American Men - Hardcover

Conn, Jordan Ritter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1538709090 ISBN 13: 9781538709092

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2026

Synopsis

A deeply intimate portrait of the lives of four men that examines--in profound and comprehensive ways--what it means to be a man in America.

AMERICAN MEN is a journalistic account of the lives of four men from vastly different backgrounds and experiences, charting how each of them construct their relationship to masculinity, and how they navigate that relationship over time. The book searches the rarely-discussed crevices of men's lives, chronicling traumas they've suffered and ways they've recovered, the ways they've both inflicted and survived violence, their relationships to sex and their own bodies, how they've wielded power and struggled with powerlessness, while trying to build families, friendships, and fuller relationships to themselves.

The book's protagonists include Ryan, an amateur MMA fighter who lives on a Mohawk reservation, struggling to come to terms with both his sexuality as a closeted gay man and his draw toward bar room violence; Gideon, an itinerant, tall and handsome West Point graduate and former baseball star who unravels when he encounters challenges to his status as the masculine ideal; Joseph, a Seattle law student whose marriage teeters on the brink as he tries on his own to contend with the effects of childhood sexual trauma; and Nate, an Ohio man still living at home and trying to establish security for himself in a rural pocket of a red state, where he's under threat as someone who is Black, trans, and poor. The book draws from five years of interviewing these men and following them though their daily lives, interweaving their stories into a mosaic that explores identity, heritage, and the pressures and performance of modern American masculinity.

About this title

About the Author

Jordan Ritter Conn is the author of The Road From Raqqa: A Story of Brotherhood, Borders, and Belonging, runner-up for the 2021 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He is a Senior Staff Writer for The Ringer and the host of the narrative podcasts "What If: The Len Bias Story" and "Sonic Boom," named by The Atlantic as one of the best podcasts of 2019. He lives in Nashville with his wife, Beth.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1538709090
• ISBN 13: 9781538709092
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336