Romance, he wrote.. meet the new generation of male authors writing about modern love, dating and relationship

Similarly, there appears to be a welcome influx of new Irish male writers who are embracing the opportunity to write about dating and relationships with the same warmth, charm and effervescence as the likes of Marian Keyes, Cecelia Ahern and Patricia Scanlan.

“This is a relatively new trend for us,” says Lynda Laffan, Eason book buyer. “Around the time of Nick Hornby and David Nicholls, there were a few male commercial fiction writers here that were writing under female pen names, but very few, if any, under their own name. Male writers in Ireland have traditionally written more literary fiction, so this lighter trend seems to be coming more from younger male writers expressing their own life experiences. We are also seeing more published works with LGBTQ+ themes, and these are starting to fall under the commercial fiction banner also.”

Who does Laffan envisage will be the audience for these new writers? “It will likely be more female readers than male, though no doubt with the more inclusive themes in these novels, readers from all spheres will be buying into them,” she notes.

Dr Bernice Murphy, associate professor of English at Trinity College Dublin, certainly welcomes this new wave of writers.

“I think that one of the fascinating things that has happened in commercial publishing in the last 10 or so years in particular is that it has come to represent a broader range of experiences, so I think that it isn’t that surprising at all,” she says. “One thing that publishers always knew was that women have read and bought a lot more fiction, and when men read, quite often they would move toward non-fiction — think of the cliché of buying your dad a book about war for Christmas. So [a change] sounds like a really welcome development and quite exciting actually if it does take off.”

One of these new writers, Dubliner Bryan Moriarty, counts the US author Nora Ephron as a major stylistic influence. Often overlooked by critics during her lifetime, Ephron was one of the true pioneers of confessional relationship writing.

“I remember her pointing out, ‘Oh, people criticise me for picking over my relationships and drawing on that for my fiction, but that’s exactly what Philip Roth is doing, and nobody was dragging him at the time for picking over the bones of a relationship,’” Moriarty says. “It was an interesting point that she made, like it somehow seemed less worthy, or perhaps even a little embarrassing, for women to write in that way. And I do think that has changed now.”

Video of the Day

Certainly, Moriarty’s uplifting debut has much in common with Ephron’s classic novel Heartburn, covering, as it does, long-term love, casual sex and heartbreak. An actor who appeared in The Wonder and Stalling, he has written and produced several short films, plays and a web series. Sounds Like Fun charts the misadventures of Eoin, who embarks on a wild journey of casual non-monogamy at the behest of his long-term boyfriend, Rich, who is gunning for a more ‘open’ arrangement.

“The one thing I settled on quite early was that I wanted to write in that ‘storytelling’ kind of style, and with the kind of humour and precision I’d associate with a friend telling you an amazing anecdote in a café,” Moriarty explains. “I guess I’ve always liked that more accessible style of writing.

“I guess dating and romance has been seen as unserious, which seems bizarre when you think of how important it is for everyone, and how much of a universal theme is it.”

In the past, male authors who wrote about domestic settings or relationships were still very much regarded as Ireland’s literary heroes, certainly in a category apart to their female contemporaries.

“I read a lot of non-fiction when I was younger, and if you look at someone like Joseph O’Connor, who we regard as a very literary writer, his early non-fiction, like The Secret World Of The Irish Male, is probably fairly close to a more accessible storytelling style,” Moriarty notes. “Even Roddy Doyle, an incredibly literary writer, knows the value of really endearing characters and not dwelling over details for the sake of them.”

Moriarty notes that while he didn’t write about Eoin and Rich with any particular audience in mind, the book seems to land well with millennials keen to read about contemporary relationships.

“I was writing about the complexities of knowing someone for over seven years, while bouncing into a frivolous first date, and that idea was something that really energised me,” Moriarty says.

Much like Moriarty, Ryan Love’s debut, Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out, focuses on contemporary romance, as well as the complexity of family. In it, 79-year-old Arthur Edwards comes out as gay after a lifetime in the closet. Arthur’s 21-year-old grandson, Teddy, is also gay, but doesn’t feel quite ready to come out just yet. The book sees the pair navigate their first loves and their new lives, and has already been described as the feel-good read of 2023.

Somewhat incredibly, Enniskillen native Love — a former music PR and one-time showbiz editor at Digital Spy — wrote the first draft of the book within a feverish three weeks.

“I literally loved every second because, once I had the story in my head, it was like, ‘Just go for it.’ I didn’t dwell on anything and I didn’t second-guess myself. To get to the end of the first draft was incredible. I wish I could say the same about the second draft.

“When it came to the commercial side of the market, I just started writing and somehow ended up almost accidentally there,” Love explains. “I just knew what I liked. I think the one thing that interested me was losing myself in stories, and then breaking down people and getting to the crux of them, and seeing what decisions they make, and what path life takes us on.”

That said, he was surprised to find that his debut novel had landed on the commercial ‘uplit’ side of the market. During lockdown, Love started writing another work of fiction, something inspired by his own mental health journey.

“It was certainly heavier, but I sort of just sat with that and went, ‘Well, this isn’t quite right for now.’ And when it comes to writing a story about gay characters, I was very much of the mind that I wanted to write something uplifting, because there can be a situation when people write gay characters where it moved toward drama and perhaps misery. And it can feel a bit heavy over the years.”

Was he ever mindful of the ‘baggage’ that has been associated with commercial fiction for so long, especially for male writers?

