Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Winner - Best Transgender Nonfiction - 2015 Lambda Literary Awards
Best Books of 2014 - Publishers Weekly
Best Books of 2014 - NPR Books
Best Nonficton Books of 2014 - Kirkus Reviews
10 Best Transgender Non-Fiction Books - Advocate
"Thomas Page McBee's Man Alive hurtled through my life. I read it in a matter of hours. It's a confession, it's a poem, it's a time warp, it's a brilliant work of art. I bow down to McBee—his humility, his sense of humor, his insightfulness, his structural deftness, his ability to put into words what is often said but rarely, with such visceral clarity and beauty, communicated."—Heidi Julavits, author of The Vanishers and The Uses of Enchantment
What does it really mean to be a man?
In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life&mash;one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past, and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.
Man Alive engages an extraordinary personal story to tell a universal one—how we all struggle to create ourselves, and how this struggle often requires risks. Far from a transgender transition tell-all, Man Alive grapples with the larger questions of legacy and forgiveness, love and violence, agency and invisibility.
Praise for Man Alive:
"Man Alive is a sweet, tender hurt of a memoir ... about forgiveness and self-discovery, but mostly it's about love, so much love. McBee takes us in his capable hands and shows us what it takes to become a man who is gloriously, gloriously alive."—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State
"Thomas Page McBee's story of how he came to claim both his past and his future is by turns despairing and hopeful, exceptional and relatable. To read it is to witness the birth of a fuller, truer self. I loved this book."—Ann Friedman, columnist, New York Magazine
"'Whoever's child I am, my body belongs to me,' McBee writes, and his book is an elegant, generous transcription of the journey toward this incandescent, non-aggrandized, life-sustaining form of self-possession—the kind that emanates from dispossession, rather than running from it."—Maggie Nelson, author of Bluets and The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning
"Well aware that memory and identity rarely follow a linear path, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer the question, 'What does it really mean to be a man?' Weaving past and present to do so, the book's journey connects violence, masculinity and forgiveness. McBee has an intelligent heart, and it beats in every sentence of this gorgeous book."—Saeed Jones, author of Prelude to Bruise
"Exquisitely written and bristling with emotion, this important book reminds us of how much vulnerability and violence inheres to any identity. A real achievement of form and narrative."—Jack Halberstam, author of The Queer Art of Failure
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Thomas Page McBee. (2014). Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man. City Lights Publishers.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Thomas Page McBee. 2014. Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man. City Lights Publishers.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Thomas Page McBee, Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man. City Lights Publishers, 2014.
MLA Citation (style guide)Thomas Page McBee. Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man. City Lights Publishers, 2014.
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Thomas Page McBee writes the column "Self-Made Man" for The Rumpus, and his writings on gender have appeared in The New York Times and via TheAtlantic.com, VICE, BuzzFeed, and Salon. Thomas gives lectures on masculinity and media narratives across the country. He lives in New York City.
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Winner - Best Transgender Nonfiction - 2015 Lambda Literary Awards
Best Books of 2014 - Publishers Weekly
Best Books of 2014 - NPR Books
Best Nonficton Books of 2014 - Kirkus Reviews
10 Best Transgender Non-Fiction Books - Advocate
"Thomas Page McBee's Man Alive hurtled through my life. I read it in a matter of hours. It's a confession, it's a poem, it's a time warp, it's a brilliant work of art. I bow down to McBee—his humility, his sense of humor, his insightfulness, his structural deftness, his ability to put into words what is often said but rarely, with such visceral clarity and beauty, communicated."—Heidi Julavits, author of The Vanishers and The Uses of Enchantment
What does it really mean to be a man?
In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life&mash;one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past, and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.
Man Alive engages an extraordinary personal story to tell a universal one—how we all struggle to create ourselves, and how this struggle often requires risks. Far from a transgender transition tell-all, Man Alive grapples with the larger questions of legacy and forgiveness, love and violence, agency and invisibility.
