My Own Dear People [Paperback]

Manhood, masculinity, what it means to grow up in a world where who you are and who you are expected to be exist in powerful, soul-deep struggle . . . Dwight Thompsons Thompsons novel is an intense . . . examination of personal guilt, contrasted against the pressures of a machismo that keeps secrets well-hidden. Like Naipaul in Conveyed primarily through richly imagined dialogue and extracts from Chaunceys writing, one young mans attempt to come to terms with his own deficiencies is the beating heart of the book. Dwight Thompson is to be commended for such an unflinchingly honest portrait of a character striving not only to be a better writer but cruciallya better person. A single experience can offset a planned trajectory, and a single experience can doom the most favored among us. Such is the haunting lesson of