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In the Land of Men: A Memoir

Adrienne Miller

3.27 · Rating details · 934 ratings · 183 reviews

A fiercely personal memoir about coming of age in the male-dominated literary world of the nineties, becoming the first female literary editor of Esquire, and Miller's personal and working relationship with David Foster Wallace

A naive and idealistic twenty-two-year-old from the Midwest, Adrienne Miller got her lucky break when she was hired as an editorial assistant at GQ ...more

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Hardcover, 340 pages

Published February 11th 2020 by Ecco

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Jan 12, 2020 Julie Ehlers rated it really liked it

Shelves: galleys, publishing, books-about-books, goodreads-giveaways, books-about-creativity, memoir-and-autobiography, the-1990s

I'd been spending my professional life, at GQ and Esquire both, reading fiction by men about men.... There sure were a lot of trains. Why were there so many prostitutes? And why were so many of the women dead?... Oh, if I had a dime for each time I read the sentence "She made me feel alive ..." (to which my private stock response was always "And you made her feel dead"). (p. 152)

***

"I'm sorry I'm being so outspoken and bad-tempered," [David Foster Wallace] said. "I seem to have no filter when I ...more

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Jan 22, 2020 Rhiannon Johnson rated it did not like it

I received a complimentary copy of this release from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I’ll keep this one brief because I dislike discussing books I didn’t enjoy, but I want to share the good with the bad when it comes to my book reviews.

In the Land of Men by Adrienne Miller: At 22, Adrienne Miller was hired as an editorial assistant at GQ magazine and at 25 she became the first woman to take on the role of literary editor of Esquire. I wanted to know about her unique struggles whil ...more

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Jan 14, 2020 Marty Button rated it liked it

Shelves: giveaways

I won a copy of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway.

The book started out great. The author and I are approximately the same age. She's a girl from the Midwest who loved reading as a child. I am a girl from the Midwest who loved reading as a child. She got a job in NYNY working for a magazine. Wow! She got the job I thought I wanted when I was a young college graduate. Her experiences in the city were interesting. Her interactions with male colleagues was spot-on with regards to the way the wo ...more

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Feb 11, 2020 Susan rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2020

This book could have been brilliant. It stated out so strong and I was really enjoying the story of Adrienne’s meteoritic rise to becoming the literary fiction editor of Esquire at twenty five. She talked a lot about how she was surrounded by men and sexism. And then there was the part where there was just a list of all the harassment she had dealt with spilled baldly out. In just a few pages. The rest of the book was just an ode to David Foster Wallace. She edited a few stories with him and had ...more

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Jun 03, 2020 Jerrie (redwritinghood) rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is a well-written memoir with two separate objectives - relating her experiences as a literary editor at two men’s magazines and her relationship, both personal and professional, with David Foster Wallace. In the second half of the book, these two narrative lines run parallel to each other, but I think I would have preferred this to be two separate books. Both are interesting topics, but the DFW experiences overshadowed some really important points that she made about literature and the cha ...more

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Feb 13, 2020 Bob Wake rated it it was amazing

An instant classic. Adrienne Miller was the fiction editor at Esquire magazine in the late-90s when she was still in her twenties. Crossed paths with Mailer, Updike, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Eggers, and, the real subject of her book, David Foster Wallace, whom she edited (some of his best short stories appeared in Esquire, including “Adult World (I),” “Adult World (II),” and “Incarnations of Burned Children”), and with whom she shared a romance, off and on, for several years. It’s something of a ...more

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Jan 25, 2020 Caroline Leavitt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: my-year-in-books, books-i-adore

I loved this book. Miller worked for Esquire and GQ before the MeToo era, and when the literary giants were all men. Here, she details her time as the fiction editor of GQ and includes her fraught relationship with David Foster Wallace. Not only is Miller really astute about things like power, chauvinism and writing, but her detailing of her relationship with Wallace is so, so moving. Loved this book.

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Feb 17, 2020 Teresa rated it liked it

This is a highly uneven book. First of all, kudos to Miller for holding her own as Literary Editor at Esquire for 9 years. Her description of work there, the authors she met and her struggle to balance her feminist ideology with the job was worth reading.

