Thank you for this piece - it echoes a lot of things I think about every day.
For myself, a lifelong avid reader, it’s getting harder and harder to find books to be excited about. My beloved Science Fiction genre has been utterly ideologically hijacked. Only Baen (for the most part) still publishes “classic” style SF, and they can’t publish everyone. I find myself reading a lot more nonfiction than I used to because much of what is published in fiction just doesn’t interest me. But for the younger generations of boys and men?
When I was starting out as a YA librarian 24 years ago, one of the great concerns in the profession at the time was the decline in reading among boys and what we could do about it. We talked about the male brain, “rules and tools”, why boys & men often prefer nonfiction (and why that’s OK), how we needed to hook them early with action, war, sports, cars, comics - whatever was needed to make reading a part of their lives. I routinely kept everyone from Jack London to Robert E Howard to Alexandre Dumas to Ernest Hemingway in my YA collection knowing that if I could fishhook them with Percy Jackson or Mike Lupica, I could maybe lead them down those roads eventually.
But of course, we (as a profession) did…nothing in the end. By 2012 or so “girl power” was the only thing that mattered and social justice ideology had begun its blitzkrieg-like takeover of YA publishing (and publishing in general, as you so aptly point out in your piece). Providing video game tournaments became more important than reader’s advisory and, well...those boys are now the men you speak of. They’ve been told that “Twitter is reading!” and quite possibly have never even had to read a book for school. Little wonder that they substitute online garbage for edification. We kind of told them to, in so many words and actions. And now we have a lot of disaffected young men who won’t read, and from what I see in the library every day, the future in this case isn’t too bright. We hear so much shouting about how “children need to see themselves REPRESENTED in the books they read!!!!!!” Unless they’re little boys, or teenage boys, or young men.
I have a fair bit of guilt about my 18 years as a YA librarian. We let a lot of things go down the wrong roads, and there were a lot of places I should’ve spoken up louder. But the fact that creating confident, strong adult readers has devolved so badly is the worst part of it.
Jack London is a good example. He was a man's man and the kind of guy that young men can identify with. We need more writers like him, but today he would struggle to get published.
Publisher: This Call of the Wild manuscript you submitted is not bad, but we can't publish it as is. Can't we have a subplot involving two gay men, preferably black or disabled? We need to queer this thing up!
(I hate it when queer is used as a verb like this. But it's commonly seen these days.)
He'd probably end up self-publishing and making more money that way anyway. But he'd never be reviewed by the "professional" (and I use that word VERY lightly these days) journals, and never end up in a library or school...
Once upon a time I believe your novel would've been published & reviewed very differently (and BTW I love how you called out Kirkus' bullshit reviews LOL); I probably would've had it on a bib list with Crutcher and Trueman, etc. I'm going to see if I can bully our current YA librarian into buying it...
I met a literary agent at a friend’s birthday party a few years ago and asked her if down the line I could ring her when I finish my book. She said yes, then told me “we’ll have to check your twitter and social to make sure you aren’t racist or anything first.” I laughed and said “yes of course.” She then added “you are a white guy after all,” and took a sip of her white claw.
This is my only interaction with anyone in fiction publishing. At first I thought it was just a joke. But now I’m not so sure!
If we lived in a normal universe with normal humans, I would totally accuse you of making this story up, but based on what I know of the publishing industry, this 100% checks out and is absolutely terrifying.
That wasn’t a joke. The industry is infested with pretentious dare I say it head up their own arses women. The interactions I’ve had have all been similar. Why I don’t even bother with them.
I'm going to write about Elena Ferrante in response to this excellent article.
The Neapolitan Quartet is fantastic, amongst my favourite 21st-century fiction. I'd recommend it to anyone, and I'd especially recommend reading the whole thing and not bailing after My Brilliant Friend.
It does have marriage and parenthood in it, but a lot more besides. It has the Neapolitan mafia. It has extremist political cells. It is very good on the development of computers in society (a lead character starts an independent coding career in "Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay"). And it has lots and lots of sex, which I believe is a topic of interest even to the followers of Andrew Tate...
Point being, the content is not limited to what could be described "women's interest". But look how the industry presents it. The covers of the editions I have look like White Woman's Instagram. The "what a great book" quotes are from Hilary Clinton and (gasps) Gwyneth Paltrow.
There is no way my son is going to read these books on the Metro.
I'm not saying something has to look like a Clive Barker novel for young men to read it. But if the publisher is madly signalling "this is not for you!" then its not surprising young men think "that is not for me".
