Men: Notes from an Ongoing Investigation

From the notoriously contrarian author of Against Love, a witty and probing examination of why badly behaved men have been her lifelong fascination, on and off the page

It's no secret that men often behave in intemperate ways, but in recent years we've witnessed so many spectacular public displays of male excess?disgraced politicians, erotically desperate professors, fallen sports icons?that we're left to wonder whether something has come unwired in the collective male psyche.

In the essays collected here, Laura Kipnis revisits the archetypes of wayward masculinity that have captured her imagination over the years, scrutinizing men who have figured in her own life alongside more controversial public examples. Slicing through the usual clichés about the differences between the sexes, Kipnis mixes intellectual rigor and wit to give us compelling survey of the affinities, jealousies, longings, and erotics that structure the male-female bond.