I have mixed feelings about the material covering her relationship with David Foster Wallace. (This is more than half the book.) They were lovers and then later friends. He was ten years older than her, neurotic as hell, and haunted by many thin ...more

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Mar 27, 2020 Miss Bookiverse rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: didnt-finish, f-audiobook, ge-non-fiction, t-books-reading-writing

Abandoned after 50%. I thought this would be a powerful career story of a female editor making her way in the male-dominated publishing business. And it kind of was that but instead of empowering it felt annoying and boring because it focused more on all the white men (especially David Foster Wallace) around Adrienne Miller instead of on herself. The small insights into the publishing world and into editing fiction weren't worth another 6 hours of Miller handling whiney, entitled men's first wor ...more

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Feb 16, 2020 Caroline marked it as will-not-read

"Sexism and Genius Collide In the Land of Men"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/bo...

...more

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Mar 13, 2020 Bonnie G. rated it really liked it

Shelves: memoir, nyc, audiobooks

This is a pretty wonderful book. Yes, as the other reviews state this book spends a good deal of time looking at Miller's relationship with David Foster Wallace. That relationship was a truly formative one, clearly one of the most important of Miller's life, and through the anger and meanness its clear that she loved him. I think he loved her too, but that is less clear, and since this is her story it is also less important.

DFW was a deeply troubled man, but also a genius - not because people s This is a pretty wonderful book. Yes, as the other reviews state this book spends a good deal of time looking at Miller's relationship with David Foster Wallace. That relationship was a truly formative one, clearly one of the most important of Miller's life, and through the anger and meanness its clear that she loved him. I think he loved her too, but that is less clear, and since this is her story it is also less important.

DFW was a deeply troubled man, but also a genius - not because people say so, but because every time I read his work (I have read most of what he wrote, and he was really prolific) even the puff pieces, I see something I have never seen before. He was a true original. He was also sick and cruel and manipulative, but that does not make him less than he was or diminish his impact on literature or on Adrienne Miller. I found the DFW sections fascinating. I also enjoyed the reminiscences of the very last moments of the heyday of print journalism. Some people are interesting in their marrow, DFW, Hunter Thompson, Abraham Lincoln are great examples. Some people are interesting because of what they have done, and what has happened around them, and Adrienne Miller is a great example of that. (I am sure she is a wonderful person, she seems smart and lovely and grounded, but most of us are good and not inherently fascinating.) I know its supposed to be all feministy to reject great male writers who are not feminist. I reject that rejection. If you want me to turn in my feminist card I am happy to do that, but I have been fighting for women's autonomy, physical and intellectual, since before most of the pearl-clutching reviewers were born so I'm good. People treat each other like shit in relationships (whether family, friends or lovers), that is especially true of narcissists who hate themselves (I recently read Marquis deSade 120 Days of Sodom and oh.my.god!) That does not make either party less-than, and it does not make the relationships less interesting. Recommended. I did think the beginning dragged a little given that it covered a point where her rise was meteoric, but once Miller got to Esquire it moved with alacrity. A very high 4, but not quite a 5. ...more

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Feb 27, 2020 Rachel rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This felt...bland. Superficial. Choppy and scattered between her life at Esquire and her relationship with David Foster Wallace. She hit a couple of interesting points and then was off without actually saying anything about them. Whether we can read into a writer's real life through the fiction they write. How people can be good and bad. At one point she brings this up and says I just don't know. And I felt that this was her summary of the big questions in life, and her reason for writing this m ...more

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Feb 12, 2020 Allison M. rated it it was amazing

From the moment I started reading In the Land of Man, I couldn’t put it down. As if Adrienne Miller is sitting beside you, telling you the truths of her early career with unsurpassed skill, wit and humor. This is a must read for any young woman or man about to enter the literary world. It is a tribute to any woman who has navigated her career with finesse and fortitude. And watch out. You will never read David Foster Wallace’s work in the same way again.

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Aug 23, 2020 Mary rated it really liked it

"The truth: my world had been built around protecting male egos. This was the world I lived in. This was the world I knew, and I never believed this world could, or would, change. It seemed incomprehensible that the system could ever collapse."

It's so easy to judge a book like this, and I felt pretty damn judgy while reading parts of it. The way she excuses DFW over and over again is gross, and I have a feeling we didn't get anywhere near the worst of it. Not even the half of it. Also, I've nev ...more

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Feb 22, 2020 Dan Solomon rated it liked it

There are a couple of ways to interpret the half of the book that dominates the conversation around it (and a lot of the reviews I’ve read favor the less charitable one), but I think the book is very intentional about being frustrating in how it frames and makes excuses for David Foster Wallace’s genuinely shitty treatment of both the author and, er, pretty much everybody else. Miller does a really compelling job of clearly articulating all of the behaviors that made the dude such a fucking dick ...more

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Apr 01, 2020 Greg Zimmerman rated it really liked it

First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.c...

