Cover Image: Male Tears

Male Tears

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Member Reviews

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

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The quote at the opening of the book from Germaine Greer sums up the theme to this collection of short stories: 'The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough.'

Intense, brutal and raw, these stories depict rather unpleasant and base elements of maleness, many set in rural landscapes maybe to depict being close to nature, perhaps. In most cases, these unnamed men are on the edge, not quite fitting in with the modern world and somewhat outdated. Caricatures, resentful, insecure, bitter and a bit like the exhibits in 'The Museum of Extinct Animals' almost. So this is a study about men being with men, men's effect on women, men honouring men, men misunderstanding.

Myers is a beautiful writer of poetic prose and it easy to get lost in his words. Reading this eclectic mix of stories is both a pleasure and a disappointment. Very sad, I just hope his next book shows men more joyously. No more tears.

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Good book, not like anything I've read before. Enjoyable from a writer who is new to me. Would recommend.

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This was a solid collection of stories and I'd recommend it to fans of Colin Barrett's "Young Skins." I did find it to be a bit hit and miss and there wasn't really one single story that blew me out of the water. It felt a bit uneven and like it was thrown together for the sake of being published (although I guess it is all tied together with the theme of masculinity). But it's written well and I'd be interested in reading more of the author's work. Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.

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I loved The Offing and was looking forward to discover what Benjamin Myers could do with the short form, but this book left me rather disappointed on the whole. Some stories were very good, but others not so much, and I thought the collection lacked unity both in form and content.

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I enjoyed Myers’ collection — and listening to the Hay Festival book of the month interview helped - but this is a book of two halves for me. Some stories, such as the shocking ‘A Thousand Acres of English Soil’ at the start, and the final tale ‘Snorri and Frosti’, resonate long after finishing. ‘Old Ginger’, too, is haunting, and ‘Vienna’ is a non-fiction account. There is definitely a broad spectrum of stories here. In some ways, the ‘male tears’ thread is seamless throughout, although I do think the link to this is tenuous at times - and one can tell the collection was written over a long period of time.

I really wanted to love the collection but I think it largely comes down to personal choice. Myers’ style, although original and rooted, mainly, in the north of England, doesn’t really appeal to me. I can recognise quality but some of the harsh landscapes, and harsh behaviour of characters, affects the way I perceive the collection. I didn’t love it - but it’s worthy of 4 stars.

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There are some really good stories here. They range in tone, length and focus but tend to take place in rural settings where men often come to unfortunate ends. The title and cover are a bit misleading and some stories misfire (e.g. "The Longest, Brightest Day") but "suburban animals', "A Thousand Acres of English Soil" and the longer, Beckett-like "Snorri and Frosti", to name three, are excellent. Some stories are not for the squeamish and a few read like writing exercises, but there's some high quality writing here.

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This collection of short stories brings together writing from Myers over an extended period - others may have been able to judge when in his development as a writer they fell but it wasn’t apparent to me. The best stories, for me, touch on the tension between man and the countryside (and frequently end badly...), and others consider what it means to be a man. Some grim, some touching, some amusing, and a high hit rate - only one story didn’t land for me, and a couple of shorter stories (a page) achieve more in a few paras than many longer works I’ve read!

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Very much a game of two halves. Some great tales of men's struggles in harsh country and some less good more experimental stories. Also, a slight temptation to overwrite and highlight his wide vocabulary.

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In 2021 it's a brave author confident in their own voice that makes TWO (positive) mentions of Germaine Greer within the first 25 pages of their book. Top marks!
This short story collection is a good introduction to Ben Myers writing. His novels are varied and excellent.

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There is little in the way of coherence in this collection of short stories from Benjamin Myers that examines the nature of man and his psyche, which to be honest depicts a largely unpalatable and uncomfortable picture of being male. A number of the stories have been published previously, and the book is a compilation of around 15 years of the author's writings, some can barely be termed stories, so slight as to be of little consequence. Many are inspired by real life incidents and people, but are shaped by artistic licence, so many are raw, visceral, brutal and violent, many set in rural environments. As you might have gathered, I found this collection to be a bit of a hit and miss experience, some of which is deeply upsetting such as a the horrifying use of a gin trap that captures the excruciating suffering of a badger.

