US Guys

US Guys is a book by jour­nal­ist Char­lie LeDuff; a series of vignettes that are mar­keted as an exam­i­na­tion of man­hood and mas­culin­ity in Amer­i­can cul­ture. It starts off well enough, the writ­ing is crisp and the obser­va­tions are fresh and inter­est­ing, but by the end Char­lie seems to have run out of obser­va­tions about mas­culin­ity and sim­ply recounts his expe­ri­ences, it ceases to be jour­nal­ism and becomes more of a mem­oir. I was expect­ing some­thing a bit meatier, and less filled with self-aggrandization. Part of LeDuff’s modus operandi is this sort of self-revelatory no-holds-barred truth­ful­ness, but at times the book becomes more about him than the folks he’s there to learn from.

In some ways this is good, as LeDuff becomes a promi­nent exam­ple of the very thing he sets out to chart, but the per­spec­tive is a bit lack­ing. It is ethnog­ra­phy with­out con­clu­sions, and there­fore, ulti­mately just so much pop­corn. Unfor­tu­nate. It is a good read, but not much more.