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In this series of essays based on his previous publications, Donald Moss seeks his own identity as a man, as well as the identity of the men with whom he works as a psychoanalyst. Alan Bass, his explicator, in a foreword titled “On Donald Moss's Style,” writes: “What, then, are men like? Men, for Moss, are always pretending to be men, because they have always just missed being men” (p. xi). For Moss, masculinity is a “masquerade,” a thought referencing Joan Riviere's notion of womanliness as a masquerade (1929). Bass notes that one of Moss's patients “has come upon an almost unbearable truth: that one must seek to achieve an essence of masculinity that does not exist … [that there are] irreducible, contradictory demands” (p. xi). Moss's strategy is to construct what he cannot decide upon: he does this by looking at the concept of masculinity in many different ways in order to get closer to it.
My first impression on reading this book was that it could prove to be a brainteaser of ruminations that possibly could go nowhere. Then it made me uneasy to think that possibly something was the matter with my own thinking process because I was having difficulty following Moss. It was like dancing with a partner I could not follow. Then I began to wonder just who was the klutz in the pair. At last something “kicked in” and