Following the success of Ben Myers’ The Offing comes his second book for Bloomsbury, a collection of short stories out at the end of April called Male Tears. The book incorporates stories written over the last decade and it’s no surprise to Myers fans that these are tales often set in the North and with rugged, windswept characters who are part of the environment that they inhabit. Gritty, acerbically amusing, occasionally raw, and always engaging, this is about real men and their oddities, their stubbornness, their foibles and their strength of spirit. ( )