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Male Tears
In Male Tears, a debut collection of stories that brings together over fifteen years of work, Benjamin Myers lays bare the male psyche in all its fragility, complexity and failure, its hubris and forbidden tenderness. Farmers, fairground workers and wandering pilgrims, gruesome gamekeepers, bare-knuckle boxers and ex-cons with secret passions, the men that populate these unsettling, wild and wistful stories form a multi-faceted, era-spanning portrait of just what it means to be a man.
288 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2021
87 people are currently reading
991 people want to read
About the author
Benjamin Myers
35 books1,199 followersBenjamin Myers was born in Durham, UK, in 1976.
He is an award-winning author and journalist whose recent novel Cuddy (2023) won the Goldsmiths Prize.
His first short story collection, Male Tears, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
His novel The Offing was published by Bloomsbury in 2019 and is a best-seller in Germany. It was serialised by Radio 4's Book At Bedtime and Radio 2 Book club choice. It is being developed for stage and has been optioned for film.
The non-fiction book Under The Rock, was shortlisted for The Portico Prize For Literature in 2020.
Recipient of the Roger Deakin Award and first published by Bluemoose Books, Myers' novel The Gallows Pole was published to acclaim in 2017 and was winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2018 - the world's largest prize for historical fiction. It has been published in the US by Third Man Books and in 2023 was adapted by director Shane Meadows for the BBC/A24.
The Gallows Pole was re-issued by Bloomsbury, alongside previous titles Beastings and Pig Iron.
Several of Myers' novels have been released as audiobooks, read by actor Ralph Ineson.
Turning Blue (2016) was described as a "folk crime" novel, and praised by writers including Val McDermid. A sequel These Darkening Days followed in 2017.
His novel Beastings (2014) won the Portico Prize For Literature, was the recipient of the Northern Writers’ Award and longlisted for a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award 2015. Widely acclaimed, it featured on several end of year lists, and was chosen by Robert Macfarlane in The Big Issue as one of his books of 2014.
Pig Iron (2012) was the winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and runner-up in The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize. A controversial combination of biography and novel, Richard (2010) was a bestseller and chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year.
Myers’ short story ‘The Folk Song Singer’ was awarded the Tom-Gallon Prize in 2014 by the Society Of Authors and published by Galley Beggar Press. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies.
As a journalist he has written about the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, The Morning Star, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker and numerous others.
He currently lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.
He is an award-winning author and journalist whose recent novel Cuddy (2023) won the Goldsmiths Prize.
His first short story collection, Male Tears, was published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
His novel The Offing was published by Bloomsbury in 2019 and is a best-seller in Germany. It was serialised by Radio 4's Book At Bedtime and Radio 2 Book club choice. It is being developed for stage and has been optioned for film.
The non-fiction book Under The Rock, was shortlisted for The Portico Prize For Literature in 2020.
Recipient of the Roger Deakin Award and first published by Bluemoose Books, Myers' novel The Gallows Pole was published to acclaim in 2017 and was winner of the Walter Scott Prize 2018 - the world's largest prize for historical fiction. It has been published in the US by Third Man Books and in 2023 was adapted by director Shane Meadows for the BBC/A24.
The Gallows Pole was re-issued by Bloomsbury, alongside previous titles Beastings and Pig Iron.
Several of Myers' novels have been released as audiobooks, read by actor Ralph Ineson.
Turning Blue (2016) was described as a "folk crime" novel, and praised by writers including Val McDermid. A sequel These Darkening Days followed in 2017.
His novel Beastings (2014) won the Portico Prize For Literature, was the recipient of the Northern Writers’ Award and longlisted for a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award 2015. Widely acclaimed, it featured on several end of year lists, and was chosen by Robert Macfarlane in The Big Issue as one of his books of 2014.
Pig Iron (2012) was the winner of the inaugural Gordon Burn Prize and runner-up in The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize. A controversial combination of biography and novel, Richard (2010) was a bestseller and chosen as a Sunday Times book of the year.
Myers’ short story ‘The Folk Song Singer’ was awarded the Tom-Gallon Prize in 2014 by the Society Of Authors and published by Galley Beggar Press. His short stories and poetry have appeared in dozens of anthologies.
As a journalist he has written about the arts and nature for publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, The Spectator, NME, Mojo, Time Out, New Scientist, Caught By The River, The Morning Star, Vice, The Quietus, Melody Maker and numerous others.
He currently lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire, UK.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 114 reviews
April 8, 2021
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.
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.
May 17, 2022
Male Tears is a collection of eighteen tales written over a period of fifteen years. His first short-story collection, published in 2021, here is yet more attestation of Benjamin Myers’ deftness as a writer and his effortless aptitude in propelling the voices of those on the margins of society.
The spaces in Myers’ world are hostile. Spaces occupied with ‘more unseen insects than there are stars in the night sky’, and where the sun is a ‘scowling face’ snapping at your heels. Spaces where the fields are ‘the skin of the land’, and where that same snapping sun offers no solace. Moreover, the characters that inhabit said spaces are equally disquieting. Not dissimilar to the violent gang of counterfeiters led by David Hartley in his esteemed 2017 historical fiction novel The Gallows Pole (soon to be made into a series directed by Shane Meadows), or the ferocity of the untameable John-John Wisdom in Pig Iron published five years before, Myer’s characters are men on the periphery: unhinged, primitive, truculent. Men as short on compliments as they are on temper, entrenched in landscapes of ‘blood, snares, raptors and hares’.
Myers has an aptness in capturing the totality of landscapes. It is clear he is content, even at one with both its brutality and its elegance. He is aware of its peril, of its sinister potential, but commendable of its bucolic finesse and vista. Equally, through his medley cast, he flawlessly portrays the essence of childhood, the passage of time and all it promises and neglects; expertly encapsulating the futility of man, and the sheer fragility of masculinity. Of anger, irritability, pride and rampant insecurity. And it is here that Male Tears becomes self-reflective: a mirror held aloft to male complexities, to your own flaws and faults and inherent selfishness. An index of the malevolence of man.
At the forefront of the collection is the story A Thousand Acres of English Soil, a tale of a dire agricultural accident involving an isolated farmer. A wistful lamentation of an altered rural landscape, where machinery dominates a land once populated by labourers and pieceworkers: ‘There would have been a team but now there is only a machine and the machine is controlling him and there is no one to hear his muted moans and dry heaves’. The irony of alleged social progression: ‘The machine chews up his shins and thigh bones’. Myers’ highlights the contrast between city and countryside, almost goading city dwellers and their rat race lifestyle by likening them to the plowed potatoes: The ‘thousands of mud-pocked potatoes bobbing and rolling’ remind him of heads, and ‘make him think of airports and train platforms and London at rush hour’.
