Author Amber Tamblyn puts listeners directly into the minds and bodies of four very different men who have one thing in common—each has been brutally sexually assaulted by a woman named Maude. Each man is expertly performed by a different narrator in a unique voice reflecting his age, background, and attitude. A full cast of award-winning narrators tells the story as it unfolds and circles back on itself through powerfully written prose, poetry, interviews, online chats, a radio show, and a TV talk show in which multiple characters interact. The result is well produced, intense, and challenging for the listener, who is forced to consider the impact of the violence and intimate nature of these assaults. A timely message—but not for the faint of heart. E.Q. Winner of AudioFile Earphone Award, 2019 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Any Man is a breathtaking gut-punch of a novel. Here is the cost of sexual violence: our bodies, our minds, our culture. Flipping the typical narrative of woman-as-victim, Tamblyn follows six different men, each of whom has been viciously attacked by a serial rapist named Maude. In a masterful exploration of literary form, we follow them through poetry, journals, talk shows, group therapy sessions, internet chat rooms, letters, voicemails, and an extended Twitter search so real and right now the page became a screen in my hands. From the first lightning-bolt sentence it felt impossible to put down. But I had to put it down. I had to breathe. I had to interrogate my own heart. Real talk: this subject matter is hard as hell. It hurts. It’s so much easier not to look, to pretend such violence doesn’t exist even when we know--we know. we know and know and know--that it does. Enough, Tamblyn is saying. It’s supposed to hurt. That’s how we heal.

Amber Tamblyn’s debut novel, Any Man, is a beautifully written and carefully curated examination of toxic masculinity, rape culture and our society as a whole…a sprawling conversation about sexual assault and how prevalent it is in our society, regardless of gender….Everything about this novel is raw and exposed...this is the time to stop denying these things are out there just because hearing, seeing or reading about them makes us want to turn the other way—and that is what Tamblyn has achieved in this novel, a way to make our eyes stay on the page.

Get ready to hold your breath. Amber Tamblyn’s Any Man is a genre-bending gender-bending brilliant blow torch of a debut novel amplifying the complexities of sexual violence and the radical costs of survival. At the center of the novel is a serial rapist named Maude who reduces the men in her path to objects of prey. We’re not used to thinking of this equation, and that’s the point. This is the story of a monstrous woman made from the darkness inside all of us, a woman who meets patriarchy head-on and shreds it, leaving men traveling the journey that women must make every day of their lives--not the hero’s journey, but the victim’s. Not to emerge heroic and victorious, but to emerge from shame and violence with empathy, compassion, and the radical ability to endure together. This book changes everything.

An explosive, shapeshifting piece of literary real estate, Amber Tamblyn’s arresting debut offers a scathing portrait of American celebrity culture and the way in which it transmutes human tragedy into a vicious circus; victims are forgotten as likes and shares swirl, and ‘news’ becomes a squalid orgy, a lurid feast. Tamblyn takes every risk in this astonishing and innovative work, and succeeds, gloriously.

Poet and actress Amber Tamblyn’s debut novel, Any Man blends prose and poetry in a searing exploration of sexual aggression.Tamblyn is able to shed a harsh new light on how real, actual, pervasive sexual offenses are treated (and mistreated) in this country, and the world writ large.

Author Amber Tamblyn puts listeners directly into the minds and bodies of four very different men who have one thing in common—each has been brutally sexually assaulted by a woman named Maude. Each man is expertly performed by a different narrator in a unique voice reflecting his age, background, and attitude. A full cast of award-winning narrators tells the story as it unfolds and circles back on itself through powerfully written prose, poetry, interviews, online chats, a radio show, and a TV talk show in which multiple characters interact. The result is well produced, intense, and challenging for the listener, who is forced to consider the impact of the violence and intimate nature of these assaults. A timely message—but not for the faint of heart. E.Q. Winner of AudioFile Earphone Award, 2019 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine