Not Allowed to Complain

On 23 January 2006, Kirkus Reviews called Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man "a fascinating, truly weird account". She had spent eighteen months living as a man called Ned: a bowling league, door-to-door sales, dates, strip clubs, a men's group, a monastery. This independent commentary visits each place and says only what the published sources say, and where they are silent it says so. Then it sets her book beside the research and the numbers on male friendship and loneliness.