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Masculinity
Masculinity
Jan 16, 2026 12:39 AM

Author:Robert Crawford

Masculinity

In MASCULINITY, Robert Crawford elegantly explores many aspects of that troubling concept, from imperial militarism to his own experiences as father, husband, and son. By turn affectionate and amusing, painful and self-excoriating, Crawford wryly examines, sometimes in intimate detail, what it is to be male - from awkward, unsporty and even more awkward adolescent, to husband, father of a child and, apparently, New Man. Clever, accessible, very funny and chillingly accurate, MASCULINITY is a sparklingly original collection. Star Trek Epigrams Mr Sulu, set the controls To Economy Wash. We're about to venture Where no man has gone before. Kirk to enterprise: 'I'm going back to my cabin With a box of Kleenex. I want to experience the lonliness of Command. '

Reviews

An addictive read... Loaded is a must for your suitcase

—— Stylist

Loaded is a high-octane, drug- and sex-fuelled romp through 24 hours in the life of Ari, a 19-year-old Greek-Australian gay man living on the margins of society. ... there is such a remarkable energy about Ari's narrative in Loaded, and so much self-aware humour and pathos, that it is utterly absorbing, and reminiscent in that respect of such debut novels as Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero or Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Loaded is a glorious, almighty "fuck you" to Australian society, a primal howl of angst and anguish.

—— Doug Johnstone , Independent on Sunday

Praise for The Slap: Nothing short of a tour de force. Tsiolkas outs a microscope to family life and presents us with a vision both of unflinching honesty and great tenderness. Here is a novel of immense power and scope, reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections and Don De Lillo's Underworld

—— Colm Toibin

A fantastic, slam-bang-overdrive, supersurrealistic, comic-spooky whirl through a tomorrow that is already happening. Stephenson is intelligent, perceptive, hip

—— Timothy Leary

Like a Pynchon novel with the brakes removed

—— Washington Post

A fun read, the novel's charm lies in its quirky humour

—— Elizabeth Buchan , The Sunday Times

This is poignant, quirky and delightfully original

—— Woman & Home

Confirms that she's a writer to watch

—— Bella

A delightful tale

—— Good Housekeeping

This is an assured second novel - and wonderful company for that long-overdue summer trip

—— Press Assocation

Imaginative and transporting, but entirely unfussy and unsentimental, the novel is written with a glint in the eye that gives it that extra bit of wind beneath its wings

—— Nicola Barr , Guardian
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