Any Man: A Novel

By Amber Tamblyn

“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.”
   — Janet Fitch, bestselling author of The Revolution of Marina M. and Paint It Black

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In this electric and provocative debut novel, Tamblyn blends genres of poetry, prose, and elements of suspense to give shape to the shocking narratives of victims of sexual violence, mapping the destructive ways in which our society perpetuates rape culture.

A violent serial rapist is on the loose, who goes by the name Maude. She hunts for men at bars, online, at home— the place doesn’t matter, neither does the man. Her victims then must live the aftermath of their assault in the form of doubt from the police, feelings of shame alienation from their friends and family and the haunting of a horrible woman who becomes the phantom on which society projects its greatest fears, fascinations and even misogyny. All the while the police are without leads and the media hound the victims, publicly dissecting the details of their attack.

What is extraordinary is how as years pass these men learn to heal, by banding together and finding a space to raise their voices. Told in alternating viewpoints signature to each voice and experience of the victim, these pages crackle with emotion, ranging from horror to breathtaking empathy.

As bold as it is timely, Any Man paints a searing portrait of survival and is a tribute to those who have lived through the nightmare of sexual assault.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jun 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9780062688934

Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tamblyn is an author, actress and director. She's been nominated for an Emmy, Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award for her work in television and film. She is the author of three books of poetry including the critically acclaimed best seller, Dark Sparkler. Her debut novel Any Man will be released in June of 2018 on Harper Perennial and a book of non-fiction essays for Crown in 2019. Most recently she wrote and directed the feature film, “Paint it Black”, based on the novel by Janet Fitch, starring Alia Shawkat, Janet McTeer and Alfred Molina, currently on Netflix. She reviews books of poetry by women for Bust Magazine, is a contributing writer for The New York Times and is a founding member of Time’s Up. She lives in New York.

Book preview

Dedication

Honey, don’t take this the wrong way but

this book is dedicated to you.

For David. My love.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Part I

One

Two

Three

Four

Part II

One

Two

Part III

One

Two

Three

Four

Part IV

One

Part V

One

Part VI

One

Two

Part VII

One

Two

Three

Part VIII

One

Two

Three

Part IX

One

Two

Three

Part X

One

Part XI

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also by Amber Tamblyn

Copyright

About the Publisher

I

One

Am I in a body?

No body answers.

The sound of swallowing. A liquid click.

I feel a tongue.

Or a tongue is felt.

It is my tongue

or it is a tongue

belonging to someone else.

I am someone else.

Or I am the tongue

belonging to a self.

I am not a self.

I ask the tongue that is me

or the tongue that is in a mouth

to count.

How many teeth are left?

It doesn’t want to.

Please.

The tongue lifts its twisted torso from the tonsils, thrown to the back of the throat like a child from a car’s crash.

Darkness is a body.

I am in a darkness.

Or I am in a body.

A body is darkness.

The tongue searches, feels the teeth tremble like an ensemble of pebbles, disassembled. They are almost all accounted for. The tongue digs through an opening, touching air, past lips. My lips. Maybe. The tongue feels skin on a face.

What is feel?

No body answers

I open my eyes. The sky is a blue-cheese white with bullet holes of lapis, hued by the night’s dethroning. A bird the size of the memory of a bird passes over like a spider falling perpendicularly. Someone shaped the clouds all wrong; splashed chum on the deck of dawn. Everything points away from itself. The abandoned skulls of nests rest in a nearby tree.

A woman approaches and stares down at me, her expression horror’s portrait.

Can she see me?

Can I be seen?

Am I in a body?

She uncurls a thick scarf from her shoulders and lays it across me. Is it winter? There are no leaves on the trees. Is it cold out?

What is feel

The scarf’s warmth is proof. Proof of pumped blood, of living. My living.

I am alive. In a body.

A trigger pulls and a seismic ache awakens. A searing pain rises, as the sun does, assured of its scorch. Every inch of me shakes.

She takes out a phone and dials quickly.

I laugh. The end of me tickles.

He looks . . . Oh God, please get here quick . . .

I am not dead. I am not not dead. I am in a body, on a ground, and it is morning. It is Winter or I am Winter. I am alive, at the behest of death’s dress rehearsal. The pain. The pain. Please. My bones break each other, within. Internal ash. I move my jaw and it screams. Flex my toes and they scream. Tighten my anus, a scream. Swallow a scream. My legs are spread screams. I breathe—

He’s here in an alley outside the Green Tavern . . .

