We do not expect real men to look like the men on our books.
Men in romance novels, to quote my husband, are not real dudes. Real dudes don’t usually think about their emotions as much as heroes do in a novel. Most real dudes do not sit and ruminate for hours about their attraction to a person or analyze their feelings. Whether it’s cultural inculcation or gender difference—and my money is on the former, not the latter—men aren’t going to spend a few pages' worth of narration pondering their deep and abiding emotional bond with a woman.
This is not to say that men do not have feelings. They absolutely do—but since emotional display is unseemly at best and emasculating at worst, particularly among men in most cultures, there aren’t always going to be those deep and squishy moments as there are in romances.
But improbable muscles, deep emotional pondering, and squishy feelings aside, real romance heroes are everywhere. We’re not all looking for pirate kings who are secretly dukes, or tycoons of unspecified industry who need someone to pose as their fiancée to close a tricky business deal. We know these men don’t exist in plentiful supply, much less at all.
But we do know that there are many good men (and women) out there, and most of us, since most romance readers are in relationships, have already found one. We can separate reality from ridiculous, fact from fiction, and find real-life men who are real-life romance heroes, in small and magnificent moments.
Note: I am speaking specifically about men in this chapter, but by no means are all romance fans heterosexual. Many are lesbian or gay individuals. By writing about male heroes, I do not mean to imply that only heterosexual people read romance, nor that romance can only take place between heterosexual couples. Heroism exists in both genders; in this chapter I’m speaking specifically about male stereotypes, archetypes, and daguerreotypes. Okay, not that last one, but you get the point.
The appearance of the romance hero, all muscled and mullety, is not the reality of the romance hero. The romance hero can be found in just about anyone. For example, as I write this, my husband has taken our two children to a Disney children’s show, ON ICE, so that I would have total quiet and isolation in which to work. That is a romance hero. I hear he is possibly eating a flavored ice out of Jessie the Cowgirl’s head, much like devouring icy cold BRAAAAINS.
Little moments assembled together make the romance hero. The man who brings you a drink after a very long and brain-frazzling day or who walks through the door, sees you on your last moment of patience, and turns around to fetch take-out for dinner—that’s a romance hero. The man who holds a door, who notices you need a hand, or who shows up to simply be there when you’re facing something difficult—that’s a romance hero.
As an article in the Boston Globe in October 2009 by oncologist Robin Schoenthaler stated, the ideal man is not the one with the biggest bank account or the extreme sports habit, but is the man who will hold your purse in the cancer clinic:
“I became acquainted with what I’ve come to call great ‘purse partners’ at a cancer clinic in Waltham. Every day these husbands drove their wives in for their radiation treatments, and every day these couples sat side by side in the waiting room, without much fuss and without much chitchat. Each wife, when her name was called, would stand, take a breath, and hand her purse over to her husband. Then she’d disappear into the recesses of the radiation room, leaving behind a stony-faced man holding what was typically a white vinyl pocketbook. On his lap. The guy—usually retired from the trades, a grandfather a dozen times over, a Sox fan since date of conception—sat there silently with that purse. He didn’t read, he didn’t talk, he just sat there with the knowledge that twenty feet away technologists were preparing to program an unimaginably complicated X-ray machine and aim it at the mother of his kids.
“I’d walk by and catch him staring into space, holding hard onto the pocketbook, his big gnarled knuckles clamped around the clasp, and think, ‘What a prince.’”
OUR FAVORITE ROMANCE HEROES
Is there a difference between real-life heroes and romance-novel heroes? Le Duh. Of course there is. But beneath the stereotypical imagery and the unfortunate typecasting that men in fiction and in entertainment endure, there are real men who are romance heroes. It may be so traditional it’s almost cliché to joke about men who don’t do dishes or help with housework or even actively parent—but more often than not, men are strong and worthy partners and are the exception to that demeaning stereotype. And as I said earlier, we do not expect men to look like the men on our books. But that doesn’t mean we don’t and shouldn’t expect men to at times act like the heroes of our books. Fortunately, so many of them do.
