Any Man: A Novel

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Warning for anyone unaware - this is extremely triggering content. I had to set the book down at least a dozen times and walk away. It messed me up in more ways than one. But it's also one of the most stunningly written and expertly told books I've ever come across. It’s about gender equality and gender roles and gender assumptions. It’s about the groups we align ourselves with, the lines in the sand we draw as tribes. The hate we have. The resentment we have. How women feel about social history and how it doesn’t matter until it happens to a man. It’s about how blind we are to our shared wants and needs. And how if we just worked together we could change things.

Maude is a faceless void. You literally know nothing about her, except that she could be any woman who walks into a bar. Any woman you pass on the street. Any woman you ride in an elevator with. Agreed. I follow this account on Insta called GodlessMom and she posted something the other day of a post someone had made describing how her “atheist neighbour” sold something at a garage sale that her daughter wanted to buy but didn’t have money for. So she encouraged her young daughter to pray that god would handle it and some days later the neighbour’s house was burglarized. This woman was like, “I just look at my daughter and we smiled because we knew god was on our side.” LIKE WHAT? You’re happy someone experienced misfortune because you think it was punishment from god? Like they were happy about someone’s downfall, and I think that’s the part of religion I don’t like. They truly believe they are better than other people. The idea of “love your neighbour as yourself” and the golden rule is bullshit. Hardly any of the follow it. They enjoy feeling superior, they enjoy other people being experiencing hardships. It’s the most un-Christ-like behaviour I’ve ever seen and none of them recognize it. Very few are genuinely good people who show respect and kindness and love to people, especially those who are different from them. But my mom is an exception lol. We hear ALL the time how a woman shouldn't have worn that short skirt or dressed herself up like that if she didn't want the attention. How she was just asking for it. In this novel, we hear about how he shouldn't have gotten drunk at the bar while his wife was at home with the kids. What was he thinking? STOP VICTIMIZING THE VICTIMS FURTHER. How many of you think men CAN'T get raped? Why do we, as a society, blame the victim, use them as the story of the day and then toss them aside when something more horrifying comes alone?Tamblyn launched her film career playing bit parts in her father's movies: Rebellious and Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard. She also appeared in 1995's Live Nude Girls. [2] Her first major film role was in 2005's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants as Tibby Rollins, co-starring Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, and Blake Lively. She reprised the role in the 2008 sequel, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. [2] This is not a narrative novel in the typical sense. There are no real scenes, no setting, no description. It is abstract in its prose, but it's in this abstract style that you are hit with so much raw, unflinching emotion that it becomes impossible to look away. Though it may become so overwhelming for some, you need to take an emotional reading break.

Whatever her reasons, Any Man is a valuable addition to the literature on rape culture. I think it might be especially useful to those who know someone who has been assaulted - Any Man can help the friends and families of survivors understand and empathize with what their loved ones are going through. But then, doesn't this include most - if not all - of us? Tamblyn started acting when she was 11. She grew up saying other people’s words and feeling other people’s feelings, being watched without truly being seen. “I think my experience growing up was one of long-term varied objectification,” she says. “All I’ve ever done is act. Even though there were so many other things swirling in my head.” Get ready to hold your breath. Amber Tamblyn’s Any Man is a genre-bending gender-bending brilliant blow torch of a debut novel amplifying the complexities of sexual violence and the radical costs of survival. At the center of the novel is a serial rapist named Maude who reduces the men in her path to objects of prey. We’re not used to thinking of this equation, and that’s the point. This is the story of a monstrous woman made from the darkness inside all of us, a woman who meets patriarchy head-on and shreds it, leaving men traveling the journey that women must make every day of their lives--not the hero’s journey, but the victim’s. Not to emerge heroic and victorious, but to emerge from shame and violence with empathy, compassion, and the radical ability to endure together. This book changes everything.” — Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of THE BOOK OF JOAN

Can a man be raped? Some say not possible. Join the #MaudeToPenetrate debate tonight on Facebook Live @ 11:30 p.m. EST -Facebook When it comes to violence against men, some people are actually saying what many have been thinking: Men are getting what they deserve. Inside the bizarre world of #Maudsters -Bitch Magazine I think Pear made me cry the hardest, between Maggie and his will. Maggie the Magnificent Maple Tree. Holy hell did that story give me feels. Tamblyn, Amber (June 26, 2021). "Opinion | Amber Tamblyn: Britney Spears's Raw Anger, and Mine". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved July 10, 2021. From November 2010 until April 2011, she starred as medical student Martha M. Masters in the seventh season of the Fox medical drama series House. She returned for the series finale in 2012.

Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Trigger warning for rape, including the rape of children and nonhuman animals, as well as victim blaming, transphobia, suicide, PTSD, anorexia, self-injury, and more.) Tamblyn, Amber (August 30, 2009). "Amber Tamblyn: Confessions of a Child Star". Interview by Kevin Sessums, August 30, 2009. Parade Publications, Inc . Retrieved April 3, 2012. Yamato, Jen (September 17, 2013). "Amber Tamblyn To Join Bob Odenkirk In 'Girlfriend's Day' ". Deadline Hollywood. Like Sebastian White, a gay Libertarian opinion writer who hates feminists and liberals and goes on and on about what a unicorn he is being a gay man in the alt-right movement. Sound like anyone you know?Book Genre: Contemporary, Crime, Dark, Feminism, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Poetry, Thriller The book is woven together with poetry, prose, journal entries, radio show dialogue, tweets, dating app chats and monologues and erratic thoughts. You live within the characters as they speak; you watch the news, you read the tweets, you see the texts. Equally horrifying, eye opening and heart breaking, this book is INTENSE. Tamblyn clearly knows how to write and this debut will leave you reeling. This won't be an easy read for some readers, but it's a necessary one. I'm not smart enough by half to start giving some intellectual social commentary on this book. I can't talk about the feminist mystique or empowerment or use any of the buzz words. I can't even really talk about what I think Amber Tamblyn was trying to accomplish with this book. The shadowy figure at the centre of Any Man, Maude, doesn’t have any redeeming features. No tragic past or attractive face; she doesn’t conform to the “rules” for women. You could say Tamblyn set out to break down the boundaries society has placed around Every Woman. Maude is not meant to be a believable, three-dimensional character but, rather, “a sort of projection of all of society’s dehumanising of women”. Tamblyn takes “the terms and the words that are used to describe [powerful women] and create a woman that is those literal things”. The name Maude, she says, was a deliberate choice. “It’s very bland and I wanted her name, in a way, to have nothing to say. I wanted her amorphousness to come even in the form of her title.”

If you do choose to read this book, I cannot recommend the audiobook highly enough. This is arguably the most well produce audiobook I've ever listened to. It's immersive, which you could argue is what makes the reading experience even more visceral; and that is, again, quite disturbing. Just like for women, our “Maude” could be any man who walks into a bar. Any man we pass on the street. Any man we ride in an elevator with. This is nothing less than an outstanding, emotional journey that is both devastating and eye-opening, and a powerful teaching moment about rape culture, if you are open to it. This is the story of five men, all of whom have been the victim of a serial rapist known as Maude. It is the story of how the media handles rape, and how society handles rape. How we speak about it, how we shame, how we lay blame. It’s about the questions we ask, how we ask them, the assumptions we make and how we try to make ourselves feel more comfortable in the presence of someone else’s trauma. It’s about how survivors grapple with their new reality and their upended perception of themselves, their relationships, their bodies and the world around them.Galloway, Stephen (April 20, 2014). "Inside Tarantino's 'Hateful Eight' Reading: Director Reveals He's Writing Second Draft, With New Ending". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved February 5, 2017. Her horror film career began with the opening scene of 2002's The Ring. [2] Tamblyn also appeared in the Japan-set The Grudge 2. The film, which also stars Sarah Michelle Gellar, was released on October 13, 2006, and debuted in the #1 spot at the North American box office. [2] In August 2010, she won the Bronze Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival for her performance in the title role of Stephanie Daley. The film, which also won an award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, features Tamblyn as a 16-year-old who kills her baby moments after giving birth in the bathroom of a ski resort. [2] She was also nominated for Best Actress at the Independent Spirit Awards. The film also stars Tilda Swinton and Timothy Hutton. And can we talk about Maude's last two victims? By introducing Sebastian White - an outspoken, ultra-conservative gay pundit clearly modeled after Milo Yiannopoulos - Tamblyn challenges us to have compassion for all victims, even those who are unlikable and, let's face it, overtly hostile to Tamblyn's intended audience. Meanwhile, Michael Parker serves as a reminder that we must be inclusive in our feminism, and take trans and genderqueer folks as they are. While the media insists in misgendering Michael, make no mistake: he was a man, no matter the gender assigned or name given him at birth. Maude seemed to accept this; do you really want to be less progressive than a serial rapist? This is, far and away, the only book I have read in literally a decade that has made me this emotional and awe-inspired. Amber Tamblyn's Dark Sparkler: An unsettling meditation on early fame". TheGuardian.com. April 8, 2015.