In the Land of Men audiobook

An instant classic. Adrienne Miller was the fiction editor at Esquire magazine in the late-90s when she was still in her twenties. Crossed paths with Mailer, Updike, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Eggers, and, the real subject of her book, David Foster Wallace, whom she edited (some of his best short stories appeared in Esquire, including “Adult World (I),” “Adult World (II),” and “Incarnations of Burned Children”), and with whom she shared a romance, off and on, for several years. It’s something of a lurid tell-all (one review is titled “Infinite Jerk”), but offers lots more about the era, its literature, its sexism, and the rise and fall of glossy magazine publishing at a time when the Internet was just taking hold. Miller chose not to talk with D.T. Max for his biography of Wallace, so the material presented here is largely uncharted and eye-opening. Her respect for Wallace as a writer is worshipful. The mind games she endured during their wildly complicated relationship are jaw-dropping. The richest, fullest portrait of David Foster Wallace that has so far appeared in print. Highly recommended.

I loved this book. Miller worked for Esquire and GQ before the MeToo era, and when the literary giants were all men. Here, she details her time as the fiction editor of GQ and includes her fraught relationship with David Foster Wallace. Not only is Miller really astute about things like power, chauvinism and writing, but her detailing of her relationship with Wallace is so, so moving. Loved this book.

From the moment I started reading In the Land of Man, I couldn’t put it down. As if Adrienne Miller is sitting beside you, telling you the truths of her early career with unsurpassed skill, wit and humor. This is a must read for any young woman or man about to enter the literary world. It is a tribute to any woman who has navigated her career with finesse and fortitude. And watch out. You will never read David Foster Wallace’s work in the same way again.

In Miller's hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, she proves herself to be among the class of brilliant writers and thinkers that she is reflecting on. Through her intellectual relationship with David Foster Wallace, Miller displays her genius as a woman who was unafraid to push, criticize and motivate one of the most prolific writers of the era. In doing so, she also highlights the nature of the male dominated literary world, in which it is the job of brilliant women like Miller, who is a writer and intellectual herself, to prop up the ideas of brilliant-- but destructive-- men, while these men tend to their own success.The most impressive aspects of the memoir are the narrative thread, which is packed with humor and some truly sharp observations, and the dialogue. Miller has a way with dialogue. Some of the DFW quotes included in the book are truly a gift. The "character" of DFW is so real, so multifaceted-- he is both devil and angel-- that reading his quotes will make you shiver. Perhaps one of the most fascinating aspects of the book is how Miller weaves him into the narrative. The first half of the book, in learning about Miller's literary ascent, she becomes the "hero": modest, smart, and funny, she is easy to root for. Then, DFW-- a God to many-- is introduced to her already-established narrative. By framing her story in this way, Miller makes it so that David, upon entering the memoir, is not our hero. But he's not our villain, either. His presence in the book is both threatening and charming, lovely and disgusting. He is a necessary evil, whose deliciously wicked acts highlight Miller's struggles as a woman in the Land of Men. You will want to recommend this book to everyone you know. Can't wait for her next book!

"The truth: my world had been built around protecting male egos. This was the world I lived in. This was the world I knew, and I never believed this world could, or would, change. It seemed incomprehensible that the system could ever collapse." It's so easy to judge a book like this, and I felt pretty damn judgy while reading parts of it. The way she excuses DFW over and over again is gross, and I have a feeling we didn't get anywhere near the worst of it. Not even the half of it. Also, I've never had to google so many words in my life! This being said, who hasn't been in a super shitty relationship? I mean, come on. And her vocabulary is just clearly a lot better than mine (though I would argue that mine is quite good and some of her twenty-five cent words should have been cut). Despite these things, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I love her prose, and I loved getting a view into this world. It's honest. Sure, it's not *totally* honest, but that's okay. I would read this book again, which is about the highest praise I can give any book. Thanks to Miller and women like her, all of us have more space in the literary world. Sure, she didn't publish many women (or only a few of the most famous ones, and close to zero POC) but she was just holding on herself, and barely. That world has changed so much in the last twenty years and I'm thankful to Miller for playing a role in that change. I'm not a DFW fan but I enjoyed reading about a young Dave Eggers. But mostly I enjoyed reading about a young Adrienne.

