Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution

Difficult Men profiles the changing television landscape of the late 1990s and early 2000s, with a focus on the creators and networks involved in shows like The Wire, The Sopranos and Breaking Bad. Brett Martin digs deeper than you might expect, focusing initially on TV's creative mini-peaks of the 1950s and 1980s before moving on to the Third Golden Age. The book has intelligent biographies of several important creative individuals (David Chase's section is especially strong), and Martin's examination of the process illustrates just how many people are involved in producing quality television. As Vince Gilligan put it, "the worst thing ever the French gave us is the auteur theory. It's a load of horseshit. You don't make a movie by yourself, you certainly don't make a TV show by yourself. You invest people in their work. You make people feel comfortable in their jobs; you keep people talking."