 | |
| Author | Thomas Page McBee |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Memoir |
| Publisher | Scribner |
Publication date | August 14, 2018 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | 9781501168741 |
Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man is a nonfiction book by Thomas Page McBee, published August 14, 2018, by Scribner.
The book was a finalist a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction and was shortlisted for The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction and the Wellcome Book Prize.
McBee began regularly writing about masculinity in The Rumpus, which led to his first book, Man Alive , in 2014. [1] During this time, he was transitioning and "wrestling with the implications of embracing a gender responsible for so much hurt in the world."
In hopes of improving his self-defense skills and further investigating masculinity, McBee began boxing and eventually participated in a charitable boxing match, [1] making him the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden. [2]
Amateur received a starred review from Publishers Weekly , [3] as well as positive reviews from Kirkus, [4] The New Republic , [5] Buzzfeed, [6] Booklist , [7] The Rumpus, [8] The Guardian , [9] Los Angeles Review of Books , [10] and Shelf Awareness . [11] [1] Kirkus called the book "[p]rovocative and illuminating". [4] Writing for Shelf Awareness, Dave Wheeler noted that "McBee ponders these sociological implications [of masculinity] with refreshing care and empathy, untangling a positive depiction of masculinity from the toxic strains paraded through contemporary discourse. His writing is marvelous, pinning ideas that could so easily be abstract to the visceral, physical poetry of boxing." [1] The Rumpus called it "a must-read for parsing through the many layers of toxic masculinity and white privilege in American culture that allowed Kavanaugh to be seated on the Supreme Court." [8]
The Financial Times [12] and The A.V. Club [13] provided mixed reviews. Robert Armstrong of The Financial Times said, "Amateur is a heck of a tale, and McBee is a gifted memoirist. He is particularly good at communicating his own fear and ambivalence—both in crossing the gender frontier and in learning a sport that draws on a brutal code of male behaviour that his experience has given him reason to reject." Writing for The A.V. Club, Amanda Goldblatt noted that the book covered "countless topics... a lot to pack into such a thin volume, which weighs in at just over 200 pages," meaning the "discussions can sometimes feel fleeting, moving more like a feature article than a book." [13] However, Goldbatt complimented McBee's "genius for association and nimble structural moves." [13]
The book was included on lists of the best memoirs, best nonfiction, and best LGBT books of 2018.
| Year | Award | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction | Shortlist | [14] |
| 2019 | Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction | Finalist | [15] |
| Wellcome Book Prize | Shortlist | [16] [17] |
The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its motto "All the best stories are true", the prize covers current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. The competition is open to authors of any nationality whose work is published in the UK in English. The longlist, shortlist and winner is chosen by a panel of independent judges, which changes every year. Formerly named after English author and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, the award was renamed in 2015 after Baillie Gifford, an investment management firm and the primary sponsor. Since 2016, the annual dinner and awards ceremony has been sponsored by the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards are a set of American literary awards conferred by The Boston Globe and The Horn Book Magazine annually from 1967. One book is recognized in each of four categories: Fiction and Poetry, Nonfiction, and Picture Book. The official website calls the awards "among the most prestigious honors in children's and young adult literature".
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The PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction is awarded by PEN America biennially "to a distinguished book of general nonfiction possessing notable literary merit and critical perspective and illuminating important contemporary issues which have been published in the United States during the previous two calendar years. It is intended that the winning book possess the qualities of intellectual rigor, perspicuity of expression, and stylistic elegance conspicuous in the writings of author and economist John Kenneth Galbraith, whose four dozen books and countless other publications continue to provide an important and incisive commentary on the American social, intellectual and political scene."
How to Pronounce Knife is a short story collection by Souvankham Thammavongsa, published in 2020 by McClelland & Stewart. The stories in the collection centre principally on the experiences of Laotian Canadian immigrant families, sometimes from the perspective of children observing the world of adults.
The J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, established in 1999, is a literary award "given annually to aid in the completion of a significant work of nonfiction on a topic of American political or social concern." The prize is given by the Nieman Foundation and by the Columbia University School of Journalism and is intended to "assist in closing the gap between the time and money an author has and the time and money that finishing a book requires.
A History of My Brief Body is an autobiographical series of essays by Billy-Ray Belcourt, published July 14, 2020, by Penguin Canada.
Thomas Page McBee is an American transgender journalist, television writer, and amateur boxer. He was the first transgender man to box in Madison Square Garden, which he discusses in Amateur. His first book, Man Alive, won a Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction.
Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man is a nonfiction book by Thomas Page McBee, published September 8, 2014, by City Lights Publishers. The book centres on the question "What does it really mean to be a man?" as McBee shares his negative experiences with masculinity, including childhood abuse and a mugging, both perpetrated by men.
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