—and the freezing air screams. Each rib expands and lets out a scream. I try not to breathe, which makes my heart scream. I take smaller screaming breaths instead. My sore neck screams as I try to lift it, making my back scream. My entire body unfolds.

The space between my hips does not scream.

Silence.

I reach a hand down to feel.

My hand feels, but what it’s feeling

feels nothing.

Yes, he’s still breathing . . .

Yes, I am still breathing.

No, I am not living.

Yes, I can feel my legs.

No, I cannot feel my genitals.

Yes, I can see.

No, I don’t want to look.

Yes, Barack Obama.

March, I think. Early March. 2016.

Three fingers.

Donald Ellis.

Watertown. New York.

Yes, forty-seven years old.

Yes, an MFA in creative writing.

A poet.

No, I don’t write anymore.

Yes, I teach kids.

No, I didn’t mean to go to the bathroom while lying here.

No, I don’t want to hang on.

Yes, I understand I will survive this.

No, I don’t remember a face.

No, I don’t know how this happened.

No, I don’t want to cry.

Yes, I had some drinks.

Yes, I can still feel my legs.

No, I still can’t feel my genitals.

Yes, I can see the church from the ambulance window.

No, I’ve never lost anything in the ocean.

No, I don’t know what time the cemetery closes.

No, there was not enough room when we were kids.

No, it wasn’t my mother’s fault.

Yes, I feel alone.

Yes, I believe in God.

No, I do not want to pray.

Yes, I did see a ghost once when I was ten.

No, I can’t remember the words to any songs right now.

Yes, everything is on fire.

No, I don’t want you to put it out.

Yes, everyone’s face is a blur.

No, I won’t be hungry again.

Yes, I’m done with eating for the rest of my life.

Yes, I think the driver is humming something my grandmother used to.

No, she didn’t tell me.

Yes, I think that’s her in the car driving behind us.

No, she passed away years ago.

Yes, I understand I’ve lost blood.

Yes, I understand you may not be able to save it.

No, please don’t give me the details.

No, I don’t want to talk to the press.

No, I have no comment.

Yes, I understand I’m going to be fine.

No, I do not want to wake up after the surgery.

Yes, I’m still breathing.

No, I am no longer livable.

Yes, I’m a schoolteacher.

Yes, second-grade.

Yes, I’m married.

Camilla.

Fifteen years.

No, please don’t call her. Don’t tell her.

No, I don’t want her to see me like this.

Yes, two. Amanda and Jake. Ten and seven.

Yes, I do. Very much.

Yes, I would like to cry now.

Yes, I understand.

Yes, I am scared.

Yes, I can still feel the pain.

No, please don’t tell anyone.

No, I’m not ready.

Camilla sits next to my hospital bed, stained with the evening’s abrupt catastrophe, half her black hair falling out of a hasty predawn bun, her shirt on backward and inside out. She’s been up for two days straight, since they called and told her some woman found me lying in an alley. She tells me I was in surgery for several hours while they tried to save it, attempted to reconstruct it, get blood moving through it, figure out a way, with newer medical technology, plastic surgery even, to graft skin and salvage it, even if I might never be able to fully use it again. At least it would be there, in some way, nostalgia’s souvenir. She tucks the curtains of her long bangs behind her ears and allows grief to take center stage. They were mostly unsuccessful, she says. We sink to the bottom of each other’s oceans, drowning in shared silence. There are no pamphlets for this, no leaflets we can look through together about how to deal or move forward. Her green eyes pucker saltwater as she tells me it doesn’t matter to her, that she’ll love me no matter. I want to reach out and kiss her lids, run my thumbs over their creaminess and remember what delicate feels like. She holds my hand and says the local paper called me an area man. She wants to know if I can believe that, like I don’t have a name or something. When Camilla gets angry, her shoulders move back and forth as she speaks, like spreading wings. I’ve always loved this about her. Sometimes I grab her by them and say, Don’t take off, hothead.

The kids are with her mother. She thought it would be better to come alone so we could talk. There’s a Detective Whirloch who wants to speak to me about the sexual assault when I get home from the hospital. Sexual assault, my brain repeats to my heart.

She unclenches her brow and kisses my palms, waiting for my response. A little part of me peels off and jumps out the seventh-story window. Besides the obvious, I’ve been treated for hypothermia, abrasions, and a little blood loss. They found high levels of Rohypnol in my system, she tells me. Is there anything I can remember, regardless? Rohypnol, heart. Rohypnol.