Beautifully written and very interesting. Loved the trip down memory lane. Thank you Goodreads Giveaways.

https://medium.com/springboard-though...Adrienne Miller’s memory is a fabulously keen thing. Her memoir is vivid and detailed and, to the dismay of some critics, apparently, approached entirely on her own terms.Having entered the publishing world of GQ and, later, in 1997, the imminent Esquire, Miller proceeds to carve an almost Mad Men like career. Almost. Her boss only reigns in the spending, otherwise, it appears she is able to do what she likes and does it well.But even from the start, she feels something is amiss. As though she thought she’d acquired something else with the position… but it had yet to arrive.Just as consumers do now, truncating the thin barrier that once gave some measure of privacy to the artist in capitalism — too many men in Miller’s lane seem to have no problem whatever dismissing Adrienne’s professional position and person.It seems to many men in this scene, the only thing that had shifted with her position — was that now they had access to her; a desirable woman.Adrienne recalls early on that an author’s agent tells her, face-to-face, matter-of-factly, that she “has no authority” to do her job.This punctuated by lunches and dinners — all established as working — more men treat her as they presumably treat any other woman. Sometimes with verbal abuse. Sometimes submitting unwanted sexual advances.As when a writer submits a piece of work and is published, Miller’s entrance and acceptance come with the unadvertised dynamics of being transformed into a commodity.People want a piece of her; whatever they can get, apparently.Don’t get me wrong: this isn’t to say that she doesn’t also wield some power, it is just being constantly tested in a series of raptors-attacking-an-electrified-fence-like-encounters by the men in this space.She’s a tastemaker. She is in the “red hot” center of the literary world. She has sole control over what is published in a pretty big deal magazine.So what is power, precisely, if it isn’t acknowledged by those in the kingdom?Miller appears to have been let into a poker game, only no one has told her the rules and she is made to feel like she is constantly bluffing because they keep telling her she is; so she must be.Is power afforded to women merely a seat at a table with people you’d rather not play with?For about half the memoir Miller recounts with clarity, detail, and adroit prose, these working years. It is enticing and also proves she was probably fantastic at her job. Her contentment radiates as she talks about how hard it is to reject pieces, which pieces spoke to her, and why. Her enthusiasm is infectious. Despite the cancerous interactions that occur from time to time.But then a shift occurs.The latter half of the memoir contains her final years, which become somewhat arrested due to two things: Esquire slowly stops publishing pieces, and David Foster Wallace inserts himself into her life (who, by the way, deserved an actual arrest, apparently).This shift is also quite clever and unique to any memoir I’ve yet read.What is it like to work in this Land of Men? The first half encompasses that. What does it feel like? The relationship she has with DFW is an apt analogy as ever there was one.Clearly, Miller is aware of how her framing of the memoir will be received by some critics today, because she telegraphs it in the critical reactions of other things in her recounting. And she’s right, as she was back then, with her finger on the pulse of the critics.The reviews online often critique the memoir for her allowing Wallace to dominate a narrative that ought to be about her, for the most part (even as they use pictures of DFW rather than Adrienne attached to these pieces critiquing the memoir, ironically).Why doesn’t she talk more about the business and the inside baseball? That’s what is actually interesting here, according to them. This could be more feminist, couldn’t it? It feels like it’s maybe two books.It would be funny if it wasn’t sad.They’ve missed the point of the memoir, foreshadowed from the start: David Foster Wallace, being the embodiment of the writing scene at the time, is synonymous with the traversal of her later career as an editor.It is one story. It isn’t inside baseball and then also a eulogy to DFW.What does it feel like to edit Esquire? You get who she was before Wallace, and the way she was after Wallace, and why.It feels like being subsumed and gaslit.Discounted; underestimated; manipulated.Miller’s romantic relationship with DFW is foreshadowed and, retrospectively, inevitable, when considering the stories he submits to her for publication and editing.These same pieces she edits professionally become embodiments of how he treated her (and probably others). And because the memoir is about the dynamics of power, even the structure of the memoir itself, with over 50% of it being about Wallace, is in service to that goal.Her passion for her job and life dwindles within the omnipresence of Wallace. And he must also, therefore, dominate the page count.Only with 20 years of perspective and reflection is Miller able to see what her story and her career and her relationship was actually like.People are complicated. Trauma is complicated. Disentangling the two cannot really be done. Why would you ever edit out trauma or, really even the complexities of a man, when the topic and aim is to discuss the negotiation of a man’s world? His world, in particular.Is it unfortunate that so much of it must involve Wallace?Sure.In the sense that it is unfortunate that these things happened to her.To wish that Miller talked less about Wallace is a banal wish that the world was different and she never went through these things and now feels the way she does about them.It isn’t a different world.The memoir is Miller’s story because of and despite Wallace’s overbearing presence in it.It’s what makes it unique. It’s what makes it good.

