Write like a Man

""Grinberg’s book is filled with such lively anecdotes, attentive to both the energy and absurdity generated by a coterie of brilliant eggheads who identified as fearless brawlers.""---Jennifer Szalai, New York Times ""There have been many other notable and worthy books about the influential New York Jewish intellectuals. . . . But none have been as attentive as Grinberg to how their experiences as Jews shaped their understandings of masculinity, or of how that understanding was central to the form and substance of their work. . . . Measured and nuanced. . . . It is a breath of fresh literary air to read a book that takes historically significant intellectuals seriously not only as writers and thinkers, but also as people trying to figure out who they were.""---Emily Tamkin, Washington Post ""Ms. Grinberg’s insightful survey persuasively shows that some of the country’s most brilliant midcentury writers cultivated manliness to counter what they saw as their fathers’ meek marginality and thereby forged new ways of being American and of being Jewish.”—Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal""---Benjamin Balint, Wall Street Journal ""A sophisticated exploration. . . . The portraits are perceptive and the cultural and historical background highlights how New York’s mid-century intellectual scene negotiated new understandings of and relationships to gender. It’s an enlightening look at an influential literary coterie."" * Publishers Weekly * ""A persuasive explanation for the demise of the New York intellectuals. . . . A fascinating history.""---Michael Kimmage, New Republic ""Erudite. . . . Write Like a Man can be read as a case study for how gen­der inter­acts with intel­lec­tu­al projects.""---Brian Hillman, Jewish Book Council ""Masterful.""---Claire Potter, Why Now? podcast ""Incisive."" * Ross Barkan * ""Write like a Man is not only accessible but engagingly written, carefully researched, and persuasively argued. Grinberg’s thesis that masculinity was central to the identity of the New York intellectuals is so well presented and so cogent that it is impossible to imagine future scholars overlooking the importance of their gender ideology.""---Hannah Joyner, Open Letters Monthly ""A complex but still-relevant phenomenon . . . that is both thought provoking and friendly to the non-academic reader.""---Janice Weizman, New York Journal of Books ""Grinberg insightfully recounts the story of New York's Jewish intellectuals through the prism of gender. . . . An extremely well-written, informative, and thoughtful first book that explores the New York Jewish intellectuals through a new lens.""---J. D. Sarna, Choice ""Remarkable. . . . Utterly compelling . . . Grinberg makes a convincing case for how these sons of immigrants melded their parents’ educational aspirations with the Talmudic traditions and radical politics that permeated the Jewish world of the early to mid 20th century.""---Yael Friedman, Forward ""Write Like a Man is among the most enjoyable and impressively researched books on its subject, brimming with colorful anecdotes and unexpected insights on every page. Grinberg has both redefined and reignited interest in the New York Intellectuals.""---David Klion, Jewish Currents ""Fascinating. . . . a valuable, well-researched and highly readable account of an important chapter of American intellectual life.""---H.N. Hirsch, Compulsive Reader