An English Ending documents a pernicious relationship at the hand of male dominance and control. The precariousness and deceit, not always overtly physical but immensely emotional and psychological, perfectly encapsulated in the line: ‘The collapse of what once was had been comprised of dozens of gestures, scores of things left unsaid and hundreds of resentments spread over the thousand days that all stacked up to create millions of tiny moments of muffled misery’. A nostalgic portrayal of what and who she used to be before the abuse mechanically and guilefully crippled her to nothing.
In the ominous, cultish thriller The Longest, Brightest Day, Myers’ relates the brutality of life to a ‘permanent death dance’ undertaken by all living things. Here we see the power of Myers’ writing through his ability to construe nature as a character within itself. The stone circle they reach is awarded human features, bearing scars from hammer and chisel. Here we also see man’s vulnerability and the need for companionship and support: ‘he thinks about what he would do without her…’.
The Whip Hand is Myers’ bread-and-butter as traveler’s from a fairground set about erecting a monument in honour of the death of a legendary figure from the community. Raw and unflinching, brutal and menacing, with a hysterical ending, much like the story of Ray-Ray in Ten Men.
Suburban Animals is a perfect appraisal of childhood, ‘when innocence was a commodity, a virtue’, occupying a place containing ‘mile after mile of tarmac and culs de sac curving around dead-end corners’. It is also a bleak gospel concerning the cruelty of boys: tribal, animalistic, neanderthalic. An account of bullying so familiar, whether victim or witness – that one lad whose insecurities fester and relinquish onto others, in this case a down syndrome boy named Duncan. The merrymaking of the summer is tarnished by a tyrant called Toddsy: ‘and suddenly the summer’s day had cracks in its blue-glazed veneer’, cracking ‘the carapace of our childhoods’. This is an extremely powerful story that particularly resonated with me. It transported me back to adolescence, to English summers and the cruelty of the wrong ‘uns who you knew well to avoid. To those days ‘before anxiety stalked the fallow meadows of our adult minds’.
An utterly phenomenal collection from Benjamin Myers. Just when you think he cannot reach the lofty quality of his last, he more than delivers. One of the most engaging, disconcerting writers around. Highly recommend.
The spaces in Myers’ world are hostile. Spaces occupied with ‘more unseen insects than there are stars in the night sky’, and where the sun is a ‘scowling face’ snapping at your heels. Spaces where the fields are ‘the skin of the land’, and where that same snapping sun offers no solace. Moreover, the characters that inhabit said spaces are equally disquieting. Not dissimilar to the violent gang of counterfeiters led by David Hartley in his esteemed 2017 historical fiction novel The Gallows Pole (soon to be made into a series directed by Shane Meadows), or the ferocity of the untameable John-John Wisdom in Pig Iron published five years before, Myer’s characters are men on the periphery: unhinged, primitive, truculent. Men as short on compliments as they are on temper, entrenched in landscapes of ‘blood, snares, raptors and hares’.
Myers has an aptness in capturing the totality of landscapes. It is clear he is content, even at one with both its brutality and its elegance. He is aware of its peril, of its sinister potential, but commendable of its bucolic finesse and vista. Equally, through his medley cast, he flawlessly portrays the essence of childhood, the passage of time and all it promises and neglects; expertly encapsulating the futility of man, and the sheer fragility of masculinity. Of anger, irritability, pride and rampant insecurity. And it is here that Male Tears becomes self-reflective: a mirror held aloft to male complexities, to your own flaws and faults and inherent selfishness. An index of the malevolence of man.
At the forefront of the collection is the story A Thousand Acres of English Soil, a tale of a dire agricultural accident involving an isolated farmer. A wistful lamentation of an altered rural landscape, where machinery dominates a land once populated by labourers and pieceworkers: ‘There would have been a team but now there is only a machine and the machine is controlling him and there is no one to hear his muted moans and dry heaves’. The irony of alleged social progression: ‘The machine chews up his shins and thigh bones’. Myers’ highlights the contrast between city and countryside, almost goading city dwellers and their rat race lifestyle by likening them to the plowed potatoes: The ‘thousands of mud-pocked potatoes bobbing and rolling’ remind him of heads, and ‘make him think of airports and train platforms and London at rush hour’.
An English Ending documents a pernicious relationship at the hand of male dominance and control. The precariousness and deceit, not always overtly physical but immensely emotional and psychological, perfectly encapsulated in the line: ‘The collapse of what once was had been comprised of dozens of gestures, scores of things left unsaid and hundreds of resentments spread over the thousand days that all stacked up to create millions of tiny moments of muffled misery’. A nostalgic portrayal of what and who she used to be before the abuse mechanically and guilefully crippled her to nothing.
In the ominous, cultish thriller The Longest, Brightest Day, Myers’ relates the brutality of life to a ‘permanent death dance’ undertaken by all living things. Here we see the power of Myers’ writing through his ability to construe nature as a character within itself. The stone circle they reach is awarded human features, bearing scars from hammer and chisel. Here we also see man’s vulnerability and the need for companionship and support: ‘he thinks about what he would do without her…’.
The Whip Hand is Myers’ bread-and-butter as traveler’s from a fairground set about erecting a monument in honour of the death of a legendary figure from the community. Raw and unflinching, brutal and menacing, with a hysterical ending, much like the story of Ray-Ray in Ten Men.
Suburban Animals is a perfect appraisal of childhood, ‘when innocence was a commodity, a virtue’, occupying a place containing ‘mile after mile of tarmac and culs de sac curving around dead-end corners’. It is also a bleak gospel concerning the cruelty of boys: tribal, animalistic, neanderthalic. An account of bullying so familiar, whether victim or witness – that one lad whose insecurities fester and relinquish onto others, in this case a down syndrome boy named Duncan. The merrymaking of the summer is tarnished by a tyrant called Toddsy: ‘and suddenly the summer’s day had cracks in its blue-glazed veneer’, cracking ‘the carapace of our childhoods’. This is an extremely powerful story that particularly resonated with me. It transported me back to adolescence, to English summers and the cruelty of the wrong ‘uns who you knew well to avoid. To those days ‘before anxiety stalked the fallow meadows of our adult minds’.
An utterly phenomenal collection from Benjamin Myers. Just when you think he cannot reach the lofty quality of his last, he more than delivers. One of the most engaging, disconcerting writers around. Highly recommend.
May 4, 2021
This collection of short stories all focused on, as the synopsis so aptly stated, "the male psyche in all its fragility, complexity and failure, its hubris and forbidden tenderness. The stories here varied in setting, time, style, and genre but I greatly appreciated the inclusion of every one of them, for the examination and then the understanding they brought.