And finally, one thing that's funny about Ferrante "ending the dominance of male writers" is that some people think the pseudonymous Ferrante is, in fact, a dude....
My best guess is that the guy (I forget his name, but I’ve read some of his stuff) collaborated with his common law wife. I don’t think he wrote it alone, and it is stylistically way too close to his writing for me to think that he didn’t play a major part in shaping the works. But I also don’t think that he wrote it alone, and I have no idea if he was the main writer. But I do think that the women played a major role in writing it or even the main role, given that the themes match up so closely to works she has translated.
Yep, I'm inclined to go with that assessment as well. At the end of the day, no bestseller is a one-person book. Both the fella and his partner work in the industry, so it's most likely they worked on it together.
My favorite book of hers is still Days of Abandonment—that got under my skin and never left, the intensity kept ratcheting, it was all so fresh, real and disturbing. It's one of those books you read with your whole body.
And after that The Lost Daughter and Troubling Love.
I can’t answer to the deeper reasons as to why men don’t read fiction/ literature. I do, but mainly because I was raised by readers. My father got me into Louis L’Amour westerns and my mother hooked me on Trollope and Austen. While in the Army, I have met many men who read all types of fiction, especially classics, and the common denominator was that we all grew up in households with readers. I prefer non-fiction but I ascribe that to my degree field in history.
I am constantly refreshed when I hear about army stories like this. Military men are society's most underrated readers. Thank you for your service, sir!
Thank you for such a thought-provoking and passionately argued piece. The decline of male readership in fiction is indeed concerning, and I agree that attributing this solely to the rise of online subcultures misses the deeper cultural and industry dynamics at play.
The publishing industry’s current gatekeeping practices, driven by a narrow cultural agenda, risk alienating a significant portion of potential readers. Fiction thrives when it explores universal truths—stories of human struggle, ambition, and redemption that resonate regardless of gender. Suggesting that men should primarily consume novels centered on traditionally feminine experiences is reductive and counterproductive.
We need a publishing environment that values a diversity of perspectives—not just in identity politics terms, but in narrative scope and imaginative breadth. Stories about wars, explorations, existential crises, and complex inner lives should have space alongside all other experiences.
Bringing men back into the literary fold won’t be achieved by moralizing about what they should read but by publishing books that speak to their experiences, curiosity, and capacity for introspection. It’s about inviting them back into a literary world that feels relevant—not imposed.
Literature needs all voices, and men have just as much of a place in writing and reading fiction as anyone else. Here’s hoping the pendulum finds balance through merit, not exclusion.
Well said indeed. The problem with any business (and publishing is a business) is that it will go along the path of least friction. If the market is predominantly made up of women who prefer reading books by female authors, then that's where the business will lean towards.
That David Morris fellow, whoever he is, has it all backwards. Men went to online communities and suchlike because they did not feel wanted elsewhere. Growing up, I loved literature more than anything (still do, I guess, with the exception of my wife) and would never abandon it. But literature abandoned me first.
Yep, that's one of the points I make in the article: Andrew Tate is not responsible for the absence of men in literature—the absence of men in literature is responsible for Andrew Tate. It's quite sad that the NYT people are so far brainwashed as to be unable to identify a very simple solution to the problem that they are describing.
The NYT is suffering from sickness internally. The individuals may be sane, but the worldviews they’ve been collectively arriving at are becoming strange, inconsistent, and heavily biased.
