Bald by Stuart Heritage review – hair today, gone tomorrow

An unexpected twist on the grief memoir sees the Guardian writer chart the five stages of male-pattern baldness

It takes Stuart Heritage almost 30 pages to summon the courage to write about his comb-over days. There are hints of it on the way as he describes the slow-motion crisis of confidence that tracks his receding hairline. He applies the Kübler-Ross model of grief to his loss: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The comb-over, he says, is& part of the bargaining phase, when perceptions of reality can become tragically skewed.

When the remnants of his once generous mop do flop into view, Heritage, the author and longtime Guardian contributor, does what he does best: he lays on the laughs. Men who resort to comb-overs resist the cold clippers of acceptance because any hair can feel better than none, “even if what they’ve got looks like five long strands draped across their head like spaghetti on a beach ball”.