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A fearless consideration of sex and power that is also a moving meditation on the possibility of love. --Amy Fusselman His honesty would be startling if we didn't already expect just this from David Shields: a willingness to ask what no one wants to ask (but everyone longs to know) and say what no one will say (but everyone longs to hear). --Sallie Tisdale This extraordinary, revelatory, brilliant book is a riveting exploration of sadism and masochism and, more importantly, the hold these powerful poles have on all of our psyches--how SM can creep into a marriage, turning and twisting it until it resembles something pornographic. At the same time that Shields explores these impulses, he wrestles with the concept of privacy. How much can one reveal about one's deepest desires? Can one explore one's marriage and still stay in it? Can writing and marriage coexist if the writer wants to be nakedly, brutally truthful about himself/herself? What matters more--the ties that bind us to each other or the blank page demanding the dark ink of honesty? The reader is held enthralled, watching with ever widening eyes, unable to turn away. --Lauren Slater A great book, which deserves a wide readership. No one else does what Shields does: the breadth of his cultural references; the depth of his intellectual and emotional investigation, which never feels didactic; and the utterly original way in which he combines personal experience, literary criticism, and quotation to explore all aspects of sentient life and culture. --Susan Daitch On the surface, this book is very serious and risky, but there's a wink, and the wink comes in the construction. Shields says extraordinarily candid things and then, instead of weighing the reader down with all these experiences, memories, questions, desires, and analyses, he brings in echoing and countering voices of ancient and modern writers that lift the book right back up into the air. This technique and the brevity make the book both intimate and universal. --Whitney Otto I've often wondered whether a married person can write about sex and love with any degree of candor and hope to stay married. David Shields's answer: a book that is dangerously, melancholically truthful but also an elegant work of art. The Trouble with Men is unexpectedly moving and sneakily profound. --Laura Kipnis David Shields is the most honest writer alive. --John Skoyles

A fearless consideration of sex and power that is also a moving meditation on the possibility of love. --Amy Fusselman His honesty would be startling if we didn't already expect just this from David Shields: a willingness to ask what no one wants to ask (but everyone longs to know) and say what no one will say (but everyone longs to hear). --Sallie Tisdale This extraordinary, revelatory, brilliant book is a riveting exploration of sadism and masochism and, more importantly, the hold these powerful poles have on all of our psyches--how SM can creep into a marriage, turning and twisting it until it resembles something pornographic. At the same time that Shields explores these impulses, he wrestles with the concept of privacy. How much can one reveal about one's deepest desires? Can one explore one's marriage and still stay in it? Can writing and marriage coexist if the writer wants to be nakedly, brutally truthful about himself/herself? What matters more--the ties that bind us to each other or the blank page demanding the dark ink of honesty? The reader is held enthralled, watching with ever widening eyes, unable to turn away. --Lauren Slater David Shields is the most honest writer alive. --John Skoyles A great book, which deserves a wide readership. No one else does what Shields does: the breadth of his cultural references; the depth of his intellectual and emotional investigation, which never feels didactic; and the utterly original way in which he combines personal experience, literary criticism, and quotation to explore all aspects of sentient life and culture. --Susan Daitch On the surface, this book is very serious and risky, but there's a wink, and the wink comes in the construction. Shields says extraordinarily candid things and then, instead of weighing the reader down with all these experiences, memories, questions, desires, and analyses, he brings in echoing and countering voices of ancient and modern writers that lift the book right back up into the air. This technique and the brevity make the book both intimate and universal. --Whitney Otto I've often wondered whether a married person can write about sex and love with any degree of candor and hope to stay married. David Shields's answer: a book that is dangerously, melancholically truthful but also an elegant work of art. The Trouble with Men is unexpectedly moving and sneakily profound. --Laura Kipnis

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David Shields is the internationally best-selling author of twenty books, including Reality Hunger (named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications), The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (New York Times bestseller), Black Planet (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award), and Other People: Takes & Mistakes (NYTBR Editors' Choice selection). The film adaptation of I Think You're Totally Wrong: A Quarrel was released by First Pond Entertainment in 2017. A recipient of Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and a senior contributing editor of Conjunctions, Shields has published essays and stories in the New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Esquire, Yale Review, Salon, Slate, McSweeney's, and Believer. His work has been translated into two dozen languages.

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