Book Review
Title: Any Man by Amber Tamblyn
Genre: Psychological, Horror
Rating: 4.5 Stars
As a lover of all things psychological and horror in movies I wanted to get more gory horror books and I was recommended Any Man as a good starting point for splatter punk books. From what I gathered in the synopsis it is following five male victims of a serial female rapist known only as Maude and I was eager to see what was in store for me. The novel opens with the attack on Donald Ellis, while he is drugged during the encounter it is still horrific to read and the way he was dumped to be found was heart-breaking. The aftermath of the attack is where we get to see the effect it has had on Donald, he was left with lasting injuries from the encounter that would forever change him physically but it also had profound psychological effects on him as he doesn’t feel like he is alive anymore. After being released from the hospital, Donald is trying to come to terms with the way his life is going to be now and he is struggling. He describes life as a movie he isn’t a part of anymore and how he doesn’t even feel like a person because of what was taken from him. This becomes even more heart-breaking when he has to explain to his young son what happened because of what people have been saying to him in school and how it impacted them as a family unit.
We are introduced to two more men who have been assaulted by Maude, Pear O’Sullivan and Jamar. There doesn’t seem to be a type between the men as Donald was a middle aged family man, Least is a three time divorced pensioner and Jamar is a young man. We also the different between the way they are dealing with what happened to them, Donald retreated into himself and then turned to awareness and activism while Least users comedy to make light and sense of what happened to him while Jamar seems to have collapsed emotionality which is reflected in his physical appearance. Throughout their therapy sessions we are questioned on the way society treats victims of sexual assault. We are asked went so few women are believed and why so few men come forward in general and what this says about us as a society. We haven’t physically meet Maude yet and have little to no clues about her identity but the way she selects and targets her victims is creepy as hell. However, when Jamar stops attending the support group session Pear gets worried but through Pear we learn the difference of perspective. Pear sees Jamar’s attack as lesser than his or Donald’s since Jamar’s assault started out as a consenting encounter. This raises the question of what constitutes assault and rape and how even when consent is given it can be withdrawn at any point.
At this point Maude has attacked three people over the course of a year and the authorities are no closer to catching her. We also get to see the way the victims are treated in the media and it is horrendous, first, Donald is screwed over by a female reporter after promising him they won’t talk about the specifics of the attack and then proceeds to question him on nothing but that and makes references to the fact he might have been cheating on his wife when he wasn’t. Jamar is also treated badly by the media when they publish everything about his attack that could have only come from a leak in the support group and Pear is furious about it as well trying to get Jamar to reach out but he won’t. Each of these three men feels that Maude has taken some essential part of them that they won’t ever get back and they have to live with crushing guilt and shame about their experiences which I was personally say hit home hard for me having been through it myself. Then two more victims comes forward a famous gay man, Sebastian White and a trans man, Michael Parker who are treated as polar opposites by the media. With Sebastian they applaud his strength and celebrate his upcoming book while with Michael all they can talk about is his criminal record and his assigned at birth gender which has absolutely nothing to do with the attack but there are also those that support Maude and believe that men are finally getting what they deserve after putting women through this treatment for centuries which I didn’t agree with at all, that isn’t an experience you’d wish on your worst enemy let alone the average person whose done nothing wrong.
Over the next eight years Maude is looked for and never caught and her victims are left to live broken lives. Michael commits suicide, Pear dies from cancer, Jamar goes on to have a family, Sebastian becomes even more famous and Donald has his own activist radio show. However, one day and you boy, Ezra calls from prison and explains he was a victim of Maude at ten years old and he was the only one to see her face and he discusses how normal she was and how unlike the other she treated him so gently most likely because he was a child. These men have never forgotten or forgiven what Maude did to them but they found a way to struggle through and survive for the most part. However, right at the end a journalist does get in touch with Maude and we see how unhinged she is as she heads out in search of her next victim claiming any man will do. Overall, Any Man was a dark and disturbing look into male sexual assault, victim blaming and much more and it really makes you ask certain questions. If you’ve got a strong stomach or no triggers then I’d recommend picking this up but it’s the darkest kind of fiction you could possibly pick up.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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