Pascoe to explore male physiology in second Faber book

Faber is to publish Sex Power Money, the follow up to comedian Sara Pascoe's feminist exploration of the female body Animal.

Laura Hassan, editorial director at Faber & Faber, acquired world all language and audio rights to the title from Dawn Sedgwick at Dawn Sedgwick Management. Faber will publish Pascoe’s second book in August 2018.

In Sex Power Money, Pascoe once again looks to evolution to explain why modern humans are "struggling to be better". The book will be part comedy, part anthropological investigation of the human condition with a focus on male physiology, psychology and hormones. Pascoe will ask questions about masculinity, the contradictory messages bombarding men and how ‘maleness’ is constructed by our culture. "Much like Pascoe’s Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body, this book will be funny, enlightening and open-minded all at the same time", the publisher said.

Pascoe said that during research for Animal, she kept finding that many of the issues affecting human beings were split "not along gender lines but financial".

"There is a direct correlation between vulnerability and poverty and I wanted to explore issues such as sex work and domestic violence not only as purely feminist issues. I also wanted to balance my exploration of the female body with my new fascination for the male - which is equally mysterious, surprising, and occasionally shocking. Our prehistoric ape behaviours have to be at the front of our minds if we want to improve as a species: we have to understand where we came from."

Hassan praised Pascoe's "generous spirit of investigation" in both her book and comedy writing. "She takes on the big knotty stuff of life and makes sense of it all," Hassan said. "This will be an essential and enlightening read."

Pascoe is a comedian, actor and writer. She has appeared on "Live At The Apollo", "Have I Got News For You?" and "The Thick Of It". She is also a columnist for the Guardian and has adapted Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen for the Nottingham Playhouse and York Theatre Royal.