This book is essential' Sathnam Sanghera

'Matt Rudd may have written the most important book in a generation' Idle Society

'Touchingly honest, and extremely funny' The Times

On the surface, men today don't have much to complain about. At work, they still get paid more than women for doing the same jobs. At home, they still shirk most of the unpaid labour. (Putting the bins out does not count.)

Beneath the surface, it's a different story. An alarming number of men end up anxious, exhausted, depressed - and very reluctant to admit they are. By midlife, their levels of stress are higher and their levels of wellbeing are lower - and work-life balance turns out to be just a cruel illusion.

In Man Down, Matt Rudd draws on stories from his own life and their varied lives of the men he has interviewed to go back to the beginning to consider what makes the modern man - how the seeds of midlife crisis are sown in the school playground and cultivated through adolescence and into adulthood. By turns compassionate and provocative, Man Down asks the important question: is midlife unhappiness inevitable? Spoiler alert: it isn't.