“I wasn’t, to be honest,” he says. “From where I was sitting, I was like, ‘You know what, I am honoured to be considered in the same breath as people with such wide appeal. I’m not driven by the need to win a literature award. I’m super proud of what I have done and hopefully I’ll get to do it again. I was really aware of trying not to focus on that old way of thinking [about commercial fiction].”

In Dublin, Joseph Murray had a lightbulb moment while walking into a film studies lecture at Trinity College Dublin back in 2014. The moment resulted in his highly anticipated debut, Fling, and turned Murray into a sort of soul brother for writers like Marian Keyes and Beth O’Leary.

“A friend of mine made a passing reference to a website for people to find affairs online and I thought the concept was wild,” he recalls, “But then I thought how funny it would be if two married people joined the website in secret but accidentally matched with each other. The idea didn’t leave my mind for six years and I often found myself daydreaming about how one would tell a story about two people trying to cheat on each other with each other. But between college assignments, a master’s degree and working full time, I never got a chance to focus on bringing the idea to life. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I lost my job and had to move back home to the countryside. I was officially out of excuses. It was time to get this idea out of my head and onto the page.”

Fling is a high-concept novel, but also a smart look at the current dating climate and online culture — the former being a huge subject of interest for Murray, also known as a TikTok creator and comedian.

“I think the best stories out there are that of love. I suppose I am a hopeless romantic at heart but I will deny this in public! I have a lot of books in the pipeline and they all involve love in one way or another. It’s the most universal and timeless theme and, even though it’s been done a million times before, there’s always a new twist you can take on the love story. I also feel I can offer a unique perspective on relationships in my writing.”

Much like Moriarty, Murray doffs a cap to Ephron.

“There was never any doubt in my mind that I was going to write primarily for women,” he observes. “All of my personal heroes and literary inspirations are women, so it’s no surprise that I gravitate toward dating/romance about powerful leading ladies. What makes [Ephron’s] rom-coms so amazing is that we see the story from a man and a woman’s point of view. Think When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. We get both sides of the story, which makes the happy ending so much more rewarding. But although Fling was written for women, I think there’s a lot in it for men as well. They will likely identify with the character of Colin and hopefully learn a lot from the character of Tara.”

Murray has no time for talk about commercial fiction and literary snobbishness.

“Personally, I prefer reading more commercial fiction due to its accessibility,” he says. “Nothing beats grabbing a book in the airport and enjoying it on the beach. I read and write for the same reason: escapism. Getting swept away on a journey is such an amazing feeling and it’s a bit easier to lose yourself in commercial fiction. Also, the genre I’m writing in will always be commercial by nature. Romantic comedies are fun and light — escapism at its finest. Having said that, I have several book ideas that are more on the serious side, and these might have a more literary style due to the subject matter. But, ultimately, my goal as a writer will be the same: to uplift people.

“The most important thing is for male writers to ensure they do their female characters justice,” he adds. “There was a funny trend on BookTok a while back about women written by men, where people were poking fun at male writers describing women, often only focusing on their physical appearance. Some argued in the comments that men shouldn’t even attempt to write female characters at all.

“As long as male writers avoid certain pitfalls, there’s no reason why they can’t write amazing women and have a female readership,” Murray surmises. “The same goes for women writing fantastic men and gaining a male audience. Ultimately, what will determine success in future commercial fiction will simply be a writer’s ability to tell a story. After all, ideas have no gender and anyone is capable of having that magical lightbulb moment.”

‘Lad lit’: the story of a 1990s genre

The term ‘lad lit’ started to gain traction in the 1990s, and has been used to describe the male equivalent of ‘chick lit’ — commercial reads written by men, exploring relationships and emotions (the more degrading categorisation ‘d**k lit’ was thusly coined, although for perhaps obvious reasons, failed to take off in any major way). It was the decade when ‘lad mags’, among them Maxim, FHM and Esquire, were gaining popularity, leading book publishers to infer that there was a new type of readership of men out there.

These novels bore the same humorous and confessional hallmarks as women’s commercial fiction. Masculinity — back then a constantly shape-shifting concept — was often examined in a light way. Nick Hornby has been widely regarded as one of the originators of this genre. His breakthrough novel High Fidelity (1995) charted the romantic comings and goings of a record-shop owner and vinyl savant who was finding it a challenge to communicate properly with love interests. Other authors followed in his wake: former NME journalist Tony Parsons, who wrote Man and Boy in 1999; Mike Gayle, whose 1999 novel My Legendary Girlfriend focused on a man still in love with his first serious girlfriend; and music journalist Tim Lott, author of White City Blue, which won the Whitbread First Novel award in 1999.

More recently, Zack Love penned Sex In The Title in 2013, which followed five men around New York as they went searching for love, sex and relationships. This smart and quick-witted book was, perhaps predictably, described as a mix between Sex and The City and Entourage. Actor-turned screenwriter/author David Nicholls scored a critical and commercial hit with One Day (2009), the story of Dexter and Emma, who meet at university and embark on a decades-long friendship and relationship. The novel is currently being adapted for the screen (for the second time) by Netflix.

Breathing yet more new life into this corner of the marketplace is journalist Justin Myers (also known as blogger/advice columnist The Guyliner). His well-received third novel, The Fake-Up, is billed as an “hilarious rom-com with unforgettably brilliant characters”.

Joseph Murray’s novel, ‘Fling’, is out on January 31 via Pan Macmillan. Bryan Moriarty’s novel, ‘Sounds Like Fun’, is out on March 30 via Hodder & Stoughton. Ryan Love’s debut, ‘Arthur and Teddy Are Coming Out’, is out on April 13 via HQ