There is a man operating a mechanical picker, a monster of a machine, and a boy skipping school to spend his time outdoors and in the woods, the wildlife, to learn what really matters, the truth of life and death, a tough read. There is an astronaut having trouble adjusting to normalcy, a man's personal history of a river, the museum of extinct animals, an inverse graveyard for which man is responsible and the steady souring of a relationship between a couple, the bitter and manipulative man of cruelty, a relationship that has a English ending. There is Old Ginger, a legend, a menace, and a sadistic gamekeeper. A male musical journalist interviews an iconic older reclusive female folk singer, her career reduced to one anthemic song, the break up with Simon resulting in a rewriting of history in a male centred business. Vienna features a man willing to do whatever it takes to see Dutch Renaissance artist, Pieter Bruegal the Elder's famous 1565 Hunters in the Snow at a Vienna art exhibition.

A fair ride that generates a small fortune consumes a man, captives forced to move stones up a hill ends in what seems to be a more than just ending, a fading writer cannot face the downturn in his fortunes, weaponising music, a torture for the women that grow sick and tired of him. There are many stories in this collection that will appeal to many readers, but I suspect most readers experience will be similar to mine, where some of the fiction will appeal more than others. Many thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC.

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I have read every Myers book since stumbling across the Gallows Pole and his work is uniformly excellent. Here, the writing is as vivid as ever but the overall mood dips a little as this book contains rarities, oddities and B-sides.

Some of the stories are stronger than other and the writing is, on the whole, brilliant. Myers has a unique voice that brings a fresh colour scheme to rural Britain, his writing really is intoxicating.

What struck as a slight disconnect is that the cover of the book and the title would lead some to believe this is a book of reportage about being male. I confess, at first blush, that this is what I thought this would be when seeing the title and cover art and it wasnt until I looked closer I realised it was a collection of short stories.

Still, this is hardly Myers' fault but something worth considering.

I would not hesitate to reccomend this book as an excellent primer on the type of work Myers does and I would encourage anyone with the slightest interest in the English language to seek out his work.

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I have previously read Myers’ books “The Gallows Pole” (I was part of the judging panel for the 2018 Republic of Consciousness Prize which long listed this) and “Under The Rock”, so I know that he is an accomplished writer and, particularly, that he is strong when writing about nature (a topic close to my heart: when I am not reading I am outside building up my portfolio of wildlife and nature photographs).

This book is described as bringing together “over fifteen years of work” which suggests it reaches back to the time when the author was a music journalist and not yet a novelist. (There is a story early on in this collection about a music journalist who harbours a dream of becoming a novelist). In turn, this suggests that this collection is giving us a glimpse into the author’s gradual growth into his writing skills.

I’m never quite sure about this idea of “showing your working” and, for me, this collection never really got going. The first story is a gruelling read (it’s short, like all the pieces here, but somewhat stomach-churning with both humans and animals being maimed): it was enough for me to pause at the end of it and wonder whether I really wanted to continue with the book. I decided I would and, although there are a couple of other stories that are rather unpleasant reading, most of the rest of the pieces are fine. But none of them lit a spark in me as I read. Perhaps “Vienna (Hunters in the Snow)” came closest (it has a very different style and feel to all the other pieces here), but too many of the other stories felt like writing exercises rather than proper “short stories”.

My thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.

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This is a collection of short stories from an author who I am a fan of. They have been written over a period of some 15 years and certainly some have been previously published. All of them feature men although the men are not necessarily the subject of the stories directly. A variety of men are involved and the stories are set in differing times. Some are very simple, some brief, some complex and some quite long. It will be no surprise to people who have read Myers previous books to find that many of these are dark or even very dark!

The blurb said these stories are about "what it means to be a man". I guess that would make me quite sad about being male as far as some of these are concerned. They certainly don't offer particularly positive views on men. That said I found some of these stories very powerful indeed. Taking as an example "An English Ending" this was very understated and, in a strange way gently, compelling. Most of the stories here tend to leave quite a lot unsaid and I do like that approach from a writer. It allows us to colour in parts for ourselves.

Some of the stories will probably stay with me for quite some time. The first one which looks at two lives - a farmer harvesting potatoes and a boy who explores an old dump - offered a vivid contrast of lives compared. Looking at the notes I made while reading this I see three in a row that worked well for me. The Whip Hand, The Last Apple Picker and Saxophone Solos were quite different stories but were in some ways whimsical and certainly entertaining. Equally I really liked "Ten Men" - the ending didn't come as much of a surprise but it was a well worked story.

Other stories maybe had less of an impact on me. That is not to suggest they were not well written - this author is a very accomplished writer. However they simply didn't resonate with me in the way that some did. I confess that there were one or two that I either didn't see the point of or that I didn't really understood. There is almost always a problem with short stories for me in the way that some you love and want more of and others simply don't really grab you (and those will differ from reader to reader). Lovers of Ben Myers's work will want to read this anthology and will enjoy it. People who are new to his work should possibly start elsewhere.

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