👏👏👏 An incredible article that was so easy to read and understand from start to finish, Liza! You expressed so clearly and with good evidence why men are fleeing the literary space. It’s because they are not welcome and their work isn’t taken as seriously or as considered like women’s are. This guy David Morris who wrote that article seems like an elitist snob to me. So you’re telling me men don’t read literature because they are sexist d****bags who just sit around all day playing video games and watching porn? First of all, that’s pretty judgmental and also what’s wrong with those things? We’re human beings, adventure and sexuality are part of who we are. Second, maybe men would read more than non-fiction if they weren’t so scorned by the literary field! I’m a man and that doesn’t describe me or any man I know. I thought your own personal story about how you matured over the years and realized the majority of men weren’t as interested in literature was fascinating! So was what you said about men needing to be more masculine, which I agree with! Nothing against effeminate men or LGBT people, but it’s true. I don’t mean this meanly or to be disrespectful in any way, but when you said 17-year old you thought if a guy didn’t get the reference on the sign he couldn’t date you, I internally cringed so hard! But I also did things that I’m sure would make you cringe too when I was in high school so I get it. But I really admire how you overcame your preconceived notions about men in literature and are speaking out about the stark inequality in the literary industry today among publishers! That’s very admirable! We need to let men back into literary spaces and start writing and publishing literature that is for everyone. Not feminist or woke identitarian screeds! We don’t need another novel exploring “black queer fatness” or another book about what it means to be a Latina lesbian otherkin or such nonsense. We need literature with profound moral messages ALL human beings can understand and relate to! Discrimination against women in the literary field in the past (which is why for instance, George Eliot never used her real name) was wrong. Full stop. But two wrongs don’t make a right! Can you imagine how many great authors would never have gotten their work published if they were alive and writing their books and poetry today? Shakespeare, Poe, Chaucer, Whitman, Dr. Seuss, Hemingway, London, Mann, Dickens, Tolstoy, H.G. Wells, Washington Irving, Walter Dean Myers, Chaim Potok, and many more all gone. That’s just insanity! How can you deprive the world of “Romeo and Juliet”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and “The Canterbury Tales?!” That’s a crime! The publishing industry needs comprehensive reform and to reverse this trend of men running away from literature ASAP! Also, I couldn’t agree more that Joe Rogan and especially Andrew Tate, are no paradigms of moral virtue! Tate in particular has a 12-year olds understanding of masculinity. I’d love to see him try and match wits with you Liza, that would be truly hilarious! :)
Agree with all of the above, especially that two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s the point I’ve been trying to drill in people all along—they hate that men dominated publishing, but giving hegemony to women is just as bad. We need *equality.*
Can completely relate to finding men who don’t read unattractive. Part of my perception of masculine is being intellectually dominant – I want to be amazed and impressed with what he knows and his interpretations of things. Sapiophilia all the way!
Also, I think being basically educated in classic literature is a must for both sexes.
Thank you, Lisa. You have inspired me to enjoy more literature, especially fiction. I do read a lot but my favorites were true literary men like C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton who read far more of great literary works than I have had the good fortune to encounter. I do suspect that the reason they were such great writers was their constant contact with the very best in English literature.
Having read your words, I am committed to reading the great works of fiction. I am open to any suggestions as my background in such reading has truly been limited.
I build stuff, know how to run a chainsaw, and drive a 4x4 diesel pickup truck. I also read Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, Cormac McCarthy, William Gay, John McPhee, Dostoyevsky, and yes, Shakespeare (I think Lance’s monologue in Two Gentleman of Verona, Act 2, Scene 3, is Shakespeare at his scatalogical best). I also read Emily Dickinson, Virginia Wolfe, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Kingsley, Ayn Rand (omg), and Ann Morrow Lindbergh. And I have contemporary favorites: Tara Westover, Kim Barnes, Alexandra Fuller, and Terry Tempest Williams.
Why oh why must we constantly have these silly literary pendulum swings of “justice?” If it’s good and touches both our hearts and minds, why does it matter which person of gender wrote it? And we don’t need self-appointed gatekeepers and judges of taste and propriety.
Let the people write and let the people read, no matter whose best seller list they are on.
As a male writer (not toxic, I hope, and not effeminate), I keep trying to write books for all readers, male and female. My male readers often become "fans" (seems like an odd word for me to say, but they buy all my books and rave about them). And these aren't literary types. The books are contemporary southern fiction, ranging from coming-of-age stories with female protagonists to suspense and satire with male protagonists, and occasionally some magical realism mixed in. Definitely have more women readers than men though.
And sadly, as you've noted, unable to get an agent to even look these days, so I've been with a small press who loves my work for the past 12 years. On my first two novels, I managed in both cases to land an agent, and then lose an agent before any publishing deal was secured. But that was 12-15 years ago, when I could send out 50 queries and get 25 requests for the manuscripts.
More recently, nothing but auto-generated 'wish you the best in your writing journey' emails. Five novels and two dozen short stories published, teaching writing courses for 10 years, editing other writers (including highly successful ones) for nearly 20 years, and a frequent presenter at writing conferences -- and yet excluded from consideration in the club. I've accepted my lot in life and write what I want to write with the full support of a small press.
Don't worry Robb—you're not missing out on much, but if you ever do want to enter those circles, I hope that the more articles like these I push out, the more people will want to take a stand against this idiocy and fight back.
