Any Man flips gender stereotypes

Actress Tamblyn’s debut novel upends rape culture

Any Man Amber Tamblyn HarperCollins

Actress and author Amber Tamblyn started writing Any Man, her debut novel about a mysterious female rapist who preys on men, three and a half years ago. That was before #MeToo and #TimesUp, before she became a prominent advocate for those movements and before she shared her experience of sexual assault on Instagram.

So while not a direct reaction to current events, it does reflect a climate that’s been brewing for several years, she says.

“Like most women, not just American women but around the world, we are forced to sit with a lot of our anger for the wrongs that we’ve experienced in our lives — whether it’s in the workplace or at home or culturally — and I think that this book happened for me because it was in the zeitgeist,” Tamblyn said in a recent interview.

“It’s living in the ether of the world and certainly for our country, with the election of Donald Trump and all the subsequent things that have happened in the last several years — and also the racism and demonization against our previous, wonderful president — I think for many women, a sense of allowing your rage in whatever creative capacity to show through, no holds barred, is how a lot of women are feeling right now, a lot of creative women.”

For Tamblyn, the creative spark came from the idea of a woman who had no consequences and was untouchable — who lives “as predatory men sometimes live,” she said.

“Especially if it was somebody who wasn’t doing it to get revenge on somebody, which I think is often the norm for dangerous, volatile, female characters — that they’re trying to get back at an ex-boyfriend or a john or their dad.”

The Emmy- and Golden Globenominated actress shaped the victims after men she knows.

One of her goals was to explore the stereotypes and archetypes of men.

“I also wanted to explore masculinity, both the toxic type and the protective type, and even the nurturing type, and find different ways to explore the male mind,” she said.

Some men who’ve read the book have been “really upset” by it but also admitted they “can’t take their eyes away.”

“I basically took a lot of the same stories that women have been through in the last several years, certainly some big cases that we’ve seen here in America, and really did apply them to (the men’s) stories.

“So while it’s very upsetting for them, it’s an everyday experience for women. And especially for trans women and women of colour, I think in our country and culture, certainly, it’s even worse for them.”

The story looks at how society perpetuates rape culture and Tamblyn feels it’s “an indictment of the culture.” She hopes it will help readers “recognize what it feels like, what the experience of someone who’s been sexually assaulted, no matter their gender, what that road is like.”

“A lot of what the book does is aim to resensitize the conversation and to be able to feel again.

“I think for women, too, there’s a sense of not being able to feel, because you haven’t been able to get through to people, it’s sort of brushed off. Even the #MeToo movement has been seen as either called a ‘witch hunt’ or going too far or all of these questionable things that movements like that are being called.”