A Thousand Acres of English Soil - 5/5 stars
The Folk Song Singer - 5/5 stars
The Museum of Extinct Animals - 4/5 stars
An English Ending - 5/5 stars
A River - 2/5 stars
The Longest, Brightest Daughter - 3/5 stars
Suburban Animals - 4/5 stars
The Whip Hand - 4/5 stars
The Last Apple Picker - 4/5 stars
Saxophone Solos - 3.5/5 stars
Vienna - 2/5 stars
Old Ginger - 3.5/5 stars
The Act of Erasure - 3/5 stars
The Bloody Bell - 2/5 stars
Ten Men - 3/5 stars
The Astronaut - 4/5 stars
Bomber - 4/5 stars
Snorri & Frosti - 3/5 stars
A Thousand Acres of English Soil - 5/5 stars
The Folk Song Singer - 5/5 stars
The Museum of Extinct Animals - 4/5 stars
An English Ending - 5/5 stars
A River - 2/5 stars
The Longest, Brightest Daughter - 3/5 stars
Suburban Animals - 4/5 stars
The Whip Hand - 4/5 stars
The Last Apple Picker - 4/5 stars
Saxophone Solos - 3.5/5 stars
Vienna - 2/5 stars
Old Ginger - 3.5/5 stars
The Act of Erasure - 3/5 stars
The Bloody Bell - 2/5 stars
Ten Men - 3/5 stars
The Astronaut - 4/5 stars
Bomber - 4/5 stars
Snorri & Frosti - 3/5 stars
January 19, 2023
In brief - I loved some of these and it will probably be a "must" for fans.
In full
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.
Note - I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review
In full
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.
Note - I received an advance digital copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair review
June 6, 2022
I decided against buying Myers's first short story collection as an expensive hardback, but was keen to get hold of it as soon as the paperback was available. That was several months ago, but having nominated it for a discussion in 21st Century Literature that is now underway gave me the incentive to take it off the to read shelf.
I don't want to preempt that discussion, which we are trying to do story by story, too much, or to discuss the individual stories in detail, but I will say that it is a very varied collection that has echoes of most of his previous work, though the short story format offers him less scope for descriptive landscape and nature writing. The unifying theme is one of male identity, and his characters face a wide range of challenges with varying degrees of success and failure. Some of the stories have rather grisly subject matter, others are more comic or reflective, and a couple are clearly based on personal experience.
I don't want to preempt that discussion, which we are trying to do story by story, too much, or to discuss the individual stories in detail, but I will say that it is a very varied collection that has echoes of most of his previous work, though the short story format offers him less scope for descriptive landscape and nature writing. The unifying theme is one of male identity, and his characters face a wide range of challenges with varying degrees of success and failure. Some of the stories have rather grisly subject matter, others are more comic or reflective, and a couple are clearly based on personal experience.
February 7, 2021
I could easily make an argument for Benjamin Myers being my favourite writer. Certainly if there's a better British writer I haven't read them. The Offing was my book of 2019, The Gallows Pole my book of 2017. So, I come to every one of his books with the highest expectations. All of which makes this one so difficult to talk about.
Male Tears is a collection of stories written by Myers over the past decade or so and, while some of them are great, it is very uneven. Bookended by a couple of vintage tales, the rest range from good to, well, not so good. The final story, Snorri and Frosti (more of a novella or, really, a play) was the highlight for me: a gentle, beautiful tale of two woodcutter brothers whose whole lives seem to be told in the space of a normal day. A glorious story that deserves to be filmed or made for radio.
But it's always a little disappointing when someone capable of greatness produces something that is merely good.
Male Tears is a collection of stories written by Myers over the past decade or so and, while some of them are great, it is very uneven. Bookended by a couple of vintage tales, the rest range from good to, well, not so good. The final story, Snorri and Frosti (more of a novella or, really, a play) was the highlight for me: a gentle, beautiful tale of two woodcutter brothers whose whole lives seem to be told in the space of a normal day. A glorious story that deserves to be filmed or made for radio.
But it's always a little disappointing when someone capable of greatness produces something that is merely good.
September 19, 2022
more like a 3.5
This review will not be on the blog
I am a big fan of Ben Myers novels and I was secretly hoping that his first short story collection would scale those heights. Do not get me wrong there are some pieces here that are fantastic and up to the standard of his books. My personal favourites were The Folk Song Singer and The Whip Hand. The rest are solid but those two stories floored me.
If you are a Ben Myers completist do get this. if you're beginning to get into his work, this has a lot of themes you'll see in his novels but remember it's the contained version, while believe he expresses himself better in the longer story format. It's still pretty good in places.
This review will not be on the blog
I am a big fan of Ben Myers novels and I was secretly hoping that his first short story collection would scale those heights. Do not get me wrong there are some pieces here that are fantastic and up to the standard of his books. My personal favourites were The Folk Song Singer and The Whip Hand. The rest are solid but those two stories floored me.
If you are a Ben Myers completist do get this. if you're beginning to get into his work, this has a lot of themes you'll see in his novels but remember it's the contained version, while believe he expresses himself better in the longer story format. It's still pretty good in places.
November 18, 2022
In seinen Kurzgeschichten bleibt Benjamin Myers Figuren seiner Romane treu, alten und jungen Männern, mit der englischen Landschaft verwachsen. In der titelgebenden Story „Der längste, strahlendste Tag“ lässt er seine Leser zunächst im Unklaren, ob die auftretende Nomadengruppe in der Vergangenheit lebt, in einer dystopischen Zukunft oder einem zeitlosen Gleichnis dient. Auch „Wien“ versetzt uns in die Vergangenheit, als ein Schriftsteller in Peter Bruegels „Die Jäger im Schnee“ eintritt und als Icherzähler mit „Bernt, Elrik und dem Hundegespann“ auf die Jagd nach Wildfleisch geht. Auch die kleine Gruppe, die mit einem Fuhrwerk eine Bronzeglocke zu einem römischen Schiff transportieren soll, bewegt sich nahe dem Hadrianswall auf historischen Wegen.
„Der alte Ginger“, „Zehn“ und „Der letzte Apfelpflücker“ setzen knorrigen Einzelgängern ein Denkmal, ohne deren Erfahrung und Zuverlässigkkeit auch der wohlhabendste Großgrundbesitzer nicht existieren könnte. Von Landbesitzern und ihren Saisonarbeitern der Neuzeit erzählt Myers. Ohne (ausländische) Arbeiter würden im Land längst keine Äpfel mehr gepflückt und keine Kartoffeln gerodet. Der jugendliche Icherzähler erfährt am Schicksal von Ray-Ray, dass Erntearbeiter oft gute Gründe haben, einen anderen Namen anzunehmen und alle Brücken hinter sich abzubrechen. Letzlich profitiert sein Onkel wirtschaftlich davon, dass sein bester Arbeiter wohnungslos und damit völlig vom Arbeitgeber abhängig ist. Englische Landlords, die direkt dem Bilderbuch entstiegen zu sein scheinen, hängen auch in der Neuzeit oft von Einkünften aus Jagdtourismus ab. Zum meist wenig glamourösen Landleben gehört die direkte Konfrontation mit Fuchs, Dachs, Eule oder Rabe, die in Myers Stories meist makaber bis grausam verläuft.
