What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men

by Ian Brown (Editor)

Are the men you know obsessed with strange details? Do they sometimes seem to have less interest in you than they do in box scores and the history of the bolo tie? Do they become sexually aroused at unusual moments--perhaps while reading a history of the Battle of Trafalgar? Why are they fixated on cars and heroes and strippers and silence? Do they ever think about anything but sex? Are they ever faithful? And how can a man be so headstrong about not asking for directions and such a wimp about pain? What I Meant to The Private Lives of Men answers these and other questions about the male animal--whether you're a woman seeking enlightenment, or a man looking for company. After all, there's a lot to clear up. Thanks to the women's movement and gay liberation, contemporary manhood has changed beyond recognition in the past forty years. At the same time, the age-old preoccupations of men--their unreachable loneliness, the unstoppable physicality of their bodies.

Genres: Nonfiction, Canada

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 17, 2005

About the author

A Canadian journalist and author.

He is currently the host of Human Edge and The View from Here on TVOntario, and has hosted programming for CBC Radio One, including Later the Same Day, Talking Books, and Sunday Morning.

He has also worked as a business writer at Maclean's and the Financial Post, a feature reporter for The Globe and Mail, and a freelance journalist for other magazines including Saturday Night.
Brown is also the editor of What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men a 2006 collection of twenty-nine essays by prominent Canadian writers, including Greg Hollingshead, David MacFarlane, Don Gillmor, Bert Archer, and Brown himself, who asked his contributors to write on subjects that they'd like to discuss with women but had never been able to.

Brown has also published three books, Freewheeling (1989) about the Billes family, owners of Canadian Tire, and Man Overboard. He is an occasional contributor to the American public radio program This American Life. The Boy in the Moon, a book-length version of Brown's series of Globe and Mail features dealing with his son Walker's rare genetic disorder, Cardiofaciocutaneous Syndrome (CFC), was published in the fall of 2009.

In January 2010, Ian Brown won British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for his book The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son. The award is Canada's richest non-fiction prize and offers the winner a $40,000 prize. In February, 2010, the book won the Charles Taylor Prize, a $25,000 prize which recognizes excellence in literary non-fiction.

Brown is married to Globe and Mail film critic Johanna Schneller.

Reviews

[Dawn Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book covering many bases about the individual author's persona and why he is the way he is, why he thinks the way he thinks, and so with the number of different stories included, it was interesting to gain some valuable insights into the male psyche.

Now, given these short stories are all about North American men, and from what I can gather, middle class white men in Canada for the most part, it doesn't really give a good insight into men as a whole. It would have been better to have a variety of men from different ethnicities, cultures and a more varied age range for us women to gain a better understanding of men.

That said, curating a series of anthologies, I know how challenging it is to get a diverse perspective of men (and women) to write about their personal views and stories.

There were some funny elements to the book, some confusing aspects such as dialogue and references which I needed to look up on the internet, which turned out to be a regional turn of phrase for those living in Toronto, so if you are going to read this book, bear in mind that this is a book written by the middle class white men of Toronto, rather than men from across Canada, not from across North America as implied, and not from the vast variety of cultures living across North America.

All in all an easy read with at most a few insights gained. There are some heart warming stories and one or two uncomfortable chapters, and a few chapters where I was left wondering what the message was that the authors were trying to get across... which is ironic given that the title of the book is 'What I meant to say was...'

An easy read, nothing ground breaking, and so don't expect too much insight into men when reading it.

[Hilary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book of essays about men by men. Some were better than others. I enjoyed the ones about family - men reflecting on their own parents and their children. Some were boring or offensive. I did get some insights into these men - who seem to consist of mostly white Toronto freelance journalists. Worth perusing, kinda.

[Debbie Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of exceptionally well written essays explores all aspects of manhood. From meaningless boners to the death of a parent to the gut wrenching experience of a volunteer firefighter who only ever wanted to be somebody's hero, it takes you inside the minds of individual men. As a woman, I appreciated the insight I was able to gain from reading this book. It is no surprise that it came to me as a gift from a dear friend who happens to be a man.

[Arlene Richards · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a book of short stories of men telling their true life stories. Quite intersting.