Adrienne Miller had the toughest easiest dream job ever: She was the fiction editor for Esquire in the late 1990s, which I don't know about you, but I think that sounds awesome. The late 1990s were the last gasp of the golden age of print magazines, but also the last hold out for the 'ol boys club that was the magazine industry. And nowhere exemplified that more than Esquire, the long-time publisher of dudes like Norman Mailer and John Up First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.c...

Adrienne Miller had the toughest easiest dream job ever: She was the fiction editor for Esquire in the late 1990s, which I don't know about you, but I think that sounds awesome. The late 1990s were the last gasp of the golden age of print magazines, but also the last hold out for the 'ol boys club that was the magazine industry. And nowhere exemplified that more than Esquire, the long-time publisher of dudes like Norman Mailer and John Updike, not exactly known for their progressive stances on women.

In the Land of Men is Miller's memoir of her time first at GQ, then at Esquire. It's really two books in one — the first half is about her career in the magazine field, and it's fascinating. But then the bomb: She meets, forms a friendship, and then begins dating the one and only, the mercurial, the brilliant David Foster Wallace.

Miller discusses the first time she met DFW, at the launch party for Infinite Jest, which, just reading that bit made quake with jealousy. But then, seemingly overwhelmed by all the attention, he sort of snubs her and her boss, and she thinks he's kind of a jerk. But soon, she and DFW begin working together on a story, and he calls her (he doesn't do email) all the time, even during non-work hours. Their conversations quickly crossover from the practicalities of editing his story to the more personal.

He's living in Bloomington, Illinois, at the time, but comes to NYC periodically for publishing things, and they make a "date" for the next time he's there. They're supposed to play tennis, but the courts are booked solid, so they just walk and talk and have a picnic. He's supposed to go to a dinner that night, and asks her to come with him back to his hotel room to hang out while he gets ready. Then, one of my absolute favorite details of the whole book: He's showering and leaves the door half open, which she thinks is odd. But then she writes that he tells her later he did that because he was hoping she'd join him in the shower. Ah, the male mind: Infinitely optimistic, against all reason.

So their relationship continues, long-distance and once-in-awhile-in-person. She likes him, despite his insecurity and his penchant for being distant and emotionally detached (and sometimes even cruel). He genuinely respects her as a reader and editor — which she doesn't get quite often as a young woman in a male-dominated field. (There is a lot in this memoir about the horrendous sexism she had to deal with. It's really saddening.) But because she's unwilling to move to Bloomington and he's unwilling to move to New York City, their relationship begins fading, and then bombs out in dramatic fashion.

When this book first crossed my radar (it came out earlier this year), and I realized it's a memoir about magazine editing, with new details about David Foster Wallace, my first thought was "Wow! This might be the perfect book for me." I wouldn't say it was a perfect reading experience — Miller is a good writer, but man, there are a lot of darlings here that should've been murdered (what's the saying about how editors never follow their own advice when they're writing themselves). But I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Though you take most of the insight into DFW with a grain of salt, it's still a fascinating new angle. ...more

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Jan 31, 2020 Kate rated it really liked it

Miller is brilliant and witty as she recounts her rise from a young innocent editorial assistant at GQ to becoming the first female literary editor of Esquire! Pretty incredible! The era Miller ascended in was before MeToo, before women had positions equal to men. She offers a vivid portrait of what the literary magazine world and culture looked like back in the 90's. (Exceedingly Masculine) How she, a young woman had to find her place working alongside men, critiquing their work and being bold ...more

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Apr 15, 2020 Jen rated it liked it

While there are really interesting parts of this book, there is also a lot that drags. Parts of it read like a first draft that needed editing.

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Jan 31, 2020 Doreen Ashbrook rated it it was amazing

Beautifully written and very interesting. Loved the trip down memory lane. Thank you Goodreads Giveaways.

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Feb 15, 2020 Hanns rated it did not like it

Terribly written “memoir” filled with lies about the late David Foster Wallace. It’s disgraceful to all literature the depths Miller goes exploiting a tragic death for personal gain. Everything she writes is one sided and I can’t imagine how Amy and David’s parents feel knowing this is the exact bullshit David did NOT want after his death- which even miller herself seems to understand yet without shame proceeds to slander a man who can no longer get defend himself.