Every romance reader has a favorite type of hero or a favorite character. As I wrote on the website awhile back, my favorite heroes are a mix. Sometimes I love reading the abidingly constant loving man with hornypants, often portrayed as waiting for the heroine to wake up and realize he is perfect for her, but not sure what to do with his feelings in the meantime. Other times I adore reading the “I don’t like you, you drive me nuts, I can’t stop thinking about your hair, DAMMIT!” hero.
The ideal man is not the one with the biggest bank account or the extreme sports habit, but is the man who will hold your purse in the cancer clinic.
One hero I love rereading is Ethan from the Nora Roberts Chesapeake Bay series. Yet I would totally be wary of him in real life. Quiet but intense is fun to read about: “What’s going on under the surface? I can’t tell—a puzzle! Fun!” The same character is not so fun in real life: “I know there’s something going on under the surface but I can’t read what it is. It’s a mystery…that makes him possibly creepy.”
What do I learn from reading about Ethan, who is a very damaged and yet very honorable hero? What do I learn about real people while reading about a fictional person? I learn that a person can change and outgrow a painful past that’s cut by abuse and cruelty, and I learn that as much as someone might prefer not to have feelings at all and try to suppress them, the experience of good feelings—or really, really, really good feelings—is worth the pain and trouble of dealing with all those other pesky emotions. I learn the value and power of loyalty, and how families can be made when you’re an adult.
All valuable lessons and, in my opinion, important things to know about people that I might not otherwise have understood without that fictional portrayal. That’s the nice thing about romances: real emotions and, in the hands of a skilled writer, almost-real people, existing in totally fictional circumstances.
Most romance readers have a favorite hero, or heroes, and the reason why that hero is a favorite is often revealing—as is the fact that readers share many common favorites. When I asked the readers of my site which types of heroes they adored, the answers were not as varied as I’d expected—though this is by far only a small sampling of the many, many flavors of romance hero out there for your reading pleasure.
THE CARE-GIVING ALPHA MALE
Kati loves the care-giving alpha male, “who is all kinds of dominant, but spends pretty much every moment after meeting the heroine trying to take care of her—usually to varying degrees of success.” I love this type of hero too, usually because he is all kinds of irritated with that impulse to take care of someone to the exclusion of other tasks, and that will cue that “I don’t want to like you, I can’t stop thinking about your hair, DAMMIT!” frustration.
Kati’s favorite hero of this type: “Jack Travis from Lisa Kleypas’s Smooth Talking Stranger. Pretty much from the instant Ella accuses him of being her nephew’s father, he is trying to take care of her, either by finding her a place to live, facilitating her meeting with a high-powered player in Houston, or putting together the baby’s crib. He’s completely alpha, but he cannot stop taking care of her. And woos her, and the reader, as he goes.”
Liza the Evil Twin agrees: “In addition to what Kati so eloquently stated, I love how relentless Jack is in pursuit of Ella. Not in a crazy, stalker-ish way, but in his foc
us on her needs, desires, concerns, and happiness. Plus, he is so fun-loving, and has such a wicked, smart-ass sense of humor that just slays me.”
Jack Travis is a great example of how being an alpha male doesn’t mean you have to be an asshole to everyone around you. Alpha males in the new vernacular don’t put up with a lot of crap from anyone, but they also know how to be careful, and caring, without compromising themselves or their strength. Too often, people who aren’t familiar with romance presume that reading about alpha males means that women are reading and therefore fantasizing about men who do little but treat them badly, and sometimes cruelly. Not true, and not so. Alpha males from Old Skool romance, most commonly found in the ’70s and ’80s, with a little unfortunate leakage into the early ’90s, are definitely hurtful and unyielding, unbending, and even sometimes cruel to the heroine.
