“The decline and fall of literary men should worry everyone.” That’s how The New York Times framed the glaring absence of men from modern literary culture, warning that young men will soon be lost to the misogynistic vortex of the “manosphere”.
“Decline” and “fall” are certainly interesting word choices. They suggest that the disappearance of men from the literary world is just some inevitable historical process rather than the result of the active excision of male perspectives. A perusal of the websites of publishing houses and literary agencies confirms the state of affairs. “ABOVE ALL, I prioritize diverse own voices from marginalized communities,” wrote one literary agent. Another echoes the sentiment: “in all genres I prioritize diversity and marginalized voices.” Neither outright states “no men”, but the message is clear enough.
As the writer Andrew Boryga observed last year, authentic writing from a straight male perspective just “won’t always sound like what white, upper-class women will expect, or more importantly, want”. That’s the very category of women who dominate the publishing industry. Journalist Kate Tobin has remarked that while the vulnerable, raw interiority of women is widely available in contemporary fiction, there is no corresponding “sad boy” literature. An honest depiction of the often blunt and indelicate interiority of men presents a political problem for an industry which employs “sensitivity readers” and DEI commissars.
The issue is that men make up a shrinking portion of the fiction-buying market. Most readers are women, so the market caters to them. This imbalance is a chicken-and-egg situation. But if the “literary man” has been actively gate-kept from the mainstream world of letters, he is still thriving. And not in the manosphere. In the past five years, a growing and influential reading subculture has developed in the realm of podcasts. A group of podcasts, hosted by men and sharing an antipathy for how identity politics has intruded on artistic expression, feature some of the most forthright, open and wide-ranging discussions of books on the internet.
The listenership of shows such as Rare Candy, Art of Darkness, Agitator, and Perfume Nationalist numbers in the tens of thousands rather than in the millions of Joe Rogan, but as I discovered when interviewing these creators, their patrons include many big names in publishing, Hollywood and media, however anonymous many might like to remain. They have cultivated an audience of “literary men” despite an unwelcoming cultural climate.
“Podcasts are loose and informal,” says J David Osborne of Agitator. Osborne, who started out as a writer of literary fiction over 15 years ago, now writes in the Cyberpunk and Crime genres while hosting the podcast. “I think men just vibe with programmes that present interests without pretension,” he adds. His co-host, Kelby Losack, agrees: “It feels honest.” Losack, who is a talented and prolific writer of “hoodrat noir” (crime stories set in exurban gas stations, ghettos and Walmarts) among other genres, says podcasts such as his benefit from the informal nature of the conversation. “It’s just people chopping it up about writing that moved them for better or worse and what they got out of it,” he says. “Lowkey, that’s all dudes have ever cared to talk about: genuine interests and other people who are good at shit.”
Many of these alternative podcast hosts are happy to take their time with discussions. Glen Rockney, host of Rare Candy’s book series, tells me “there’s no time limit, we don’t have a producer. [Most podcasters] are scared to talk about anything for longer than an hour. They freak out on any tangent, they edit and edit where it’s so choppy you can tell somebody’s good point got cut to pieces.” But for Rockney, “podcasting is freedom”.
Everyone in this scene views podcasts as the most liberating media form, able to avoid the censorious strictures of recent times. “Podcasts cut straight past censors,” says Kevin Kautzman, a Minnesotan playwright and one half of Art of Darkness. The show takes epic, multiple-hour deep dives into dead authors, artists, and thinkers — recent episodes on Cormac McCarthy and William Shakespeare clocked in at over four hours, while another on William S Burroughs went for five and half.
“Anybody can publish one. I could teach you to make a high-quality podcast in half a day, assuming you have something to say and are good in front of a microphone,” Kautzman adds. His co-host Brad Kelly believes shows like theirs are where a lot of men are finding their discussions about books now, because “it’s actually a discussion”. The most insightful take or funniest angle on a book is appreciated in a spirit of openness. “Participants are allowed at least the occasional outré opinion,” says Kelly. Because of the DIY nature of these programmes, appreciation hasn’t been “extruded through a half-dozen corporate filters and a lifetime of practising the kind of staid, careful analysis that doesn’t trip the censors”.
Jack Mason, host of The Perfume Nationalist, agrees that podcasts became an important source of “independent and pro-free speech perspectives in the last 10 years” in response to a culture of surveillance and censorship. The podcaster, who counts Bret Easton Ellis and The White Lotus creator Mike White as fans of his show, pairs discussion of famous fragrances with analysis of new and old media. His outlook is unapologetically “gay Republican”, with a deep appreciation for the longform storytelling possibilities of soap operas and doorstopper novels such as Gone with the Wind and Scruples. Mason is an unapologetic Trump supporter, who praises the literary merit of Ayn Rand and the radio genius of Rush Limbaugh. He sees the podcast as a vehicle to champion literary works that have fallen out of favour after Left-wing critical consensus deemed them “problematic”.
