Jason Butler Harner continues to read from Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Chabon's moving, warm and witty memoir about life as a husband, father and son.

In exploring what it means to be a man today, Chabon reflects on the personal and family history that haunts him even as it's being written every day. At the centre of a large and complex family, and with four young children, Chabon evokes memories of his childhood, of his parents' marriage and divorce and of moments of painful adolescent comedy.

In today's episode, the need to put up a new towel rail leads Michael Chabon to wonder why men can never admit to being out of their depth. "This is an essential element of being a man: to flood everyone around you in a great radiant arc of bullshit, one whose source and object of greatest intensity is yourself. To behave as if you have everything firmly under control even when you have just sailed your boat over the falls."

Michael Chabon is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of seven novels including The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and The Yiddish Policeman's Union. He has been described by the Guardian as 'a spectacular writer' and by the New York Times as 'one of his generation's most eloquent voices'.

Jason Butler Harner has starred in films such as The Changeling with Angelina Jolie, as well as numerous TV series including Law and Order and John Adams. An accomplished stage actor, he has just appeared on the London stage in Serenading Louie at the Donmar Warehouse.

Producer: Jane Greenwood. This is a Loftus production for BBC Radio 4. Show less