The Castle

The instant Sunday Times #1 bestseller

"One of our greatest non-fiction storytellers" — Patrick Radden Keefe

"Riveting ... an unmissable piece of work" — Megan Nolan, Observer

"Addictively readable" — Dolly Alderton

"Chilling ... supremely entertaining" — Financial Times

"Ridiculously compelling and wonderfully weird ... wise, timely and extremely funny" — Louis Theroux

"If you want a totally compelling live mystery that will make you burn for justice, read this book urgently" — Marina Hyde

The million-copy bestselling author of The Psychopath Test returns with a shocking, darkly comic trip to the furthest reaches of the masculinity crisis

I honestly have no clue what is going on. This is very weird. We left. Was completely fucked. All good now.

When Jon Ronson received a series of disquieting texts from his son Joel who'd been lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England late one night, it sets Ronson Sr. off on an adventure into an underworld of unmoored and disaffected men.

As Jon deepens his investigation into the castle and the wider 'man crisis' – where some are feeling tossed around in a sea of conflicting ideologies of what it means to be a man – urgent questions come to light. What exactly is 'Princessing'? Why did a lawn care influencer dress as a baby in front of billions of online viewers, with catastrophic results? And more pressingly, why are two recently released murderers on their way to pay Jon a visit?

From the death of utopian factory towns to the false promise of YouTube influencer culture, Jon shows us our rapidly changing world like never before, and the men caught in the middle. A world drained of purpose, of collapsing institutions, where a new era of disinhibited behaviour has taken hold of our online and real-world selves. And as the castle mystery twists and turns into a cat-and-mouse story, will Jon be able to discover its terrifying secret hidden from the world?

The Castle marks Jon Ronson's triumphant return to the written page. Utterly hilarious and criminally entertaining, this is one of our greatest non-fiction writers at the top of his game: diagnosing our societal frailties in a narrative of blistering pace, insight and intensity.