Mental Health and Masculine Silence in Adib Khorram’s Darius the Great is not Okay

This chapter discusses how adolescent boys’ mental health in Adib Khorram’s YA novel Darius the Great Is Not Okay (2018) is primarily informed by the concept of “masculine silence.” Masculine silence is a feature of male conditioning that pressures young boys into adopting an apathetic and stoic posture in response to pain (physical, mental, or emotional), trauma, or mental distress. This chapter argues that Khorram’s novel offers both implicit and explicit critiques of how masculine silence informs young boys’ perspectives on mental health, preventing them from finding sustainable outlets for their emotional and psychological distress and leading them toward suicidal ideation. Thus, Khorram’s novel illustrates how young boys struggle to handle their emotions and distress while also spotlighting how analyses of mental health care for adolescent boys must account for the ways masculine silence informs their experiences.