All The Young Dudes

Does fiction need more Beer & Skittles? Or do men just need to try harder?

The average American reads five books per year—dismal, I know—and the average male? Let’s call it zero to two. That’s ballpark. We have no definitive stats because studies have been conflated, overblown, and inaccurate, but the big scary one that often sends liberals in a tizzy says women make up eighty percent of the fiction-buying market. Verifiable or not, take a look around at the bookstore, the library, and readings. Women, mostly. And when is the last time you saw a dad at your kids’ soccer practice delicately paging through Middlemarch?

For me, the answer isn’t fair because my friends are writers and, because I tend to make friends with people in the book world, most of my male friends read a decent amount—although they definitely gravitate toward nonfiction. But beyond my enclosed bubble? It doesn’t look so good.

For me, it started with war. A high school English teacher fed me books because he heard that my punk band sang songs about pacifism, so he gave me Johnny Got His Gun, then All Quiet on the Western Front, then a book about Just War doctrine to challenge me, saying, “There’s always another side to the argument.” We went on with our after-school and after-class discussions like a Finding Forester duo (yes, it was very cute), eventually moving onto other classics like Lord of the Flies and The Hobbit. I feel lucky, because in some ways I don’t know if I ever would have fallen for books in the same way had I not had Mr. C., and I wonder if straight men in particular, for whatever reason, might need a guide to help them get into something “good for them.”

I lobbed out a question the other day on social media to my male friends who don’t read much fiction (or none at all). I wanted to know why. Here’s what they said:

“Brain is fried after work.”

“Reading isn’t relaxing.”

“I honestly don’t know. I should!”

“I think it has something to do with poor screen habits.”

“I find it intimidating and it feels like too much of a risk to go out and find something I might not like.”

“I used to feel this way, but community—finding other people to talk about books with—helped me get out of the slump.”

“I have a male co-worker who said his therapist recommended he read more fiction to strengthen his empathy.”

Maybe men are consuming more podcasts or watching more TV these days, I don’t know. But the wiring of the male brain may account for some of the reasons why most men aren’t fussing over Elena Ferrante. Stimulants may give men a greater dopamine release, and what common and readily available stimulant gives us the best cheap dopamine hit? I almost hate to say it because it feels too easy. The phones! The phones! Some have even gone so far as to say that “the smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle.” Our tech-addled world probably isn’t doing men any favors, and men aren’t doing themselves any favors by scorching the feed. Not only that, men seem to reap less dopamine from prosocial behavior. In other words, we might not get as much of a fix from volunteer work—let alone a book club.

Is it male rage? Or, like Jacob Savage in a recent piece for Compact,* white male rage? Does the “books are a feminine pastime” stigma still persist? Do we feel left out or pushed out? Perhaps bookstores feel too feminine or the library display doesn’t speak to us? Great question. I don’t know, because I’ve always just hunted for stuff I like. Maybe all this does contribute, as Constance Grady suggests in her Vox article, to men turning to “media silos of masculinity” instead of books. Although, certainly not every man is on social media nor bending an ear to Joe Rogan. But regardless, it might be high time to unhook the drip of cheap dopamine.

And how do you get a dude, let alone anyone, to do something “good for them”? Eat your broccoli, meditate, exercise, get involved in XYZ, volunteer, develop a face-washing regimen, support local, eat organic, set up a retirement fund, quit picking at your—the list is endless.

I don’t know how to get myself to do things I want to do, but I have a few inklings of how we might attract more men to the Literary Sphere. Let’s help the man—and the man sometimes does need his hand held—dispel some myths about contemporary fiction: No, “Entertainment” is not a dirty word; yes, you can skip the plotless, meandering stories where the character returns home, has an affair with an old flame, and meanders around their old town with their head hung low and—oh, the grand epiphany—meditates on the beauty of the autumn leaves; yes, you can skip the stories that rely on metaphor and image alone and expect you to feel moved; no, you don’t have to like plotless fiction; yes, you can skip the flat, affectless narrators—which is the sound of depression incarnate; no, comedy is not low art and you should feel free to indulge in things that make you laugh; yes, there are plenty of writers writing books that might cater to your “male interests,” whatever that means.

Here’s where I’ll interject and offer a few quick-fire bro-recs:

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach: baseball, coming of age, friendship.

How Are You Going to Save Yourself by JM Holmes: race, sex, male friendship.

Stephen Florida by Gabe Habash, wrestling, directionlessness, obsession.

The Spoils by Colin Thompson: lacrosse, self-deprecation, artistic ambition, references to Jay Bennett-era Wilco.

The All-American by Joe Milan, Jr.: football, undocumented immigrants, juvenile detention.

Novelist Frank Bill thinks fiction is getting too soft, and maybe for his taste it is, but I have the same amount of love for female novelists—and I’ve covered a fair amount of them on book(ish)—Chetna Maroo, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Eleanor Catton, Camille Bordas, the list goes on. Sometimes we just need to try a little harder. Fiction, after all—to reference the oft-touted study—increases empathy, so why not read beyond the self?

Again, does fiction need more Beer & Skittles? Or do men just need to try harder? Maybe it’s both.

Where are all the young dudes? They’re here, they’re just not as ascendent. Would Paul Yoon, Justin Taylor, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Nathan Hill, Andrew Boryga, and Jamel Brinkley—to name just a few young dudes—have bigger audiences if more men read fiction? Maybe. Why don’t male celebrities host book clubs? How many men secretly view reading like kickboxer Andrew Tate views it when he says, “Reading books is for losers who are afraid to learn from life”?

There are some glimmers of hope. We have people like Books Are Sick, an Instagram account run by Nick Parry, an affable Canadian dude who discovered reading as an adult and wants to share that joy. We can turn our noses up at his love of Stephen King or gushing about Blink 182 memoirs, but his 218,000 followers might beg to differ. Editor Yahdon Israel started a male book club in Brooklyn. Articles and think pieces continue to puzzle over the mystery of the male fiction diet, and Jenna Bush has even gotten in on the action. Maybe that will all add up to a little bit of fun? One can hope.

Reading = fun? Who ever said you had to grind and maximize and capitalize on your leisure time? Maybe it’s time to let go.

I’ll leave you with a little slice of the fragile male ego from the great Keith Gessen:

We hurt one another. We go through life dressing up in new clothes and covering up our true motives. We meet up lightly, we drink rosé wine, and then we give each other pain. We don't want to! What we want to do, what one really wants to do is put out one's hands—like some dancer, in a trance, just put out one's hands—and touch all the people and tell them: I'm sorry. I love you. Thank you for your e-mail. Thank you for coming to see me. Thank you. But we can't. We can't. On the little life raft of Mark only one other person could fit. Just one! And so, thwarted, we inflict pain. That’s what we do. We do not keep each other company. We do not send each other cute text messages. Or, rather, when we do these things, we do them merely to postpone the moment when we'll push these people off, and beat forward, beat forward on our little raft, alone.

—Keith Gessen, All The Sad Young Literary Men

*Read Andrew Boryga’s great rebuttal here.

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Please spread the love to your local libraries, independent booksellers if you can, or shop online at Bookshop. Thanks, as always, for reading.