Praise for The Man They Wanted Me to Be

Finalist for the Georgia Writers Association Author of the Year

“Sexton draws on his own boyhood in rural Indiana to challenge social perceptions of masculinity, arguing that narrowly defined gender roles hurt men and women alike.”
—The New York Times Book Review, New & Noteworthy

“This book is critically important to our historical moment. It's also really good—and Sexton's voice is unrelentingly present in it. It crackles with intensity and absolutely refuses to allow the reader to look away for even a moment from the blight that toxic masculinity in America has wrought . . . What also makes The Man They Wanted Me to Be work so well is that it's largely a personal story . . . How do we as a culture get past toxic masculinity when, as Sexton suggests, its paragon occupies the Oval Office and its pathology is empowered? Sexton's great book points the way.”
—Nicholas Cannariato, NPR

“It is ultimately his confrontation of the forces that raised him—and the traps he willingly entered into—which give his reporting a narrative pulse and humanity that the field data only hint at . . . By carefully and soberly examining his own story, Sexton deconstructs American life and gives many examples of how pervasive toxic masculinity is in our culture, like an aerosol spray so micro–particulate, it escapes detection and the mention of it is easily argued away as 'political correctness' or being 'soft.'”
—Henry Rollins, Los Angeles Times

“A real page–turner . . . His lens ranges from micro to macro to capture American progressivism in action, the global labor shift from traditional manufacturing, and roles prescribed to men since the Industrial Revolution that are becoming obsolete. It examines how we teach boys what’s expected of men in America, and the long–term effects of this socialization.”
—Jerry Davich, Chicago Tribune

“[Sexton's] honest and heartbreaking account of never quite being able to shed the damaging gender demands he was raised with, along with the cultural and historical context that he provides, provides a blueprint for how men can confront the harm that toxic masculinity has brought them. I don't consider it critical hyperbole to say that a book like this can save lives.”
—Erin Keane, Salon

"Part memoir and part cultural critique, in this book Sexton examines his working-class background, the socio-historical sources that result in the formation of toxic masculinity, and the implications of male chauvinism on society."
—Dee Das, BookRiot

“In this moving memoir of growing up steeped in the toxic masculinity of 1980s working–class rural Indiana, Sexton (The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore) gives an emotionally intimate demonstration of the thesis that 'men have actively overcompensated for their insecurities, so much so that they have endangered themselves, the people they love, and their society as a whole' . . . This thoughtful and powerful consideration of the damage done by traditional masculinity to its ostensible beneficiaries will reward readers’ attention.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This book exposes the true cost of toxic masculinity—depression, suicide, misogyny, and a shorter lifespan for men—and takes aim at the patriarchal structures in American society that continue to uphold an outdated ideal of manhood.”
—Kate Scott, Book Riot

“The Man They Wanted Me to Be is the kind of book all parents should read. One also hopes it finds its way into the hands of men whose anger masks so poorly how lost they are. The tone of Sexton’s writing could not be more reasonable or empathetic.”
—James Tate Hill, Literary Hub

2019-03-17
A contributing writer for Salon continues his examination of Trumpian America through the lens of gender expectations and their discontents.

Men don't cry. Men provide for their women, and women better be grateful for it. Growing up in rural Indiana, writes Sexton (Creative Writing/Georgia Southern Univ.; The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore: A Story of American Rage, 2017, etc.), these were the kinds of tropes that were planted in him as a man-to-be. Yet the toxic masculinity that such ideas enfold is hardly useful—if it ever was—in a new economy and world in which the blue-collar American male has "given way to a new era of progressivism that rewards communication, creativity, and education, all things that have been scorned in working class families for generations." These things are scorned in the White House, as well, but Sexton locates in the current occupant the very soul of that toxic ethos, one that itself is giving way to a culture that has less use for precise ideas of gender roles, to say nothing of gender itself. Donald Trump may be the dark antimatter standing in the way of a better future, but the author considers him a tragically weak figure. His followers are just as weak, but "their loyalty to Trump is unending because the fragility of their own masculinity is unending." It's a point that, when raised in the newspaper piece that gave birth to this book, earned Sexton hate mail and death threats. At book length, it's unlikely to find many readers among his detractors, but even his supporters may conclude that the author belabors the point just a bit too long. Still, it's refreshing to think that the complex of domestic abuse and willful stupidity, which Sexton links to larger issues in our history, may soon end at the hands of a rising society "that's actively dismantling the patriarchy."

Pop sociology and journalism meet in a powerful, occasionally repetitive argument against things as they are.