Venus Envy (Counterblasts No. 14)

The author focuses on the two "New Man" authors - Martin Amis and Ian McEwan - and examines the contradictions that surround the 1990s male. He argues that these two authors, beset by obsessions about paternity in the post-nuclear age, neatly sum up the way the image of the modern man is distorted to present its more reputable aspects, by hijacking traditional female qualities and championing them as their own. The author sweeps away the distortions he perceives in the writing of Amis and McEwan, and lays bare the concept of masculinity.