I tell her I remember a storm of moths fighting for a streetlight’s attention. I remember the sound of a night bird not yet ready to quit. I tell her I remember a knee pushing against my throat, hairless and smooth. I remember a strawberry color moving electric overhead, a pink cloak dancing across my face.

I do not tell her what else is remembered.

Someone caressing the lobe of my ear with their tongue. A hand unbuckling my belt. The last hard-on I’d ever feel. Trying to stop it, then trying to stop stopping it. Rides of swinging nausea leaning in and out of my roller-coaster body. Guilt pulsing through every pore of my departing consciousness.

I do not tell her that I tried to stop it, because I can’t remember if I did. I do not tell her what the person looked like, because I’m unsure. I do not say I enjoyed it, because I don’t know if that’s possible, given what happened, but if I did, she should leave me. I do not ask her if she’s going to. I would understand if she did.

I want to pull my hand away from hers and never be touched again. I want to take off all my fingers like pen caps and write blood all over this room. I want her to loathe the man who could let this happen to himself, to have no pity, to tell me this is what I deserve. Her touch is a broken mirror in every room of my mind. Her touch is a tender, mistaken fool. I want to unscrew the entire arm she’s got her hand on and just give it to her, let her have just that—my good, straight fingers, my thick pads, my forearms and sturdy wrists, unharmed. I want her to take the arm home and make it breakfast in the morning. Let the arm tie Amanda’s shoelaces while she finishes packing Jake’s lunch. Give it the car keys and let it drive everyone to school. I want her to send it dirty texts during lunch breaks. Make her smile and think only of gloves, daydreaming about manicures. I want her to crawl into bed next to it and stroke its elbow. Run her fingers over its cuticles. I want her to turn out the light and kiss the mouth of lines in its palm, happy and easy. Sleep there beside it, its wrist spooning her, its heavy, steady thumb draped over her ribs.

The rest of me will exit our picture’s future. I’ll go somewhere warm, black, and waterless, touching nothing, until she forgets my name.

Beep.

Hi baby, it’s me.

It’s about six thirty and I’m done with the staff meeting.

I swear Principal Sanders let out the most heinous, unchristly fart during the budget-cut meeting today.

I was sitting RIGHT next to him! And I couldn’t say a word.

Had to watch him shovel a tray full of room-temp gouda into his mouth for two hours while that fart wrapped itself around me like, like . . . God, it was

Reviews for Any Man

[Angie MD · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Epic! I finished it in 2 days time. Her writing style is nothing short of spectacular and igniting. I have a lot of respect for her. Please read this book.

[koralis-426659 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I only know Amber Tamblyn from Joan of Arcadia and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, when I saw she authored a book I kind of assumed it would be the typical contemporary fiction. I was wrong. Way wrong. This is about the aftermath of a sick woman ruining lives. This book was amazing. I wasn't a fan of the poetry aspect though.

[thebacklistbook · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book is not good. What it is, is important. Please don't read this book unless your mental health is on track and you have supports in place for if it tanks post reading. Massive trigger warnings for: rape, sodomy, transphobia, rape culture, toxic masculinity, toxic feminism, and bestiality.

Ladies you will not like this book. Feminists you will not like this book. You are not supposed to. It holds an uncomfortable mirror up to the world and how we treat rape survivors. Specifically how many women view it as proper and acceptable to ask of male survivors the very questions that we view indecent to be asked of female survivors.

Things like "but was it rape if he got hard?". The answer is yes. Emphatically yes. the human body is complex and in both men and women wired to respond to certain stimuli in a specific manner despite us not wanting that thing to happen. It is never your fault. I have rated this book three stars to acknowledge its importance, but only three stars because it really wasn't my cup of tea to read this kind of fiction.

