Jordan Stephens’ new memoir feels encyclopedic in scope. Masculinity, psychedelics, body dysmorphia, infidelity, the #MeToo movement, cocaine, and an Afro-Brazilian religion called Candomblé all vie for space in the near 300 pages of Avoidance, Drugs, Heartbreak and Dogs. There are, though, two words which are conspicuous by their absence – the words many would deem to be the most defining of his life so far – “Rizzle” and “Kicks”.
“I didn't ever want it to be a memoir in the typical celebrity sense,” Stephens, 32, tells me when we meet at his publisher’s office in south London, a cup of tea in hand. “There are people who write a book and put their face on the cover, and it's like a tell-all or whatever.
