I wrote a response to that post at The Spectator and I’m including it here. The post was a snarky dismissal of a real, concerning trend, by a female writer. So, I had to weigh in to defend the male race. I will include a link to the article at the end of my post. Here is my response….
As a male novelist who has had four books published by NYC Big Publishing in the 90s and has had to go the ‘Indie’ route since, I have to take issue with some of the ideas here.
I would put this whole argument in the same category as the current one over CRT and Radical Sex Ed in grade schools. There was no noisy demand by parents for CRT or Trans Sex Ed in elementary schools. It was just quietly slipped in over the years and then mandated by the Marxists and LGBT crowd that seem to dominate schools nowadays as teachers and administrators.
The proliferation of women’s fiction is not simply a matter of men losing interest in men’s’ novels, or not reading books because of a female name on the spine. It is because they often don’t see themselves realistically portrayed or their views honestly represented in female-written novels, and good books by male novelists that present those views are now shunned by major NYC Big Publishing companies. They simply never make it past the phalanx of young women and feminized men acquisition editors. This is not a new phenomena and happens regularly in all sorts of businesses and agencies.
So, what can a male novelist like myself do to get published? Well, I could self-censor out any belief or sentiment that modern hyper-feminized women would find offensive. A lot of men do this and, I believe, it makes their work ring false, and thereby loses male readers. Or a male author could simply use ‘find and replace’ to change his male hero into a female hero. A lot of novice and hack male authors do this, and their books are, of course, garbage, and not likely to be read by a thinking male. Or a male novelist can write uninspired, non-controversial boyish novels about submarines and tanks as the author of this article blithely suggests.
Serious novelists are faced with a different choice. John Irving, a novelist who never met a feminist or abortion he didn’t like, would have no problem getting published today. But an opinionated and brash Norman Mailer would, and probably a Sinclair Lewis as well. Certainly, a Hemingway. Any male-written novel of ideas (except reflexively liberal ones) will never make the cut at Big Publishing. Actually, it will never get that far. It will never be taken on by a modern literary agency, and non-agented manuscripts go nowhere but to the vast Sargasso Sea of Amazon, to be disappeared into the dross.
A wonderful writer I’ve recently encountered is Michel Houellebecq. A Frenchman, Houellebecq could be described as a misogynist, a sexist, or a realist. However, none of these mindsets are criminal. The hottest literary author in Europe, Houellebecq is hardly known here. Why is that? Well, he is simply not welcome due to his controversial views on the relations between men and women, and, to a lesser degree, his views on Muslim immigration into France.
So, what does Big NYC Feminist Publishing do about an author like Houellebecq? Will they ban him? Of course not. That’s too overt and male. They’ll just ignore him to death. How, you say? Well, his latest novel, Anéantir, is available. Parlez-vous Français? Non? Too bad; you won’t be able to read it. The book was published in French in January of this year. And, to date, despite all the money that would be made off it, there is seemingly no interest in an English version.
Please, before you go there, consider purchasing one of my books. Due to the very real problem delineated above, it’s just about become impossible for male authors like myself to find their readers. We are, shut out in many ways. Anyway, I don’t write only for male readers, but for all readers. Please take a look… at my work.
Not wanting to register at the site, I haven't been able to read the article in question, but the half-dozen lines of it that are visible lead me to think your response is entirely justified. ("As if [Roth, Amis, and Updike] haven't received enough acclaim and attention" indeed!)
Roth in particular was a great author--observant, thoughtful, creative, and daring. The fact that his work was admired twenty years ago does not in itself mean its time has passed. But clearly there's disagreement. I read the other day that the sonnet is no longer being taught somewhere, as the great examples of that form supposedly represent the thinking of the wrong sort of people.
I read. My page on Goodreads shows that over the decade or so I have posted reviews of 857 books. I've been aware for some time that the vast majority of those book are authored by men, and there's a reason. Granted, earlier this year I was enjoying novels by Japanese women, such as Sayaka Murata and Banana Yoshimoto, which I heartily recommend. And there are a few female authors in our own present-day culture I very much admire, such as Lionel Shriver. But the write-up linked to here is far more typical: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3760878976
Time is limited. We need authors whose work resonates with what is actually happening, and you, Paul, are one.