The Death Of The Literary Man Was A Suicide
Mike Wiley rejects the murder hypothesis
Dear Republic,
The spirit of The Republic of Letters is thoughtful, intelligent debate, so it was a happy accident that the next piece up from the “What Has Happened To Literary Men” contest takes the obverse position from
’s piece. Paul says literary men were murdered. In this tightly-argued piece, Mike Wiley says they offed themselves.And congrats to
for getting The Republic of Letters’ first cash bonus for 100 likes!-ROL
THE DEATH OF THE LITERARY MAN WAS A SUICIDE
Nowadays, you could easily mistake a conversation about literary men for one about elephants.
Elephants are endangered. They (the poor, defenseless animals) have been driven out of their natural habitats and poached by the thousands. Their populations have fallen by almost 80 percent since the 1960s. Some even celebrate their demise, arguing that elephants are, after all, an invasive species.1
So it is, we’re told, with literary men, who are being driven extinct by a woke literary establishment. Men have been denied access to top MFA programs. They’ve been shunned by prestigious literary award committees. Editors won’t read drafts submitted by male authors, resulting in a modern fiction landscape that prioritizes marginalized voices. Persistent left-wing criticism of men’s literary taste has turned yesterday’s fiction idols — from Bukowski to Hemingway to David Foster Wallace —into “signifiers of misogyny.”
Allegedly, these factors help explain why women account for 80 percent of the fiction market, or are nearly 20 percentage points more likely to have read a book in the last year.
I don’t doubt these statistics. Men are reading fewer books than women. If you’re skeptical, simply take note of who’s shopping at your nearest bookstore. Last weekend, I went to a sale at my local library, and even though I already knew what to expect, I was surprised by how overwhelmingly women dominated the fiction section. The only aisle that skewed male was U.S. and military history.
But as tempting as it may be to blame the literary establishment for these trends — or to cast men as the victims of a culture that lost interest in male vulnerability — I just can’t get behind this explanation. It raises too many questions for me, such as:
1. If the post-2014 literary establishment drove men away, why did men also stop reading novels that were written more than a century ago?
2. If progressive criticism can sway men’s consumption habits, why is the manosphere still thriving?
3. If woke fiction is the problem, why isn’t explicitly anti-woke literature (e.g. books like Fuccboi, or anything from Passage Press) more popular?
It’s not just that this explanation falls short — I think it’s harmful for the literary community. First, it perpetuates a politics of identity, victimhood, and elite resentment that many people — especially men — are tired of. It also reinforces the idea that representation requires authors to match the identity of their characters. (I.e. if you want male narratives, you need to elevate male authors.) This idea fueled the #OwnVoice movement. But as Naomi Kanakia points out, this idea can quickly spiral, leading to calls for increasingly narrow forms of representation. It also overlooks authors who successfully write across gender, race, or class lines — think of Sally Rooney, whose books consistently feature realistic, emotionally complex male characters.
So, why are men reading less fiction? The right answer is probably the most boring one. I suspect, as many have argued, that video games, podcasts, and long-form social media (e.g., Reddit and YouTube) play a major role. This explanation not only strikes me as more plausible; it helps frame the issue less as a matter of male victimhood, and more as a matter of positive choices men have made — about what they find entertaining, enlightening, and deserving of their time.
To be clear, I’m not saying that men can’t be victims, or that the disdain for men’s literary ambitions is overblown. (Some pieces written about this issue — by authors who “welcome the end of male dominance in literature” — are dripping with such disdain.) Instead, I’m saying this: Progressives and literary elites aren’t driving men away from fiction. Men are affirmatively choosing other forms of entertainment over books. The death of the literary man was a suicide.
And that’s not necessarily a problem. Of course, some would argue that novels are an essential part of a healthy emotional existence, and a life without books is not worth living. Others may worry about the culture of the online platforms men have replaced books with — the same platforms that helped usher in the rise of Trump, Andrew Tate, QAnon, and a general spirit of incel-dom.
But I’m not so concerned. As The Republic’s own Sam Kahn wrote recently, books are a technology. They’re just one potential form among many for spreading ideas. It’s not clear that ideas spread via books must be more enlightened than those spread via other technologies. Need we list all the atrocious ideas that books have helped spread throughout history? Meanwhile, even stand-up comedy — as it grows in popularity among the manosphere-types — has proven capable of spreading truth, beauty, and male vulnerability. In his most recent special, comedian Andrew Schulz opened up about the insecurity he felt after learning he was impotent. Similar conversations happen every day on podcasts. Our goal, therefore, shouldn’t be to save books. It should be to make sure men and women are living emotionally and intellectually fulfilling lives, whatever that looks like.
If we do want to rescue literary men from extinction (big if!), it simply won’t do to accept more men into MFAs or refocus big publishers on male narratives. We need a shared understanding of the problem: Books are competing with other forms of entertainment. And the competition is winning. Most men — and women, too —would rather watch videos than read fiction. I’m not sure it’s possible for books to win this one. But complaining about literary wokeness won’t help.
