Representing the Male

Reviews / Votes

"This innovative and illuminating analysis of the representation of masculinity in south Wales coalfield fiction digs deep beneath the surface of the texts and mines a rich seam of profound gender complexity and contradiction. To read it is an energising intellectual experience, which highlights the general relevance of these novels."
-- Jane Aaron, University of South Wales * University of Wales Press * "John Jenkins's sensitive and acute exploration of these novels reinstates the unjustly overlooked Ron Berry into the canon, and persuasively demonstrates that damaged and toxic masculinities are still a feature of post-industrial and post-devolution Welsh literary cultures - this is a fine addition to the field of Welsh literary masculinities."
-- Aidan Byrne, University of Wolverhampton * University of Wales Press * "Jenkins's book is a long-overdue, trenchant and exceptionally perceptive analysis of the culture of masculinity in the Valleys, as represented in some key industrial novels including Lewis Jones's Cwmardy and Menna Gallie's Strike for a Kingdom. Ranging from the 1930s to the 1980s, it shows how a persistently macho culture can repress and warp both women and men ... For Welsh readers, particularly, this is an essential book, analysing a phenomenon that is so ingrained in our culture that it has for too long been simply accepted as the norm." -- Katie Gramich, Cardiff University * University of Wales Press *