Fire in the Belly

A guide to establishing new personal ideals of heroism, strength, and potency for a fuller life examines the stereotypes, myths, and evolving roles of contemporary men, presenting an alternative vision of virtue and virility.

Drawing from personal anecdotes and from a wide variety of workshop and support group stories, Keen examines how men define themselves in the 1990s now that roles have changed.

From Publishers Weekly
The new male that Keen envisions is neither devoted careerist nor self-absorbed New Age guy nor cool, detached "post-modern man." He is husbandman and steward of the earth–strong, vulnerable, with a capacity for moral outrage, empathy and wonder–whose right livelihood is consonant with ecological awareness. Consulting editor of Psychology Today , Keen ( Faces of the Enemy ) argues that men must define their identities by severing themselves from women as approval-giving mother figures and as the ancient Goddess who continues to exert power within the male psyche's hidden recesses. Going beyond the modern rites of manhood–alienating work, war, performance-oriented sex–the new male "psychonaut" brings forth meaning by undertaking "a spiritual journey into the self." Men–and women–will be enriched by the uncommon insights in Keen's speculative primer.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.