男人在世: 跨性別者歷經暴力、寬恕與成為男人的真實故事

by Thomas Page McBee, 穆卓芸 (Translator)

◆故事內容觸及：#Me Too、LGBTQ、跨性別、變性者、性別教育、婚姻平權、創傷和解。

「我生理是女性，這是事實，而我自認為男孩，也說得過去。要到很後來，我身體構造的複雜事實才讓我如坐針氈。日後他們總說我從小就是男的，膝蓋破洞的牛仔褲、太空超人骷髏城堡和短髮全是印記。或許吧，但別以為我早就預知一切。我要說的不是那種故事。」
「對於發生了什麼，我有事實可說，故事卻支離破碎。直到今天，我依然難以描述事情最糟當時那鹹澀的驚恐、僵住與分裂，難以道出我如何失去身體，如何將身體的雙重失去縫合為一。」
──本書作者 湯馬斯．佩吉．麥克比

作者透過影響自己人生最大的兩個男人——童年性侵他的父親和持槍恐嚇卻在最後瞬間饒他一命的搶匪——探問「到底怎樣才算男人？」站在由女轉男的人生十字路口，作者一邊拼湊自己的身分，一邊試著了解這兩個崩壞的男人樣板。
本書用一個與眾不同的生命道出了所有生命的真諦：我們如何努力塑造自己，以及這樣做為何必須冒險。《男人在世》遠遠不是引人入勝的跨性別告白，而是烙印與寬恕、愛與暴力、主動與隱身的糾結纏鬥。書中故事優雅如詩，驚悚如小說，不僅令人著迷，更發人深省。
　　出版後榮獲浪達同志文學獎，並入圍2014年《出版家週刊》、《科克斯書評》、美國國家公共電台書評及 BuzzFeed 年度最佳著作。

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Queer, LGBT, Transgender, Gender, Biography

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 18, 2014

About the author

Thomas Page McBee’s Lambda award-winning memoir, Man Alive, was named a best book of 2014 by NPR Books, BuzzFeed, Kirkus, and Publisher's Weekly. His “refreshing [and] radical” (The Guardian) new book, Amateur, a reported memoir about learning how to box in order to understand masculinity’s tie to violence, was published in August to wide acclaim.
Thomas was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, a “masculinity expert” for VICE, and the author of the columns “Self-Made Man” for the Rumpus and “The American Man” for Pacific Standard. His current column, "Amateur," is for Condé Nast's Them. A former senior editor at Quartz, his essays and reportage have appeared in the New York Times, Playboy, and Glamour.
Thomas has taught courses at the City University of New York’s graduate school of journalism; served as an advisor to the Knight Foundation/West Virginia University journalism school reporting project, 100 Days in Appalachia; and worked as a television writer for the forthcoming Netflix show, Tales of the City.
He is passionate about the importance of diversity in media, and speaks and teaches about related topics all over the country. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife.

Reviews

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so, so good.

If I had to say what it's about, I'd say that it's about childhood sexual abuse, a gunpoint mugging as an adult, and how these two experiences informed McBee's understanding of what it means to become a man. That would be a simplification, of course, but I know that sometimes when you read these reviews you want to get some idea of what the book deals with.

I had lots of feelings as I read Man Alive, but the main one was awe at the author's bravery in writing about these things. So open, genuine, vulnerable, convicted.

I truly couldn't put it down, which to me is probably the greatest feature of any book. I think I finished it at something like 4 am, for what that's worth. ;)

Recommendation: for everyone who is interested in life and humanity. I can't say enough good things about it.

[julieta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing, beautiful thoughts on forgiveness, of love, change, pain memories, love.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-written book and an easy read, but I think I was looking for more out of it. It does a good job of describing McBee's personal journey to becoming a man, and the punchline (not really a spoiler) is that you have to be your own man. But I was hoping that someone who has to make the transition to manhood as an adult and from an entirely different perspective might have some insights into what it really means to be a man in our society: what the expectations are, how we respond to them, how to be a "good" man when there are so many "bad" men, etc. He hints at all of these themes, but leaves them largely to the reader to figure out the answers. Maybe that's how it should be, and maybe there are no definitive answers, but I would have liked to hear how he answered those considerations more directly.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really loved this book! I’m stuck between 4 and 5 stars, I think I just wanted it to be a little longer?? And maybe that’s just a testament to how good it is. Very evocative writing that’s almost too poetic but really just right. The super short chapters made it really readable and I’ll definitely read it again one day! I look forward to reading his other book, Amateur. Would also read a whole memoir on his relationship with Parker, I was super intrigued by it.

Huge content warning for childhood sexual trauma. Really powerful and painful and heavy in that regard, but I felt ready to read it and was really affected by his journey with it.

[Kit · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m always looking for someone to tell me how to be a man, to teach me the language of it. I think it’s why I gravitate towards books like this. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to shake the girl I once was, to abandon my childhood so I can start again the ‘right way’. I spent a lot of my time as a kid being anxious or scared, confused for a reason I couldn’t really place. Probably why I wanted to forget it. But what this book ended up showing me was you don’t need to lose your past in order to make yourself again, that reconciliation is always possible. It’s a nice thought and one I’m going to hold on to.

[Esther · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick, powerful, precise read! Big cw for childhood sexual abuse

[Guillermo Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

La referencia de este autor me vino de Jimena Ávalos, en el podcast que lleva con el William Brinkman-Clark, Estética Unisex, lo que dijo Jimena me impulsó de inmediato a buscar algo de él, y sí, lamento aceptar que he estado recurriendo a Amazon para conseguir libros, por costo y accesibilidad, principalmente. Googlee un poco y me decidí por este. Creo que fue una excelente elección para comenzar a leer a este increíble autor.

El verano pasado me propuse leer varios libros de una de mis editoriales favoritas, Anagrama, y cuando subí una foto en Instagram de mis planes de lectura para junio me di cuenta que no tenía ni una mujer, nada de diversidad en mi elección; y se prendió una señal de alerta en mí.

Durante 2019 se dieron varios cambios sustanciales en mi vida, entre ellos, percatarme que mi consumo y apropiación de la cultura solo me llevaban a reforzar una visión sesgada de mi entorno: una mirada heteropatriarcal del mundo; a pesar de mis esfuerzos en expandir mis horizontes, no me había dado cuenta que mi inclinación por leer autores hombres heterosexuales seguía siendo la norma.

Ese junio de 2019 me propuse cambiar de tajo eso.

Así que llegar, aunque fuera meses después, al podcast de Estética Unisex fue un oasis en mi mar de confusión: por fin sentía que alguien me abría las posibilidades a entender el mundo más allá de mi eduación machista y misógina, y por ende limitada, del mundo.

“What makes a man?”, pregunta Thomas Page McBee al inicio del libro, y precisamente eso he estado buscando desde el año pasado.

Estas memorias de dos momentos cumbres en la vida de McBee me ayudaron a custionarme al respecto de qué me hace un hombre, de qué me convierte en heterosexual, de qué tipo de masculinidad deseo tener, de cuál creo que debe ser mi aportación a mi entorno social próximo: amigos, familia, compañeros de trabajo, conocidos.

Una cosa es saberse vulnerable, aceptar o reconocer que se tiene miedo; otra muy distinta llegar a plantearse preguntas como:

“How could I be sure there wasn’t something terrible and destroyed lurking inside of me?”

Hace unas semanas, platicando con la Lizbeth, trataba de hacerme explicar con respecto a tratar de al menos leer más a mujeres, personas trans, tratar de acercarme o abrirme a otras realidades y experiencias de vida: “Creo que un hombre trans me puede ayudar bastante a entender qué tipo de hombre puedo ser”.

También, a principios de año, conocí a Farid, un tipazo con quien tuve oportunidad de compartir algunas ideas sobre mi infancia y adolescencia y quien me planteó la idea de explorar sobre ideas de la cultura queer; y ello, al menos en idea, me dio otra perspectiva: finalmente, somos herederos de la educación de nuestros padres, y, pues, «los límites de mi lenguaje significan los límites de mi mundo» ¿no?