While Mason thinks that “people who consume 24/7 news media narratives” consider fiction low status, he insists on encouraging his audience to read it. The Austin native offers a premium book club option on Patreon, offering his fans access to bimonthly “Ladies of the Club” book clubs. Inspired by Helen Hoover Santmyer’s …And Ladies of the Club, a 1982 novel about a women’s book club, Mason says this portion of his show has been a “phenomenal success” and reports that the quality of conversation is extremely high, even on books such as Samuel Richardson’s Pamela — a book not exactly often discussed or written about these days.
“Concerned creative writing teachers may wring their hands about the lack of men in the literary world. But the modern literary man is alive and well.”
These podcasts share a sensibility that appeals to a largely male audience. (Although not exclusively — many of these creators told me there is a growing portion of women listeners who want to hear uncensored literary discussions.) Yet the scene is not part of the dreaded “manosphere” which many liberal commentators think is the only alternative to their tired race- and gender-obsessed literary discourse. The group’s politics is Right-leaning, but isn’t completely aligned with the “red-pill” subcultures, 4chan trolls, or standard “bow-tie conservatism” offered on a platform like The Daily Wire. Some of these creators have been grouped within the so-called “art Right”, or the New York subculture “Dimes Square”. But there is more nuance here to the politics of this scene, which is not located in one place geographically and not connected to any existing institution.
The Rare Candy hosts, who began their project as disaffected Bernie bros, try to put politics in reading aside. “I just want to read good books, and let the chips fall as they may. And it’s totally fine, some of my favourite authors are communists like John Steinbeck or Dashiell Hammett. And I love Ayn Rand, the other side of the coin. I don’t need it to fit my politics, I need it to escape,” Glen Rockney says.
Whether the author they discuss is “based” or not does not motivate these podcasters. They care about conversation that isn’t on ideological rails, honest engagement with the texts, and resistance to censorship. Glen continues: “The conservative guy is trying to take a book and bend it into Daily Wire conservatism, the Leftist guy is extracting all that’s needed from these books to further Leftist utopian ideas… it’s like, ‘wow this Kurt Vonnegut novel is just like Luigi Mangione!’”
Agitator’s cohosts agree: they “truly don’t care” how they are labelled politically, whether “good, bad, dirtbag Leftist, MAGA, idiotic, pretentious”. Meanwhile, Mason acknowledges that the scene is fairly Right-wing, opposing Democrats and Leftists, but it differentiates itself from “standard Washington DC grade-grubber conservatism” because of its irreverence and its love of freedom. Additionally, he says, “we’re able to navigate through the needless moral panics that often strike the less creative-minded conservatives”.
On Mason’s show, you will not find boilerplate conservative complaints fanning the flames of the culture war for cheap engagement. One early episode of The Perfume Nationalist sees him convince several straight male guests to read all 872 pages of Samuel R Delany’s gay pornographic opus, Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders. Such “degeneracy” would be unthinkable to Drag Queen Story Hour-obsessed Right-wingers.
These podcasts are temperamentally different, but they’re all united in their commitment to honesty. Perhaps the literary man appreciates such straightforwardness? Perhaps he seeks a place where he can actually listen to people talk about books rather than listen to people jam books and authors into ideological boxes?
Concerned creative writing teachers may wring their hands about the lack of men in the literary world. But the modern literary man is alive and well. He’s active in his own literary salon. Listening, engaging with, and paying for hours and hours of literary content. He can join bookclubs, Discords, interact directly with creators and writers in this sphere.
When I asked Art of Darkness’ Kevin Kautzman about this rich new reading culture, he summed it up this way: “Just because the geriatric Gray Lady doesn’t know about our scene, or why we’ve fled to these greener digital pastures, doesn’t mean we aren’t out here writing novels, making plays, podcasting, losing money in crypto, working three jobs, raising families and ‘being literary men’.”
It remains to be seen whether the “vibe shift” of the second Trump presidency will bring the literary man back into the fold. DEI might be dismantled in government, but publishing is a business run by people who champion — or at least accede to — this anti-male HR-ification of art. If the mainstream cannot be honest about this editorial culture, I don’t see self-respecting men running back to it. But in any case, perhaps they don’t need to.
