Faludi's book is based on in-depth interviews of porn stars and movie stars, conspiracy theorists and promise keepers, displaced workers and juvenile deliquents. What holds the book together is the methodology Faludi employed, although she never explains it as such. She sought far and wide for "men in crisis". She tells a good story, an interesting story, and one that will ring true for a great many men, as well as the women who love them and hate them. She tells this story well.
One of the consistent themes in the book is a gap between expectations and reality for men of the post-WWII generation, and the crisis of identity they've bequeathed to their sons. This crisis is not the whole story, but it is certainly a major chord. Faludi tells it long, and she keeps you reading. _Stiffed_ is a big book, and those who want her to get to the point and explain what it all means will be disappointed. The few tentative conclusions she draws are shallow and incomplete. It is the process that interests her, rather than the conclusion (some might say that is one of the ways her feminist perspective shows through).
However, in this process she leaves out a critical element. She writes of sons and their fathers, but says very little about these sons as fathers. This book appealed to me as a divorced father of two sons, a widowed father of a third, and now step-father to another. None of these roles are highlighted in the lives of the men she interviewed. In a story that often focuses on father-son relationships, Faludi misses the third generation.
All this is to say that _Stiffed_ is a flawed book, but it is one of the best flawed books I've read. And despite its flaws, it's well worth reading and discussing. In ten years this book will be forgotten, but only because people have read it, argued with it, and following a similar process have written more.
