too gimmicky - especially since it turns out his wife wrote a similar book about bitches. I was disappointed as I thought it might help my memoir writing since I was writing about an abusive childhood - now that was a real bastard on the couch. A couple of stories where interesting but I didn't finish the book ( )

too gimmicky - especially since it turns out his wife wrote a similar book about bitches. I was disappointed as I thought it might help my memoir writing since I was writing about an abusive childhood - now that was a real bastard on the couch. A couple of stories where interesting but I didn't finish the book ( )

too gimmicky - especially since it turns out his wife wrote a similar book about bitches. I was disappointed as I thought it might help my memoir writing since I was writing about an abusive childhood - now that was a real bastard on the couch. A couple of stories where interesting but I didn't finish the book ( )

This essay collection is the companion to Cathi Hanauer’s The Bitch in the House. The editor, Daniel Jones, is Hanauer’s husband. He has endeavored to bring a male perspective to the topics presented in Hanauer’s book, such as household equality, gender roles in parenting, the “feminist backlash”, adultery, and men’s perceived ineptitude. The essays were quite enlightening and had very valuable information to convey about how these men are dealing with these issues in their own lives. However, they are almost all sensitive, upper-class, white, intelligent, writer-types. Of course, when looking for authors to contribute written works, you’re going to get a load of writer-types, but it would have been nice to have had more diverse submissions. As far as I could tell, only one writer was African-American, and one Greek. There are no submissions form “working class” men, unless you count struggling writers who also do construction or barista work. Sure, men think about Important Things and approve of Female Equality, but you’re going to find a lot more Sensitive New Age men in New York and San Francisco than, say, rural Nebraska or Alabama. I want to know what those men think of all this, particularly since Hanauer seems to have been able to find a more representative class of women for her collection (although they were just as white, they were a little more geographically and socio-economically diverse).
I have to say that I really enjoyed these submissions, particularly the one from a man who hires on as a nanny and eventually becomes the stay-at-home dad to a woman’s four children. Also, it was nice that Jones was able to track down the male half of a couple of Hanauer’s essayists. “Hank Pine” and “Hannah Pine” both write about their open marriage in a way that is sympathetic and extremely interesting.
If you sometimes feel like The Bitch in the House, and are resentful of The Bastard on the Couch (or the other way around), I would invite you to check out both of these books. ( )

I enjoyed it. It was pretty clear from the intro that the group demographic was a very narrow one, so I was taking that into account. (And it's the same group demographic as pretty much every other state-of-society book/article anyway.) Few pieces were as hilarious as the intro promised, although many were cute. Interesting how the downer ones were all together at the end; to give a serious lasting impression, maybe. And I really couldn't see how the piece from the inmate fit into the theme.

The first piece was actually my favorite, not least because of some parallels to my own relationship (not the celebrity angle). Daniel Jones' Chivalry on Ice probably made the most interesting points. I wondered about some of the particularly unsympathetic wives -- whether they really were that unreasonable. I haven't actually read the book to which this is a sequel, but it's en route. My boyfriend is reading this next and I look forward to his responses. Overall, I thought it was a pretty likable, reasonable group of writers. I couldn't really relate to many of their actual issues, not having had a spouse or kid(s) yet, but it was useful food for thought and maybe a sort of early warning system. ( )