[capfox · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was a tough but powerful one. I went in on it because of a recommendation from my top literary podcasts. And I'm glad I was in the right frame of mine to handle it, because honestly, we're talking about a book that really has the potential to screw you up. Emotionally, cognitively, experientially, this is a hard but worthy read.Why is that? Well. So this is a book about a female serial rapist, told from the point of view of the male survivors of her attacks. While the attacks themselves are not displayed, the details of some of them come out in some of the descriptions of events in the aftermath, and they're pretty gruesome. These are details that will stick with you, along with much of the rest of this fairly slim tome likely.Some of that is the formatting - there's online chats, computer activity, poetry, articles, diaries, email exchanges, drawings, and more, and that all serves to keep the story lively and sticky. I like the formal playfulness, and it helps to make each of the sections stand out as a different thing more, too.There are lots of differences between the sections as well, because as you read through the book, you find the only thing that links the narrators is their maleness - they're young and old; they're in different life situations; some are straight, some are queer; some single, some married; it's all over; some of the attacks appear more premeditated, others at the moment they happen. Tamblyn is trying to capture the range of assaults, at least in circumstances; one hopes the horrors of some of the attacks are rare, at least.More than the horrors and the details, it's really the character point of views that stay with you. For a few of them, we get a bit of their lives from before they're assaulted, but for most of them, it's the aftermath. And as they struggle in different ways, finding different resolutions, coming together or not, it's hard not to feel empathy for them as the reader.Although that said, Tamblyn is also playing with the range here in response. Certainly some of the people shown responding in the book are more or less empathetic, both in their persona (one survivor does really read as a Milo Yiannopoulos expy) and in terms of the circumstances of when they were assaulted. In drawing comparison to the female experience, though these are all rape, some are attacked in ways where no one can question they did anything wrong; others get questioned about what they were doing out there at that time, or if they really said no, etc. It's pretty masterfully done, and the effects of what happens to the men are bruisingly felt by the reader.One thing that I feel I have to mention that did disappoint me is that there's a trans man who is attacked by the serial rapist, but of all the characters, he's the only one that doesn't get his own viewpoint, and his story passes without much comment or effect on the others. I get that Tamblyn wanted to include this, but if that's the level of attention the character gets, I'd have preferred her not to.On the whole, though, it was a powerful and fast read, one that I found gripping and inventive, raw and difficult. Definitely not one for everyone, but important and worthy if you think you can stomach the material. I don't think it's a book for any person, but I think it could and should have a wide impact.

[winterfox-392140 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book was a tough but powerful one. I went in on it because of a recommendation from my top literary podcasts. And I'm glad I was in the right frame of mine to handle it, because honestly, we're talking about a book that really has the potential to screw you up. Emotionally, cognitively, experientially, this is a hard but worthy read.Why is that? Well. So this is a book about a female serial rapist, told from the point of view of the male survivors of her attacks. While the attacks themselves are not displayed, the details of some of them come out in some of the descriptions of events in the aftermath, and they're pretty gruesome. These are details that will stick with you, along with much of the rest of this fairly slim tome likely.Some of that is the formatting - there's online chats, computer activity, poetry, articles, diaries, email exchanges, drawings, and more, and that all serves to keep the story lively and sticky. I like the formal playfulness, and it helps to make each of the sections stand out as a different thing more, too.There are lots of differences between the sections as well, because as you read through the book, you find the only thing that links the narrators is their maleness - they're young and old; they're in different life situations; some are straight, some are queer; some single, some married; it's all over; some of the attacks appear more premeditated, others at the moment they happen. Tamblyn is trying to capture the range of assaults, at least in circumstances; one hopes the horrors of some of the attacks are rare, at least.More than the horrors and the details, it's really the character point of views that stay with you. For a few of them, we get a bit of their lives from before they're assaulted, but for most of them, it's the aftermath. And as they struggle in different ways, finding different resolutions, coming together or not, it's hard not to feel empathy for them as the reader.Although that said, Tamblyn is also playing with the range here in response. Certainly some of the people shown responding in the book are more or less empathetic, both in their persona (one survivor does really read as a Milo Yiannopoulos expy) and in terms of the circumstances of when they were assaulted. In drawing comparison to the female experience, though these are all rape, some are attacked in ways where no one can question they did anything wrong; others get questioned about what they were doing out there at that time, or if they really said no, etc. It's pretty masterfully done, and the effects of what happens to the men are bruisingly felt by the reader.One thing that I feel I have to mention that did disappoint me is that there's a trans man who is attacked by the serial rapist, but of all the characters, he's the only one that doesn't get his own viewpoint, and his story passes without much comment or effect on the others. I get that Tamblyn wanted to include this, but if that's the level of attention the character gets, I'd have preferred her not to.On the whole, though, it was a powerful and fast read, one that I found gripping and inventive, raw and difficult. Definitely not one for everyone, but important and worthy if you think you can stomach the material. I don't think it's a book for any person, but I think it could and should have a wide impact.