Do you read Alex Perez's Substack, "Musings from the 305"? He has the same/similar take as you, and has had some blistering takedowns of the industry. I recommend.
The line "men should give reading books by women a chance" is something I disagree with. As an example, just scrolling substack I'm constantly confronted with essays by women with a uniformly overconfident, typecasting and a vaguely manipulatize dehumanizing view of what men are and what their inner workings are. That reductionist projecting tendency is so evidently common in women it not only saturates substack essays but became the underpinning of an entire institution position about the male experience and male mind which resulted in articles like the one in NYT. That attitude is so dominant, (partly the fault of men who are apparently wired to signal approval) I really have a distrust that women's attitude about the male psyche work for a male reader. It's just too evident.
Thank you, Liza, for the critique of men's reading interests. I love literature, but not the kind of fluff stuff, rom-com that goes by "Fiction" these days. Give me Dostoevsky's Fiction any day over The Bell Jar, or whatever. I like fiction, but fiction with the depth of placid, still waters, that doesn't try to please the postmodernist's ego--an impossibility.
Yes; I would lose my breakfast, no doubt. The Bell Jar is not poor fiction, but I was contrasting with someone in Dostoevsky who I think provides a deeply mature, intellectual, and insightful author.
Postmodernism hasn’t been a thing since 2010 at least. In fact, much of the issue with literature today is that it’s just objectively not experimental.
The pendulum comment reflects something I suspected around 2016, namely the new-fangled "social justice" everything was less interested in tearing down chain link fences than it was in swapping who was inside vs outside. The intervening years confirmed beyond any doubt that there's a lot of resentment fueling a lot of vengeance, and those seekers aren't concerned with precision attacks.
I just released my 7th book under this pen name (a satirical woke romance novella), though I haven't run an ad yet so no one noticed. I think my audience is pretty evenly male/female based on my amazon reviews, but the odds of a traditional publisher taking an anti-woke project on are about zero, so I just went around them.
But men definitely read different genres than women (in general). Space operas, for example, vs romance. The current zeitgeist enjoys telling men that they need to be better, and the best way to do that is to be more like women. But I just bought my son a novel about Rome and ... he's reading it. We can embrace our differences. Celebrate them even.
"Danielle's Desire." It's a sequel to "Danielle' Passion," if you're interested. Rather scathing, if I do say so myself. I'll run an ad when he audiobook is done and make it free for a day. Probably about 2 months though.
The Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian are about as masculine as they come, and with near perfect prose and complex characterization. You also can’t go wrong with John Ehle (NYRB re-released his Landbreakers novel some time back). Also, Don Quixote, which had the benefit of delving into the male psyche better than any novel ever had, but also manages to be more progressive in its portrayal of women and women’s autonomy than anything I’ve seen in fiction by men since.
Yes, I'm a big fan of Patrick O'Brian. The Hornblower books too. Young males could relate to those books, but female teaohers won't include them in their classes.
My parents were both great fans of Hornblower when I was a boy. In my early 20s I mentioned to my mother that I was reading Conrad, and she surprised me by saying he was her favorite novelist.
To say these are problematic books is an understatement, never mind that the Aubrey-Maturin books are ultimately liberal in their outlook. PO’B is simply too good and honest a writer to give his characters modern sensibilities.
Yeah, and I hate that word “problematic”. Because I know that what follows is going to be an ideology-based tut-tut, a puritanical refusal to admit anything that doesn’t fall into the currently accepted woke straitjacket.
Thank you for this piece - it echoes a lot of things I think about every day.
For myself, a lifelong avid reader, it’s getting harder and harder to find books to be excited about. My beloved Science Fiction genre has been utterly ideologically hijacked. Only Baen (for the most part) still publishes “classic” style SF, and they can’t publish everyone. I find myself reading a lot more nonfiction than I used to because much of what is published in fiction just doesn’t interest me. But for the younger generations of boys and men?
When I was starting out as a YA librarian 24 years ago, one of the great concerns in the profession at the time was the decline in reading among boys and what we could do about it. We talked about the male brain, “rules and tools”, why boys & men often prefer nonfiction (and why that’s OK), how we needed to hook them early with action, war, sports, cars, comics - whatever was needed to make reading a part of their lives. I routinely kept everyone from Jack London to Robert E Howard to Alexandre Dumas to Ernest Hemingway in my YA collection knowing that if I could fishhook them with Percy Jackson or Mike Lupica, I could maybe lead them down those roads eventually.
