Man Trouble

David Algar draws on psychological analysis, research studies and his own experiences as businessman, husband, son, father and friend to offer the reader different ways of mapping the contested and continually revised terrains of masculinity. The collection examines how men conduct relationships with each other, with women and with their work. It shines a particular light on what happens to masculine identity when it is challenged by political or personal events, the zeitgeist, or the process of ageing. It ranges from serious issues such as loneliness and tribalism through to the impulsive madness that might result in the purchase of, say, a seventeenth-century windmill or a peacock. Reading these essays – funny, thought-provoking, unexpectedly moving and ultimately bonding – is like eavesdropping on the kinds of conversations, both intimate and raucous, that men might have with each other in pubs.