Sin embargo, ello no significa que debamos quedarnos ahí, permanecer estáticos, no, menos cuando ya deberíamos entender que el universo y la mente se expanden, ¿por qué no nosotros?

Otra cosa que se conectó con esta lectura es la propuesta de mi terapeuta, que yo más bien identifico con el psicoanálisis freudiano, y en el caso de McBee, pues termina por explorar el “pasado del lugar donde nació, visitar a la familia”, para tener un “sense of the real architecture of a person”, algo a lo que yo le he sacado la vuelta desde que lo identificara con ayuda de Paty, mi terapeuta.

Creo que, a final de cuentas, mi búsqueda está en tratar de entender las historias que me cuento a mí mismo, poder identificar la ficción de la realidad, dejar los sueños para las esféras idílicas y entender que hay responsabilidades de las que me toca hacerme cargo.

“The world is vicious and beautiful and, to some extent, unexplainable. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting a story, all the same”.

Era finales de enero, celebraba mi cumpleaños en medio de una separación, conocí a un par de nuevas e increíbles personas, nada me preparaba para lo que vendría después: otro divorcio en medio del inicio de una pandemia mundial, una debacle emocional al mismo tiempo que iniciaba un nuevo proyecto laboral y mi terapia; rescatar y apostar por la familia y las amistades; y, al final de todo, conocer a una persona increíble que cambiaría por completo mi idea del amor, del respeto, de la admiración, que me ayudaría a redondear mi búsqueda por volverme una persona responsable de sus acciones y pensamientos.

Lean, sí, pero también lean aquello que los rete, que los cuestione, que los lleve a explorar lugares ignotos.

El testimonio de Thomas Page McBee es esperanzador, de un tipo de esperanza concreta, asequible, el mundo es “vicious and beautiful”: enfrentemoslo así, con el rostro en alto, los ojos bien abiertos, y los brazos listos para defendernos… o para abrazarlo en toda nuestra extensión.

[Clem McNabb · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this secondhand and it had almost every second line underlined and circled, which was distracting to say the least. But I understood why. Thomas is generous and smart and I have never read a book about the trans man experience like this. He really understands the experience of beginning a project of masculinity and takes seriously the question that literally all men should be thinking about, what kind of man do I want to be? His answers were very moving. Both an argument for the man that has always existed, and one that has never existed, that is constantly being built. Positive masculinity is so rare…. I love you Thomas. I agree with the person who read this book before me and sending them all the best

[Emmkay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thoughtful and beautifully written memoir. McBee writes about his transition to male, while exploring the ongoing effect on him of two big formative experiences: being molested by his father (or presumed-at-the-time father) as a child, and being mugged with his partner as an adult. These are obviously both very bad things, and both affected how he looked at himself and his gender identity. But the way he writes about them, about the people around him (and himself), and about cause and effect, is subtle and full of empathy. I can't wait to read his new memoir as well.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a number of books and stories by trans women of late and it's great to finally read something more from the trans male side of the coin (shout out to Dylan Edwards and his wonderful 2012 book of comics from Northwest Press called Transposes). McBee is a tremendously talented writer (hard to believe he's only in his early 30's) and this memoir is a haunting and moving piece of work. Highly recommended; when I finished it I was near tears.

[Hind · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m rarely moved by anything, so it’s always an indication of great writing when I am. Thomas writes of his incredibly honest journey trying to to reconcile his past with who he is and who he wants to be. Not a light read by any means.

[Savannah Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started Man Alive months ago but only read a chapter or so, then read the entire book in one sitting today. Man am I mad at myself for putting it off! This was an incredibly crafted book from start to finish and hit so many chords along the way. What a beautiful read. I would venture to say that this is better than Amateur?? The prose and structure are clearly so carefully considered but not overwrought. big CW for childhood sexual assault.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I reread this for class (I'm teaching it alongside Kai Cheng Thom's Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars in my Trans Studies class) -- it's an intense read, addressing McBee's confrontation with his history of childhood trauma as a kind of final stage that he needed to get through before entering into masculinity and new selfhood. On second read, found some of the themes repetitive and a little too tidily resolved -- though still appreciate so much, especially the questions that are asked--about (good/bad) masculinity, what it means to pass -- not always as a man, necessarily, but as this or that kind of person.

