Buy used:
$12.62
Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime
FREE delivery Monday, May 13 on orders shipped by Amazon over $35
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by Jenson Books Inc
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Nice clean copy with no highlighting or writing. We take pride in our accurate descriptions. Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and Amazon Prime.

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you grow your business. Learn more about the program.

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

William J. Mann
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Men from the Boys Paperback – June 1, 1998

by William J. Mann (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 72 ratings
See all formats and editions
Jeff O’Brien - bright, good-looking, and inching dangerously past thirty, is caught between two generations, the Baby Boomers and Generation X. He’s been with his partner, Lloyd, for seven years now, but when Lloyd announces that there’s no passion left between them, Jeff is sent into something of an existential frenzy. Desperate not to end up alone, Jeff haunts the dance floor and roadside rest stops, finding both the sordid and the sublime in anonymous encounters. But it’s love he’s after, so ultimately it’s his bittersweet romance in Provincetown with Eduardo, twenty-two and a vision of gorgeous, wide-eyed youth, that lingers in his mind and seems to hold the answers he seeks. This is a story of a man coming to terms with the accelerating ambiguity of his world, where men die young but old age is actively devalued. It is the story of gay life today, the life being led by thousands of men trying desperately to keep up, and to discover if anything really unites gay men other than desire. It is the story of how the truths of gay life are handed down from gay generation to gay generation. It is the story of what separates the men from the boys.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    352 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Plume
  4. Publication date
    June 1, 1998
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0452278562
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0452278561
  9. See all details
Next page
The Amazon Book Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

William J. Mann is the critically acclaimed author of Wisecracker: The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star, as well as The Biograph Girl and the novel The Men from the Boys. He is a contributor to Architectural Digest, The Boston Phoenix, and The Advocate.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Plume (June 1, 1998)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0452278562
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0452278561
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 72 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
William J. Mann

William J. Mann

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

I live in two of the most beautiful places on the planet ' Provincetown, Massachusetts, with its exquisite light and ever-shifting dunes in the summer and the fall, and Palm Springs, California, with its majestic mountains and invigorating desert air in the winter and the spring. I am indeed blessed.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
72 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Earth Worm
5.0 out of 5 stars Gorgeous!
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2014
Verified Purchase
I LOVED this book. First, it's gorgeously written. Secondly, he manages to capture something that has rarely been captured in main stream fiction. Mann has conjured a palpable sensation of what it's like to be trapped in a developmental transition which is disorienting and is resisted chaotically before something consolidates and one finds a new way to respond to ones experiences. I was so impressed with his capacity to create a first person protagonist voice that is both un-sympathetic as well as completely relate-able. He hasn't shied away from complexity as well as over-simplified stereotypes. It's iconic of a trapped generation confused about its freedoms.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
RSRS
4.0 out of 5 stars Boys will be boys - but not men?
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
I read somewhere that gay men think about sex once every two minutes - or maybe it was twice in one minute. In any case, I wasn't surprised that Jeff was obsessed with sex, and I didn't think it made him a bad person. Some reviewers said he never grew up, or that he was too self-absorbed, or that he simply couldn't get his life act together. Well, maybe all those comments are true, but that doesn't make him especially unique. I've known quite a few people like that (hope I'm not one of them). Anyway I didn't think the book was unrealistic.

Other reviewers thought the book was boring, i.e., that it simply repeated all the gay stereotypes. Well, there's something to that comment, but it didn't stop me from reading or enjoying the book. We've got a lot of novels out there about P'town, the gay life style, problems of being gay, etc., and I wouldn't want to read one every week - as opposed to books, say, on World War II or U.S. politics - but it's good to get a
reminder of what things were like for gays in the 1990s. I'm gay and have quite a few gay friends, but basically exist in a heterosexual world. Even though none of my best friends died of AIDS, quite a few people I knew or knew of did, and there was a pall hanging over the whole era that never went away. So this book was a good reminder of what things were like then on the gay front, and how one could never really escape completely from thoughts about the AIDS plague.

