Fern Press pre-empts book on ‘the crisis of male connection’

Fern Press has acquired Men Without Men, a book about modern masculinity and “the crisis of male connection”.

Michal Shavit, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the book by Angelica Ferrara in a pre-empt from Emma Paterson at Aitken Alexander. US rights have gone to Stephanie Frerich at Simon & Schuster, Canadian rights to Martha Kanya-Forstner at Knopf Canada, German rights to Hanserblau and Spanish rights to Debate. The book will be published by Fern Press in spring 2025.

Ferrara is a 28-year-old developmental and social psychologist at Stanford University and the London School of Economics & Political Science. The synopsis of the book reads: “Our culture is facing a crisis of male connection whereby an increasing number of men around the world report having few to zero close social bonds. Angelica Ferrara has dedicated years of academic research to confronting and understanding this profound shift in society.”

The book asks: how did we get here, and what does it mean for modern masculinity? What is the cost to men and women both? Why is this issue relevant to feminism and the persistence of patriarchy? How can a compassionate interrogation of status-quo masculinity address this problem, and in doing so, improve the lives of us all? “Because it wasn’t always this way,” the publisher goes on.

“The lack of deep emotional connection we witness among men today is a relatively recent development. For most of history and in most societies, from Ancient Greece until the Industrial Revolution, men enjoyed emotional and physical intimacy without fear of judgement or repercussion. Tracing this history, Angelica Ferrara explains how we arrived at a contemporary landscape of masculinity that looks fundamentally different from those that preceded it, identifying in this trajectory a world of rich possibility: if it changed once, it can change again, in the direction of a better future.”

Shavit said: “This is an issue that is discussed daily in opinion pieces that barely scratch the surface or framed as a problem that only concerns men — and at the most extreme end of the conversation, the debate has been taken over by the open misogyny of controversialists such as Andrew Tate, making the importance of a new narrative even more urgent. By contrast, Men Without Men is led by Angelica Ferrara’s expertise, by the data, and by a framework of feminism. Using these, she demonstrates that this is a crisis that affects us all. The stories she has heard are both moving and frightening, but they have all convinced her that change is more possible than we might think. [The book] seeks to reclaim and remake how we think about masculinity in the modern age and I couldn’t be happier to be publishing this important book at Fern Press.”

Ferrara commented: “My primary desire in searching for a publisher was to find an editorial home that shares an intuitive understanding of the urgency of Men Without Men. From the beginning, Michal Shavit and her team at Fern Press have shared my devotion for a reimagining of male connection and masculinity itself—one that is more human, rigorously grounded in the data, and unabashedly feminist. I am deeply honoured that my voice, and the voices of the men and boys who comprise the core of this work, will be treated with Fern Press’ distinctive vision and publishing excellence.”