[MariNaomi · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you've been in my vicinity for this past week or so, you've heard me go on and on about this book. Gripping, poignant, heartbreaking and so so so well-written and perfect. This guy is gonna be huge.

[Rambling Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unbelievable writing. Impressive stuff. Can't wait to read more by Thomas Page McBee.

[Dylan Ramsay-Keal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painful and poetic. It’s a must read!

[Malachy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thomas is such a great writer. His story includes heavy topics, yet is delivered with tenderness.

“I just wanted to get going, to keep moving, to find my way to a different destination. My skin felt itchy and ill-fitting, my name wrong in my own mouth. I didn't know who I was, just who I wasn't.”

[ｅｌｌｉｅ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book, there were times where I didn’t overly like jumping from age to age in Thomas’ story but in the end it does make sense for the flow of the book. Having the more crucial chapters in the book stood out to me quite a bit while the ones that played a part were shorter, it made the reading flow nice and simple. This is one of the first autobiographies that I have ever read and I think of it as a bold choice for a first one considering the topics discussed in the novel. I appreciate Thomas for being brave and writing this novel, letting thousands upon thousands of people into this time of his life and a dark part of his past.

[T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must buy this book! So rare for me to do that! But there are so many things I need to underline so that one day I can look back and remember everything in this story that I related to.

[Bryan Cebulski · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me about half the book to really get into, but fantastic once I settled into the style. There's something about the approach and the language that was off-putting at first--the organizing of one's life through these specific lenses and poetic syntax--but once I accepted and embraced how this is McBee's way of processing and communicating something deeply personal and important, I was able to better appreciate the book.

Man Alive is spare and powerful, sort of prose poetry memoir. Reminds me a lot of Inside/Out by Joseph Osmundson. McBee's writing at first, to me, felt like it was weaving around the issues too much at first, like it was trying to purple up the writing in order to avoid talking about what it was trying to talk about. Getting further in, however, and you realize that he's circling in on the themes (the "Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man" of the subtitle), at first only lightly touching and then, finally, grabbing you with them and not letting go. Really, really good.

[Geo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic book that made me feel very seen and very alone all at once. This book, which focuses on an earlier part of his transition compared to his other book, felt more relatable which surprisingly felt just as painful. I related so much to the difficulties of becoming a man after men have hurt you so much. Like, does it make you not want to be a man because you hate them or make you want to be a man because they made you hate yourself? Neither, you’re simply becoming who you were meant to be and the pain is part of the story and the beauty.

[Moray Teale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thomas Page McBee’s account of his decision to move from passing to full female-to-male transition is testament to how a personal story can be told simply but with huge power and heart. It isn’t an easy story to read, I can’t imagine how it was to live, as McBee explains his childhood abuse at the hands of his father and his struggle to come to terms with the potential relationship between this abuse and the development of his gender identity. Because at the heart of this story is the question, who and what makes a man? This man, who was born female. This part of the story, though difficult, is not graphic. It is told with delicacy and remarkable restraint, McBee trusting to the reader’s empathy rather than supplying them with intense details. Alongside the chapters that deal with the events surrounding this abuse McBee tells of a mugging he later describes as “the best thing that ever happened to [him ]”. A dangerous and dramatic moment that provided a burst of clarity and perspective about his future and his identity.

Not only is his story one that needs telling he can also really and truly write. The interweaving of the threads of his narrative cleverly expresses how these events in his life created, and allowed him to create and discover, the man he is. His intimate, honest style has a clarity of voice and vision that packs an enormous amount of power into a few pages. There’s real poetry in his his ability to capture moments of transcendence and insight in a few powerfully and perfectly chosen words (“the warble between the shape in my mind and the one in the mirror,”) and this is only highlighted by the complete absence of sentimentality or sensationalism. It’s a tender, poignant and powerful story about being the best you and defining yourself in the face of all the people and events that might attempt to do it for you.

