What we do not talk about, dare to concern ourselves with, or pay much attention to are the men who fall through the cracks toward the end. We are happy to discuss the problems associated with masculine behaviour. Yet, we can’t imagine a discussion about men left wandering by their own devices or by a profound dissociation: those who die alone, who cannot relate, and those who suffer. Before you think that I will turn this into a talk about the manosphere, the systemic default for which is to push away discussions about men and their fragility, know that I am simply seeking a debate about the reality that many men face, men with ability, and men with disability. That it is an unpopular talking point is not surprising. After all, men have always had the upper hand. They are biologically determined toward conquest and rule, and their position is felt through the machinations of superiority, right? All. Men. Right?
For the men unable to cope, men with disability or disconnection who cannot relate, and men who find themselves marooned in their minds, quarantined away from the ideals of family life, and instead are left at arm’s length from the way they thought it would all play out, this will feel familiar. Notwithstanding those able to cope or relate, legions will face their fate in single occupancy rooms, a mattress on the floor, an excess of drink, and smoke. Occasional knocks on thin doors or short texts from those they were desperate to hear from trickle in at a snail’s pace, and they can no longer find a place for themselves with their kin, blood, or family. They are an island. They have been set aside, left to drift, to find their way often without communicating a word over days, weeks, months. It is a form of dehumanization to exist without others, without purpose. How they get there may be important to the discussion, but it is, perhaps, conversely comparable to what led up to that decision or mandate. Suicidal ideation among men is the highest, yet we never really discuss what a slow suicide means.
And this is not to misunderstand these very real positions as victimization, but rather to see them as marginalization in process. Someone once suggested that men like me, and the person telling wagering it, are due to ride out our days on stale sofas, a lit cigarette precariously dangling between thumb and forefinger, waiting to leave another circular black stain on the dirty wood floor. This picture, painted by someone whom I hadn’t much faith in, was a reminder that around every corner can come poverty, sickness, mental paralysis, emotional drain, sociopathic lonely, meandering, shuffling endings. I felt confident that this person’s future was likely when it was suggested to me. As I get older, I realize that I and many others cannot exclude that ending from the realms of the possible. It only takes a minor misdoing or mishap to let loose a bevy of possibilities that may lead me or someone like me toward the precipice.
In the case of my father, not much is known. As a father with a young boy, I wander the pages of Swedish artist Kristian Krän’s hallucinatory book La Soufrière (KULT, 2025) and think about that dangling ash, that single-room occupancy of my unknown father, and unlike Kristian, I am un-compelled to find out how tattered the elbows run. I amble through the pages of his journey to find his father Arthur, who left his family when he was a boy of two, back to Guadeloupe, and try to decipher the experience of trying to relate to his father, without ample language in which to do so, preferring a camera between the two as a means of communication, knowing full well that it must feel at once necessary and often artificial to make up for so much lost life, time, and love. And yet, one perseveres. I do not have that compassion in me, and in many ways, if I were Arthur, I would hope that my son could understand that not all those who wander, as per the adage, are lost. Some of us may walk toward the lip of the volcano, the void of existence, knowing full well that we are not teneble creatures and that those rooms are part of our function.
Krän’s book is powerful. I feel for his story and that of Arthur’s. I find myself writing these words in a review as they feel painfully possible. I am reminded of how things change and how complicated family life is. This is something that is also not shared often. There is a constant struggle to keep things together as we age. To try and provide progress, stay determined when the picture postcard version of family life seems fleeting. A tremendous pressure is implied with family life that you cannot imagine, and simply keeping it all together is often a struggle. Finding room for oneself seems a luxury; external pressures, economic and other, push against the all-too-fragile structure, testing its integrity like a tremendous wind. Life sometimes translates as an apparition of what was once imagined.
In the case of Krän, his father, Arthur, suffered from mental health issues. Krän’s quest to meet him became an exchange to document their time together. It had to be hard. The pictures from Arthur’s room tell a story as much as Kristian’s apparent need for closeness to Arthur, trying to fill in those missing years, touch skin, and be close. You can feel the emotion in these photographs. In some parts, they feel like a character study; in others, they feel like a longing that will never be fulfilled. This book must have been tough for the photographer to put together. One wonders about the circumstances that put it all in motion. Was it the passing of the mother? What set of changes occurred to steel the photographer up against this journey?
These photographs comprise the first and last time Kristian would ever interact with his father since his early years, when memories were scant. The title derives from the visit the pair made to the La Grande Soufrière volcano in Basse-Terre, Guadaloupe, during Kristian’s journey. Shrouded in mist, the volcano creates a metaphor for emotional and physical distance. It is veiled in the act of disappearing on the horizon, yet remains looming large, much as Arthus must have been for Kristian growing up. It is a metaphor for unattainability and ephemeral passing. The La Soufrière title also phonetically refers to the suffering of Arthus and Kristian. It is also flexible in metaphor. This book is constructed with images that present as hopeful, if futile. It is powerful, sad, and peaceful; the story is not as uncommon as we might believe within those extremes. I hope in some ways that its execution has brought Kristian some peace and that Arthur, now either deceased or disconnected, has similarly found rest. It is a profound book and will be on my list for essential titles from 2025.
Kristian Krän
La Soufrière
Kult Books