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Jan 14, 2020 Katy rated it really liked it

Becoming the literary editor at Esquire at 25 is pretty incredible, especially, as is the crux of this memoir, for a woman in the nineties. Her depiction of the culture and climate of the magazine world, and learning to become an editor, is a great mix of dish-y details and reflection. Readers looking for insights into David Foster Wallace won’t be disappointed as she devotes most of the second half of the book to their personal and professional relationship. Her steady, cool style is the polar ...more

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Oct 14, 2019 Nayley Husbaum rated it it was amazing

In Miller's hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, she proves herself to be among the class of brilliant writers and thinkers that she is reflecting on. Through her intellectual relationship with David Foster Wallace, Miller displays her genius as a woman who was unafraid to push, criticize and motivate one of the most prolific writers of the era. In doing so, she also highlights the nature of the male dominated literary world, in which it is the job of brilliant women like Miller, who is a writer and ...more

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Nov 17, 2019 Csimplot Simplot rated it it was amazing

Excellent book!!!

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Aug 04, 2020 Fraser Simons rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, biography, memoir, feminism

https://medium.com/springboard-though...

Adrienne Miller’s memory is a fabulously keen thing. Her memoir is vivid and detailed and, to the dismay of some critics, apparently, approached entirely on her own terms.

Having entered the publishing world of GQ and, later, in 1997, the imminent Esquire, Miller proceeds to carve an almost Mad Men like career. Almost. Her boss only reigns in the spending, otherwise, it appears she is able to do what she likes and does it well.

But even from the start, she f ...more

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Jun 06, 2020 Lone rated it did not like it

I had planned on giving this two stars instead of one because despite finding it a vile, insipid, hateful book, it's not incompetently written. It glides competently along on a sea of glibness and platitudes of the self-help meets Alchemist-ilk. The ending, though, where David Foster Wallace's suicide is followed by some mock-metaphysical waddle made me feel such despair over the future of literature, that it's down to one. This person worked closely with David Foster Wallace for years, that is I had planned on giving this two stars instead of one because despite finding it a vile, insipid, hateful book, it's not incompetently written. It glides competently along on a sea of glibness and platitudes of the self-help meets Alchemist-ilk. The ending, though, where David Foster Wallace's suicide is followed by some mock-metaphysical waddle made me feel such despair over the future of literature, that it's down to one. This person worked closely with David Foster Wallace for years, that is indeed what the second half of this book is all about, and she is so very grateful to him for all he taught her about writing as an art form, yet she writes this? It's like having my nose ground in to the fact that everything in the world is turning to shit. At least that's how this book makes me feel.

Miller hails David Foster Wallace's genius, scoffs at anyone else who thought they might have been close to him, because it was, she insists obliquely but repeteadly, only ever she who understood him at all, and yet, for their final meeting, she asks why he waited for her outside the restaurant when she was late, instead of going in «like a normal person». This person told her about his mental illness, his darkness and addiction on their very first dates. He was indeed so complex that she was the only one who understood him. But what did she understand? She did not understand how he could have doubted that she would come, despite being very late, as he «must have known» she was one of the most important people in her life. She spends hours trying to diagnose him, but fails to grasp even the basics of depression. She once asks if her relationship to him was emotionally abusive. It's tempting to question who was emotionally abusing who.

Certainly, now that he's gone she has no qualms about telling the readers of this book all his little secrets, everything he told her not to tell anyone(there might be more, granted, but she gives us plenty). She seems to relish relationg how little he thought of his other friends and girlfriends, how insignificant they were to him, whereas she, herself, is indispensable.

Miller is repeatedly irked by people who question her qualifiactaions for her job as literary editor. This reader questions them also. Questions her insistence on deleting the words «near-violent» in a description of (wished for) sex, as if, in this short story she deems an artwork, censoring a character's possible sexism is an accomplishment for which she pats herself on the back. A CHARACTER'S sexism. She doesn't understand depression, I wonder if she understands much about literature either.

In the category of books written by the (ex-)partners of male writers, there seems to be two categories. The one where the woman is a writer herself, using her lived experience as the basis of books that would be of value even if the man described therein was fictional (Lisa Halliday, Joyce Maynard and Louise Østergaard) and the one where settling scores and cashing in are at least as important as showing of one's own talents, meager or otherwise (Miller).

