Rugby Head

Description

A man. A game. A life. A shambles. In this brutally honest, hilarious and forensic examination of both himself and the game he loves, Greg Bruce tells the story of his life growing up and becoming a man in a country and culture obsessed with rugby. From the triumphs and devastations of All Blacks performances during his 1980s and '90s childhood, his own brief and tortured playing days, his time walking among the game's legends as hospitality worker and failed sports journalist, to his subsequent years spent struggling with the recurring torment of World Cup disaster, Rugby Head otherwise tackles mental health crises, love, grief, friendship, hero worship, and especially what it means to be a modern New Zealand man. It's the story of a life shaped in ways big and small by rugby and its greatest team, and all they stand for. There has never been a rugby memoir like it, and probably for good reason.

Greg Bruce is a feature writer for the New Zealand Herald's weekend magazine, Canvas. He's contributed features and columns to Metro, North & South, New Zealand Geographic, The Spinoff, Little Treasures, and elsewhere, and won four national (Canon/Voyager) media awards. His writing has been anthologised in the collections Tell You What- Great New Zealand Nonfiction (2016 and 2018) and The Spinoff Book (2019). He is married with three children and lives in Auckland. Rugby Head is his first book.