Ein Museumswärter hadert in Gedanken mit menschlicher Gier, die zum Aussterben ganzer Tierarten führte. Die Begegnung eines Journalisten mit einer ergrauten Folksängerin gerät zur gnadenlosen Abrechnung mit der gewalttätigen Seite einiger männlicher Stars der Branche, zu deren Gunsten im Fall der Ex-Sängerin eine Täter-Opfer-Umkehr konstruiert wurde. Eine Frau sucht den Tod vor männlicher Gewalt und Geringschätzung an der Grenze einer unzugänglichen Region, die zugleich Grenze unserer Zivilisation und ihrer unbeschwerten Kindheit sein könnte.
Mayers Figuren, oft Icherzähler, müssen sich mehr oder weniger erfolgreich Veränderungen anpassen und dabei ihre Grenzen ausreizen – oft mit fatalen Folgen. Themen sind Landwirtschaft, Tiere, das Wüten von Naturgewalten, Vater-Sohn-Beziehungen, nostalgische Jugenderinnerungen, aber auch Zeitschleusen und zeitlose Ereignisse, die beim Lesen erst verortet werden müssen. Myers „kann“ neben Romanen offensichtlich auch Kurzgeschichten – bis herunter zur Shortshort-Story aus wenigen Sätzen.
„Der alte Ginger“, „Zehn“ und „Der letzte Apfelpflücker“ setzen knorrigen Einzelgängern ein Denkmal, ohne deren Erfahrung und Zuverlässigkkeit auch der wohlhabendste Großgrundbesitzer nicht existieren könnte. Von Landbesitzern und ihren Saisonarbeitern der Neuzeit erzählt Myers. Ohne (ausländische) Arbeiter würden im Land längst keine Äpfel mehr gepflückt und keine Kartoffeln gerodet. Der jugendliche Icherzähler erfährt am Schicksal von Ray-Ray, dass Erntearbeiter oft gute Gründe haben, einen anderen Namen anzunehmen und alle Brücken hinter sich abzubrechen. Letzlich profitiert sein Onkel wirtschaftlich davon, dass sein bester Arbeiter wohnungslos und damit völlig vom Arbeitgeber abhängig ist. Englische Landlords, die direkt dem Bilderbuch entstiegen zu sein scheinen, hängen auch in der Neuzeit oft von Einkünften aus Jagdtourismus ab. Zum meist wenig glamourösen Landleben gehört die direkte Konfrontation mit Fuchs, Dachs, Eule oder Rabe, die in Myers Stories meist makaber bis grausam verläuft.
Ein Museumswärter hadert in Gedanken mit menschlicher Gier, die zum Aussterben ganzer Tierarten führte. Die Begegnung eines Journalisten mit einer ergrauten Folksängerin gerät zur gnadenlosen Abrechnung mit der gewalttätigen Seite einiger männlicher Stars der Branche, zu deren Gunsten im Fall der Ex-Sängerin eine Täter-Opfer-Umkehr konstruiert wurde. Eine Frau sucht den Tod vor männlicher Gewalt und Geringschätzung an der Grenze einer unzugänglichen Region, die zugleich Grenze unserer Zivilisation und ihrer unbeschwerten Kindheit sein könnte.
Mayers Figuren, oft Icherzähler, müssen sich mehr oder weniger erfolgreich Veränderungen anpassen und dabei ihre Grenzen ausreizen – oft mit fatalen Folgen. Themen sind Landwirtschaft, Tiere, das Wüten von Naturgewalten, Vater-Sohn-Beziehungen, nostalgische Jugenderinnerungen, aber auch Zeitschleusen und zeitlose Ereignisse, die beim Lesen erst verortet werden müssen. Myers „kann“ neben Romanen offensichtlich auch Kurzgeschichten – bis herunter zur Shortshort-Story aus wenigen Sätzen.
April 8, 2021
I am a huge fan of Myers’ work having read many of not all of his published works and I was delighted to hear that he was releasing a short story collection with Bloomsbury Books and when I could I requested that book.
Ben Myers is one of my favourite British writers, his work on place, character and the lives of the underdogs which he brings painstakingly to life is unmatchable in my opinion with the work of his peers.
Male Tears explores what it means to be a man - we get glimpses of men in various walks of life, from the farmer, the fairground worker, the wandering pilgrims, the gamekeepers, the bare-knuckle boxers and the ex-cons with secret passions. It’s an eclectic mix of male centric voices and one would also say voices that we don’t hear often enough in literature - the working class and the forgotten, those people that just keep on keeping on - and that’s what I loved about it, because Myers shines that light into the scrub and finds voices that yearn to be heard.
Having said that I did think that the book would have dealt more with toxic masculinity, the perils of challenging stereotypes and what it’s like to be a man in this world, I believe also that those issues were almost how this book had been publicised (but I may be wrong). Just imagine having Ben Myers tackle those themes with his undoubted brilliance - now that would have been something very special indeed.
But having said that we do have the challenging of expectations and what the role of men are with the story Ten Men and Act of Erasure plus we also see some of the crueler sides to adolescence and what that does to inform our worldview as we grow up in Suburban Animals.
I also enjoyed Ben Myers use of flash fiction in places to give us these heartfelt snapshots of lives, they work very well to help the reader have a breather before diving into another longer story and it’s a technique I’ve seen a lot of recently in the indie publishing scene - so it’s great to see the big publishers allowing this space for the art form of flash.
So on with the review,
A Thousand Acres of English Soil - a wonderfully framed tale of an old farmer and a young boy, one concerned with farming and the progress in the trade since his younger years, the isolation that surrounds him as he tends his crops with his tractor / harvester. The young boy is bewitched by something he finds in the tip, a rust old hunters trap which he salvages and sets to trap the rats - but he ends up catching something a lot bigger than he expects. Both stories come full circle with the brilliance that I’ve grown to expect from Myers.
The Folk Song Singer - A touching story about a folk song singer being interviewed by a young writer, told again in a split narrative, we get the story from both sides of the table. One side is the writer trying to dig deeper, to uncover the mystery behind this washed up song writer, the other side is the singer detailing her own thoughts and assumptions about this young man who is interviewing her about her past but has already made assumptions about her life and past - great insight into the role of women in this field and how men have treated her and continue to treat her over the many years that she’s been active in the field of song writing / singing.
