On Second Thought For Thursday, May 23, 2019

Writer Steve Oney has been writing for more than four decades for publications such as Esquire, Time, GQ and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Over the course of his career, he estimates that he’s written somewhere between 150 and 200 profiles, 20 of which are included in A Man’s World, a collection of essays now out in paperback. 

All the profiles in A Man’s World explore a common theme: how and what it means to be a man. These have always been pressing questions for Oney, who told GPB Political Rewind host Bill Nigut that his father never fully equipped him for manhood. And so Oney looked toward his subjects for lessons in masculinity. He shared those lessons with us, including what he learned about being a man from actor Harrison Ford and Atlanta architect John Portman.

On Second Thought for Thursday, May 23, 2019

Oney also covered his connection to the Peach State.

Oney has lived in the Hollywood Hills for the past 15 years but grew up in Atlanta. After graduating from the now defunct Peachtree High school, Oney studied journalism at the University of Georgia, which he described as a “big old-fashioned Southern party school.”

But he said he chose writing for the school literary magazine over the UGA party scene. New Journalism — a kind of nonfiction writing that incorporates writing techniques normally reserved for the novel — was in full swing during Oney’s college education in the early 1970s, and he was infatuated with it.

So, rather than attend fraternity parties, Oney said he was busy reading Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion’s latest work.  

Nigut and Oney also discussed aging, technology and the current state of print publications.

British Pantry & Tea Room owner Jeanette Francis, of Warner Robins, speak about the power of food and the nostalgia of childhood dishes.  

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