The past few months, I have experienced multiple male cab drivers trying to get my phone number to take me out on a date. One even stopped his car a few blocks away from my apartment. I have also had men yell “Nice tits” and make obscene gestures at me while driving away. I got a boob job a few years ago, so you could say I was asking for it, but the sheer volume of men who corner me in public would suggest that it’s more than an isolated incident. This kind of harassment is ubiquitous.
Still, I love men. I would like them to do better because I do often enjoy their company. I know I have previously panned many books on reforming the coarser sex—you could say we are living in a crisis of bad books about the masculinity crisis. Thankfully, Jon Ronson’s The Castle is a thoughtful, empathetic work of narrative journalism. His prose is rigorous. No adverb or adjective is wasted.
Ronson is a sort of literary Louis Theroux, interested in the ideas and people at the fringes of society. He’s explored a number of conspiracy theories, hosted multiple podcasts and radio shows, and wrote a book on cancellation and stigma called So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. In The Castle, he follows two primary narrative strands: a man who is trying to lure women to his fortress in rural Connecticut, and a man who was shamed online for making video content that involved his kids. Through these stories, he wonders what a more positive version of masculinity could look like for future generations. He is neither proscriptive nor apolitical when considering the lonely destructive capacity of men without an outlet.