The Men by Sandra Newman

[beastlyslumber]

Has anyone read this? I really liked her novel The Heavens, and Newman was a celebrated literary darling, at least in certain circles, until this book came out. The premise is that, overnight, everyone with a Y chromosome disappears from the face of the earth. The book has been downrated by a campaign on goodreads, and the author has been accused of transphobia (based on the premise alone). I was going to wait for the paperback but now think I might splash out on the hardback, just to give a bit of support. Just wondering if anyone else was following this or had read the book yet?

Sounds like it may have been the basis for the recent tv series ‘Y the last man’? I’m only halfway through the series but it’s very good so far.

No, it's a different thing. I haven't seen Y but I understand they're not connected.

She’s done nothing wrong, it’s just fiction.

Thanks for the reminder. I'd like to read this.

I haven't read it yet, but picked up a couple of earlier sci-fi classics (by women) about "what if the men disappeared" scenarios for my summer holiday reading.

I’ve bought it, I haven’t started it yet but I’d pre-ordered it purely based on all the usual shit the TRA’s were spouting about it.

I’d never heard of the author or read her books before, so as far as I’m concerned they’ve done a great job of advertising for her.

Sounds like one for me! Will get it on order

Y last man is based on a graphic novel of the same name. The protaginist is a man so i would imagine different to this where there are no men??

Ooh, what have you got? It's my favourite genre but there are only a handfull that I know of..

Daughters of a Coral Dawn trilogy- Katherine V Forrest
Motherlines trilogy - Susan Mckee Charnas

Not quite the same, but try Body of Glass by Marge Piercy. A male-less society is part of a small sub-plot.

I didn’t know Motherlines was now a trilogy! I loved the first one. Must get the second two. Also of course will buy The Men by Sandra Newman. Mumsnet’s now my resource for new books to buy.

I've read it. I think it's very good - it has a real emotional punch, and is quite interesting from a feminist perspective because it engages with the simultaneous facts that a) statistically the world really would be less violent (and possibly better more generally) without men, and b) for most women there would also be huge grief and sadness. It's sort of a metaphor for all revolutions, and an exercise in revolutionary thinking, i.e. if you want this would you give up that, etc etc.

It was accused of transphobia essentially, I think, because although transwomen are treated as "honorary women" (e.g. characters thinking that it's so terribly unfair that transwomen disappear along with men, because they're obviously not the same thing) they do disappear, i.e. are acknowledged as biologically male. And I think someone also took exception to transmen being attacked by furious mobs, presumably on the basis that an author obviously sympathises with every action they depict. 🙄

Basically I think it's a thoughtful book on the subject of sex and gender, and as it involves recognising the realities of male/female behaviour and extrapolating from those it was always going to attract some ire. However, I think Newman has in the past positioned herself as fairly woke, and was really upset by the TRAs - she tried to defend herself on Twitter, which went as well as you'd expect. (I understand at one point (don't know if this was a response) she came out as non-binary.) Less forgiveably, her publishers also didn't anticipate the furore, which is utterly naive, given the mere title of the book... In some ways although I sympathise I don't think it's exactly a bad thing, as the more publishers release good, nuanced, intelligent books which are excoriated for nothing, the sooner they will realise that Twitter is a shitshow and needs to be roundly ignored.

The Wanderground by Sally Miller Gearhart is about an all-women society. Men also exist but they don’t interact much. Great book from the 70s, when we had oh such thrilling ideas of the future.

I picked up The Female Man and Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, but haven't read them yet.

Anyone here remember The Gate to Women's Country by Sherri S. Tepper? Men are segregated from women who are secretively carrying out a selective breeding program to make men less violent?

There's actually four. Motherlines is the second. Harrowing in places. I picked mine up on ebay.

That was based on the comic series by Brian K. Vaughan which I think is rather great.

Thank you, I read Daughters of a Coral Dawn trilogy twenty years ago from the library and have been trying to remember the title for years. They have stuck with me all this time.

And thanks to everyone else, my To Be Read pile just gained a lot more titles.

Ooh I like the sound of The Wanderground. Never read that.

I like Joanna Russ' writing (and especially her non-fiction pamphlet about women's writing, which is still completely relevant) but I found The Female Man virtually unreadable. I genuinely didn't know what she was going on about - presumably my fault, as it is a much-lauded book.

Charlotte Gilman-Perkins (of The Yellow Wallpaper fame) wrote a great book called Herland, about a women-only society.

Yes, I think Newman has positioned herself as woke and non-binary, although I wonder how much that is sticking since the furore around this novel. She is a very good writer - I loved The Heavens.