Adventure and Truth. Sacrifice everything for it. It is worth it.

He is a motherless child. A bullied schoolboy. An adventurer scaling mountains. A coloniser of land, of people. Brother. Father. Soldier. Cult leader. He is sipping champagne at his book launch. He is up by 4am for weights, cardio, ice bath. He is recording a podcast. He is living as a badger.

Award-winning writer Alice Birch’s (Anatomy of a Suicide; Normal People) monumental, kaleidoscopic portrait of masculinity from the nineteenth century to the present day explores how male...