The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom

By Daniel Jones

Book Overview

The husband of The Bitch in the House responds with a collection of original pieces by male writers about what men desire, need, love, and loathe in their relationships today ... Cathi Hanauer's bestselling The Bitch in the House: 26 Women Tell the Truth about Sex, Solitude, Work, Motherhood, and Marriage spurred a national conversation about the level of friction in contemporary marriages and relationships. Now her husband, Daniel Jones, has rallied the men for the "literary equivalent of The Full Monty ," in which twenty-seven thoughtful, passionate, and often hilarious men lay it bare when it comes to their wives and girlfriends, their hopes and fears.Enough with pop psychiatrists telling us why men lie, cheat, and want nothing more than to laze around the house in front of the TV. Enough with women wondering aloud -- at increasing volume -- why the men in their lives behave the way they do. The time has come for men to speak for themselves. Many of the husbands and fathers in these pages contemplate aspects of their personal lives they've never before revealed in print -- they kick open the door on their marriages and sex lives, their fathering and domestic conflicts, their most intimate relationships and situations. Yet unlike the average meat-and-potatoes father who still rules the roost, these men are grappling with new ideas of manhood -- some that they are going after and grabbing, and others that are being thrust upon them by a changing world. Powerful, heartfelt, and irreverent, The Bastard on the Couch is a bold, unprecedented glimpse into the dark corners and glaring truths of modern relationships that is guaranteed to amuse, entertain, enrich, and provoke.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060565349
• ISBN13: 9780060565343
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: William Morrow & Company
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Hilarious

I was lucky enough to read the author's essay first. This is the only book where I couldn't stop laughing out loud. Since I'm on my third marriage every essay hit home and sent me back in time. This book is must for every guy who needs to know that they are not alone in frustration while dealing with women. This book is seriously an heirloom which will passed to my son!!

Great book, fast shipping

Received my book quickly, book in the exact shape it was described. Highly recommend this seller!

These guys rock.

I'm sorry for the woman below who prefers cats (I wasn't even going to write a review until I read that!)...I'll take these guys any day! They're funny, sad, infuriating, evasive, charming, smart, smart, smart, and honest--they're even honest about being dishonest!!This book is like a primer for life with men--although not polite goody two shoes men, and who wants them anyway. These are a range of men in all their glory and warts. I read the bitch in the house, which, by the way, infuriated people all over the planet. And this is a rocking sequel...just what I was hoping for, and just as in your face. The main thing is, you can't really put it down. Some of the stories are better than others, but they're all compelling. Love these guys or hate them...they've got stories to tell, and they tell them incredibly well.

"Why Men Lie and ALways Will " Hooked me!`

This isn't my usual type of book but when I read the blurb on the back cover about why men lie and aways will, I just had to sit down and read it. The facts are familiar so I won't review how this collection came into being. I will say that the authors are uniformly excellent writers, each with a distinctive voice that makes reading these bland, exciting, informative, funny, pitiful, infuriating essays worth my time. Vince Passaro, author of the essay which hooked me, sounds just like what he is, a writer for Esquire and GQ. HIs essay, as well as those by Hank Pine [My Marriage, My Affairs - His Story], Trey Ellis [Father of the Year], Robert Skates [The Hole in the Window: A View of Divorce], and Toure [An Invitation to Carnal Russian Roulette] all kept me turning pages until I had consumed the entire volume. And consume it I did, in one sitting, with a tall cold glass of something brown and sparkling, and no shoes anywhere nearby. What didn't I like? Well, the writers are all clearly educated, from a certain mental socio-economic class which does slant these essays in a particular direction. The writing is so glittering, a kind of polish that even editing can't provide to the struggling writer. So the perspectives are tinged with wealth, education, culture, exposure, ability - money. Which is fine, but it leaves out the other male perspectives, like guys who ae as poor as hell. Although Toure describes himself as poor in his essay, he is only poor financially. I would have enjoyed reading essays by some different kinds of men. Or perhaps that is the lesson of this book, that men are men with the same issues regardless of income or social class. Cow patties! Not bad, and certainly light enough reading for a summer afternoon.

Hit home for me

Was given this book by 'the woman in my life,' who'd already read it the second it came out (I had to hear her commentary every night as she read it in bed) and thought I'd read an essay or two, but then I found I plowed through the whole thing in a few days. And I admit I enjoyed it, but the funny thing is how much I've thought about it afterward. Some essays, like the one "Why Men Lie (and always will)" and "My Problem with her Anger" I think of EVERY DAY! And also, sorry dear, "The Lock Box," about the hubby who never gets much because his wife is always either at work or, when at home and actually in bed, chooses reading above all else (sound familiar, anyone?). So now that my wife has won me over with this one, she's going to try to get me to read her dog-eared, bedside copy of The Bitch in the House. We'll see. I just might!