How to Be Normal: Essays

Phil Christman is one of the best cultural critics working today. Or, as a reviewer of his previous book, Midwest Futures, put it, ＂one of the most underappreciated writers of [his] generation.＂You may also know Phil from his columns in Commonweal and Plough, or his viral essay ＂What Is It Like To Be A Man?＂, the latter adapted in his new book, How to Be Normal.

Christman’s second book includes essays on ＂How To Be White,＂ ＂How to Be Religious,＂ ＂How To Be Married,＂ and more, in addition to new versions of the above. Find in it also brilliant analyses of middlebrow culture, bad movies, Mark Fisher, Christian fundamentalism, and more.

With exquisite attention to syntax and prose, the astoundingly well-read Christman pairs a deceptively breezy style with radical openness. In his witty, original hands, seemingly ＂normal＂ subjects are rendered exceptional, and exceptionally.

A former substitute teacher, shelter worker, and home health aide, Phil Christman currently lectures in the English department at University of Michigan. His work has appeared in The Hedgehog Review, Commonweal, The Christian Century, The Outline, and other places. He holds an MFA from the University of South Carolina-Columbia. He is the editor of the Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing, a journal sponsored by the University of Michigan’s Prison Creative Arts Project. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI.