Any Man: A Novel

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i had to pause and take a breather because i was absolutely enraged by the section that's a transcript of a talk show discussing the validity of male rape. I'm thankful I read this on the heels of the Barbie movie--felt like a companion piece in regards to a monologue toward the end of the book. Photograph: Dia Dipasupil/Getty View image in fullscreen Amber Tamblyn at the book launch of Any Man in New York. She says all women have had to become teachers, for better or worse, showing the men in their lives how the negative aspects of patriarchy affect every gender. One of the most revelatory chapters in the book, however, is comprised solely of fictional tweets from real people and entities, like Katy Perry, CNN, HelloGiggles, Bill O’Reilly, Roxane Gay and Mike Cernovich, as though they were tweeting about the victims in the book.

I think Michael could have provided a really interesting perspective, and immediately having him kill himself seemed like kind of a wasted opportunity. A difficult, disturbing book to read, not really enjoyed, but fascinated--riveted--engaged--invested.I checked out this book being super skeptical cos like Amber is a celebrity and I was worried it would be a big pretentious or detached from reality. What’s most shocking about these is how predictable tweets are, and also: how absolutely banal the ally sentiments and how vicious the attacks. How our behaviour looks from a macro perspective, instead of the micro that we are so used to seeing in our own little bubbles. This is the story of five men, all of whom have been the victim of an anonymous serial rapist known as Maude. It’s a blistering criticism, as is the use of the men, especially Donald, the first victim, who agrees to be interviewed in hopes of helping other men, and the hideous way his vulnerability is trampled in the public arena.

Michael commits suicide, Pear dies from cancer, Jamar goes on to have a family, Sebastian becomes even more famous and Donald has his own activist radio show. I was facing the windows and leaning over some old woman who wasn't making eye contact because you don't do that on NYC public transportation if you can help it. I’m not religious, but my mom is Christian and she hates when people hear she’s a Christian and assume she probably doesn’t like gay people, or that she’s probably against immigration. This raises the question of what constitutes assault and rape and how even when consent is given it can be withdrawn at any point. A female serial rapist known only as Maude preys upon unsuspecting men, boldly reframing sexual assault, imagining a male-victim, female-attacker point of view, the better to defamiliarize and highlight our contemporary rape culture.The book’s furious empathy is for victims of sexual assault, and especially the way they are futher assaulted and depersonalized by sensationalist news and social media. maude herself is a mysterious figure, because her individual motivations are less important than the toxic rape culture which plagues survivors. In that way, Tamblyn's book is critical because it believes so wholeheartedly in the most fundamental power of art: to awaken minds by evoking empathy.

Jamar is also treated badly by the media when they publish everything about his attack that could have only come from a leak in the support group and Pear is furious about it as well trying to get Jamar to reach out but he won’t. All the things I swore I'd never feel if something like this happened to me crashed in on me all at once. We have to recognize that we have the power to make this a different world that isn't ruled by social media trends and how many "likes" your stupid vacation photos got or what you wear or how much you drink or what you do for a living or how much money you make. Too many like to play their hand at being God and come from a place of hate and then pat themselves on the back for it. She has spoken openly, for example, about an ex-boyfriend who assaulted her at a nightclub in Hollywood, dragging her out of the venue “by my private parts”.Funny enough, the complaint we hear the most from men these days is that they don’t “feel safe” approaching a woman to flirt anymore.

She also knows that makes her a target of sorts, like when her husband David Cross participated in an interview for his show “Arrested Development” that sounded like the men were excusing abusive behavior. Good evening, I’m your host, Melissa Hope and thank you for joining me on BCN’s number-one primetime television talk show The Melissa Hope Hour… [Guests], what do you make of these specific cases and the controversial circumstances surrounding how, in particular, they occurred? Chapters vary in form, with the closest well-known comparisons being Mark Danielewski’s “House of Leaves” or Jennifer Egan’s “A Visit From the Goon Squad. Overall, Any Man was a dark and disturbing look into male sexual assault, victim blaming and much more and it really makes you ask certain questions. If anybody else has read this book I’d love to discuss it, so feel free to leave me a comment and get a conversation going!All the while the police are without leads and the media hound the victims, publicly dissecting the details of their attack. But we can't expect guys to read our minds or understand our feelings because they're so different from ours!