First appeared at https://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.c...Adrienne Miller had the toughest easiest dream job ever: She was the fiction editor for Esquire in the late 1990s, which I don't know about you, but I think that sounds awesome. The late 1990s were the last gasp of the golden age of print magazines, but also the last hold out for the 'ol boys club that was the magazine industry. And nowhere exemplified that more than Esquire, the long-time publisher of dudes like Norman Mailer and John Updike, not exactly known for their progressive stances on women.In the Land of Men is Miller's memoir of her time first at GQ, then at Esquire. It's really two books in one — the first half is about her career in the magazine field, and it's fascinating. But then the bomb: She meets, forms a friendship, and then begins dating the one and only, the mercurial, the brilliant David Foster Wallace. Miller discusses the first time she met DFW, at the launch party for Infinite Jest, which, just reading that bit made quake with jealousy. But then, seemingly overwhelmed by all the attention, he sort of snubs her and her boss, and she thinks he's kind of a jerk. But soon, she and DFW begin working together on a story, and he calls her (he doesn't do email) all the time, even during non-work hours. Their conversations quickly crossover from the practicalities of editing his story to the more personal.He's living in Bloomington, Illinois, at the time, but comes to NYC periodically for publishing things, and they make a "date" for the next time he's there. They're supposed to play tennis, but the courts are booked solid, so they just walk and talk and have a picnic. He's supposed to go to a dinner that night, and asks her to come with him back to his hotel room to hang out while he gets ready. Then, one of my absolute favorite details of the whole book: He's showering and leaves the door half open, which she thinks is odd. But then she writes that he tells her later he did that because he was hoping she'd join him in the shower. Ah, the male mind: Infinitely optimistic, against all reason. So their relationship continues, long-distance and once-in-awhile-in-person. She likes him, despite his insecurity and his penchant for being distant and emotionally detached (and sometimes even cruel). He genuinely respects her as a reader and editor — which she doesn't get quite often as a young woman in a male-dominated field. (There is a lot in this memoir about the horrendous sexism she had to deal with. It's really saddening.) But because she's unwilling to move to Bloomington and he's unwilling to move to New York City, their relationship begins fading, and then bombs out in dramatic fashion.When this book first crossed my radar (it came out earlier this year), and I realized it's a memoir about magazine editing, with new details about David Foster Wallace, my first thought was "Wow! This might be the perfect book for me." I wouldn't say it was a perfect reading experience — Miller is a good writer, but man, there are a lot of darlings here that should've been murdered (what's the saying about how editors never follow their own advice when they're writing themselves). But I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Though you take most of the insight into DFW with a grain of salt, it's still a fascinating new angle.

What a beautiful and compelling memoir! This is a MUST read, and there is so much here to discuss! It's the story a young woman who worked as an assistant in a very male environment, think Devil Wears Prada, but if Andy was in a much tougher workplace, who had in addition to the normal assistant job headaches, had to deal with sexual harassment around every corner! It's also like if Mad Men was more focused on Peggy's POV instead of Don Draper's. The characters around her, especially the editor Art, really come to life. We also get some backstory on Adrienne, and I found her obsession with the film Amadeus growing up totally fascinating, and see how it many ways it foreshadows things to come in her own life and career.From there, Adrienne moves out of the assistant world, and gets a job as an actual editor, as the first female literary editor at Esquire. The magazine has a long tradition of publishing the top male writers -- Normal Mailer, John Updike, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc, and the editors before her have been legendary, and also all men. As a young woman with that job, in the all male culture of Esquire, she has her hands full. She tries to carve out her place, and fend off male harassment, men who think she's unqualified for the job and want to take her down, and even finding out one of her close male colleagues, who is at the same level as her, is making TWICE her salary. She's up against great odds, and just trying to get by. She works with many writers, and focuses on her professional and personal relationship with David Foster Wallace, the writer of his generation, and the writer she worked with most. Their dynamic is fascinating, the dialogue between them (and throughout the book, really), is riveting. They seem like equals, and David depends on Adrienne for her smarts, and Adrienne is fascinated with Wallace's writerly talent. Yes, David is manipulative, but the book presents him fairly, as someone who is complex, someone who can be the most amazing person, and also the worst -- in other words, he is a HUMAN BEING. He clearly loves her, and she loves him, and they also respect each other. The book goes deeper into their dynamic, and their work on stories is actually page-turning to read about. This has to be the best and most vivid portrayal of David Foster Wallace out there, but it's really Adrienne who we see as a remarkable and very relate-able character. The writing here is beautiful. It's a funny book, and a very moving one, and I was inspired by her journey. This is the best book I have read in a long time. Thank you Adrienne for sharing your journey!!