Mike Wiley lives in Arlington, Virginia, where he runs a workshop for poets and fiction writers — mostly men.
Alright, I made this last point up to serve the metaphor. Just bear with me.
 | A guest post by
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Thank you for your thoughtful and measured argument. I do, however, disagree with some of it. In particular,
“If progressive criticism can sway men’s consumption habits, why is the manosphere still thriving?”
Don’t mean to nitpic, but ‘The Manosphere?’ I looked it up, “A loose collection of predominantly online anti-feminist movements.” It sounds like a derogatory term.
“If woke fiction is the problem, why isn’t explicitly anti-woke literature (e.g. books like Fuccboi, or anything from Passage Press) more popular?”
Are male literary readers limited to one or two relatable books? First off, men I know would not be drawn to, or even pluck off the shelf something titled, Fuccboi. And out of hundreds if not thousands of small presses, you pull out one, Passage Press. So, what are you saying? Women can own and rule publishing, and men can have Passage Press. That’s reserved for them. Well, ain’t that special.
Regarding the ‘victimhood’ part of this argument, I don’t look for victimhood in men’s literature, just maleness and realness, and yes, female characters that I can relate to, or not, but are honestly and realistically drawn.
I belong to a couple writers groups as well. They’re mostly women. And I recently read one manuscript, very well written, and very publishable today, but totally unrelatable to me. Why? Because the POV character, a woman, leads a crew of four men through a violent war like confrontation. The traditional roles are reversed. Clever, and entertaining, for most readers, because most readers are female, but not for me, and likely not for a lot of men.
“Progressives and literary elites aren’t driving men away from fiction.”
Okay, maybe not driving them away, just putting out feminist fiction they can’t relate to.
“Men are affirmatively choosing other forms of entertainment over books. The death of the literary man was a suicide.”
Choosing? I’m not so sure. If you raise your son on Big Macs and chocolate donuts, he may not be able to ‘choose’ good wholesome food later in life. Men, especially young men, if they’re assigned woke girl books in school, read less because they learn that books are not about them; books are for girls. They don’t see themselves and their values, ethos, problems in books. Yes, you have a point about gaming. Having raised a son and tried to instill a love of reading in him, I know that the rise of the internet especially took boys and young men away from the more challenging art of reading. I think people should ask themselves, why would a culture, a government, allow businesses to redirect young people, especially young men, from learning to read and into the sugary easiness of gaming? It is, to me, not unlike the educational system throwing away the requirement for cursive writing, mathematics without calculators, and yes, requiring reading challenging books.
“Others may worry about the culture of the online platforms men have replaced books with — the same platforms that helped usher in the rise of Trump, Andrew Tate, QAnon, and a general spirit of incel-dom.”
Here we go again, Trump did it. I call bullshit. This great migration away from literature into gaming began way before Trump got into politics. This purge and the gagging of male voices in literature started decades ago. Unless literary men parrot the new golden memes, they will not get into the women’s publishing tent.
“Need we list all the atrocious ideas that books have helped spread throughout history?”
‘Atrocious ideas?’ I think you’ve unwittingly nailed it. Yes, some ideas (via book technology) are atrocious. Take Michel Houellebecq, for instance. His criticism of aggressive Islam, and the sexism in his novels, are ‘atrocious’ enough to make him a target for assassination. And if he were assassinated, many of today’s literati wouldn’t give a shit. I don’t care what they say.
You seem to think that ideas should be kindly and thoughtful and fair and without prejudice, and inclusive, and diverse, and enlightened, and the list goes on… So, tell me, who decides what ideas are atrocious, and what are acceptable in the brave new literary world?
I think you’ve stumbled into the crux of the question. You have identified the endangered elephant, Free Speech. It’s all about who can speak (through writing literature) and what he or she can say. Yes, it really does get down to free speech. Andrew Breitbart had it right, and said it loud and clear just before he died mysteriously. (I guess this makes me sound paranoid. I don’t care because I am a little bit paranoid, and it has served me well.)
“Meanwhile, even stand-up comedy — as it grows in popularity among the ‘manosphere-types… ’”
(There you go again… normalizing the derogatory feminist term for male camaraderie.)
“Our goal, therefore, shouldn’t be to save books. It should be to make sure men and women are living emotionally and intellectually fulfilling lives, whatever that looks like.”
I disagree. That was never my goal. Why must literary writers now ENSURE that men and women live emotionally and intellectually fulfilling lives? What happened with just writing the world as we see it, good, bad or indifferent? What bible or church, or government did this new commandment come out of? Please give me the chapter and verse.
Finally, thank you for your valuable contribution to this important question.
That’s one thing I’ve never quite seen proven: that there’s a large contingent of literary women to match the lack of literary men. Certainly, there are plenty more women who read regularly, but in my experience the ratio of women:men reading serious, difficult fiction today is somewhere around 50:50.