Museum of Extinct Animals - this is a hard hitting story for those that believe that man is the worst beast on this planet, with its insatiable hunger to trap and kill and claim. It shows climate change, hunting patterns, urban growth and the destruction of the rainforest - it’s a stark reminder of what we’ve done to this planet and also serves as a warning of the encroaching possibility of a Museum of Extinct Animals becoming a possibility if we just stand by and let it happen.
An English Ending - a stunning story of a lifetime of neglect and abuse at the hands of a husband, this is delicately portrayed by Myers, restrained and deftly put across. We have snippets like pieces of a puzzle fall into place as our protagonist takes in the reservoir - breadcrumbs of a sort that when collected help us form a fully realised picture of abuse at the hands of her husband and what brought her to this body of water today.
A River - A flash fiction piece that details the returning to a memory, one that has been present in a life but no longer exists in the world he inhabits.
The Longest, Brightest Day - Man and woman travel to a sacred place, to the stone circle. They move along with their dogs and the swine they have with them for trade, their hearts are open to the possibilities that await them as they give offerings to the gods to permit them the desires of their hearts. This story was really interesting, it was of a forgotten time or a time yet to come. Myers writes nature so vividly that it is hard not to be moved by his words and observations of the world around us that he painstakingly unravels with prose that drowns you in its beauty.
Suburban Animals - A coming of age tale about a group of friends that are harassed by a group of bullies who take great delight in tormenting Duncan their down syndrome friend. The way in which Myers paints these bullies is astute and anyone who’s ever encountered a bully would be able to perfectly visualise their menace - those suburban rabid animals!
The Whip Hand - a tragic accident kills Mr. Moody head of one of the most famous showground families in England and so his son decides to set up a monument in his honour, but that monument will sit on an outcropping high above the forest floor - he hires men and sets about the arduous task of organising these me in lugging granite up this hill to create a lasting memory for his father.
The Last Apple Picker - another flash fiction piece that follows the life of an apple picker, his yearly visit to the orchard where he works the land and harvests his crop, his dutiful care and cultivation of these precious trees. He returns each year that much older to carry out his work.
Saxophone Solos - a divorce and a once bright star implodes, we see the fall from grace and the wreckage left behind.
Vienna (The Hunters in the Snow) - A writer heads off to Vienna to see the famous painting ‘The Hunters in the Snow’ he’s after ideas, he’s on the search for his muse and maybe he’ll write a story about it someday. Myers splices this story together with the now and the then, as pieces of the story are almost from the eyes of the hunters within the picture our protagonist is searching. An interesting premise and I enjoyed this story of discovery.
Old Ginger - there is a different tone to this story, more comedic and light, but there is darkness here too. Old Ginger is a character portrait and if you know Myers’ work then you know one thing to be true, that man can write characters! I loved this story about an old trapper - his story is so interesting and it made me want to know more about him and what had lead to him being who he has become, and Myers gives us that but he’s so brilliantly rendered that I wanted to spend more time with this crazy old man - I wanted a whole book based on his life!
An Act of Erasure - another flash fiction piece that details an old man’s final days, his inner torment and the way to find erasure.
The Bloody Bell - a family set off to deliver a bell that they’ve made, a piece of historical fiction with an almost horror twist to the tale. Here we see Myers excel again in his deftly crafter nature writing, his fusion of this with fabulously detailed characters make this a story to remember.
Ten Men - a young boy works the land with his father and come summer they are in need of someone to do the grunt work. Ray-Ray answers their call, a athletic but sinewy man, a man who could do the work of ten men, but he comes with a past and had recently left prison. This is a story about one young boys discovery that men come in all shapes and sizes and inclinations - the story was wonderfully written with Myers prose magic and turn of phrase mouth-watering at times.
The Astronaut - a flash fiction piece about an astronaut who struggles to reacclimatise after visiting the moon.
Bomber - this is by far the most bizarre and weird tale of this sprawling collection and one that I very much enjoyed. A man after having a very public argument with his partner decides to head home and paint himself black. Bonkers storytelling but the voice of the narrator is utterly engaging.
Snorri & Frosti - a delightful story to end the collection, I’d say it was more novella length given the other stories in the collection - it is the biggest of the bunch. But this is more a duologue / two-hander play - it screams to be turned into a radio play. It follows the life of two ageing brothers who are woodcutters and the story just revolves around their lives which Myers has expertly given voice, the dialogue is witty and snappy and it’s funny whilst also being heartrending - Myers has saved some of his best work until last.
All in all this is in my opinion a wonderfully crafted collection, there were of course some stories that I preferred over others, there were two that I didn’t really gel with but the majority of these stories blew me away - some of my favourites are; Snorri & Frosti, Ten Men, An English Ending and A Thousand Acres of English Soil.
You are guaranteed with Myers work to have prose magic on every page, brilliantly rendered characters and descriptions of nature that are so vivid you feel at one with the world Myers creates - and all of that can be found in Male Tears.
But there is so much to marvel at in all of the stories and I for one would say that this is such a varied collection that it’ll give something for all readers.
Benjamin Myers is a national treasure and his work on characters and nature is truly masterful.
Ben Myers is one of my favourite British writers, his work on place, character and the lives of the underdogs which he brings painstakingly to life is unmatchable in my opinion with the work of his peers.
Male Tears explores what it means to be a man - we get glimpses of men in various walks of life, from the farmer, the fairground worker, the wandering pilgrims, the gamekeepers, the bare-knuckle boxers and the ex-cons with secret passions. It’s an eclectic mix of male centric voices and one would also say voices that we don’t hear often enough in literature - the working class and the forgotten, those people that just keep on keeping on - and that’s what I loved about it, because Myers shines that light into the scrub and finds voices that yearn to be heard.
Having said that I did think that the book would have dealt more with toxic masculinity, the perils of challenging stereotypes and what it’s like to be a man in this world, I believe also that those issues were almost how this book had been publicised (but I may be wrong). Just imagine having Ben Myers tackle those themes with his undoubted brilliance - now that would have been something very special indeed.
But having said that we do have the challenging of expectations and what the role of men are with the story Ten Men and Act of Erasure plus we also see some of the crueler sides to adolescence and what that does to inform our worldview as we grow up in Suburban Animals.
I also enjoyed Ben Myers use of flash fiction in places to give us these heartfelt snapshots of lives, they work very well to help the reader have a breather before diving into another longer story and it’s a technique I’ve seen a lot of recently in the indie publishing scene - so it’s great to see the big publishers allowing this space for the art form of flash.
So on with the review,
A Thousand Acres of English Soil - a wonderfully framed tale of an old farmer and a young boy, one concerned with farming and the progress in the trade since his younger years, the isolation that surrounds him as he tends his crops with his tractor / harvester. The young boy is bewitched by something he finds in the tip, a rust old hunters trap which he salvages and sets to trap the rats - but he ends up catching something a lot bigger than he expects. Both stories come full circle with the brilliance that I’ve grown to expect from Myers.