Praise for Man Alive:
"Man Alive is a sweet, tender hurt of a memoir ... about forgiveness and self-discovery, but mostly it's about love, so much love. McBee takes us in his capable hands and shows us what it takes to become a man who is gloriously, gloriously alive."—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State
"Thomas Page McBee's story of how he came to claim both his past and his future is by turns despairing and hopeful, exceptional and relatable. To read it is to witness the birth of a fuller, truer self. I loved this book."—Ann Friedman, columnist, New York Magazine
"'Whoever's child I am, my body belongs to me,' McBee writes, and his book is an elegant, generous transcription of the journey toward this incandescent, non-aggrandized, life-sustaining form of self-possession—the kind that emanates from dispossession, rather than running from it."—Maggie Nelson, author of Bluets and The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning
"Well aware that memory and identity rarely follow a linear path, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer the question, 'What does it really mean to be a man?' Weaving past and present to do so, the book's journey connects violence, masculinity and forgiveness. McBee has an intelligent heart, and it beats in every sentence of this gorgeous book."—Saeed Jones, author of Prelude to Bruise
"Exquisitely written and bristling with emotion, this important book reminds us of how much vulnerability and violence inheres to any identity. A real achievement of form and narrative."—Jack Halberstam, author of The Queer Art of Failure
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Starred review from September 29, 2014
McBee, a columnist for the Rumpus, begins this
remarkable memoir by juxtaposing two painful events in his life—a mugging in Oakland, and his childhood revelation to his mother of his father’s abuse. These recollections propel the author on a quest of discovery and reconciliation, not just of his personal history and the men who injured him, but on the nature of masculinity, both cultural and biological, as he approaches his own female-to-male gender transition. In taut, careful prose that conveys both brutal awareness and unceasing wonder, McBee captures the tension of his transition, “the warble between the shape in my mind and the one in the mirror,” “the assault of language” in simple use of pronouns, the fraught everyday choices of which swimsuit to wear, which public restroom to use. In the end, McBee’s answer to the initial question of “what makes a man?” is more generous, more inspiring, and more creative than the usual gender binaries allow. Full of bravery and clear, far-sighted compassion and devoid of sentiment, victimization, and cliché, McBee’s meditations bring him a hard-won sense of self—one that is bound to inspire any reader who has struggled with internal dissonance. Agent: Chris Tomasino, Tomasino Agency.
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Starred review from October 15, 2014
The transgender author delivers a unique, powerful rite-of-passage memoir. Plenty of writers have written about the experience of making the transition from one gender to another, but most haven't also dealt with child molestation, paternity issues and a mugging by a man who would soon commit murder-not to mention a partner who has mixed feelings about the author's becoming a man. Resisting the inclination to sensationalize (or sentimentalize), McBee interweaves the various strands of the narrative, exercising plenty of restraint. The first section alternates between the author as a 10-year-old girl wrestling with sending a man to prison, and the mugging almost two decades later, when the author (who, still female, could pass for a man) is attacked with her partner by a stranger who would soon make headlines for another crime. In each case, there's a theme of forgiveness, a quality of mercy that does not seem strained. "The world seemed to me a place of beautiful, damaged things and I wanted to love them all," explains the author early on. Whether his father-or the mugger, for that matter-affected his attitude toward men in general and his decision, with deep ambivalence, to live a life after 30 as a transgender man isn't subject to pat psychology here. Instead, the author writes in matter-of-fact detail about the tension and love shared with a fiancee and about self-discovery pilgrimages to explore bloodlines and paternity. "The world is vicious and beautiful and, to some extent, unexplainable," writes the author. "But that doesn't stop us from wanting a story." This is quite a story, masterfully rendered.COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Starred review from June 1, 2016
McBee uses the two most influential men in his life--his abusive father and a mugger who threatened to kill him--to create his personal definition of manhood as he transitions from female to male. Veering closer to creative nonfiction than autobiography, this book is moving, beautifully written, and definitely worth purchasing.
Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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Winner - Best Transgender Nonfiction - 2015 Lambda Literary Awards
Best Books of 2014 - Publishers Weekly
Best Books of 2014 - NPR Books
Best Nonficton Books of 2014 - Kirkus Reviews
10 Best Transgender Non-Fiction Books - Advocate
"Thomas Page McBee's Man Alive hurtled through my life. I read it in a matter of hours. It's a confession, it's a poem, it's a time warp, it's a brilliant work of art. I bow down to McBee—his humility, his sense of humor, his insightfulness, his structural deftness, his ability to put into words what is often said but rarely, with such visceral clarity and beauty, communicated."—Heidi Julavits, author of The Vanishers and The Uses of Enchantment
What does it really mean to be a man?
In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most...
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