But of course, we (as a profession) did…nothing in the end. By 2012 or so “girl power” was the only thing that mattered and social justice ideology had begun its blitzkrieg-like takeover of YA publishing (and publishing in general, as you so aptly point out in your piece). Providing video game tournaments became more important than reader’s advisory and, well...those boys are now the men you speak of. They’ve been told that “Twitter is reading!” and quite possibly have never even had to read a book for school. Little wonder that they substitute online garbage for edification. We kind of told them to, in so many words and actions. And now we have a lot of disaffected young men who won’t read, and from what I see in the library every day, the future in this case isn’t too bright. We hear so much shouting about how “children need to see themselves REPRESENTED in the books they read!!!!!!” Unless they’re little boys, or teenage boys, or young men.
I have a fair bit of guilt about my 18 years as a YA librarian. We let a lot of things go down the wrong roads, and there were a lot of places I should’ve spoken up louder. But the fact that creating confident, strong adult readers has devolved so badly is the worst part of it.
Jack London is a good example. He was a man's man and the kind of guy that young men can identify with. We need more writers like him, but today he would struggle to get published.
Publisher: This Call of the Wild manuscript you submitted is not bad, but we can't publish it as is. Can't we have a subplot involving two gay men, preferably black or disabled? We need to queer this thing up!
(I hate it when queer is used as a verb like this. But it's commonly seen these days.)
He was a communist though, so maybe that would fly haha
He'd probably end up self-publishing and making more money that way anyway. But he'd never be reviewed by the "professional" (and I use that word VERY lightly these days) journals, and never end up in a library or school...
If you love YA you might consider checking out my YA punk novel: https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/my-ya-novel-got-an-awesome-review
Once upon a time I believe your novel would've been published & reviewed very differently (and BTW I love how you called out Kirkus' bullshit reviews LOL); I probably would've had it on a bib list with Crutcher and Trueman, etc. I'm going to see if I can bully our current YA librarian into buying it...
I met a literary agent at a friend’s birthday party a few years ago and asked her if down the line I could ring her when I finish my book. She said yes, then told me “we’ll have to check your twitter and social to make sure you aren’t racist or anything first.” I laughed and said “yes of course.” She then added “you are a white guy after all,” and took a sip of her white claw.
This is my only interaction with anyone in fiction publishing. At first I thought it was just a joke. But now I’m not so sure!
If we lived in a normal universe with normal humans, I would totally accuse you of making this story up, but based on what I know of the publishing industry, this 100% checks out and is absolutely terrifying.
It wasn't a joke. https://michaelmohr.substack.com/p/literary-agent-rejections
That wasn’t a joke. The industry is infested with pretentious dare I say it head up their own arses women. The interactions I’ve had have all been similar. Why I don’t even bother with them.
Jesus Christ, what a prejudiced cunt she was!
I'm going to write about Elena Ferrante in response to this excellent article.
The Neapolitan Quartet is fantastic, amongst my favourite 21st-century fiction. I'd recommend it to anyone, and I'd especially recommend reading the whole thing and not bailing after My Brilliant Friend.
It does have marriage and parenthood in it, but a lot more besides. It has the Neapolitan mafia. It has extremist political cells. It is very good on the development of computers in society (a lead character starts an independent coding career in "Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay"). And it has lots and lots of sex, which I believe is a topic of interest even to the followers of Andrew Tate...
Point being, the content is not limited to what could be described "women's interest". But look how the industry presents it. The covers of the editions I have look like White Woman's Instagram. The "what a great book" quotes are from Hilary Clinton and (gasps) Gwyneth Paltrow.
There is no way my son is going to read these books on the Metro.
I'm not saying something has to look like a Clive Barker novel for young men to read it. But if the publisher is madly signalling "this is not for you!" then its not surprising young men think "that is not for me".
And finally, one thing that's funny about Ferrante "ending the dominance of male writers" is that some people think the pseudonymous Ferrante is, in fact, a dude....
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/books/who-is-elena-ferrante.html
This is on point. Bravo. Regarding the speculation about Ferrante being a dude, the evidence, from what I've seen, is more than just speculation.
My best guess is that the guy (I forget his name, but I’ve read some of his stuff) collaborated with his common law wife. I don’t think he wrote it alone, and it is stylistically way too close to his writing for me to think that he didn’t play a major part in shaping the works. But I also don’t think that he wrote it alone, and I have no idea if he was the main writer. But I do think that the women played a major role in writing it or even the main role, given that the themes match up so closely to works she has translated.
