Manfiction

Stephen King’s “Who Says Men Don’t Read” column from Entertainment Weekly, a late September installment of his “The Pop of King” column (yes, I’m behind in my reading), provides some interesting food for thought about genre fiction in general, but the divide of the sexes in particular. In countering the industry’s moanings that “men don’t read anymore!,” King has this to say:

Here’s a concept so simple it’s easy to miss: What men want from an Elmore Leonard novel is exactly what women want from a Nora Roberts novel — escape and entertainment. And while it’s true that manfiction can be guilty of objectifying women, chick lit often does the same thing to men. Reading Sandra Brown or Jodi Picoult, I’m sometimes reminded of an old Julie Brown song, ”I Like ‘Em Big and Stupid.” One memorable couplet goes, ”My father’s out of Harvard, my brother’s out of Yale/Well, the guy I took home last night just got out of jail.”

Sounds like David Allan Coe’s “You Never Even Call Me By My Name” (aka “the ultimate country song”), doesn’t it? Especially the “I was drunk the day my mama got out of prison” line. King goes on to ask,

Is this a bad thing? From an entertainment standpoint, I’d say not. Women like stories in which a gal meets a handsome (and possibly dangerous) hunk on a tropic isle; men like to imagine going to war against an army of bad guys with a Beretta, a blowtorch, and a submachine gun (grenades hung on the belt optional).

I’m thinking no. I’ve read plenty of blowtorch fiction in my life–the entire Robert Ludlum canon, for one thing, seasoned with Trevanian and Ken Follett–and I have to say that King’s spot on the mark, as usual. There’s nothing wrong with escapist fiction. We’ve gone through whole decades (Great Depression, I’m talkin’ ’bout you) where most of the movies were pure fluff. When times are hard, it takes something special to get you to read about hard times, The Grapes of Wrath being a prime example. But when you’re hungry and worried and dreading the phone call from the bank or the credit card company, you’re much more likely to go for Bringing Up Baby than you are Million Dollar Baby.

So you go, girls–Nora and company–who make us laugh and cry and forget our troubles. But we might want to hunt up some mayhem-ly manfiction, too. Sometimes, the happy ending needs a little seasoning. Grenades work.