[Is there a] Female Dominance [in] Fiction [?]

Latte And Now For That Latte
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Is this a discussion of male authors, or of Serious Fiction? There are plenty of extremely successful authors, both male and female, who don’t claim to be writing Literature. And there are plenty of voracious readers, both male and female, who find the Literary Canon boring and academic. If you talk about Martin Amis but don’t even bother to mention Dennis Lehane, that says more about you than it does about the cultural landscape.

On the other hand, if you insist on talking about Serious Fiction, 7 of the last ten Booker Prize winners were men, as were 7 of the last ten Pulitzers for fiction.

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This is, I’m afraid, to make assumptions about me that are entirely unwarranted. Not only do I love “popular” fiction — I can refer you to magazine articles I’ve wrritten about Stephen King, Patricia Highsmith and Michael Connelly if you like — I wrote any number of what I insisted my publisher describe as “suspense” novels. If you’re looking for a literary snob, you’re looking in the wrong place. Not least because I now make my living by writing thrillers for the most lurid and popular medium of them all.

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You did write the above, didn’t you?

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Knaussgard is not an English language author. I’m not sure I understand your air of grievance.

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[quote=“N_CROSS, post:24, topic:143979, full:true”]
I fully agree, although I’m not at all familiar with Donal Ryan. It’s worth noting, though, that even Banville recently pointed out somewhere that he wouldn’t want to be starting out today.

Of course there are many successful male writers, especially at the literary end of things. But literary brings with it a slightlly cabbagey air of establishment approval, and that’s what worries me a bit. I’m thinking about the kind of writer of whom parents and English teachers would sniffily disapprove of. I read Michael de Larrabetti’s children’s book THE BORRIBLES when I was nine and it absolutely blew my socks off. This exhilaration was only amplified by knowing my mum would’ve blown a gasket, had she so much as glanced inside it. (After the Brixton riots, its sequel was or more less banned. It is still one of my favourite books, and I bought a copy for my younger son when HE was nine.) I read Salem’s Lot at 13, when I was babysitting my nephews. I thought Danny Glick tip-tip-tapping on the window would literally kill me with terror. I wish I could experience the pure exhilaration of that terror again. I read the Wasp Factory when I was 17. I loved it so much I didn’t know what to do with myself. I don’t think I talked about anything else for two weeks. All of which is to say: there’s a time in your life, at least I think for young men and boys, when reading is at its best and most thrilling when it has the air of anarachy and sedition around it. I think that’s what my argument, in essence, boils down to.

[NB edited a bit for grammar and whatnot]

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I think that’s a different argument than the first few posts in the thread are making, hence the confusion.

I would say that books with an “air of anarchy and sedition” have always been Frowned Upon by the establishment. That’s the whole point! But that’s different from saying that books by men can’t get published, or that women dominate the fictional landscape.

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Actually not edited for grammar and whatnot at all. I somehow managed simply to copy-paste the original, without correction. Sorry!

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Absolutely so. My point is made entirely without sectarianism, or hysteria. Plenty of men have books published.

I’m simply pointing out that not enough men are reading the books that are currently published. Which means, at its most vulgar, that a market is not being served. But more importantly, it means an (arguably urgent) cultural need is not being met. It would be wonderful — and I believe it’s necessary — to give these non-reading men and boys access to more new books of a kind they might be interested in. As you indicate, this often means books that are not “good” for them. Perhaps even books that are, in fact, by any realistic metric not “good” at all… except inasmuch as they are books, and books lead to books lead to books. (I might never have read Thomas Mann at fifty, had I not read Sven Hassel at 11 — and might never have read anything at all, had my step-father not read me to sleep with Robert Louis Stevenson.) Every cliche about the goodness of books is true. They are the best thing ever invented. And currently, men and boys are not reading as many books as they once did. Rather than dismissing them by default as natural non-readers, I think it would be wonderful if we thought more about how better to serve their needs as potential readers.

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Forgive me - this wasn’t the point I was trying to make, so apologies if I fumbled it.

I was speaking to the general point of the thread — the idea that there aren’t enough books for men, and/or that there aren’t male authors — neither of which I believe to be true.

To the wider point of whether the percentage of men who read is as high as it is for women, and/or if it could and should be higher… well, I’ll confess I wasn’t considering that at all and I have no evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) to suggest or support a view. That’s also taking the argument a bit further than I’m interested in, to be honest.

The simple point I was trying to make by inserting myself into this thread is that I call “bull” on the idea that women authors and women gatekeepers are crowding out anything for us dudes.

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To me, this right here is the crux of the matter.

I have worked in public libraries in a couple of different U.S. states. One job was in the mid-1990s in a city that’s well-known for having a vibrant bookstore culture, a LOT of local writers, and active readers of all ages and backgrounds that frequent the city and county libraries.

The other library job was just prior to the pandemic on the opposite coast from the first. This community had a mostly older population, and a small, dated library with a collection that focused on the NYT best sellers.

In both jobs, I noticed that children at the library mostly came in with their mothers. The boys were avid readers as very young children, but they didn’t continue to visit as they get older because their fathers didn’t read at home. Or come to the library with them.

When we did see fathers come in with the kids and check out books, their sons continued to read well into their teens.

We have ample studies to show that children raised in homes where the parents read and talk about books are more likely to stick with reading as a hobby.

When I was a child, my dad and step-dad read either the Readers Digest Condensed books or writers like Louis L’Amour, Zane Grey, and Tom Clancy. Those books are still around for a younger generation to find, should they look for them.