The Folk Song Singer - A touching story about a folk song singer being interviewed by a young writer, told again in a split narrative, we get the story from both sides of the table. One side is the writer trying to dig deeper, to uncover the mystery behind this washed up song writer, the other side is the singer detailing her own thoughts and assumptions about this young man who is interviewing her about her past but has already made assumptions about her life and past - great insight into the role of women in this field and how men have treated her and continue to treat her over the many years that she’s been active in the field of song writing / singing.
Museum of Extinct Animals - this is a hard hitting story for those that believe that man is the worst beast on this planet, with its insatiable hunger to trap and kill and claim. It shows climate change, hunting patterns, urban growth and the destruction of the rainforest - it’s a stark reminder of what we’ve done to this planet and also serves as a warning of the encroaching possibility of a Museum of Extinct Animals becoming a possibility if we just stand by and let it happen.
An English Ending - a stunning story of a lifetime of neglect and abuse at the hands of a husband, this is delicately portrayed by Myers, restrained and deftly put across. We have snippets like pieces of a puzzle fall into place as our protagonist takes in the reservoir - breadcrumbs of a sort that when collected help us form a fully realised picture of abuse at the hands of her husband and what brought her to this body of water today.
A River - A flash fiction piece that details the returning to a memory, one that has been present in a life but no longer exists in the world he inhabits.
The Longest, Brightest Day - Man and woman travel to a sacred place, to the stone circle. They move along with their dogs and the swine they have with them for trade, their hearts are open to the possibilities that await them as they give offerings to the gods to permit them the desires of their hearts. This story was really interesting, it was of a forgotten time or a time yet to come. Myers writes nature so vividly that it is hard not to be moved by his words and observations of the world around us that he painstakingly unravels with prose that drowns you in its beauty.
Suburban Animals - A coming of age tale about a group of friends that are harassed by a group of bullies who take great delight in tormenting Duncan their down syndrome friend. The way in which Myers paints these bullies is astute and anyone who’s ever encountered a bully would be able to perfectly visualise their menace - those suburban rabid animals!
The Whip Hand - a tragic accident kills Mr. Moody head of one of the most famous showground families in England and so his son decides to set up a monument in his honour, but that monument will sit on an outcropping high above the forest floor - he hires men and sets about the arduous task of organising these me in lugging granite up this hill to create a lasting memory for his father.
The Last Apple Picker - another flash fiction piece that follows the life of an apple picker, his yearly visit to the orchard where he works the land and harvests his crop, his dutiful care and cultivation of these precious trees. He returns each year that much older to carry out his work.
Saxophone Solos - a divorce and a once bright star implodes, we see the fall from grace and the wreckage left behind.
Vienna (The Hunters in the Snow) - A writer heads off to Vienna to see the famous painting ‘The Hunters in the Snow’ he’s after ideas, he’s on the search for his muse and maybe he’ll write a story about it someday. Myers splices this story together with the now and the then, as pieces of the story are almost from the eyes of the hunters within the picture our protagonist is searching. An interesting premise and I enjoyed this story of discovery.
Old Ginger - there is a different tone to this story, more comedic and light, but there is darkness here too. Old Ginger is a character portrait and if you know Myers’ work then you know one thing to be true, that man can write characters! I loved this story about an old trapper - his story is so interesting and it made me want to know more about him and what had lead to him being who he has become, and Myers gives us that but he’s so brilliantly rendered that I wanted to spend more time with this crazy old man - I wanted a whole book based on his life!
An Act of Erasure - another flash fiction piece that details an old man’s final days, his inner torment and the way to find erasure.
The Bloody Bell - a family set off to deliver a bell that they’ve made, a piece of historical fiction with an almost horror twist to the tale. Here we see Myers excel again in his deftly crafter nature writing, his fusion of this with fabulously detailed characters make this a story to remember.
Ten Men - a young boy works the land with his father and come summer they are in need of someone to do the grunt work. Ray-Ray answers their call, a athletic but sinewy man, a man who could do the work of ten men, but he comes with a past and had recently left prison. This is a story about one young boys discovery that men come in all shapes and sizes and inclinations - the story was wonderfully written with Myers prose magic and turn of phrase mouth-watering at times.
The Astronaut - a flash fiction piece about an astronaut who struggles to reacclimatise after visiting the moon.
Bomber - this is by far the most bizarre and weird tale of this sprawling collection and one that I very much enjoyed. A man after having a very public argument with his partner decides to head home and paint himself black. Bonkers storytelling but the voice of the narrator is utterly engaging.
Snorri & Frosti - a delightful story to end the collection, I’d say it was more novella length given the other stories in the collection - it is the biggest of the bunch. But this is more a duologue / two-hander play - it screams to be turned into a radio play. It follows the life of two ageing brothers who are woodcutters and the story just revolves around their lives which Myers has expertly given voice, the dialogue is witty and snappy and it’s funny whilst also being heartrending - Myers has saved some of his best work until last.
All in all this is in my opinion a wonderfully crafted collection, there were of course some stories that I preferred over others, there were two that I didn’t really gel with but the majority of these stories blew me away - some of my favourites are; Snorri & Frosti, Ten Men, An English Ending and A Thousand Acres of English Soil.
You are guaranteed with Myers work to have prose magic on every page, brilliantly rendered characters and descriptions of nature that are so vivid you feel at one with the world Myers creates - and all of that can be found in Male Tears.
But there is so much to marvel at in all of the stories and I for one would say that this is such a varied collection that it’ll give something for all readers.
Benjamin Myers is a national treasure and his work on characters and nature is truly masterful.
May 19, 2023
Was für ein seltsames Buch!
February 7, 2021
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.
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.
November 7, 2024
I began enjoying this, shifted to more admiring its pluck, and around three quarters of the way through started to feel it had already peaked. Short stories sometimes are not best read one after another over the course of a few days, they're sometimes better appreciated spread over weeks, but the quality of the writing here, the unusual darkness running through the stories, the themes of fear and revenge.. it maybe meant I read these more consecutively than ideal. Like the novel I had read previously by Benjamin Myers ('Turning Blue') I was left feeling some of this was a bit over the top.
December 4, 2023
This short story collection expertly explores the broad theme of masculinity, with tales ranging from blackly comic, to deeply tragic. I was thoroughly engaged throughout the whole book, and didn't feel a single story in the collection let it down. I found myself reading sentences again and again, just marvelling at how they sounded, and the imagery it created in my head. This was my first introduction to Benjamin Myers, and is without a doubt, the best book I've read all year. It made me want to devour the rest of what Myers has written. He has such a masterful handle of place, character, and dialogue. My favourite short stories in the collection were The Whip Hand and Old Ginger. Brilliant.
