ABSTRACT
Solidity and commitment are only achieved through a radical refashioning of the self. Locating fulfilment in material reality which is the result of work, the memoirs constitute narratives of love as a process of self-transformation; as an extensive critique of the self under the strains of physical effort and the acquisition of new skills. This chapter examines the organic masculinity, having extracted some common sources of the men's allure in the three narratives. This will help unpack a certain paradigm of manhood that caters to the nostalgic impulses of new domesticity without entailing a return to a pre-Betty-Friedan mentality. It discusses the question of work in relation to the husbandry of feeling that forms the axis of these female metamorphoses. When effective the allure of organic masculinity carries a transformative force, and exerts demands—in other words, answering its call becomes, in part at least, a quest-like ordeal.