Some have suggested that the lack of a wider transgender context, the struggle for transgender rights, the place and theory of masculinity is a failing of Man Alive but I’m not convinced that this criticism is entirely fair. While the context is always valuable and they’re is a significant need for complex theoretical and political works on gender it is also vital just to recognise transgender life and experience. McBee has dealt with these wider issues elsewhere in his columns and perhaps will tackle them further in the future but this is not what Man Alive is about. It seems to me that he has achieved precisely what he meant to do, which was to tell his own story of self-discovery and finding his place within his own skin. It is valuable enough on its own without demanding more.It was a privilege to read about his discovery of a truer self.

I received a free advance copy of this book in return for an honest, unbiased review.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Man Alive: A True Story of Violence" author/columnist Thomas McBee, recalled his life from childhood on, revealing his impassioned story in short chapters from past to present. He discussed how child abuse, parental betrayal, a violent street mugging impacted his life, and importantly how he chose not to be defined by trauma. McBee wrote with tremendous integrity and compassion of his views on modern masculinity, his relationships with family members, others, also his partner, Parker.

To come to terms with his family history, McBee was challenged to get the information he needed from his educated professional mother, who raised him, lived across the country, and seemed somewhat disengaged from the dysfunction, her many poor choices in men, and how her decisions affected her family. It seemed easier to leave past unpleasant truths unspoken. McBee made the trip to S.C. to visit his uncles family- and Roy, the father who abused him. The only caring advice he had ever received from Roy was to put premium gas in his car on occasion, yet McBee forgave him.
Unlike so many memoirs with similar topics, there was no self pity, anger, focus on hurt/pain, or need for revenge. The journey was more about learning, reflection, and further healing; which was connected in part, to his mugging in Oakland. The mugger, George Higgins, was later charged in another crime leading to murder in 2010.

With insight, self-awareness, and resolve McBee began his female to male transition, with the loving support of Parker. They both missed their relationship as it was, or used to be, knowing life held no guarantees for happiness.
Thomas Page McBee has written many columns, articles, and essays featuring gender and men's studies, his work has appeared in many notable publications including the N.Y. Times. This is his first book, he lives in NYC.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding work. I'm not much of a writer so I have decided to make my Goodreads review up of quotations on the book.

"It's a confession, it's a poem, it's a time warp, it's a brilliant work of art."

"McBee takes us in his capable hands and shows us what it takes to become a man who is gloriously, gloriously alive."

"To read it is to witness the birth of a fuller, truer self."

"A real achievement of form and narrative."

"It's a story about patience, forgiveness, kindness and bravery."

Anyway, read the dang book! I did! And I'm not even that good of a reader to be honest!
I think what I liked most was the ability of the book to show that within three pages a world can be contained. That's hard to do!

As someone born in Ohio, I related to the midwestern aspect of it. Feeling the need to escape/embrace.

The queer aesthetics of McBee's writing shouldn't be underplayed--much like Chee or Greenwell he excels within his stylish prose akin to godparents like Baldwin or Als or Lorde.

(Just speaking out of my ass now--I'm not sure what the above sentence means other than showcasing my own queerness within sentence construction.)

I think a book like this should be read mostly because we have erased trans narratives from the canon and we need to start building one. I certainly didn't grow up with any trans people in my life. I think one of the sickest aspects of this here United States of America is the treatment of trans individuals. It's the same goddamn thing conservatives did to gay marriage in 2004!

This is turning into a Facebook comment. Alas, I write this as the white boys singing "Jumping Jack Flash" and I'm recalling Hunter S. Thompson and all his foolish prose.

Masculinity becomes both a performance and an identity to become intimate with, to find the soul within. My own goddamn self has had a self-loathing posture since Fight Club came out but I'm starting to understand the eccentricity of masculinity and not somehow denying the queerness of masculinity.

The construct of WhiteBead Patriarch Masculinity is a construct for the pigs of the Republican Party to absorb.

Look what they did to Katie Hill!

(I'm becoming a parody at this point but you'll forgive me under the circumstances, correct? C'mon.)

It's reclaiming of masculinity from rape culture.

In some ways, I read it as a road novel. There's a lot of travel.

Stranger on a journey of the self, etc.

Not to be so flip about it. The prose is gripping. What the author went through as a child was awful.

Forgiveness and abuse--that's a hard conversation for me. Baptized Catholic I am!

Sometimes it always comes back to the prose for me and McBee has some of the best around. Reminded me of Maggie Nelson or Eula Biss. Minimal but never straining or some Hemingway trick. Pockets and bursts of narrative with insight from the soul.

Mostly I like the structure of the book. It's hard to make short chapters work in a narrative. Without them seeming cheap. Or perhaps I'm just used to Big Giant Hunks of fiction in a kind of Phallic Daddy Worship. I don't know.

Don't blame me--blame those postmodernists! I still might listen to Gravy's Rainbow's audiobook! Hell, they mention it in Knives Out!

(Not the audiobook. Gravity's Rainbow.)

I'm sputtering and my engine is running low so I think I'll wrap it up for now.

Page 96,

"It was only at odd moments that I'd pass a mirror and see shapes that shouldn't be there, a stranger who looked like me but wasn't me at all, a stranger like a kick in the chest."

[Ridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘What makes a man? A man makes himself.’

The profound honesty and whole hearted reflections allow for such a connection with the reader that, for me personally, it would feel like a disservice to McBee to rate this anything less than 5 stars.

Thomas finds ways to describe exact feelings and emotions and moments through both trauma and transition that can be not only understood but truly felt deeply and envisioned by all, but especially by those who have had a parallel experience or felt a similar pain.

The journey of becoming a man follows the reflections that allow us all to conclude that we never really stop becoming - ‘you can change the story you tell yourself, but the truth is you’ve still got to just let everything unfold and see what happens next’ - and in that, finding that the real goal is finding and being you, and so being happy.

The communications of Thomas and Parker through out feel so organic and contemplative, like a game in which they understand each others past thoughts and next moves so well, and in total just have a relationships which felt aspirational to me at least.

I honestly don’t think I can do it justice so I’ll leave it here but man what a book.

‘the world is vicious and beautiful and, to some extent, unexplainable. But that doesn’t stop us from wanting a story all the same.’

[Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so heavy but I’m happy it exists. It’s important that people who experienced trauma (in this case child sexual abuse and being mugged by gunpoint) as children to talk about the what happened to them, how it’s shaped them, and how they grapple with the aftermath and for others to bear witness, listen, and share that weight of that emotional load.

McBee shows incredible vulnerability and humanity throughout his journey towards all who have hurt him intentionally, his father and his mugger, and unintentionally, his mother and spouse in some occasions, - searching for their humanity, the experiences and violence that shaped them, and how that has potentially informed the harm they’ve caused - refusing to make monsters of them and let them continue to have overdue influence of his life.

I was really struck by McBee’s decision to face his trauma and come to a better place of co-existence with it (and integrations of all the different parts of him, his experiences, and past selves) as he began his own transition to manhood to have a solid foundation, to not run from his past, but towards his future on his own terms.

“If I couldn’t be erased, then neither could my past; if I was going to change form, […] then I wanted my structure to be honest so that it could be sound”

[Freddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review was originally published in the Media: http://www.fvckthemedia.com/issue46/r...

When I first met Thomas Page McBee in 2012, he was working at the now-defunct alt-weekly The Boston Phoenix. McBee was working to make queerness more visible at the publication – not just white, upper middle class gays concerned first and foremost with marriage, but lesser told stories of people who are less often heard. Not because the stories aren’t there, but because they are largely ignored.

McBee was the first person I ever heard give an alternate narrative to the “born in the wrong body” trope as vocalized by Chaz Bono and the rest of the transgender community’s handful of de facto spokespeople. His words were refreshing. “I’ve never felt betrayed or trapped by my body,” he wrote in The Phoenix in 2012. “At some point I realized the world didn’t see me like I saw myself, and I got sick of it. I’m not sure if any of us are born into the ‘wrong’ body so much as into a culture that values some bodies a whole lot more than others.” Meanwhile, McBee was also beginning to pen the inspired column on identity and self-transformation, "Self Made Man" for The Rumpus.

