If there is one critique to be made of this book, it’s that more time could have been spent on the American racial — and racist — context in which this "Jewish masculinity" was forged. Still, Grinberg makes great effort to expand the scope of her study beyond Jewish men ... Grinberg’s writing, unlike that of her subjects, is not polemical, but measured and nuanced. And though the work is detailed... it never grows dull or detached from its larger themes.
Although Ms. Grinberg leaves the question of what it is to "write like a man" open to multiple answers, her portrait is in places drawn with too limited a palette ... Even so, Ms. Grinberg’s insightful survey persuasively shows that some of the country’s most brilliant midcentury writers cultivated manliness to counter what they saw as their fathers’ meek marginality.
Sophisticated ... The portraits are perceptive and the cultural and historical background highlights how New York’s mid-century intellectual scene negotiated new understandings of and relationships to gender. It’s an enlightening look at an influential literary coterie.
