PositiveSan Francisco ChronicleA Better Man is not funny, except in a half-the-population-is-monstrous way, but the wit and sensitivity at the core of his comedy are present ... We get fun behind-the-music dirt on the mythologies undergirding American masculinity: how the \'self-made man\' notion, for instance, originated with a Kentucky senator praising industrialists whose success depended on slave labor. And there are straight-up pleas to kick it all to the curb ... I don’t believe letters to sons change sons, not much. Anyway, I assume Black’s son is already good, because his father is good, and that’s how it works. So what is this book? It’s a guy trying to make sense of things, at a transitional moment ... one could wonder whether even a good book can make a difference. But then you’re snapped back to Black’s simple decency, and intelligence and love for his son, and you think oh man, maybe.
