The Wildman's Journey: Reflections on Male Spirituality, by Richard Rohr and Joseph Martos (St Anthony's Messenger Press, £13.95), reviews the spiritual journeys taken by men through the centuries. It defines male spirituality as based primarily in action rather than philosophy and so challenges current gender assumptions. Rohr maintains that modern Western man, over-concerned with maintaining contact with his "shallow feminine" side, has lost touch with his "deep masculine" side, and cites the "absent father wound" as the greatest hurt in modern culture. The book contains profound insights for a country like Ireland which has watched with apparent unconcern a quadrupling in its incidence of male teenage and youth suicide over the past six years. However, a cultural healing must be preceded by the recognition of a cultural crisis, and until we have taken that step we are unlikely to benefit from the message this book contains.