“HOW TO BE A MAN” AMERICAN MASCULINITIES, 1960-1989 by Brad Congdon Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia March 2015 © Copyright by Brad Congdon, 2015 . To Krista, for everything. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................vi ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................viii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................1 1.1 “MEN” AS THE SUBJECT OF MASCULINITIES...................................5 1.2 “LEADING WITH THE CHIN”: ESQUIRE MAGAZINE AS HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY PROJECT.............................................16 1.3 CHAPTER BREAKDOWN......................................................................25 CHAPTER 2: AN AMERICAN DREAM: MAILER’S GENDER NIGHTMARE............32 2.1 CRISIS! THE ORGANIZATION MAN AND THE WHITE NEGRO....35 2.2 AN AMERICAN DREAM AND HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY ...........43 2.3 AN AMERICAN DREAM AND ESQUIRE MAGAZINE.....……….........54 2.4 CONCLUSION: REVISION AND HOMOPHOBIA...............................74 CHAPTER 3: COOLING IT WITH JAMES BALDWIN............................................... 76 3.1 BALDWIN’S CRITIQUE OF HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY..............80 3.2 BALDWIN’S QUEER CRITIQUE OF RACE IN ESQUIRE MAGAZINE..............................................................................................94 3.3 “JAMES BALDWIN TELLS US ALL HOW TO COOL IT THIS SUMMER”..............................................................................................102 3.4 CONCLUSION........................................................................................117 CHAPTER 4: LOW-RENT TRAGEDIES OF BESET MANHOOD: CONSUMER REALISM IN RAYMOND CARVER’S ESQUIRE STORIES......................................120 4.1 “THE MARKET REPRESENTS”: CARVER’S CONSUMER REALISM................................................................................................122 4.2 “THE MAN ON THE WAY UP”: THE “GOOD LIFE” AND GENDER IDEOLOGY.............................................................................................128 iii 4.3 CARVER’S FIRST ESQUIRE STORY: “NEIGHBORS” AND THE “SPACE” OF ADVERTISING................................................................133 4.4 “WHAT IS IT?” AND “COLLECTORS”: REIFIED MASCULINITIES, DIMINISHED SELFHOOD....................................................................141 4.5 CONCLUSION........................................................................................152 CHAPTER 5: TRUE MEN AND QUEER SPACES IN TRUMAN CAPOTE’S ANSWERED PRAYERS ..................................................................................................155 5.1 ESQUIRE’S QUEER 1970S....................................................................159 5.2 ANSWERED PRAYERS AS QUEER TEXT............................................173 5.3 FUGITIVES FROM THE GENDER ORDER: BEST-KEPT BOYS AND QUEER UTOPIAS…..............................................................................185 5.4 CONCLUSION........................................................................................192 CHAPTER 6: SEXUAL FALLOUT IN TIM O’BRIEN’S THE NUCLEAR AGE….....195 6.1 COLD WAR DISCOURSE AND GENDER TROUBLE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE.......................................................................................199 6.2 COLD WARRIORS AND COWBOYS: “SOMEWHERE THE DUKE IS SMILING”…………...............................................................................205 6.3 RETRENCHING THE DOMESTIC SPHERE IN “GRANDMA’S PANTRY”................................................................................................220 6.4 “OVARIES LIKE HAND GRENADES”: EMPHASIZED FEMININITIES IN THE NUCLEAR AGE..............................................233 6.5 CONCLUSION........................................................................................241 CHAPTER 7: DON DELILLO IN THE AMERICAN KITCHEN.................................245 7.1 “MEN IN SMALL ROOMS”: AMERICAN MASCULINITY, AMERICAN KITCHENS.......................................................................250 7.2 “SUCK IN THAT GUT, AMERICA!”: JFK’S EXEMPLARY MASCULINITIES...................................................................................262 7.3 GETTING A GRIP ON THE RUNAWAY WORLD: THE AUTHOR AS EXEMPLARY MASCULINITY….........................................................278 iv CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………... 289 WORKS CITED............................................................................................................. 297 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Cover of Esquire, July 1968, featuring an interview with James Baldwin................................................................................................... 105 Figure 2 Fashion photography from Esquire........................................................ 131 Figure 3 Advertisement for Stetson Shoes…………………................................ 132 Figure 4 Illustration accompanying “Neighbours” in Esquire.............................. 134 Figure 5 Illustration accompanying “What is it?” in Esquire............................... 143 Figure 6 Cover of Esquire, December 1979, promoting Capote’s latest short story……................................................................................................. 155 Figure 7 Cover of Esquire, June 1975, featuring the first lines of “Mojave”....... 162 Figure 8 Cover of Esquire, May 1976, featuring Capote as his character from Murder by Death..................................................................................... 163 Figure 9 Cover of Esquire, December 1976, featuring Capote with his character Kate McCloud…………......................................................................... 165 Figure 10 Cover of Esquire, April 1980, with John Wayne as an angelic cowboy.................................................................................................... 206 Figure 11 Cover of Esquire, August 1980, warning against Reagan’s “cowboy” presidency…………............................................................................... 211 Figure 12 Foltene Advertisement………………………….................................... 257 Figure 13 Esquire, November 1962, Kennedy as Muscle Man.............................. 262 vi ABSTRACT The editors of Esquire, America’s longest-running men’s interest magazine, announced the publication’s mission statement in its inaugural issue: “Esquire aims to be the common denominator of masculine interests—to be all things to all men.” Throughout the majority of its publication history, being all things to all men has involved providing its male readers with fiction by canonical male authors. As such, this study examines the role of masculinity in works of American prose and fiction by canonical male authors, as they were originally published in Esquire magazine. Esquire can fruitfully be used as a tool for textual analysis, a lens through which historically and culturally specific arguments about particular constructions of masculinity can be made. In particular, I argue that situating these texts in the pages of Esquire, among its fashion advertisements and editorial content, is valuable for demonstrating how masculinities are constructed in relation to the marketplace. Reading specific texts within the frame of Esquire, I show that the works of contemporaneous authors—specifically Norman Mailer, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Truman Capote, Tim O’Brien, and Don Delillo—are complicit with, struggle against, or attempt to subvert the masculine codes and behaviours promoted by the magazine. I demonstrate that gender is an always-present and always-contested factor in writing, sometimes obvious but sometimes subtle, and that the gendered subtexts of written works can be brought to the surface when read as part of a project dedicated to explicating “How to Be a Man.” Furthermore, this study reveals the value of conceiving of masculinity in relation to hegemony—that is, in viewing the construction and maintenance of masculinities relationally, and as a part of a historic process inseparable from other historic processes, such as the processes of the marketplace, but that is in fact thoroughly imbricated in them. In so doing, “How to Be a Man” concludes that the market is a place in which the discourse of masculinity is contested, and that the prose and fiction of American authors contributes to, and shapes, that very discourse. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is the result of many years of research, many drafts, and plenty of good advice. Thank you, first of all, to my advisor, Jason Haslam: your support, guidance, and patience allowed me to realize the project at the centre of all of this research, and your thoughtful criticism and encouragement always made it stronger. I would like to acknowledge, as well, the contributions of my committee members: Len Diepeveen, Anthony Enns, Lyn Bennett, and David Earle. Your feedback has been invaluable. At different stages in its development, portions of this dissertation have been presented at the ACCUTE and the Canadian Association of American Studies annual conferences; the responses I received at those venues helped me iron-out some of the finer details contained