One criterion I use in selecting what books to read is to notice if the sum total of Amazon reviews adds up to four stars or more. Below that, I seldom bother. This book averaged out to four stars, but I was surprised at how extreme the comments were. Some people absolutely loved the book, but a substantial number were highly negative. What does that mean? Well, I'm not sure, but my guess is that most of the reviewers are gay, and that they are divided into those who were out in the period under consideration (and thus might find the book repetitive and lacking in plot and action), and those who are younger (and thus freshly exposed to how things were in a previous millennium). Now and then, I get a reminder that AIDS is still with us, but it's not now a dark cloud dominating the current era.
Helpful
 Report
ChiGuy19
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it and get the series.
Reviewed in the United States on June 10, 2020
Verified Purchase
Loved this book when I read it years ago. Finished the series.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Wayne M. Malin
5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of gay literature (in my opinion)
Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2009
This place in Boston and Provincetown of 1994 and 1995. The narrator of the book is Jeff O'Brien--he's 33, gay, a writer and going through a variety of crises. He's starting to feel he's too old for the youth-obsessed gay world; his lover of many years (Lloyd) has just told him the "passion" has gone out of their relationship; his first lover Javitz is dying of AIDS and he gets seriously involved with 18 year old Eduardo.

When I first read this in 1997 it blew me away. I live in a suburb of Boston and I can tell you--this caught the gay life of Boston in the late 1990s perfectly! The characters, situations and locales were all familar with me. It was almost like reading a non-fiction book! Any gay men who were living in or around Boston in the late 1990s will probably enjoy this. I've read it two or three times since then and loved it each time. Of course it IS dated now but it's so accurate. Some people have complained that the main character is obnoxious and annoying. That's true--but that's just like real life. (Actually I find his lover Lloyd a hundred times worse than Jeff!) The characters talk (and act) like real people and the situations are realistic. It's also kind of sad reading this. Two places listed (Mildreds and a bookstore--We Think the World of You) are long gone and this was written when getting AIDS was an automatic death sentence. This book does have some problems however. Some characters get on your nerves (more than once I wanted to hit Lloyd) and Eduardo was WAY too intelligent for any 18 year old. Also I was never part of the partying and hook-up crowd this book shows--but those guys DID (and still do) exist. Still this is a truthful, insighful book that is a classic of gay literature. This was so popular that author Mann went and wrote a sequel (Where the Boys Are) in 2003 and a few years later did ANOTHER (which I think is the end) called "Men Who Love Men". The second one was as good as this (if much longer) and the third was the shortest--and the worst. Still this is well worth reading as an accurate picture of gay men in Boston in the late 1990s. WELL worth reading.
5 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Harel Papikian
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my very favorite ones.
Reviewed in the United States on March 30, 2016
Genuine, sincere, and deeply moving. One of my very favorite ones.
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Jean-Guy Dumoulin
5.0 out of 5 stars Best gay author according to me.
Reviewed in Canada on June 23, 2015
Verified Purchase
the gay novels written by this author are among the best I've read. And I have read hundreds of them gay novels.
Report
Steve
5.0 out of 5 stars A page-turning story of gay life in the mid 1990s
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 3, 2023
Verified Purchase
I have just re-read this book after a long absence and found it as engaging, powerful and moving as I did first time round. Its central characters, all gay men, live in a world which mixes love, promiscuity and the fear of AIDS. Partly because of the fear of testing HIV positive, and partly because of the Provincetown culture which is at the heart of the book, youth seems to end by the mid-20s, and illness brings on premature ageing. At its heart, this is an affecting love story, significant for its insights into the complexity of the emotions and interactions of the key characters. I was sorry when I had got to the end.
Report
St George
1.0 out of 5 stars Boring, repetitive and poor characterisation
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2013
Verified Purchase
Don't bother with this. the story is uninspiring and the scenes all the same. How these guys stay in a relationship is beyond me. There appears no happiness in their life.
Report