"This book aims to be a short, intensive immersion into the perils, limits, and possibilities of human intimacy," writes David Shields at the start of The Trouble with Men: Reflections on Sex, Love, Marriage, Porn, and Power. He achieves his ambition in five chapters using a grab bag of personal observations ("Desire is indistinguishable for me from distance"), quotations (some confusingly attributed) and jokes. Many elements are graphically sexual and all are in service to what seems to be Shields's thesis: that the modern heterosexual relationship is irredeemably flummoxing.
As in How Literature Saved My Life, Shields writes incisively and entertainingly, which he likely realizes goes a long way toward deflecting any charge of self-absorption. However, as readers turn pages--and they will--they may question his suggestion that The Trouble with Men is a noble undertaking: "With all the 'memoirs' being written that are naive victim narratives, I thought it might be useful to write a book that tries to ask interesting questions about pain rather than simply invoking it as a badge." Shields's conceit is that The Trouble with Men is a letter to his wife, and throughout the book she comes across as unremittingly cruel--e.g., "What could possibly have been your motivation to call my uncle (to whom I bear a strong resemblance) 'homely'...?" Is The Trouble with Men an act of spite? Will Shields have hell to pay when his wife reads it? If so, fret not: his oft-mentioned masochism will surely serve him well. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer