Books Interviews
Jess’s Book Club Pick For April: US Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man by Charlie LeDuff
By Jessica Schneider
Apr 1, 2008, 11:00 GMT

This month I decided to go with Charlie LeDuff’s US Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man. I recently read this book and found it very enjoyable—the prose pieces, while non-fiction, read like short stories. Bits of insight are scattered throughout, and some of the best parts are when LeDuff speaks of Detroit. I still can’t get some of those images out of my head.

Just to give a bit from the prologue of Us Guys:

The American man has been taught that while it is better to avoid a fight; that honor cannot always be defended with reason. He should never admit fear. He should always strive to put the blade in his adversary’s chest, not his back. An American man should know how to load and fire a gun. He should know how to ride a horse, bet on a horse, bet on the stock market, and bet on the cards. A good man should know a woman’s body and know how to please her. His woman, in turn, should never speak anything but well of him in public. An American man should have been raised in the church, rejected the church and eventually found virtue in the church.
  The American man should be educated. He should work. He should honor his debts and live within his means. He should be able to recite poetry and have bits of true philosophy at his fingertips. He should be able to play an instrument and know how to help a rose grow. An American man should know how to dress and speak his language well. He should be handy and mechanically inclined and yet his nails must be clean. A man should have children, and at some point his children should reject him. And in the course of his life, a man’s children should return and find virtue in him.
  This is what an American man should be. Of course, no such man has ever existed, and no man probably ever will.

An in-depth review can be found here.

As well as an in-depth interview with LeDuff here.

No, I haven’t forgotten the Classics—I’ll return to the Dover Books shortly. But when I read this I wasn’t expecting I’d pick it. So for this month, give Us Guys a shot.