In this book, Don Capps further pursues his interest in men and religion, a topic he also explored in his earlier books Men, Religion and Melancholia and Men and their Religion. Moving beyond a focus on the adolescent years, Capps now considers how adult men yearn to find a sense of being ‘at home in the world’, and how this quest is driven by the melancholy which emerges and lingers after the early childhood emotional separation of a boy from his mother, beginning around age 3. Capps contends that ‘this sense of having lost something precious remains with us throughout our lives’ (p. xii), and that this loss shapes a man's religious sensibilities and capacities, if not the actual content of religious beliefs.

What is distinct about Capps’ approach is his use of specific pieces of art to illustrate and reinforce his claims; he centres throughout on the question of ‘how art works assist in our efforts to recover creatively from the loss of the loved one we experienced in early childhood’ (p. xx). Capps also draws heavily on the work of Freud and Erikson, particularly as he argues for the way in which Freud's ‘melancholy self’ is one of the selves in Erikson termed the ‘composite self’. Capps’ aim is to show how specific art works reflect that melancholy self.

Among the works of art Capps discusses are such famous pieces as DaVinci's Mona Lisa, James McNeill Whistler's The Artist's Mother and Norman Rockwell's Shuffleton's Barbershop. Capps digs deeply into each artist's own biography, lifting up elements of the artists’ life stories which for him are characteristic of the melancholy self and its regard for the mother figure and the longing to feel at home. Supporting his claims with the work of various biographers and art critics, Capps details the ways in which each painting features the melancholy self of the artist and in turn may elicit the melancholy self in its viewers. In this way, the book's claims are supported in a multifaceted manner throughout – a reader may find varying amounts of compelling evidence for the melancholy self in, for instance, the contents of the painting itself, or in the artist's life circumstances, or in how the painting has historically been received and satirised. In light of this multifaceted treatment, perhaps Capps’ argument would be better stated more broadly – namely, that the work of art itself is not the sole conveyor of the melancholy self, but that the painting reflects the artist's melancholy self, or that the painting evokes a sense of honour, hope or humour (all of which are characteristic of the melancholy self, for Capps) from the one who beholds it. These distinctions would help the reader navigate the footing on which Capps’ argument rests as he moves quickly and fluidly among and between analysis of psychobiography, art criticism and historical backdrop.

The book would be enhanced, I believe, if it were to address and explore questions of generalisability and cultural specificity, such as were raised in the mind of this reader. Without situating his argument in this way, Capps leaves the reader to wonder whether these examples of artists and artwork are indeed meant to resonate with a universal developmental experience in men of all cultures and eras. I wonder what new richness might be added to Capps’ claims were he to consider how the same works of art have been perceived by viewers in non-Western contexts, or how the melancholy self may be represented in non-Western works of art. Nonetheless, this book does offer an intriguing foray into the dynamic dialogue which emerges from psychoanalysis, religion and art.