McBee shares an even more in-depth account of his story in his new memoir, Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness, and Becoming a Man, published this month via City Lights Books. Each short chapter describes a moment in a certain time and place, focusing on two pivotal events in his life that influence his relationship with manhood. In brief, poetic vignettes, McBee shifts between his youth and his twenties, deconstructing his own memories in a powerful, non-linear fashion. In some of these snapshots, he describes the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of his father as a child, and the part it played in how he learned to distrust and dislike men. Raised hereafter by his single mother with whom he was very close, he describes learning to say the word ‘men’ “with a lemon in [his] mouth.”

Thomas also picks through an experience as a 29-year-old in West Oakland in which he and his partner, Parker, were mugged at gunpoint. The mugger held a gun to Thomas’s head as Parker looked on – but when Thomas uttered a few pleading words, his voice not yet fully deepened from testosterone, the gunman froze. In that moment, the mugger perceived Thomas as a woman, and he lowered the gun and ordered Thomas and Parker to flee. A week later, the same gunman was arrested for mugging and murdering a young man in town for an interview with Google. The gunman had a pattern of targeting straight couples and killing the man. Thomas went on to describe this experience as “one of the best things that ever happened to [him].”

"What does it mean to become a man?" While the mugging was traumatic, it sparked something inside Thomas, and drove him to seek answers to this question, and to seek closure from the trauma he experienced as a child. Man Alive chronicles Thomas’s journey, literal and otherwise, as he reflects with his mother about how things came to be as they were, visits his extended family in his home state of South Carolina, plots his move to New England, and ultimately confronts his father in Oregon. He displays immense compassion, even when talking about the men who displayed violence toward him: “You’d have to be pretty destroyed to hold a gun to another person’s face and shoot it… And you’d have to have abandoned yourself to the core to want to annihilate a child. “

Trauma, identity, empathy. These are deeply complex themes to work through, and in Man Alive, McBee works through them with artfulness. He reflects on the meaning of being a man while living a life faced with male violence, and with an understanding of the phrase his mother repeated: “A good man is hard to find.” Thomas describes the fear of what might change in and outside of him as he navigates the world as a man. Through the course of his journey, Thomas comes to realize he is capable of living out his own masculinity and is not doomed to become the monster he sometimes sees his father as.

As a twenty-something transmasculine person living in Oakland, Man Alive hit me close to home. But it’s important to note this book is not exclusively relevant to those grappling with gender identity. This is a story of the universally relatable concepts of self-actualization and self-discovery. McBee's book begins with the proclamation, “This is an adventure story about how I quit being a ghost.” Each one of us was brought into the world with expectations for who we were supposed to be. And regardless of what these expectations look like in each of our lives, they limit us. Man Alive reminds us that we all have the power to decide what we can be in this world, and what that looks like in our lives.

Rather than telling an authoritative story of what it means to be a transgender man, Man Alive tells the story of what it is to be Thomas Page McBee: a writer, a feminist, a partner, his mother’s son. It is crucial in its way of re-wiring what a trans memoir can and should look like. McBee has situated himself among other emerging voices like Laverne Cox and Janet Mock who are opening and expanding the conversation about what it means to be trans, steering the focus away from the physical and toward that of one’s whole person. As a result, Man Alive achieves so much; it is simultaneously personal, poignant, and powerful.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is really beautifully written and poignant. mcbee's prose is very minimal yet very powerful, and i was totally absorbed in his musings on his family and himself through the structure of the chapters. i guess i wanted more of it. this is a really short read and i feel like i wanted mcbee to dive a little deeper into some of the themes, but i also do like how restrained it is in divulging information (letting the reader make connections on their own). overall a really solid and moving read.

[Fraser Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book didn’t hit me like a brick wall of emotion, as others had described. Instead, it felt like a gentle wave, with even the smallest of moments creating impact. Perhaps this is because I relate so closely to Thomas's experiences, or because I am deep into my own transition, yet still discovering what it truly means to be myself.

The writing is beautiful, and I wish Thomas all the best. Trans joy is real and profound, often sparked by what others would call, the darkest part of ourselves.

[Will McGrath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely one of the best books I've read this year - the memoir of a trans man coming to terms with violence and identity. Novelistic in its layered themes, with the pacing of a thriller. A work of radical empathy.

I feel lucky to have read this book.