THE DEATH OF A MAN

An articulate and personal exploration of masculinity in fourteen essays by renowned writer and critic Juhani Brander

In his formative years, writer and critic Juhani Brander was an avid reader, but in secret. He devoured poetry—Edith Södergran, Tomas Tranströmer—and during his military service, James Ellroy, but literature was considered feminine, at odds with the prevailing norms of Brander’s male gender growing up in western Finland during the 1980s.

The Death of the Man: Reflections on Masculinity is Brander’s personal account of the mechanisms that make up masculinity and a clarion call for an open discussion about it, painfully describing how boys are moulded into “men” from within masculine culture. Drawing on his own experience, Brander examines violence, sport, and the army as key elements of toxic masculinity. He sheds light on the contradictions of masculinity and the cultural processes that reproduce it. Brander also addresses why boys don’t read books and why it is so difficult for men to talk about their feelings. He examines the #metoo campaign, the over-sexualised culture of today, and the impact of pornography on sexuality.

Sparing no detail to reveal the reasons why men remain silent about their experiences of shame, including assault and sexual harassment, The Death of the Man: Reflections on Masculinity shows that there are multitudes within men and masculinity, but under the stifling grip of hegemonic masculinity, their voices are stifled.