Yep, I'm inclined to go with that assessment as well. At the end of the day, no bestseller is a one-person book. Both the fella and his partner work in the industry, so it's most likely they worked on it together.
My favorite book of hers is still Days of Abandonment—that got under my skin and never left, the intensity kept ratcheting, it was all so fresh, real and disturbing. It's one of those books you read with your whole body.
And after that The Lost Daughter and Troubling Love.
Those other shorter works pack a real punch.
"And it has lots and lots of sex..."
Well, I'll have to read it now.
I look forward to your writing!
I can’t answer to the deeper reasons as to why men don’t read fiction/ literature. I do, but mainly because I was raised by readers. My father got me into Louis L’Amour westerns and my mother hooked me on Trollope and Austen. While in the Army, I have met many men who read all types of fiction, especially classics, and the common denominator was that we all grew up in households with readers. I prefer non-fiction but I ascribe that to my degree field in history.
I am constantly refreshed when I hear about army stories like this. Military men are society's most underrated readers. Thank you for your service, sir!
In seriousness, it’s the sheer boredom that pushes them to incredible feats.
Source: was in the navy once upon a time.
Yes, a friend of mine who was a nuclear engineer on a submarine said that serving in the navy leads many sailors to read all of Moby-Dick.
Thank you for such a thought-provoking and passionately argued piece. The decline of male readership in fiction is indeed concerning, and I agree that attributing this solely to the rise of online subcultures misses the deeper cultural and industry dynamics at play.
The publishing industry’s current gatekeeping practices, driven by a narrow cultural agenda, risk alienating a significant portion of potential readers. Fiction thrives when it explores universal truths—stories of human struggle, ambition, and redemption that resonate regardless of gender. Suggesting that men should primarily consume novels centered on traditionally feminine experiences is reductive and counterproductive.
We need a publishing environment that values a diversity of perspectives—not just in identity politics terms, but in narrative scope and imaginative breadth. Stories about wars, explorations, existential crises, and complex inner lives should have space alongside all other experiences.
Bringing men back into the literary fold won’t be achieved by moralizing about what they should read but by publishing books that speak to their experiences, curiosity, and capacity for introspection. It’s about inviting them back into a literary world that feels relevant—not imposed.
Literature needs all voices, and men have just as much of a place in writing and reading fiction as anyone else. Here’s hoping the pendulum finds balance through merit, not exclusion.
Well said indeed. The problem with any business (and publishing is a business) is that it will go along the path of least friction. If the market is predominantly made up of women who prefer reading books by female authors, then that's where the business will lean towards.
Oh, well stated!
Wonderfully said!
That David Morris fellow, whoever he is, has it all backwards. Men went to online communities and suchlike because they did not feel wanted elsewhere. Growing up, I loved literature more than anything (still do, I guess, with the exception of my wife) and would never abandon it. But literature abandoned me first.
Yep, that's one of the points I make in the article: Andrew Tate is not responsible for the absence of men in literature—the absence of men in literature is responsible for Andrew Tate. It's quite sad that the NYT people are so far brainwashed as to be unable to identify a very simple solution to the problem that they are describing.
The NYT is suffering from sickness internally. The individuals may be sane, but the worldviews they’ve been collectively arriving at are becoming strange, inconsistent, and heavily biased.
👏👏👏 An incredible article that was so easy to read and understand from start to finish, Liza! You expressed so clearly and with good evidence why men are fleeing the literary space. It’s because they are not welcome and their work isn’t taken as seriously or as considered like women’s are. This guy David Morris who wrote that article seems like an elitist snob to me. So you’re telling me men don’t read literature because they are sexist d****bags who just sit around all day playing video games and watching porn? First of all, that’s pretty judgmental and also what’s wrong with those things? We’re human beings, adventure and sexuality are part of who we are. Second, maybe men would read more than non-fiction if they weren’t so scorned by the literary field! I’m a man and that doesn’t describe me or any man I know. I thought your own personal story about how you matured over the years and realized the majority of men weren’t as interested in literature was fascinating! So was what you said about men needing to be more masculine, which I agree with! Nothing against effeminate men or LGBT people, but it’s true. I don’t mean this meanly or to be disrespectful in any way, but when you said 17-year old you thought if a guy didn’t get the reference on the sign he couldn’t date you, I internally cringed so hard! But I also did things that I’m sure would make you cringe too when I was in high school so I get it. But I really admire how you overcame your preconceived notions about men in literature and are speaking out about the stark inequality in the literary industry today among publishers! That’s very admirable! We need to let men back into literary spaces and start writing and publishing literature that is for everyone. Not feminist or woke identitarian screeds! We don’t need another novel exploring “black queer fatness” or another book about what it means to be a Latina lesbian otherkin or such nonsense. We need literature with profound moral messages ALL human beings can understand and relate to! Discrimination against women in the literary field in the past (which is why for instance, George Eliot never used her real name) was wrong. Full stop. But two wrongs don’t make a right! Can you imagine how many great authors would never have gotten their work published if they were alive and writing their books and poetry today? Shakespeare, Poe, Chaucer, Whitman, Dr. Seuss, Hemingway, London, Mann, Dickens, Tolstoy, H.G. Wells, Washington Irving, Walter Dean Myers, Chaim Potok, and many more all gone. That’s just insanity! How can you deprive the world of “Romeo and Juliet”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and “The Canterbury Tales?!” That’s a crime! The publishing industry needs comprehensive reform and to reverse this trend of men running away from literature ASAP! Also, I couldn’t agree more that Joe Rogan and especially Andrew Tate, are no paradigms of moral virtue! Tate in particular has a 12-year olds understanding of masculinity. I’d love to see him try and match wits with you Liza, that would be truly hilarious! :)
Agree with all of the above, especially that two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s the point I’ve been trying to drill in people all along—they hate that men dominated publishing, but giving hegemony to women is just as bad. We need *equality.*
Can completely relate to finding men who don’t read unattractive. Part of my perception of masculine is being intellectually dominant – I want to be amazed and impressed with what he knows and his interpretations of things. Sapiophilia all the way!
Also, I think being basically educated in classic literature is a must for both sexes.
Thank you, Lisa. You have inspired me to enjoy more literature, especially fiction. I do read a lot but my favorites were true literary men like C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton who read far more of great literary works than I have had the good fortune to encounter. I do suspect that the reason they were such great writers was their constant contact with the very best in English literature.
Having read your words, I am committed to reading the great works of fiction. I am open to any suggestions as my background in such reading has truly been limited.
Thank you, again, for the inspiration.
Sincerely,
Lee Saffold
I build stuff, know how to run a chainsaw, and drive a 4x4 diesel pickup truck. I also read Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, Cormac McCarthy, William Gay, John McPhee, Dostoyevsky, and yes, Shakespeare (I think Lance’s monologue in Two Gentleman of Verona, Act 2, Scene 3, is Shakespeare at his scatalogical best). I also read Emily Dickinson, Virginia Wolfe, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Kingsley, Ayn Rand (omg), and Ann Morrow Lindbergh. And I have contemporary favorites: Tara Westover, Kim Barnes, Alexandra Fuller, and Terry Tempest Williams.
Why oh why must we constantly have these silly literary pendulum swings of “justice?” If it’s good and touches both our hearts and minds, why does it matter which person of gender wrote it? And we don’t need self-appointed gatekeepers and judges of taste and propriety.
Let the people write and let the people read, no matter whose best seller list they are on.
Chapeau, Sir, amen to all of this... (except the "omg" for Rand).
Omg was a confessional about still having the necessary attention span.
I wonder if you like Flaubert. His themes can’t be easily pigeonholed as M or F.
I love Flaubert, but he’s a French dude, so his writing veers more feminine.
I might argue with that, but it’s been too long since I read the stuff.
Certainly Les Misérables (Hugo), with the primal power struggle between Valjean and Javert, is masculine.
As a male writer (not toxic, I hope, and not effeminate), I keep trying to write books for all readers, male and female. My male readers often become "fans" (seems like an odd word for me to say, but they buy all my books and rave about them). And these aren't literary types. The books are contemporary southern fiction, ranging from coming-of-age stories with female protagonists to suspense and satire with male protagonists, and occasionally some magical realism mixed in. Definitely have more women readers than men though.
And sadly, as you've noted, unable to get an agent to even look these days, so I've been with a small press who loves my work for the past 12 years. On my first two novels, I managed in both cases to land an agent, and then lose an agent before any publishing deal was secured. But that was 12-15 years ago, when I could send out 50 queries and get 25 requests for the manuscripts.
More recently, nothing but auto-generated 'wish you the best in your writing journey' emails. Five novels and two dozen short stories published, teaching writing courses for 10 years, editing other writers (including highly successful ones) for nearly 20 years, and a frequent presenter at writing conferences -- and yet excluded from consideration in the club. I've accepted my lot in life and write what I want to write with the full support of a small press.
Don't worry Robb—you're not missing out on much, but if you ever do want to enter those circles, I hope that the more articles like these I push out, the more people will want to take a stand against this idiocy and fight back.
Do you read Alex Perez's Substack, "Musings from the 305"? He has the same/similar take as you, and has had some blistering takedowns of the industry. I recommend.
The line "men should give reading books by women a chance" is something I disagree with. As an example, just scrolling substack I'm constantly confronted with essays by women with a uniformly overconfident, typecasting and a vaguely manipulatize dehumanizing view of what men are and what their inner workings are. That reductionist projecting tendency is so evidently common in women it not only saturates substack essays but became the underpinning of an entire institution position about the male experience and male mind which resulted in articles like the one in NYT. That attitude is so dominant, (partly the fault of men who are apparently wired to signal approval) I really have a distrust that women's attitude about the male psyche work for a male reader. It's just too evident.
Well I hope you found something to agree with in this woman's essay about men 😊
I did, thanks.
Thank you, Liza, for the critique of men's reading interests. I love literature, but not the kind of fluff stuff, rom-com that goes by "Fiction" these days. Give me Dostoevsky's Fiction any day over The Bell Jar, or whatever. I like fiction, but fiction with the depth of placid, still waters, that doesn't try to please the postmodernist's ego--an impossibility.
If The Bell Jar is your idea of bad fiction, you might have a heart attack reading any book published today.
Yes; I would lose my breakfast, no doubt. The Bell Jar is not poor fiction, but I was contrasting with someone in Dostoevsky who I think provides a deeply mature, intellectual, and insightful author.
Postmodernism hasn’t been a thing since 2010 at least. In fact, much of the issue with literature today is that it’s just objectively not experimental.
AMEN!!!
The pendulum comment reflects something I suspected around 2016, namely the new-fangled "social justice" everything was less interested in tearing down chain link fences than it was in swapping who was inside vs outside. The intervening years confirmed beyond any doubt that there's a lot of resentment fueling a lot of vengeance, and those seekers aren't concerned with precision attacks.
I just released my 7th book under this pen name (a satirical woke romance novella), though I haven't run an ad yet so no one noticed. I think my audience is pretty evenly male/female based on my amazon reviews, but the odds of a traditional publisher taking an anti-woke project on are about zero, so I just went around them.
But men definitely read different genres than women (in general). Space operas, for example, vs romance. The current zeitgeist enjoys telling men that they need to be better, and the best way to do that is to be more like women. But I just bought my son a novel about Rome and ... he's reading it. We can embrace our differences. Celebrate them even.
Satirical woke romance novel sounds juicy :)
"Danielle's Desire." It's a sequel to "Danielle' Passion," if you're interested. Rather scathing, if I do say so myself. I'll run an ad when he audiobook is done and make it free for a day. Probably about 2 months though.
The Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian are about as masculine as they come, and with near perfect prose and complex characterization. You also can’t go wrong with John Ehle (NYRB re-released his Landbreakers novel some time back). Also, Don Quixote, which had the benefit of delving into the male psyche better than any novel ever had, but also manages to be more progressive in its portrayal of women and women’s autonomy than anything I’ve seen in fiction by men since.
Yes, I'm a big fan of Patrick O'Brian. The Hornblower books too. Young males could relate to those books, but female teaohers won't include them in their classes.
My parents were both great fans of Hornblower when I was a boy. In my early 20s I mentioned to my mother that I was reading Conrad, and she surprised me by saying he was her favorite novelist.
To say these are problematic books is an understatement, never mind that the Aubrey-Maturin books are ultimately liberal in their outlook. PO’B is simply too good and honest a writer to give his characters modern sensibilities.
Yeah, and I hate that word “problematic”. Because I know that what follows is going to be an ideology-based tut-tut, a puritanical refusal to admit anything that doesn’t fall into the currently accepted woke straitjacket.
I think the Robert Howard Conan stories would be a great example too. The Flashman series is also great fun.
And maybe that is part of it: men probably read a lot of older stories.
*has the benefit
*ever has.
Why won’t Substack let you edit comments?!
You can edit comments, but not from the phone app. Have to be on a computer logged into the site. Not sure why. Always frustrates me.