SWOLE

A self-described “meathead” writes compellingly about the world of bodybuilding.

“I am trying to get Big, and doing it very much on purpose. No, I am not sure why. Yes, you can feel my arm.” So writes Brodeur, who, at a glance, might seem an unlikely candidate for bodybuilding: He is, after all, the classical music critic for the Washington Post. But there’s more to bodybuilding than meets the eye. It’s the locus of a gay subculture, a highly visible means of self-expression, and a way of both adopting and subverting he-man ideals—and besides, “I also really love how my ass looks.” Brodeur takes readers on a wide-ranging tour of lifting and the cultural factors that propel “the long physical and psychological road of consciously building one’s body.” One is the world of childhood, in which many boys played with musclemen dolls and unconsciously absorbed their physical ideals; another was the openness of the bodybuilding culture to those who were once the “klutzes who sucked very conspicuously at team sports and grew up to opt for the weight room over the battlefield or the ball field.” Brodeur is consistently funny, but he is also a cleareyed student of the culture with a trove of trivia to fall back on: Who knew that Lou Ferrigno’s Incredible Hulk body double was a Black bodybuilder (no matter, since the filmmakers decided “green is green”) or that some current bodybuilding ideals can be traced to Dutch Renaissance art? Allowing that there are all sorts of prejudices against it, Brodeur, in the end, delivers a host of good reasons for picking up the weights and putting those muscles to work.

A memoir, history, and critical essay in one, sure to captivate anyone who’s ever pumped—or dreamed of pumping—iron.