March 5, 2024
Wo fange ich an?
Zuerst einmal möchte ich mich auf den Schreibstil beziehen: Zu Beginn des Werkes schafft es Myers zunächst, die Natur durch seine Beschreibungen zum Leben zu erwecken und somit eine melancholisch-bedeutungsschwere Stimmung zu erzeugen. Dies verliert sich bedauerlicherweise aber nach den ersten 50 Seiten und weicht im Rest der Kurzgeschichten einer kühlen, knappen Erzählweise, die das Lesen eher mühsam werden lässt.
Ziel des Autors war wohl, seine Leser:innen, durch seine Geschichten einen Prozess des Nachdenkens und Reflektierens anzustoßen. Dies ist aber nur sehr vereinzelt gelungen. Vielmehr reihen sich in dem Buch austauschbare Erzählungen aneinander, ohne bei mir den gewünschten Effekt zu erzeugen. Dabei widerspricht die Reihenfolge der Geschichten jedweder Logik und scheint eher willkürlich. So kann ich in der Reihenfolge der Geschichten kein wirkliches Ordnungsprinzip erkennen.
Zudem fand ich eine Erzählung inhaltlich kritisch: Es geht darin um eine Figur, die ohne Kontext, Blackfacing betreibt, was vom Autor mit den Worten, der Charakter täte dies auch mit anderen Hautfarben, erklärt wird. Das ist aber dennoch ein schwieriger Ansatz, auf Grund der gesellschaftlich-geschichtlichen Bedeutung, die dieses mit sich bringt. In dem Punkt hätte ich mir eine stärkere Sensibilität seitens des Autors gewünscht.
Insgesamt hat mich das Buch sehr enttäuscht, und ich rate vom Kauf ab.
Zuerst einmal möchte ich mich auf den Schreibstil beziehen: Zu Beginn des Werkes schafft es Myers zunächst, die Natur durch seine Beschreibungen zum Leben zu erwecken und somit eine melancholisch-bedeutungsschwere Stimmung zu erzeugen. Dies verliert sich bedauerlicherweise aber nach den ersten 50 Seiten und weicht im Rest der Kurzgeschichten einer kühlen, knappen Erzählweise, die das Lesen eher mühsam werden lässt.
Ziel des Autors war wohl, seine Leser:innen, durch seine Geschichten einen Prozess des Nachdenkens und Reflektierens anzustoßen. Dies ist aber nur sehr vereinzelt gelungen. Vielmehr reihen sich in dem Buch austauschbare Erzählungen aneinander, ohne bei mir den gewünschten Effekt zu erzeugen. Dabei widerspricht die Reihenfolge der Geschichten jedweder Logik und scheint eher willkürlich. So kann ich in der Reihenfolge der Geschichten kein wirkliches Ordnungsprinzip erkennen.
Zudem fand ich eine Erzählung inhaltlich kritisch: Es geht darin um eine Figur, die ohne Kontext, Blackfacing betreibt, was vom Autor mit den Worten, der Charakter täte dies auch mit anderen Hautfarben, erklärt wird. Das ist aber dennoch ein schwieriger Ansatz, auf Grund der gesellschaftlich-geschichtlichen Bedeutung, die dieses mit sich bringt. In dem Punkt hätte ich mir eine stärkere Sensibilität seitens des Autors gewünscht.
Insgesamt hat mich das Buch sehr enttäuscht, und ich rate vom Kauf ab.
June 8, 2021
I wouldn’t pick up short stories if it weren’t a Ben myers joint. But it was, and I loved it.
Northern noir and musings on the broken male psyche with rather a lot of getting mauled in machines or under big rocks thrown in for good measure.
First story, 1000 acres, along with the excellent whip hand are the standouts for me. Note to self: Read more short fiction!
Northern noir and musings on the broken male psyche with rather a lot of getting mauled in machines or under big rocks thrown in for good measure.
First story, 1000 acres, along with the excellent whip hand are the standouts for me. Note to self: Read more short fiction!
April 10, 2023
3 Sterne
Auch hier hat mich wieder Myers' Stil begeistert, aber die Geschichten sind schon überwiegend arg düster und teilweise auch etwas brutal - hier könnten einige Stories tatsächlich Triggerwarnungen gebrauchen...
Tausend Morgen englische Erde 3/5
Die Folksängerin 4/5
Das Museum für ausgestorbene Tiere 4/5
Ein englisches Ende 4/5
Ein Fluss 3/5
Der längste, strahlendste Tag 2/5
Vorstadttiere 3/5
Die Oberhand 4/5
Der letzte Apfelpflücker 2/5
Saxofon-Solos 2/5
Wien (Die Jäger im Schnee) 5/5
Ein Akt der Auslöschung 1/5
Die verdammte Glocke 3/5
Zehn Männer 3/5
Der Astronaut 3/5
Bomber 3/5
Snorti & Frosti 3/5
Auch hier hat mich wieder Myers' Stil begeistert, aber die Geschichten sind schon überwiegend arg düster und teilweise auch etwas brutal - hier könnten einige Stories tatsächlich Triggerwarnungen gebrauchen...
Tausend Morgen englische Erde 3/5
Die Folksängerin 4/5
Das Museum für ausgestorbene Tiere 4/5
Ein englisches Ende 4/5
Ein Fluss 3/5
Der längste, strahlendste Tag 2/5
Vorstadttiere 3/5
Die Oberhand 4/5
Der letzte Apfelpflücker 2/5
Saxofon-Solos 2/5
Wien (Die Jäger im Schnee) 5/5
Ein Akt der Auslöschung 1/5
Die verdammte Glocke 3/5
Zehn Männer 3/5
Der Astronaut 3/5
Bomber 3/5
Snorti & Frosti 3/5
May 10, 2021
Benjamin Myers is one of the very best writers around, so I eagerly pre-ordered his new book, a shorty story collection spanning 15 years of writing, and all loosely based on what it means to be a man and examining the male psyche. All bar one of these stories was new to me (the exception is The Whip Hand which I have a lovely limited edition chap book of). My favourites of the collection were probably The Folk Song Singer, the aforementioned The Whip Hand, and the disturbing Bomber. An excellent short story collection from one of the most talented writers of today.
May 13, 2021
Heartstopping, heartbreaking. Loved it. Ben really hits me hard with authentic rural and working class writing. There are guts and pain and poverty as well as a dirty beauty to it all. Glorious.