But, I don’t think young men and boys will even look if they don’t see the men in their lives putting reading as a priority.

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There is an educational angle here too. I don’t come from a family of readers. My father told me he started reading after retirement because he’d seen me reading so much.

My “habit” very simply stems from primary school. My school had a main library as well as a bookcase in every classroom. Private reading time was allotted every day in the class schedule and I devoured those books like they were unlimited free candy.

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RuthS, I could not agree more. (And that mention of Louis L’Amour gave me a happy-sad, wistful little moment).

To borrow a phrase, it deepens like a coastal shelf. If each generation of men is reading less than the generation before, we might soon have a generation of men to whom the idea of recreational reading is entirely alien: something you’re forced to do in school, suffer through, then never have to do again.

And it’s not easy, even for dads in bookish households. My older son is a big reader. But (and this is a coincidence so weird it has left me feeling very odd indeed) about an hour ago my younger son, who has just finished a four-year engineering degree, phoned me to ask for some book recommendations. He has never in his life read a book for pleasure, even though the Borribles made him weep when he was nine. He now wants to give reading novels a try. I am absolutely terrified as to what I’m going to recommend.

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Does he have a favorite TV show or movie franchise?

If so, point him to the popular books that might fit those interests.

Or, if push comes to shove, point him to L’Amour, Zane Grey, and Tom Clancy. Even Dan Brown, Caleb Carr, or Stephen King. It doesn’t have to be the best prose ever if it can tell a good story and open the door for him.

And, admittedly, I went through my snooty, high-brow academic phase when I was a doctoral student, poking fun at the “less polished” stuff I grew up seeing people read.

After leaving that program and working in libraries, I’ve lost that snotty, judgmental approach to reading recommendations. Now, I just want people to read. Even if it’s the back of the cereal box.

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I think I am going to recommend Ted Chiang. I think he’s a genius, a beautiful and considered writer who makes the world look new and different and indeed beautiful. But I wish I still smoked, so I could pace up and down the garden as I worry about it.

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Which I guess brings us back to the beginning of the thread. Men who think other men (and boys) should read more and model reading themselves can have more impact than any number of female parents/teachers/librarians.

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Many years ago I attended a seminar on “Communication” during which the presenter said

98% of adults are aliterate (that is they can read but don’t do so)

The statement maybe true but I have never found a verifiable and trustworthy source for it and a year later when I next met the presenter they could not remember the source either.

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Again – I think we need to be skeptical of such bold claims.

Let’s look at some actual published statistics to see where we are on readership…

A March 2024 survey into readership rates in the UK concluded that…

  • People who’d not read a book in the past 3 months:
    35% of men | 28% of women
  • People who’d read 1-4 books in the past 3 months:
    45% of men | 42% of women
  • People who’d read 5+ books in the past 3 months:
    21% of men | 32% of women
  • People who’d read 12+ books in the past 3 months:
    6 % of men | 12 % of women

(Note, I’m aggregating the “none”, “don’t know” and “n/a” responses into a single “not read a book” grouping for what I hope are obvious and justifiable reasons)
Source: Statista (produced in cooperation with YouGov)

In addtion, the National Literary Trust did a survey in 2022 of UK children aged 5 to 18. Some key conclusions were:

  • More girls than boys read daily (34.3% girls | 26.5% boys)
  • Geography has an impact on reading enjoyment (High point 54.2% Greater London | Low point 43.6% East Midlands)
  • The percentage of children who enjoy reading either “very much” or “quite a lot” is roughly 50% – and has been around there for as long as the Trust has data (First year – 2005 51.4% | High point – 2016 58.6% | 2022 – 47.8%)

So… what I’m seeing here is that there is a gender gap in readership – but not a huge one, and it’s a disparity that seems to exist in one direction or another in most hobbies, based on a quick and dirty google for statistics for a few randomly picked pastimes.

And a slightly less scientific look at writers…

Based on the current Waterstones New HB fiction list, (32 books), authors are split 59% women | 41% men.

So, again, there is a ‘trend’ towards women (based on this single sanpshot in time, looking only at fiction, and only at a single UK retailer), but hardly the “shut out” that is being touted, esepcially considering the points raised earlier about gender of writer not being an indicator of audience, etc.

Anything else, Rog?

I’d be hugely skeptical about making claims about what causes readership (or it’s absence). I was inspired to read (essentially) by a pile of books, but dozens of others who sat by that same pile weren’t. And the difference certainly wasn’t encouragement at home.

I’m also skeptical that a strong male reading role model is the difference either. Will it help a bit? Probably, at least for very young kids. Will it have a lasting impact? This I’m less sure of… not least of all because it seems that despite clearly having very positive reading role models in both parents, @N_CROSS’s kids were split down the middle in their enjoyment of reading growing up. People will just (eventually) do what they enjoy.

So what?

Yeah, good point. Erm… I guess I’m saying I’m still not in the least bit concerned. Yes, there’s a leaning towards women reading and writing (in the same way that there is a leaning towards men in watching and playing sports), but it’s hardly a barrier to entry. People will do what they want to do, be it read, watch movies, paint, chat with friends, kick a ball about, or just stare at the wall quietly for hours while over-analysing how they should have responded in that conversation at work earlier… and I for one think we should let them.

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Tik Tok?!

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Get some skin in the game and go with The Calling!

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I’m not sure Younger Son has quite reached the age wherein he could witness the, um, darker fruits of his dad’s imaginaton without shrivelling with embarrassment. (Neither of them had even watched the show until the movie came out…)

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