Romances today portray men as equal partners in the development and upkeep of a happy relationship. One of the hallmarks of the romance genre now (as opposed to those early romances of the ’70s and ’80s, more commonly referred to as “bodice rippers”—so named because often, a bodice was ripped in the course of unwilling seduction) is that the hero has to earn his happy ending. Much like the stereotypical wedding preparation, where the bride loses her mind over cocktail napkin colors and the groom just has to show up in a tuxedo at the right time, the Old Skool romance hero just had to show up to be a catalyst for the heroine’s readiness for romance heroine-hood. He didn’t have to change very much to win the girl and enjoy the happily ever after. He just had to be present at the right moments and be patient. Sometimes. Patience wasn’t necessarily a trait commonly found in Old Skool heroes.
Now, heroes have to complete their own emotional journey and be active participants in the creation of the happy ending. They have to earn it. To quote RuPaul: “You better work.” It’s a lot of responsibility and there are admirable traits that must be present or develop during the story in order to achieve that happy ending.
The contemporary alpha that is most commonly found in romances published today is never without compassion or some glimmer of redemption. Confidence is required, as is strength—both moral and sometimes physical—and a backbone of unbreakable durability, but the hero who would force his will, or his body, on a heroine is a figment of the past (thank GOODNESS) in romance. Now, alpha heroes are of the mold that Kati and others like: strong, unbending, but capable of compassion. As Tracey Devlyn writes of her favorite heroes: “the hero cherished the heroine.” A man is not going to do harm to someone who is valuable to him.
WHAT MAKES AN EXCELLENT ALPHA MALE HERO?
* * *
Strength
Compassion
Confidence
Moral code
Commitment
Loyalty
Outstanding bedside manner (if you know what I mean, and I think you do)
THE HEROES WHO TACKLE AND LEARN FROM THEIR PROBLEMS
A reader writing as Kitten says that the heroes she likes best “are the ones who have issues of their own. But also those who are willing to do something about it and who have a bit of a problem confronting the idea that they depend on someone else for their happiness. Some of the heroes in Stephanie Laurens’s Cynsters’ saga are like that—for example, Richard from Scandal’s Bride, who has to take a secondary place in the estate of his wife. He has to adapt and become a partner instead of being a ‘dictator’…Troubled, but willing to recover, and caring are the two best words to define what I like in my heroes.”
A reader going by the name Sugarless says that, like me, she has “a soft spot for nerds in fiction, so guys like Carter from the first book of Nora Roberts Bride Quartet, Vision in White, is totally squee-worthy. I can love his frustration and uselessness at the whole dating rituals thing—since he expresses it with humor, it’s adorable.
“I think this kind of guy would be a good boyfriend, but, unlike fiction, these guys in real life tend to be easily intimidated and are never sure what to do with my slightly neurotic self. Also—too many of them are too concerned with being a ‘good boyfriend’ to just be themselves. I mean, good on them for trying to be good to their girlfriends, but it’s not going to last if he can’t relax enough just to be himself. You find one that can, though, and I’m sure you’ve found a winner.”
THE HEROES WHO RECOGNIZE THEIR OWN WORTH–HONESTLY
A very awesome reader named saltypepper just finished reading a romance that revealed what a hero is: “I just finished Ripping the Bodice by Inara Lavey which I must mention because--SPOILERS AHOY!--Connor wins over Cassandra by pointing out that she only wants Rafael because he looks like the hero in a romance novel, whereas Connor, who doesn’t, is willing to act like one because that’s what she wants. If that is not a willingness to do what it takes to please his woman, I don’t know what is. Plus, a man who’s familiar enough with romances to know what kind of hero his heroine wants? Oh yeah. Lemme at him.”
A moral core of strength and certainty appeals to Tinpantithesis (can I mention how much I love the names of the people who talk with me online? Seriously. Love), who says that she really loves “The Frustrated Do-Gooder. I have a weakness for Lawful Good or Chaotic Good Guys—people intent on helping others or making the world a better place. Doctors, hotshot lawyers, knights errant, always sticking up for the little guy and doing the right thing.
