12 authors every man should read

Esquire racks 'em up for us. Despite the mag's tendency to lay on the romanticism with a trowel (Norman Mailer a "fragile soul?" Really? I thought he was a cranky old overrated asshole who hated women), I say:

• Happy to see Flan O here.

• Jesus is trying to get me to re-read "As I Lay Dying." Faulkner and his tome came up during my book club's discussion last night. And now Esquire is pushing the craziest book from the craziest Southerner to pick up a fifth of bourbon and peck on a Remington,

• Cormac McCarthy, the author Esquire aptly observes as knowing that man is capable of terrible evil, looks like your second-son uncle who would not hurt a flea.

"It's because I'm alone. If I could just feel it, it would be different, because I would not be alone. But if I were not alone, everybody would know it. And he could do so much for me, and then I would not be alone. Then I could be all right alone."
- William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying