American Men
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Overview
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.
Men wield outsized power across all major institutions. But they are falling behind across all measures of well-being and success. They include loving husbands and absent fathers, corporate strivers and displaced workers, the objects and instruments of incredible violence. They are half the population. And yet when mentioned as a bloc, it's often to ask the question: What's wrong with them?
American Men is a book that burrows deep into the lives of four men, exploring how each of them construct their relationship to masculinity, and how they navigate that relationship over time. They include Ryan, an amateur MMA fighter from the Akwesasne Mohawk territory, 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 white masculine ideal; Joseph, a Seattle law student whose marriage teeters on the brink of turmoil as he tries on his own to contend with the effects of childhood sexual trauma; and Nate, a young 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. Written with searing intimacy after five years of reporting, American Men interweaves their stories into a mosaic that explores identity, heritage, and the pressures and performance of modern American masculinity.Customers Also Bought
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781538709092
- ISBN-10: 1538709090
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
- Publish Date: April 2026
- Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
- Page Count: 336
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“Nearly all of us inherit similar ideas about what it means to embody an ideal form of masculinity,” journalist and author Jordan Ritter Conn (The Road From Raqqa) writes in American Men. But ideals (like strength, virility, wealth and ambition) aren’t reality, and as Ritter Conn explains, “Our relationship to masculinity comes to be defined by how we navigate the gap between the men we think we should be and the men we actually are.”
American Men follows four men navigating that gap over many years, through making and mending relationships, inflicting and surviving violence, and rejecting and desiring sex. It’s structured like Lisa Taddeo’s 2019 #MeToo-era bestseller, Three Women (which Ritter Conn mentions in his acknowledgments as a major source of inspiration), with alternating chapters and an extremely interior narrative style. It’s intimate, messy and nuanced—qualities that its subjects have learned to keep private.
Ryan, the gay son of a leader of the Akwesasne Mohawk tribe, learns at an early age that bloody vengeance is both acceptable and rewarded. Gideon (a pseudonym) is a West Point graduate and “paragon of white American masculinity” who turns to alcohol when things don’t go his way, such as when his wife cheats on him. Joseph (also a pseudonym) is studying to be a lawyer after serving in the Iraq War, and he’s recently discovered that he repressed memories of sexual abuse he experienced as a boy. And finally there’s Nate, who’s looking for community as a poor and chronically ill Black trans man.
Despite its sweeping title, American Men is less concerned with “bold proclamations or grand theories” and more committed to showing how Ryan, Gideon, Joseph and Nate address the gulf between fantastical male ideals and their real selves. If there are seismic portrayals of American men here, they are found in the elements of these men’s stories that feel similar but, crucially, do not neatly overlap. Both Joseph and Gideon serve in the military; there is violence in each man’s life, and fatherhood becomes a key aspect of Nate’s and Gideon’s stories. But despite their commonalities with other men, each remains isolated. They cannot save themselves by being individually exceptional; in each story, healing is found only, eventually, in community.
Ritter Conn writes beautifully in each man’s voice. His acknowledgments list the books that informed his writing, from There There by Tommy Orange for Ryan to Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson for Gideon. The result is four distinct stories that are written with equal grace and consideration. American Men reminds us that redefining masculinity—or any “ideal”—is not a merely theoretical exercise. It’s something that real people must do, and it can’t be accomplished without the openness and labor of other men.
“Nearly all of us inherit similar ideas about what it means to embody an ideal form of masculinity,” journalist and author Jordan Ritter Conn (The Road From Raqqa) writes in American Men. But ideals (like strength, virility, wealth and ambition) aren’t reality, and as Ritter Conn explains, “Our relationship to masculinity comes to be defined by how we navigate the gap between the men we think we should be and the men we actually are.”
American Men follows four men navigating that gap over many years, through making and mending relationships, inflicting and surviving violence, and rejecting and desiring sex. It’s structured like Lisa Taddeo’s 2019 #MeToo-era bestseller, Three Women (which Ritter Conn mentions in his acknowledgments as a major source of inspiration), with alternating chapters and an extremely interior narrative style. It’s intimate, messy and nuanced—qualities that its subjects have learned to keep private.
Ryan, the gay son of a leader of the Akwesasne Mohawk tribe, learns at an early age that bloody vengeance is both acceptable and rewarded. Gideon (a pseudonym) is a West Point graduate and “paragon of white American masculinity” who turns to alcohol when things don’t go his way, such as when his wife cheats on him. Joseph (also a pseudonym) is studying to be a lawyer after serving in the Iraq War, and he’s recently discovered that he repressed memories of sexual abuse he experienced as a boy. And finally there’s Nate, who’s looking for community as a poor and chronically ill Black trans man.
Despite its sweeping title, American Men is less concerned with “bold proclamations or grand theories” and more committed to showing how Ryan, Gideon, Joseph and Nate address the gulf between fantastical male ideals and their real selves. If there are seismic portrayals of American men here, they are found in the elements of these men’s stories that feel similar but, crucially, do not neatly overlap. Both Joseph and Gideon serve in the military; there is violence in each man’s life, and fatherhood becomes a key aspect of Nate’s and Gideon’s stories. But despite their commonalities with other men, each remains isolated. They cannot save themselves by being individually exceptional; in each story, healing is found only, eventually, in community.
Ritter Conn writes beautifully in each man’s voice. His acknowledgments list the books that informed his writing, from There There by Tommy Orange for Ryan to Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson for Gideon. The result is four distinct stories that are written with equal grace and consideration. American Men reminds us that redefining masculinity—or any “ideal”—is not a merely theoretical exercise. It’s something that real people must do, and it can’t be accomplished without the openness and labor of other men.