Last week there was an excruciating “Guest Essay” published in The New York Times, “The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry Everyone,” that probably didn’t break the paper’s click counter because most people don’t read articles about books. That’s always been the case, despite the 20th century’s pop culture elevation of writers like Hemingway, Mailer, Didion and Tom Wolfe to celebrity status, but like most media the publishing industry is in tatters today. The article’s author, David J. Morris, who teaches creative writing at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, obviously invested in the topic, fails in making the case that “everyone should worry” that young male novelists are scarce. Why should “everyone” worry about this?
Morris writes that “according to multiple reports,” no sources cited, “women readers now account for about 80 percent of fiction sales.” Maybe that’s true—though he provides no comparable breakdown for, say, 1970—but so what? It would’ve helped, for context, if Morris provided the number of books sold, period, in the past year.
He quotes Eamon Dolan, an executive editor at Simon & Schuster, who said, “the young male novelist is a rare species.” Perhaps, but Morris mentions just two female novelists in his essay, Sally Rooney (33), whose recent Intermezzo I found near-brilliant, and the pseudonymous Italian Elena Ferrante (allegedly 81), whose justifiably acclaimed, and widely-translated books have sold millions of copies. I’m of an older generation and read a lot of fiction—men and women, whatever captures my interest—but don’t dispute that younger people don’t, in general, share that form of leisure. One of Johnny Cash’s most currently applicable lyrics from a 1959 hit, is “I don’t like it, but I guess things happen that way.” Meaning, at least for me, it’s jarring that reading in the 21st century is a fading activity, but complaining about it won’t change that reality. Also, there are male authors of repute, such as Colin Barrett, John Boyne, Tao Lin and Paul Murray, just off the top of my head.
Typically, in a Times article, Morris veers into the political to (badly) bolster his argument, such as it is. He writes: “[If] you care about the health of our society—especially in the age of Donald Trump and the distorted conceptions of masculinity he helps to foster—the decline and fall of literary men should worry you… Young men who still exhibit curiosity about the world too often seek intellectual stimulation through figures of the ‘manosphere’ such as Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan.” Young men have “descend[ed] deeper into video games and pornography,” Morris adds. It’s possible young women are reading books like crazy, whether online or in print, but I doubt it, and Morris provides nothing to back that up.
Does Trump—at 78, never known as a consumer of books, maybe not even his own—“help foster… distorted conceptions of masculinity”? Say what you want about President 45/47, but it’s never appeared to anyone who pays attention that he’s concerned about “masculinity,” notwithstanding his gauche sexual remarks. Projecting male misbehavior is common among other public figures like Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and almost every single male Kennedy. It’s picayune, but a case could be made that Trump’s (to revive a word common in the 1990s) a “metrosexual,” since he often “flounces” on stage while “YMCA” is playing.
The accompanying picture is of my Aunt Winnie and my mom, at a family gathering, possibly discussing the Book Of the Month Club’s latest offering.
Look at the clues to figure out the year: Muriel Spark’s The Mandelbaum Gate, Pauline Kael’s I Lost It at the Movies and Iris Murdoch’s The Red and the Green are published; J.K. Rowling is born and Shirley Jackson dies; Maria Bueno wins the Wimbledon Women’s Tennis Championship; Jennifer Jackson is Playboy’s first African-American playmate; My Mother The Car premieres on NBC; Petula Clark’s “Downtown” and the Supremes’ “Come See About Me” are #1 pop hits; Shirley Ann Grau wins the Fiction Pulitzer Prize; Julie Christie stars in Darling; and Mary Quant introduces the miniskirt in London.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023