Balancing Masculinity

This book offers a gentle and humorous path to personal growth. The stories explore what it means to be a man, how to cope with losses, manage family conflicts, express emotions, invite your inner characters to the forefront, ...to balance the needs for closeness and freedom, raising children in mutual respect, and even how to say goodbye.

The common thread is that all the men are all affected by cancer-whether they have the disease themselves or are impacted by it indirectly. The illness serves as the backdrop, from which the various themes emerge.They are first put to the test by the crisis, but the struggle is far from ended.

The men dispel the worst stereotypes about how poorly men handle personal problems, each in their own unique way. A background music with continuous meditations on male identity plays throughout. The tone is good-natured, humorous and a little self-deprecating. With that in mind, the book can be experienced as an unpretentious tribute to the masculine complexity, to the colors and nuances that appear when the lacquer is scratched. The path to personal growth might not be as challenging as it seems.