo

Extraordinaria lectura para los amantes de las grandes series de televisión como Los Soprano, Breaking Bad y The Wire. Bien documentado y lleno de anécdotas memorables y divertidas sobre el proceso de creación de las series y los showrunners más relevantes como David Chase, David Simon o Vince Gilligan. La única pega que puedo ponerle es que el 70-80% del libro está dedicado a Los Soprano y a la figura de David Chase. Por otra parte, lo que cuenta es apasionante. Recomendado no. Recomendadísimo.

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Jul 05, 2013 Vikki VanSickle rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, 50-book-pledge-2013

What a fantastic read about the so-called third golden age of television, ushered in by HBO in the late 90s. Martin examines the genesis of shows such as The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and many others. If you're fascinated by cable television, you'll love this book.

The people behind these shows are brilliant, deplorable, inspiring and egomaniacs. Still, they are fascinating to read about and the glimpses into the infamous "writer's room" are terrifying and awesome ...more

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May 23, 2015 Michael rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, audiobook

A look behind the scenes of the TV shows of the Golden Age of Television.
Short summary:
There is a lot of Tony Soprano in David Chase, a lot of Al Swearengen in David Milch, a lot of Lester Freamon in David Simon, and a lot of Pete Campbell and Harry Crane in Matthew Weiner. (There is not a nice enough person on Breaking Bad for a Vince Gilligan comparison.)

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Mar 16, 2015 Don McNay rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A terrific book. I missed the entire "Third Age" of television other than I did watch some of the Shield and one year of Breaking Bad, which were excellent shows.

Now I want to go back and catch Mad Men, Sorpanos, Treme and especially The Wire. Having the backstory helped and the book is extremely well written. Deserves the five stars.

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Dec 26, 2013 Cameron Rice rated it really liked it

A very interesting book that is a behind the scenes of some of the best shows on TV. If there's any negative, the author often injects his opinion on the creators other works as if fact, this isn't a major deal and nothing wrong with being critical, but if one feels Treme or Luck isn't good, I'd like to understand the why as opposed to them being said as just fact.

None the less an interesting book that will cause one to add many shows to their watch list and a good view into the writers room pro ...more

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About Brett Martin

Brett Martin is a Correspondent for GQ and a 2012 James Beard Journalism Award winner. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Food and Wine, and multiple anthologies. He is a frequent contributor to This American Life. He is the author of The Sopranos: The Book (2007) and Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution, Fr ...more

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Homens Difíceis: Os bastidores do processo criativo de Breaking Bad, Família Soprano, Mad Men e outras séries revolucionárias

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