Edge

by Jeff Mann

Book Overview

The autobiographical essays in Edge offer insight into the passions of acclaimed author Jeff Mann. These memories, insightful as they are endearing, range from his boyhood obsession with the gothic... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 159021059X
• ISBN13: 9781590210598
• Release Date: November 2008
• Publisher: Bear Bones Books
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

You must travel with this Appalachian Leather Bear!

Perhaps knowing Jeff Mann personally has influenced my judgment in reading Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear, but I would have enjoyed this collection without that relationship. Mann is a worldly individual with a penchant for travelling outside of his beloved Appalachia, a man who indulges his appetites for food and drink, and one who has an artist's eye for appreciating the beauty of men. His character is woven into these poetic stories and he comes across on the page as clearly as he does in person. Jeff is a complex individual, one who is fiercely protective of his friends and lovers, a kind and poetic soul, but despite his polite upbringing has a very low tolerance for those who are loud, obnoxious or boring (god forbid you are all three!). Then his entire soul bristles, but he avenges himself with witty barbs that border on the side of Wilde (and these I think I enjoyed as much as the descriptions of the mustachioed he-men that attract his eye.) As good as Edge is, I prefer another of his publications, Loving Mountains, Loving Men, which is a memoir/essay/poetry collection that shows the true heart of this Southern gentleman.

Terrific!

This is the second book I've read by Jeff Mann, and he is quickly becoming an all-time favorite author. Exceedingly honest and intelligently written, Jeff Mann's journey though time is one that will relate to many, especially gay men. I found myself engaged and eager to read every word he had to say. His skills in eroticism had me leaving each read highly aroused. Personal favorites in this book include Teaching Gay & Lesbian Literature, Drambuie, Key West, and Providencetown.

Traversing the edge with a fascinating guide

Jeff Mann makes his living as a teacher and has published as a poet but is revealed in this book as a prose artist. The second essay in the collection, "Watching dark Shadows," should be required reading for everyone, gay or straight. For this straight woman, it was a beautifully painful experience: so exquisitely written, but so terrible to know in such detail what I have the luxury of not experiencing at all in my life. To arrive at the last sentence of this essay is worth the cost of the book.Another essay, entitled "Drambuie," deals with Mann's longing for and envy of youth/youthfulness. In the midst of the essay, as we are involved with Mann's pain (which is that of every one of us as we age), a poem wells up that is simply breathtaking. Anyone who has ever tried to write either prose or poetry must think here "it's not fair to be so good at both!" The poem encapsulates what Mann has been saying to this point, and yet does not say all that is needed - so the essay goes forward and we go with it, for there is much of the edge yet to traverse. This book should be read by anyone who loves good writing, and by all straight women, who will really take heart from Mann's tales of survival from all the lousy relationships he had before he finally found a good man.