Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals

Grinberg, a history professor at the University of Oklahoma, debuts with a sophisticated exploration of how literary critic Irving Howe, magazine editor Norman Podhoretz, and others of their New York City milieu forged a “secular Jewish masculinity” in the mid-20th century. “Masculinity and Jewishness were linked in the minds of the New York intellectuals,” Grinberg contends, suggesting that her subjects viewed “verbal combativeness, polemical aggression, and an unflinching style of argumentation” as hallmarks of what it meant to “write like a man.” That outlook was a radical departure from the past, Grinberg argues, pointing out that bookish Jewish men were previously associated with the “softer, antimacho” Talmudic scholar stereotype. Grinberg traces the emergence of the new masculine ethos through profiles of Howe and Podhoretz, the latter of whom she suggests drifted to the political right in the 1970s and ’80s as an attempt to embody the “toughness” of conservatism. Grinberg also studies how macho values affected women intellectuals, positing that the aggression with which critic Diana Trilling denounced communism convinced her male peers to take her seriously. The portraits are perceptive and the cultural and historical background highlights how New York’s mid-century intellectual scene negotiated new understandings of and relationships to gender. It’s an enlightening look at an influential literary coterie. Photos. (Mar.)