Man Alive

Publisher's Summary

Winner - Best Transgender Nonfiction - 2015 Lambda Literary Awards

Best Books of 2014 - Publishers Weekly

Best Books of 2014 - NPR Books

Best Nonficton Books of 2014 - Kirkus Reviews

10 Best Transgender Nonfiction Books - Advocate

What does it really mean to be a man? In Man Alive, Thomas Page McBee attempts to answer that question by focusing on two of the men who most impacted his life - one, his otherwise ordinary father who abused him as a child, and the other, a mugger who almost killed him. Standing at the brink of the life-changing decision to transition from female to male, McBee seeks to understand these examples of flawed manhood and tells us how a brush with violence sent him on the quest to untangle a sinister past and freed him to become the man he was meant to be.

Man Alive engages an extraordinary personal story to tell a universal one - how we all struggle to create ourselves and how this struggle often requires risks. Far from a transgender transition tell-all, Man Alive grapples with the larger questions of legacy and forgiveness, love and violence, agency and invisibility.

About the author: Thomas Page McBee was the "masculinity expert" for VICE and writes the columns "Self-Made Man" for The Rumpus and "The American Man" for Pacific Standard. His essays and reportage have appeared in The New York Times, TheAtlantic.com, Salon, and BuzzFeed, where he was a regular contributor on gender issues. He lives in New York City, where he works as the editor of special projects at Quartz, and is currently at work on a book about modern American masculinity.

©2014 Thomas Page McBee (P)2017 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Thomas Page McBee's Man Alive hurtled through my life. I read it in a matter of hours. It's a confession, it's a poem, it's a time warp, it's a brilliant work of art. I bow down to McBee - his humility, his sense of humor, his insightfulness, his structural deftness, his ability to put into words what is often said but rarely, with such visceral clarity and beauty, communicated." (Heidi Julavits, author of The Vanishers and The Uses of Enchantment)

"Man Alive is a sweet, tender hurt of a memoir...about forgiveness and self-discovery, but mostly it's about love, so much love. McBee takes us in his capable hands and shows us what it takes to become a man who is gloriously, gloriously alive." (Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist and An Untamed State)

Worth a listen

The book was very relatable on many aspects, and it was nice to hear strong willed guy make it through some of the worst.

Beautiful and healing

One of the most beautiful books I have read in so long. I feel like it stirred healing and grace in me. Strongly recommend.

Raw, real, necessary

I’m excited this book exists. It felt honest and vulnerable. It’s refreshing to hear a trans narrative that isn’t centred around medical transition, but around family, relationships, forgiveness.