The young Tom loved his father but was also scared of him. Lou was swarthy, charismatic and reckless. Tom was nervous and attached to his put-upon mother. Still, Tom was drawn to his father’s tantalizing example, even as he tried to avoid it. He became a celebrated writer at GQ and Esquire and profiled a range of men, including Norman Mailer and Mister Rogers. In a 2011 essay titled “My Mom Couldn’t Cook,” he wrote like someone who was imprisoned by gender and struggling to get free: “In order to endure cooking like a woman I have to cook like a man — which is to say, for myself.”