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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] So I finished a book this week, and the book is called the Smart One by Jennifer Close.
[00:00:08] And I did what I always do. I picked up another book.
[00:00:14] And so, like, I scrolled through, like, all the recommendations of what's. What's out there on the.
[00:00:22] Either on the Kindle or on Libby, what I have available to me.
[00:00:28] So I chose a book recommended by Carol Erickson on the A Time to Throw podcast this month.
[00:00:36] And it's a book called Ask for Andrea by Noel Ilhy. I may have mispronounced that regular thriller cover, you know, Dark Blue. I'm sure there's a woman, like a white woman who's, like, in motion, probably trying to run from her fate.
[00:00:56] So here's a couple spoilers ahead. I just wanted to warn you, Chapter one opened with the murder of a woman picked up from a dating app, which I love. The name of the dating app in the book is called Match Strike, which, that's great.
[00:01:13] So I put down the book to take a shower. But since I listen and read simultaneously, I just fast forwarded on the app to where I left off. And I was listening to it while I was showering.
[00:01:26] And the only thing I could think of when I was listening to what, what else is going to happen in the book is that I think we have an entire genre of books centered around male violence.
[00:01:47] I pause. Like, this is the one with thrillers. Think about it. We have an entire genre dedicated to the violence of men.
[00:01:56] Women who are subject to it, who are trying to avoid it, who are trying to get over it, who are trying to investigate it, who are trying to get adequate punishment.
[00:02:06] And let me just say this. There's more justice in fiction than in life, as evidenced by what's going on in the world.
[00:02:12] But I just was like, I can't believe that we've built an entire genre around the violence of men.
[00:02:20] We haven't built an entire conversation around how to stop the violence of men in the society that we live.
[00:02:30] So all I can think of is like, so our collective terror is also our entertainment.
[00:02:39] And I'm not exempt from this. So I had to have, like, a moment where, you know, you step back and I was like, oh, my God, am I the problem?
[00:02:47] And the. I was thinking I was looking at my own books and of, like, the thrillers I've written, I think all but one or two about the suffering about women suffering from men.
[00:03:03] Ransom does about a predatory judge. Cage is about predatory sex traffickers, traffickers. Disgrace is about predatory rich young men with promising futures to Protect Unarmed is about a predatory police officer kidnapped at a predatory uncle.
[00:03:20] Reunited is about war, more war.
[00:03:24] And Nazis Contained is about predatory sex offenders. Poisons is about predatory corporations protected by the very promising young men who've now come to the fruition of their careers, which is about protecting predatory corporations.
[00:03:37] Abuse is about a predatory husband without Consent is about a predatory clergyman.
[00:03:43] His last misses is another predatory husband. We love those.
[00:03:46] And leave it the first lies about a predatory man. Just another predatory man.
[00:03:53] And so, like, if you're wind fiction trying to work out, like, the threats in life, that's a lot. And I think about, like, one of the favorite, maybe now the longest running network show on network television is Law and Order, Special Victims Unit, which is just like 20.
[00:04:13] Oh, my God, probably 27 seasons. And these are like, with COVID notwithstanding, full, like, network seasons of like 20 to 24 episodes of just predatory men doing the most heinous of things.
[00:04:32] But then I. So, okay, I was like, this could just be me, right? So I was like, let me just scroll back through, like, Goodreads and see what I read in the last year here in fiction.
[00:04:43] And the book, I read like two, three, four books before. Where I am now is a book called On a Quiet grave by Dervilla McTiernan.
[00:04:52] And then it was the Keeper by Tana French, the Proving Ground by Michael Connolly, and At Midnight Comes the Cry by Julius Spencer Fleming, which is like a whole lot of predatory men. Not great. The behavior is so awful. Like, you're reading the book and the behavior is so cringe with men being so controlling. It's just a lot.
[00:05:13] And I love this author, but this is actually the end of the series, and that's okay.
[00:05:18] But every one of these thrillers is dangerous men. Dangerous men, Dangerous men, A dangerous man, very dangerous group of men. An entire genre predicated on men inflicting violence on others.
[00:05:34] And it's maybe not all men, but it's a whole genre.
