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MEN FROM BOYS
by John Harvey, editor
Dark Alley, May 2005
429 pages
$13.95
ISBN: 0060762853


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

There's been a very lively discussion of late on one of the crime fiction email lists I'm on about the exclusionist policies of some short story anthologies. A couple of days later, MEN FROM BOYS turns up in the post.

Editor John Harvey admits that he has automatically excluded a number of writers he admires by making this an all-men anthology. And sadly, even though a number of the stories are top-notch, the whole thing feels like an overload of testosterone.

He's certainly got some of the big names on-board in the form of Michael Connelly, Jeffery Deaver, Lawrence Block , George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Reginald Hill -- and I'd cross a busy motorway in rush hour to read anything by the latter three. But then, as he admits himself, there's no Val McDermid, Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky or Alice Sebold. I'd certainly have appreciated seeing some of the women writing on the 'men from boys' theme. It might have spared us a surfeit of stories where the only women are whores or waitresses, and where most of the men are losers.

It's also a case of caveat emptor -- I don't tend to read short stories, but I've read at least two of these elsewhere in other anthologies. Brian Thompson's lightweight (in both senses) gangster story Geezers was lousy the first time and doesn't improve on a second reading. Harvey's own story, Chance, featuring a down on his luck PI, does bear re-reading.

As for the others, some writers adapt easily to the short story form, Pelecanos and Hill among them. Pelecanos's Plastic Paddy is very sharp and focussed, and I did wonder if the unnamed hero was Nick Stefanos from one of my favourite series. Hill's story, The Boy and Man Booker, is as clever and playful as you would expect from him.

Dennis Lehane's Until Gwen boasts a fantastic first line that makes you want to read on: "Your father picks you up from prison in a stolen Dodge Neon with an eight-ball in the glove compartment and a hooker named Mandy in the back seat." I'm pleased to report that the rest of the story doesn't disappoint.

Elsewhere, Bill James's Like An Arrangement features his series characters Harpur and Iles, and is deeply bizarre. I'm not familiar with the series, and I'm not quite sure I want to go and chase it up. I get the feeling that it's one you either love or hate. And there's also a disappointingly flat story, Dancing Towards the Blade, from the usually reliable Mark Billingham -- although kudos to him for at least attempting something different.

The last story, My Father's Daughter by Andrew Coburn, is by far the longest of the lot at a hefty 80+ pages, but it's an interesting read. One of the reasons I don't read many short stories is because the endings are often too sudden or too tidy, and that's certainly the case here. But it does boast people who you want to learn more about. And it has about the only convincing female characters in the whole anthology.

OK, so . . . Some class stories here for sure, but you'd be a bit miffed if there weren't, given the names Harvey has on board. And if the editor has a vision, who's to argue? It just seems more than a tad unfortunate to exclude women writers who would almost certainly have added depth and balance to the anthology.

And to the people taking part in the lively online discussion -- you can now see why lesbian and women writers end up being forced to band together in their own anthologies if mainstream publishers are excluding them from collections such as MEN FROM BOYS. If you don't agree with the exclusionist line, here or elsewhere, don't buy the book.

Reviewed by Sharon Wheeler, July 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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