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November 6, 2022Even though Benjamin Myers is one of my favourite authors I just didn't warm up with this book. Some of the shorter stories were very good, some just disturbing, and some just didn't make sense to me. :( (maybe I'm just too dumb to understand)
March 23, 2023
Das Buch enthält viele, sehr unterschiedliche Kurzgeschichten - teilweise nur ein paar Seiten lang, einige länger. Ich fand das Buch sehr interessant, Myers hat einen tollen, ruhigen Schreibstil, jedoch waren mir einige Geschichten teilweise zu "brutal".
March 12, 2022
4.5 Stars -
This collection really did surprise me. It was unpredictably vulnerable for a collection written about men from a man. Though it may be the mystique and general unseen nature around the male psyche that leaves the underlying sense of vulnerability and emotion that continues to simmer until the very end. The stories themselves are somewhat interpretive - where the agenda or point behind each story is veiled in a way as to have the reader think about what it means to them but also what it means to the protagonist themselves. This has both positives and negatives as some feel so caught up in itself it fails to leave any real hints as to what it is trying to portray. However, i could confidently say this is my favourite short story collection i have come across so far and would encourage both men looking to feel seen and women looking to understand to pick up this collection and take from it what you will.
Extra:
I also thought the continued reference to seagulls (whether intentional or not) I think that seagulls were an interesting choice of motif as they are often recognised as a symbol of land and refuge but in everyday life are often seen and heard but dismissed as background noise - which feels poetic in a way of the fears and realities many men face when voicing their struggles. It also added a sense of completeness as though reiterating that we all live under the same sky and are dealing with issues we hide from both ourselves and others.
This collection really did surprise me. It was unpredictably vulnerable for a collection written about men from a man. Though it may be the mystique and general unseen nature around the male psyche that leaves the underlying sense of vulnerability and emotion that continues to simmer until the very end. The stories themselves are somewhat interpretive - where the agenda or point behind each story is veiled in a way as to have the reader think about what it means to them but also what it means to the protagonist themselves. This has both positives and negatives as some feel so caught up in itself it fails to leave any real hints as to what it is trying to portray. However, i could confidently say this is my favourite short story collection i have come across so far and would encourage both men looking to feel seen and women looking to understand to pick up this collection and take from it what you will.
Extra:
I also thought the continued reference to seagulls (whether intentional or not) I think that seagulls were an interesting choice of motif as they are often recognised as a symbol of land and refuge but in everyday life are often seen and heard but dismissed as background noise - which feels poetic in a way of the fears and realities many men face when voicing their struggles. It also added a sense of completeness as though reiterating that we all live under the same sky and are dealing with issues we hide from both ourselves and others.
January 29, 2021
Following the success of Ben Myers’ The Offing comes his second book for Bloomsbury, a collection of short stories out at the end of April called Male Tears. The book incorporates stories written over the last decade and it’s no surprise to Myers fans that these are tales often set in the North and with rugged, windswept characters who are part of the environment that they inhabit. Gritty, acerbically amusing, occasionally raw, and always engaging, this is about real men and their oddities, their stubbornness, their foibles and their strength of spirit.
May 14, 2021
If there were more stars I'd give it more.
I will never run out of good things to say about Benjamin Myers. I love his work. There were 2 stories in this collection that I'd read before but frankly his prose is so good I happily read them again. The stories are the usual mixture of dark and strange but once you've read A Thousand Acres of English Soil you'll be hooked too. If you've not read any of Mr Myers work before this is a great place to start.
My introduction was The Offing and since then I've read all but 2 of his works. Can't wait for what's next.
I will never run out of good things to say about Benjamin Myers. I love his work. There were 2 stories in this collection that I'd read before but frankly his prose is so good I happily read them again. The stories are the usual mixture of dark and strange but once you've read A Thousand Acres of English Soil you'll be hooked too. If you've not read any of Mr Myers work before this is a great place to start.
My introduction was The Offing and since then I've read all but 2 of his works. Can't wait for what's next.
August 20, 2025
A great collection of short stories, which maintains a high standard throughout. No mis-starts or truncated novels here, every tale takes the time needed to be told.
As with a lot of Myers' writing there is a feeling that the land (England mainly) is the one consistent character and that whatever time period a story might be set it is ever present, seeing progress and regression then progress once again, though not always for the best. There is a definite mythic quality to several of the tales and a sense at time that these are all ghosts living under (an English) Milkwood.
As with a lot of Myers' writing there is a feeling that the land (England mainly) is the one consistent character and that whatever time period a story might be set it is ever present, seeing progress and regression then progress once again, though not always for the best. There is a definite mythic quality to several of the tales and a sense at time that these are all ghosts living under (an English) Milkwood.
March 21, 2022
I didn’t enjoy this. A few of the stories were okay, the rest I didn’t see the point in. Was a big disappointed for me. Maybe the title lead me to believe this was going to be something else, but for me it missed the mark. My favourites were definitely the shorter stories. Thanks to the publishers for my copy. It’s out now.
June 11, 2023
Der deutsche Titel und das Cover sind sehr konträr zum Inhalt des Buches, deswegen wurden meine Erwartungen stark enttäuscht.
Mir war nach fast allen Kurzgeschichten übel (die recht grausamen Szenarien waren sehr gut ausgearbeitet - das muss man ihm lassen).
Mir war nach fast allen Kurzgeschichten übel (die recht grausamen Szenarien waren sehr gut ausgearbeitet - das muss man ihm lassen).
February 2, 2024
Fragwürdige Entscheidung, "male tears" zu "Der längste, strahlende Tag" umzubenennen, auch das Cover ist eher irreführend, meiner Meinung nach.
Ich hätte mir etwas Friedlicheres gewünscht, diese Geschichten sind alles andere als das.
Ich hätte mir etwas Friedlicheres gewünscht, diese Geschichten sind alles andere als das.
February 14, 2023
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.
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.
April 3, 2022
I really enjoyed this book the prose was poetic yet extremely easy to read. It was a comforting collection even despite the gore. The tacit split in the book was also really nice, transitioning in semantics with the refreshing (what felt like autobiographical) story “the hunters in the snow” it’s a shame this didn’t sell as well as it should have when it came out last year.
June 22, 2023
3.5/5
Initially underwhelmed but then a few standout stories appeared which struck a chord.The Blood Bell was great, as were Bomber, Snorri and Frosti, The Whip Hand and a Thousand Acres of English Soil.
I did find it a bit of an incoherent collection. Although it is marked as laying bare the male psyche I didn’t feel it achieved this, as good as some of the shorts were. Still a decent read though.
Initially underwhelmed but then a few standout stories appeared which struck a chord.The Blood Bell was great, as were Bomber, Snorri and Frosti, The Whip Hand and a Thousand Acres of English Soil.
I did find it a bit of an incoherent collection. Although it is marked as laying bare the male psyche I didn’t feel it achieved this, as good as some of the shorts were. Still a decent read though.
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