All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy: A Memoir

by Spike Gillespie

Some women have trouble with men. For Spike Gillespie, a widely followed online journalist, those problems started early with her father -- the first and most important man in any child's life. Spike's relationship with her emotionally distant parent was so flawed that she has had an unending series of disasters with men...from the day she first noticed them to the day she made one of her own -- her perfect little boy, Henry.In a memoir of sometimes lacerating honesty, Spike Gillespie tells us the story of her life with men -- a blunt, moving, and profoundly revealing account that asks all the hardest questions about love between the sexes. "All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy" isn't a memoir of abuse or tragedy. But it is about the lack of connection -- to family, to lovers, to the world -- that defines much of modern life. Most importantly, however (and here Henry comes in), Gillespie also tells us a story of hope and resolution, of reaching out to touch the world with the newest tools, the computer and the Internet -- and in the oldest way -- through one's children. And it's about the deepest mysteries -- how we love the ones we love, and how we stop loving them when they're destroying us.

Spike Gillespie first began chronicling her thirty-year adventure of love and heartbreak in a weekly online column, and within a few months she was being described by "USA Today" as the queen of the online confessional. Gillespie has continued to feed her stream-of-consciousness biography to thousands of readers via her website. After years of publishing to the online community, now she is ready to tell the whole tale. Gillespie is a natural storyteller, a writer with a marvelous ability to immerse her readers in a flesh-and-blood world of her lovers, her family, her friends...and above all, her son. This is a writer unafraid to tell the truth -- about human nature, men, family, and motherhood. The result is a memoir of unadorned and refreshing power from a woman on the most intimate terms with passion, anger, love -- and herself.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Hank Stuever · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclosure: Spike is a friend. IN FACT, though we were aware of one another's presence as writers in the same town tend to be, we became friends only when this book came out and I wrote a profile of her for the Austin American-Statesman. The story came out, she didn't hate it, and we've been friends ever since. This is a good introduction to Early Spike; the stories here are endearing and raw and now, 12 years after the book was published, RETRO! Start here, but do have look at her other books. Spike is always evolving but also always her true self. When I think of Austin, and everything I liked about living there, I think of Spike Gillespie.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title says a lot about the essential narcissism of the work. Understand that while the men in this book may not seem to be ideal exemplars of the gender, they are being viewed through a jaundiced eye. Caveat Emptor.