Norah Vincent at Cody's Books January 26, 2007

NORAH VINCENT became a SELF-MADE MAN: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back Again. Here’s a revealing account of a curious, courageous journalist who realized it would be possible to transform herself believably and infiltrate a culture – Norah poses as Ned -- yielding surprising insights. Instead of feeling liberated by the supposed privilege of masculinity, Norah discovers instead that she feels trapped by the expectations of manliness. Traveling to five different states, she explores various facets of male life: friendship, sex and dating, work, and male camaraderie. She joins an all-men’s bowling league, frequents strip clubs, and befriends patrons as well as the dancers. She dates women as Ned (with some surprising results from women after she reveals her true identity), joins a monastery to infiltrate bastions of all-male environs, attends weekly meeting of a male therapy group, and even goes on a weekend-long retreat with the group. Vincent exposes the unspoken rules of engagements with men and their limited emotional life, as well as the cattiness and dissatisfaction of women bitter and impatient with those limitations. SELF-MADE MAN challenges notions of gender and will make you think twice about who you are, how you are represented in the world, and how you see the opposite sex. 7:00 PM at Cody’s Stockton Street, San Francisco

Official Website: http://www.codysbooks.com/calendar/jan07Calendar.jsp