“Except they’re not cheerful while doing it. When confronted with the ugly realities and inequalities of the real world, they get really irritated. Why are the dumb bureaucrats/corporate fat-cats/evil sorcerers/ Vulcan hobgoblins making it more difficult to help people? It’s enough to make a guy short-tempered, foul-mouthed, and just plain ornery. But underneath the cynical exterior is a heart that loves people, lost causes, and of course, the heroine.”
DreadPirateRachel says that she loves heroes “who appear to be bad boys in the beginning, but whom the heroines discover are unusually caring and gentle, even if they’re not the most sensitive of beings. Heroes like C.L. from Jennifer Crusie’s Tell Me Lies. He was a bad boy in high school, and heroine Maddie just can’t believe that he might have changed in fifteen years. His frustration with trying to convince her to trust him is endearing, and Maddie has a legitimate reason to drag her heels (for once). I love watching the trust grow between the hero and heroine while simultaneously finding a deeper understanding of the hero’s character.
“How much do I love this kind of hero? I married one.”
Jane says that what matters most to her “in a hero is confidence in himself and in his heroine. That’s why my favorite heroes tend to be guys like Clay and Lucas (from Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series) or Zoë Archer’s heroes. They always have their heroines’ backs, but at the same time they trust them to take care of themselves.
“I like the guy who respects a woman’s abilities, and thinks it’s hot that she can kick ass. Plus I think these character types tend to have a more equitable/trusting relationship, which makes me more likely to believe in their happily-ever-after.”
THE MYSTERY HERO
Another heroic type that readers enjoy is the hero who isn’t what he appears to be. For various reasons, heroes in novels often hide their true personalities and appearances, such as pretending to be less intelligent than they really are. Heroes like these allow the reader to see more beneath the superficial disguise presented to the world of the novel. E. D. Walker calls these “idiot heroes,” and says that there is “something so wonderful about seeing past the surface of someone, past the ‘idiot’ to the wonderful, perhaps selectively intelligent man, beneath.”
Heroes can overcome significant personal obstacles to be hero-worthy. One character who fits that mold is fan-favorite Reggie Davenport from Mary Jo Putney’s The Rake. Reggie was the villain in previous novels in Putney’s series, but as reader Newf Herder says, when Reggie became the hero, it was at significant personal cost, and personal effort, because Reggie had to recover not only from his own villai
nous choices but his alcoholism: “Reggie is not perfect by any stretch, but he is so very real. He’s a man capable of great things, in life and in love, once he finally surrenders himself. What I really liked was that he knew that he had to get sober for himself, and went for true recovery rather than being ‘redeemed’ or ‘saved’ by falling in love. Oh, and his heroine wears breeches! I’m always a fan of that.”
Heroic traits can be complex. Alpha males are often dominant and can easily pass the boundaries of decent behavior to become domineering and insensitive, and emerge as an “alphole” hero, as we described in Beyond Heaving Bosoms, instead of an alpha hero. Alphole heroes are just domineering assholes disguising themselves as alpha males. Real alpha males don’t need to be assholes. Dominance and confidence can be expressed in different ways that make them more appealing. Betty Fokker (another of my favorite reader pseudonyms) writes, “I like an alpha male, but he’s gotta want a really feisty woman…not to dominate, but to admire and help. I loved, loved, loved Shane from Agnes and the Hitman by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer, because he killed people yet still got her the air-conditioning unit of her dreams. Plus, she was prone to attempted murder. Which he liked in a woman.”
ALL THOSE HEROES ARE HELPING US OUT
What do we romance readers know about men from our tales of courtship? Plenty. Our ability to recognize heroism is revealed by the heroes we like to read about, even if those are men that in reality we wouldn’t be terribly interested in. It’s also empowering and almost a secretive kind of research to witness different relationships with very different individuals developing, as it teaches the reader what is and isn’t attractive—an entirely subjective and personal experience. We learn what we like, what we don’t, and what possibilities exist, both in relationships and in individuals.
Everything I Know about Love I Learned from Romance Novels Page 5
