It was such a pleasure to read Steve Majors’ latest memoir in essays, Man Made: In Search of Dads, Daddies, Father Figures, and Fatherhood, and an even greater privilege to be able to discuss it with him. He explores the intersections of race, identity and family in his work. In his debut memoir, High Yella, he recounted his experience growing up as a white-passing, mixed-race child in an all-Black family in rural Western New York. Now, he goes even deeper.
Sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what to talk about with a person who publishes so much about their personal experiences since it’s all on the page: What else is there to say? But with Steve that’s not the case. Although he explores so many facets of his life and writes eloquently and with great economy, he still has so much wisdom to impart, and I was thrilled to discover that he doesn’t skimp on sharing it.
I don’t often quote from the publisher’s description of a book, but this collection covers so much territory, and they do a good job of summing it up:
“Not all little boys want to grow up to be like their dads. The shy ones, the sensitive ones, the ones people mock as strange or call queer—sometimes they want to grow up to be loved by men who stand in for their fathers. They’ll put up with bullying from an older brother, taunts from the gym teacher, long work hours from a boss, and even discipline from a gay daddy, all as a means to discover what kind of man they truly want to be.
“Steve Majors takes us on a journey of his own self-discovery as he grows from a gay boy in search of a father figure to a gay man grappling with what it means to be a father himself. In doing so, Majors creates various snapshots of time in which his—and the world’s—understanding of what it means to be a gay man changes.”
Yes, yes and yes!
Steve doesn’t shy from the difficult areas of his own life. As he explained during our chat, who he was as a kid is different than who he is was at 20 and who he is today. One particularly poignant moment is around the relationship with his brothers (you can read an excerpt here) and his regret that his gayness probably means he missed out on some opportunities of love and connection with them.
Now for a pivot. I read a section of the essay “Dirty Old Man” that begins with the lines: “When it comes to sex and relationships, men are said to relish the role of hunters. It’s a toxic attribute that applies to some of us, whether straight or gay.” I was intrigued by the closing of the essay that details:
“Like many young men, I first convince myself I am looking for a sexual coupling to bridge the gap in my life. I takes years for me to understand what I need is an emotional connection.
“Like a sixth sense, this man and men like that, have the ability to tune into the vulnerabilities of other men and boys. And when they do, they use psychological coercion, physical force, and sometimes a boy’s drunken consent to fulfill their twisted desires.
“We gay boys and men may think we are the hunters looking for our sexual conquest, but sometimes, all too late, we discover we are they prey.”
That unearthed some vulnerabilities on my own side and I shared a bit about my own tactics to not be perceived as a hunter and how we twist ourselves into curious knots when it comes to hierarchical relationships.
Plus, since he talks about his crushes on several hockey players while in college, I asked him what he thought about the popularity of Heated Rivalry, and the fact that so many straight people are loving the story of gay romance on the ice. I may have met my match with Steve: He seems to obsess over TV and pop culture, and it’s power and influence over us, as much as I do.
Overall, Steve is adept at looking at many of the blueprints and scripts that we are given—by our families, popular culture, historical precedent—and pulling them apart, looking at them closer, questioning and exploring how to rewrite and improve them.
For example, he’s not afraid to reveal that his relationship with his daughters (who are now in their early twenties) is complex and confusing. Although we didn’t have time to go deeper on the topic, he’s shared an excerpt that gets at the crux of the identity conundrum:
“With time, I see the only doubts about my Blackness lie within me, not my kids. To my Black daughters, I am no different than other fathers. As dads, all of us are invariably set side by side against some ideal in our children’s eyes and found wanting. Sometimes, we are perceived to be missing something on the outside: not cool enough, not tall enough, not skinny enough, or not handsome enough. Other times, it’s on the inside, and we’re just not self-aware enough.
Whatever we lack, we cannot convince our kids that we can be anything but who we are. We just have to convince them that we’re just like them — still learning, growing, sometimes failing, and ultimately still trying to find our own identities in this world.”
There’s so much to discover and cherish in Steve’s latest book. I hope you enjoy our conversation and check it out for yourselves!
Thank you The Studio: After Dark, Shant Knows It All, and many others for tuning into my live video with Steve Majors—stay tuned for our next Substack LIVE very soon!