I loved this memoir. I underlined and sent screen shots to friends, a lot. Adrienne Miller does the impossible job of writing about her time as the Literary Editor of Esquire and discussing her relationship with David Foster Wallace. Miller discusses how men-centric the magazine world was at the end of its Golden Era. The year is 1997 and she’s the first female literary editor. These parts of the novel sing. It’s filled with all the literary name dropping and behind the scenes magazine life one could hope for. I mean, her coworker was Dave Eggers.It is her more complicated relationship with David Foster Wallace where the memoir hurts. Readers know this story is not a happy ending, they know the fate of Wallace, and can assume the fate of Miller's relationship with him. There is sorrow and future loss streaking every page he's on. The foreshadowing of an unhappy end. But these two stories cannot be untangled. To write about her time at Esquire, she must write about Wallace, and to write about Wallace she must tell of the relationship’s dysfunctions.Her insight into power dynamics in relationships are especially poignant. It is a bittersweet read.

This is Adrienne Miller’s memoir about her time as the literary editor of Esquire magazine in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I was originally enticed into buying this book because Miller was in a romantic relationship with David Foster Wallace during part of her time as Esquire, and I’m fascinated by DFW. As I was reading the book, however, I became much more interested in Miller herself and less focused on her interactions with DFW. Astoundingly, Miller landed her Esquire dream job at the age of 25 without any help from family or industry connections. In her self-deprecating style, she explains, “We tend to over dramatize our own agency…luck is at least 80 percent of life and maybe even more than that.” I don’t believe it, though, because Miller shows herself to be passionate, hardworking, and courageous. DFW enters the story about halfway through, and Miller portrays this “dazzlingly complicated person” in a way that highlights his genius without hiding his (pretty enormous) flaws. In addition to DFW groupies, I’d recommend this memoir to anyone who is interested in the art of editing and publishing.

A really fascinating glimpse into the world of literary magazines, but it's just that: a glimpse. This book is really cool, but I would've loved for it to have been a hundred or more pages longer. At it's current length and scope, it kinda leaves me wanting both a better memoir, a better history of GQ and Esquire, and a better tell-all. As is, it sort of gives you just a taste of all three. As someone who finds himself constantly drawn back to David Foster Wallace, I was eager to read the sections involving him, but for a writer who insists that she's more than the men she serves, Miller seems perfectly willing to shape the entire second half of the book around her relationship with this one manipulative genius character. I want to know more about HER, not just the literary comets she had to endure.(OK - to be fair, this whole book might be a larger statement on how male egos shape women's work and personal lives, but I feel like Adrienne Miller could've done more to break the rules of the game, instead of just being cheekily self-aware of them.)

I really liked this book! While the second half of the book is about her relationship with a well-known author, and she gets hate for it, I think it's important to the story. How else do you tell YOUR story about trudging through THE LAND OF MEN when it also includes LITERALLY BEING WITH THE KIND OF GUY WHO MAKES YOUR LIFE KIND OF HARD!! Having a relationship with a man is normal (if that's your thing) and I don't know why she gets hate for it. It made me happy to read and understand her journey, both professionally and personally. Plus, we all need a few shitty guys to realize a good one. (and I posted about this on my blog and she DMed me! She's great. Shameless plug: @fromatozmiami)

Terrific memoir of a young woman in her 20s making it in the sexist New York literary jungle of the 1980s. For no really good reason the author can see, she is made literary editor of Esquire toward the end of its glory days as an avatar of the American short story. She's likable with a piercing intellect as she tries to deal with being a female in a position of authority who has to deal with the likes of Norman Mailer. Her editing of David Foster Wallace leads to a fraught, rocky, and artistically-creative relationship. If anything, the author dwells on this a little too much. Her life story is compelling for more than that.