Posted on 12/03/2025 10:46:54 AM PST by nickcarraway
Men aren’t vanishing from fiction. The truth is more complicated (Cannot be posted due to FR rules.)
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im gonna write a best seller- “How to hate a man”- should be popular
Maybe I'm just an old stick in the mud, but for me William Shakespeare's ‘Fuccboi’ will always be the best and greatest.
Spoiler alert: The White Man did it.
I raise you one higher and say The Orange Man did it all....
Who is reading fiction, anyway? At least the grade of “literary” fiction - as opposed to science fiction, fantasy, etc. that reside in the lower depths.
I attempted several times to see what the great literati were recommending, with their award-winners and NYT chart-toppers - only to be disgusted with the drivel and nonsense that passed for writing. Sick violence, sex and depravity by amoral characters seems to be the primary elements of great modern literary efforts.
The finest example for me is John Irving, with his string of outhouse supply holders from the ‘80s.
Fiction appears to be so much mental masturbation, to unknowingly quote too many of these self-absorbed ‘elites’.
Novelist Eliza Clark agrees. “Basically all of our brightest and most successful young male novelists – and there’s a hard divide between those and our old guard male novelists – are queer or men of colour or both. That’s great: I think it represents a true diversifying of the industry, though obviously we have a lot more work to do.”
As the article notes, today's male authors are gay and/or black, and they tend to write books that appeal to gays and blacks. Publishing has gone the same path as Hollywood.
LOL as though men ever escape the constant yammering of women: why would they pay for more?
I have read a lot of academic publications. My impression is that the female authors do a lot of meticulous research, make many interesting individual points, but cannot construct a clear, overarching interpretation or argument.
Midcentury male novelists — Mailer, Roth, Updike, Bellow, James Jones, William Styron — took horny hetero guy literature so far that there wasn’t much further to take it. Nowadays most novel-readers, editors and agents are women, so even if there were great male writers out there, they’d have a hard time getting published.
The vast majority of book are bought by women today. The publishing industry therefore is most concerned about books that appeal to women.
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Most ‘heroes’, nee heroines, are now women in the movies these days. Having conquered everything from abortion to CEO-ship, they are now the go-to protagonists in Holyweird.
I for one am sick of this female heroine stuff in books and movies - so I neither read books by women or have women heroines, same for movies - It in your face like the queer/trans crap.
Another good title would be:
"I don't need no man."
John Irving is not a good writer, in my opinion. Quite the opposite. But he hasn’t been relevant for a while, and I don’t think he was considered the most elite, highbrow among authors.
A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. Gloria Steinem. /spit
I’m a self-published author with a mailing list of 1700+. 65% of my subscribers are women. The majority of book buyers when I sell in person are women.
And the majority are 50+ years old.
One of the most popular is Morning Milking Glory Farm. Don't ask, but women of earlier generations would demand this book be burned.
I've heard some women say that many current women won't accept masculinity from human men, because of politics, so they replace human men with monsters.
I wish some female Freepers would weigh in.
Not surprising. You actually have a good percentage of men. Do you just write what you write, and that’s how it falls out, or do you have to target that?
Just like I like prefer old music, I prefer older fiction books. I’m not necessarily talking about literary classics here, just books for enjoyment with a lot of action. Going through Louis L’Amour now, and getting close to the end of his catalogue. Starting up on Larry McMurtry, Elmore Leonard and William W. Johnstone and will eventually get to Zane Gray. My local library system is great with thousands of books available electronically. If anyone has any suggestions in the vein, I’d be happy to hear them, especially if they are newer male writers.
Correction: “the vein” should have been “this vein”.
I’m almost finished with a novel by Robert Bailey. He is a straight white male, a husband and a father, from Huntsville, Alabama. He has written several best sellers. His books appeal to both men and women.
Next on my table is a novel by Daniel Silva. He has written numerous best sellers, basically spy novels and thrillers.
Both of these authors are talented and readable. They came recommended to me by someone who challenged me to try something other than my usual non-fiction and deep classics.
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