A night with the Tough Guy Book Club: blokes, beers and conversation

The reading list tends to be male and muscular but this fellowship is designed to talk about masculinity at a crucial time

Squeezed around a table in the Irish Times pub on Little Collins Street, the men of the Melbourne city “chapter” of the Tough Guy Book Club seem pleased I’ve asked to join them. Welcoming me warmly, the nine of them shuffle around to make room and thoughtfully clear the ruins of their pub meals from in front of me. “Here’s a menu,” one says. “Can I get you a beer?” asks another, adding to the good first impression the group is making. So good, in fact, I’m unnerved. Have I’ve walked into an ambush? Is this a men’s rights group in disguise? Are they Amway salesmen? Happy clappers? Bronies?

The feeling lingers as the chapter president, Lucas Earl, a bearded 27-year-old in jeans and a long-sleeve baseball T-shirt, suggests we make a start. But before we begin discussing this month’s book – Kim Scott’s 2010 Miles Franklin-winning That Deadman Dance – everyone at the table, as is customary, must introduce himself. “But don’t mention what you do for a living,” clarifies Earl, pointing out to me, and another newcomer, that “no work talk” is rule two of Tough Guy Book Club. “Rule one,” he adds, is “no dickheads.”

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