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# Difficult Men
- URL: https://www.philsimon.com/difficult-men/
- Published: 2013-06-30T20:52:57.000Z
- Updated: 2025-06-20T00:11:34.000Z
- Description: A look at Brett Martin's new book.
- Author: Phil Simon
- Tags: Book Reviews, Breaking Bad, HuffPo

While working on my own [books](https://www.philsimon.com/books), I have to be careful about my own reading. I usually take a break from pleasure reading when scribing a new text. As readers of this blog know, I'm a huge fan of *Breaking Bad, The Sopranos,* and other long-form dramas about morally complicated characters.

Against that backdrop, I couldn't wait to get my hands on [*Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad*](https://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Men-Creative-Revolution-ebook/dp/B00AEDDPFA/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1372623658&sr=1-1&keywords=difficult+men&linkCode=as2&tag=phisim-20&ref=philsimon.com) (affiliate link) by *New Yorker* writer [Brett Martin](https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt%5Fathr%5Fdp%5Fsr%5F1?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-alias=books&field-author=Brett%20Martin&sort=relevancerank&ref=philsimon.com). I pre-ordered it months ago and yesterday the book arrived.

*Difficult Men* is well written and researched and I did enjoy it. Roughly 50 pages in, though, something began gnawing at me. *Difficult Men* feels like two separate books fused into one, and the result is ultimately unsatisfying.

## Oddly Titled

I'd wager that nearly 70 percent of the book is about *The Sopranos*, clearly the show that spawned what Martin calls "the creative revolution." No argument here. Matthew Weiner of *Mad Men* sports a *Sopranos*' lineage. And [Vince Gilligan](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FVince%5FGilligan&ei=m5fQUYb5O4mkigKsyIC4Cg&usg=AFQjCNGjrx6aNbZc7HeWktYY0GaEoHzIYw&sig2=SA%5FAl4oLv0re9w3bfiQD%5FA) has said that there would be no Walter White without Tony Soprano. Additional kudos go to David Simon's *The Wire*, also a groundbreaking show. Unfortunately, however, Martin gives culturally significant series like *Six Feet Under,* *Breaking Bad*, and others short shrift.

For some reason, Martin keeps bringing everything back to *The Sopranos*, and often its creator David Chase. *Difficult Men* spends far too much time on the show that spawned the Creative Revolution and not enough on the other shows of that revolution. Yes, *The Sopranos* was important. We get it. As I read the book I kept asking myself, Why not just write a book about *The Sopranos* and another, more balanced one on what Martin calls *The Third Golden Age of Television*? Maybe the publisher recommended that Martin add popular shows to the subtitle of the book for SEO purposes?

A few pet peeves: I lost count of the number of times that the author dropped words like *auteur* and *tropes*. Some of that seemed a bit gratuitous. And why Bryan Cranston is on the cover of this book is beyond me. This is mostly a book about *The Sopranos* and the impact it has had.

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**Originally published on [*Huffington Post*](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-simon/book-review-difficult-men%5Fb%5F3526224.html?ref=philsimon.com "HuffPo - Book Review").**