I’m back with West Coast Don of MenReadingBooks to continue our discussion of men’s fiction. Like all genres and books, there is good fiction, and there is bad.
Karen: What makes great men’s fiction great?
Don: The same as all fiction. I think it comes down to three things. Plot. Character development. Quality of the writing. If the author doesn’t handle those well, it’s weak.
Karen: If those apply to all fiction, what makes it great men’s fiction?
Don: I think with the third point–quality of writing–male authors focus on combining the right amount of complexity and timing. Too many twist and turns in the plot, and it’s a soap opera. The timing refers to when I’m fed information. I want details, but facts and background have to come at the right moment for the reader.
Karen: Does that mean that men’s fiction is fact-based or can it be literary?
Don: Definitely it can be simply literary. Ken Bruen is an amazing example. He writes crime set in Ireland in his Jack Taylor series. Great plot but his writing is so good. Again it goes back to quality, and reading him is a very literary experience. It’s prose. He doesn’t try to impress with vocabulary, but it’s not too elementary.
Next week, in the final Part III, we’ll chat about why men (and women) should read more fiction. If you missed it, here’s Part I of this series on what male fiction is and isn’t.
Readers: Is men’s fiction on your reading this summer? Who are some of your favorite male authors and why?
5 Comments on Men’s Fiction Part II (of III): What makes it great?
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The idea of men’s fiction vs. women’s fiction seems over-generalized and limiting to me. That said, stereotypes and even over-generalizations do tend to have at least some bit of truth behind them. And the publishing industry isn’t worried about being PC – they are worried about selling books, so they go with broad generalizations if the data (book sales, focus groups or whatever) seem to support them. Still the idea of men’s fiction vs. women’s fiction kind of rubs me the wrong way.
That being said, I’ve read books that felt like being inside a (certain type of) woman’s head, that just didn’t do it for me. The Twilight series, for one. Not that its shortcomings for me as a reader are limited to the obsessive-teen-girl perspective. But the feeling of being inside a teen girl’s head as she obsesses over her feelings for Jacob and Edward wasn’t for me. Outlander gave me the same kind of feel as Twilight – kind of a grown up, romance-novel-reading woman’s version set in Scotland, but the same sort of thing. In both series, the premise was intriguing enough and the story interesting enough, to keep me turning the pages for a while. But finally the parts of the story that I guess Don would say make those books “women’s fiction” began to outweigh the parts of them that made it (for me) just a good, interesting story. And I said blegh, enough.
But doesn’t truly great literature transcend these categories? Are you talking just genre fiction for the masses, or including great works by authors like George Elliott, Dickens, Willa Cather, etc.? Sure, The Brothers Karamazov feels more masculine and Middlemarch more feminine. But both are on my short list of best novels I’ve ever read.
Karl – Your question of “doesn’t truly great literature transcend these categories” is truly a great question. I think Don hits it when he says that it all comes down to a great, well-written story.
That said, I recently read Olive Kitteridge. It was a Pulitzer Prize winning book. Great literature according to that award, but I would definitely categorize it as women’s fiction. It was so much internal obsession as you call it, that I said “blegh, enough.” While it may sound sexist to say so, it felt like women’s fiction. Though I love your “a certain type of” women’s head comment. Not all women think, read, or write like that. I am one of those. I prefer the adventure to the relationships.
And yes, there is some generalization going on–more based on how publishers categorize books versus how readers categorize them. A lot of men and women read Harry Potter, and it didn’t make them young adults. It was just darn good writing.
Yes. I recently read all 3 of Donna Tartt’s published novels. She is a hell of a writer who writes great books. Period. Not women’s books, or men’s books. Maybe not books to everyone’s taste – but if not to someone’s taste I don’t think it’s because her books are “women’s books.”
One genre in which these lines are either non-existent or a lot more blurred, is fantasy. Probably sci fi also but I’ve never read much sci fi. But if a fantasy author is good (and there’s a lot of poorly written crap out there with a dragon or scantily clad male or female bodybuilder w/ a sword on the cover) – that author will be read by male and female fantasy fans equally. Robin Hobb, Ursula Leguin, Madeleine L’Engle (though she sort of transcends the category) are all examples of female writers who just write darn good stories in that genre. But female fantasy fans who love their writing, will almost without fail also love the writing of Patrick Rothfuss, George RR Martin, Scott Lynch, Daniel Abraham. Don’t know if you dip into that genre at all – I like it when it’s really good, loathe it when it’s mediocre. I haven’t read a ton of historical fiction, but enjoy Bernard Cornwell. That’s probably a low-brow taste, but he keeps me turning pages.
I hate to say it, but often my philosophy is if it has a boddice-ripping like picture on the cover, it’s probably not going to be for me. Thank you for adding in all the authors here, and below. Your sci-fi comment is probably right on. It’s not so much about men versus women, but can appeal to both and that’s a specific type of reader, too.
As for your “low brow” comment, the New York Times in their Sunday book section calls it “guilty pleasure” reading. I think it’s only low-brow if you read it in your car after going through the drive-through at McDonalds.
I must check out your author recommendations. You have great book sense. So glad you stopped in to share.
To answer the question posed in your post re. favorite male authors – for all my quibbles about the term men’s fiction, I get what Don and you are saying. Didn’t mean to derail from your question. For summer page-turner type reading a few of my favorite male authors would be:
Stephen King – I like about half his stuff, mostly his older work but just read and really enjoyed his recent “Joyland.” At his best, King tells a story like few can. He gets the small details right when describing people’s inner lives, the joys and sadnesses, kindnesses and meannesses of life, especially in small towns. He probably has as many female fans as male, so not sure his stuff is “men’s fiction” but he doesn’t let the “inner lives” stuff get in the way of telling a ripping good story.
Randy Wayne White – Crime fiction, set in Florida. I love the setting and the characters he created. Human enough to not seem like caricatures, but quirky and larger-than-life enough to be fun and interesting. Good plot pacing, smart writing and creative hide-the-ball surprises. When I think of summer at the beach or by the pool page-turners, his stuff is what comes to mind. Probably more stereotypically “guy fiction” than King.
Georg RR Martin – author of Game of Thrones and the rest of A Song of Ice and Fire series. He gets what makes a story good: “I’ve always moved back and forth between the genres. I don’t really recognize that there’s a significant difference between them in some senses. I mean, the furniture is different. One has spaceships and one has horses; one has ray guns and one has swords. But it’s all still what Faulkner called ‘the human heart in conflict with itself’. He said that was the only thing worth writing about and I’ve always agreed with that. It’s about the people, and the rest [sci fi vs. fantasy vs. western vs. horror vs. historical fiction vs. realistic modern fiction] is just the furniture and the setting.”
Bernard Cornwell – historical fiction. Page turning stuff but smart, creative and inventive. Works (for me) both as history and as pure page turning story. Lots of action, battles, plenty of things to press the (stereotypically) guy buttons. But as a history buff I also really enjoy his historical notes at the end of each book where he explains what in the book is accurate, what he changed or invented, which details the historians disagree on and why he found the way he told it to be most persuasive, etc.
Joe Abercrombie – dark fantasy. Gritty violence, dark humor, reluctant “heroes” and as with GRR Martin, postmodern shades of gray everywhere. “If you’re fond of bloodless, turgid fantasy with characters as thin as newspaper and as boring as plaster saints, Joe Abercrombie is really going to ruin your day. A long career for this guy would be a gift to our genre.” – Scott Lynch (another favorite).
Not light summer reading, but some all-time favorite male authors: Dickens, Twain, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Tolkien