This is a character-study in self-righteous small-mindedness, and the character in question is Miller, not Wallace. ...more

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Feb 14, 2020 Stephanie rated it it was amazing

What a beautiful and compelling memoir! This is a MUST read, and there is so much here to discuss! It's the story a young woman who worked as an assistant in a very male environment, think Devil Wears Prada, but if Andy was in a much tougher workplace, who had in addition to the normal assistant job headaches, had to deal with sexual harassment around every corner! It's also like if Mad Men was more focused on Peggy's POV instead of Don Draper's. The characters around her, especially the editor What a beautiful and compelling memoir! This is a MUST read, and there is so much here to discuss! It's the story a young woman who worked as an assistant in a very male environment, think Devil Wears Prada, but if Andy was in a much tougher workplace, who had in addition to the normal assistant job headaches, had to deal with sexual harassment around every corner! It's also like if Mad Men was more focused on Peggy's POV instead of Don Draper's. The characters around her, especially the editor Art, really come to life. We also get some backstory on Adrienne, and I found her obsession with the film Amadeus growing up totally fascinating, and see how it many ways it foreshadows things to come in her own life and career.

From there, Adrienne moves out of the assistant world, and gets a job as an actual editor, as the first female literary editor at Esquire. The magazine has a long tradition of publishing the top male writers -- Normal Mailer, John Updike, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc, and the editors before her have been legendary, and also all men. As a young woman with that job, in the all male culture of Esquire, she has her hands full. She tries to carve out her place, and fend off male harassment, men who think she's unqualified for the job and want to take her down, and even finding out one of her close male colleagues, who is at the same level as her, is making TWICE her salary. She's up against great odds, and just trying to get by.

She works with many writers, and focuses on her professional and personal relationship with David Foster Wallace, the writer of his generation, and the writer she worked with most. Their dynamic is fascinating, the dialogue between them (and throughout the book, really), is riveting. They seem like equals, and David depends on Adrienne for her smarts, and Adrienne is fascinated with Wallace's writerly talent. Yes, David is manipulative, but the book presents him fairly, as someone who is complex, someone who can be the most amazing person, and also the worst -- in other words, he is a HUMAN BEING. He clearly loves her, and she loves him, and they also respect each other. The book goes deeper into their dynamic, and their work on stories is actually page-turning to read about. This has to be the best and most vivid portrayal of David Foster Wallace out there, but it's really Adrienne who we see as a remarkable and very relate-able character.

The writing here is beautiful. It's a funny book, and a very moving one, and I was inspired by her journey.

This is the best book I have read in a long time. Thank you Adrienne for sharing your journey!! ...more

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Mar 18, 2020 Downward rated it it was ok

a compulsively readable but gossipy book about the author's time as esquire's literary editor, a job she rose to prodigiously at 25. all the best parts of the book are actually about process and life at the literary magazine, and while the title presents it as a confrontation with the patriarchy (and boy am I ever sure she had some battles as a twenty five year old woman dealing with male writers, some of them luminaries) this is mostly relegated to offhand comments to close out paragraphs, as t ...more

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Mar 23, 2020 Gwendolyn rated it it was amazing

This is Adrienne Miller’s memoir about her time as the literary editor of Esquire magazine in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I was originally enticed into buying this book because Miller was in a romantic relationship with David Foster Wallace during part of her time as Esquire, and I’m fascinated by DFW. As I was reading the book, however, I became much more interested in Miller herself and less focused on her interactions with DFW. Astoundingly, Miller landed her Esquire dream job at the age ...more

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May 28, 2020 Anna Iliff rated it it was ok

Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in news, but I found this book to just simply be boring. I wanted more, and it seemed that the author had to justify her existence or what made her interesting in relation to the men in her life. I was surprised by the choices of stories that were included about working for her magazines, because they were just so uninteresting and so uninspiring that I couldn’t understand why that particular story or memory was included. This felt like a book without a purpose. I ...more

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Jun 02, 2020 Alina Zerpa rated it really liked it

I really liked this book! While the second half of the book is about her relationship with a well-known author, and she gets hate for it, I think it's important to the story. How else do you tell YOUR story about trudging through THE LAND OF MEN when it also includes LITERALLY BEING WITH THE KIND OF GUY WHO MAKES YOUR LIFE KIND OF HARD!! Having a relationship with a man is normal (if that's your thing) and I don't know why she gets hate for it.

It made me happy to read and understand her journey ...more

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