Any Man: A Novel

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It's also extremely difficult to read, quite possibly the most difficult book I've read—and I've read A Little Life. How they will have to live with this for the rest of their lives and how by using each other as a support group, you can eventually, hopefully, more forward. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book written by a celebrity before and I can’t actually remember anything Amber Tamblyn’s been in off the top of my head (except Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) but I’m interested in how her writing career develops, I think she’s got talent and I particularly feel she has a gift with character development. Pear sees Jamar’s attack as lesser than his or Donald’s since Jamar’s assault started out as a consenting encounter.

There is a special place in hell for people questioning Michael Parker’s honesty based on his sex assigned at birth. People who live through sexual assault are a crash on the side of the road and the American media is nothing more than cars slowing down just long enough to take a peak, just long enough to take a picture before speeding off to their next fatality. A difficult, disturbing book to read, not really enjoyed, but fascinated--riveted--engaged--invested.She tries not to give Maude a backstory as to why she’s doing this for the most part but she’s definitely the most intriguing part of the story. Using bizarre illustrations, chatroom conversations, vignettes, poems, and even Tweets to tell her story, Amber Tamblyn creates a somewhat experimental, flawed, but weirdly fascinating narrative that effectively portrays the isolation and blame that victims of sexual violence often endure, and how that lack of support is even more prominent when the victim is a man. 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. In “Any Man,” Tamblyn steps further into the abyss, “imagining every extreme” she could think of for her characters to have endured in the past — from excision of genitalia to forced bestiality.

Each character receives their own “part” of the book, and although there are no labels or titles to let you know who is speaking, the voices and the styles applied to each are so unique and perfectly crafted that you know exactly who is who. Some of the book’s darkness, she says, is a product of this, borne from a “shadow part” of herself that she experienced for the first time while pregnant.She understood she couldn’t be silent and made a statement on Twitter, but she assures me there have been many real-life, productive conversations as well. A country that says 'Innocent until proven guilty' even though the proving of assault is nearly impossible. Why do we, as a society, blame the victim, use them as the story of the day and then toss them aside when something more horrifying comes alone? If anybody else has read this book I’d love to discuss it, so feel free to leave me a comment and get a conversation going!