How to Accommodate Men [Paperback]

Marilyn Krysl (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1998

From Denver to Sri Lanka, Eden to the 21st century, Krysl's stories explore female experience and imagination.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As its title suggests, this collection of stories provides sad commentary on relationships between men and women. Despite a few cheerful notes about caring, sensitive men, the male sex does not receive a flattering portrayal. Krysl writes about women who take care of men and get taken for granted in return. She looks at child abuse from the viewpoints of both male and female children, and she explores the different coping mechanisms that boys and girls develop. Several stories discuss women in war-torn or military states who try to protect themselves and their children. Body image, witchcraft, homosexuality, and aging are among other issues crafted into these disturbing, well-written, and-all-too recognizable stories. Recommended.?Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island, Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Watch Hill
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

These are bleak and brittle stories, written with deadly elegance. Krysl wields a verbal scalpel in delineating the relations between men and women: lovers, spouses, fathers and daughters, confessors, and nuns. She is particularly stark when writing about war as a place that only brings suffering to families, to women and children. Her stories about the civil war in Sri Lanka keep the soldiers and reasons for conflict vague; what is real is senseless slaughter, arbitrary murder. In "The Thing around Them," a woman named Vasuki sends her son away to be adopted so he might live; in "Mine," a journalist's sensuous responses to a country not her own and to a military captain are toggled between random violence and the placing and defusing of land mines. Like Josip Novakovich's Salvation and Other Disasters , these scenes are both hyperreal and hallucinatory; like that collection, there is little comfort offered or expected. GraceAnne A. DeCandido

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Product Details

• Paperback: 220 pages
• Publisher: Coffee House Press (October 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566890764
• ISBN-13: 978-1566890762
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,138,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunate cover and title; finely crafted stories within., October 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Accommodate Men (Paperback)

This is one book that cannot be judged by its title and cover. These strongly focused and insightful stories are both penetrating and lyrical -- revealing emotional landscapes of men and women people dealing with important issues. Some stories reflect the disquiet of interpersonal relationships; others deal with the harsh realities of lives interconnected in a global context. I attended a reading where Ms. Krysl read one story, about a man coming to terms with his role in the social injustices of his business dealings in a third world country. The audience was stunned. Instead of a cover of hazy red and gray, with an atom bomb explosion at the top and a reclining bikini-clad woman on the bottom, this book deserved a title and cover representative of the fine quality of the stories within it. This is a book to read, contemplate, and then re-read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an absolutely riveting collection!, July 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Accommodate Men (Paperback)

i have always loved krysl's short stories -- and hope her other collections become available again -- but with this book, she's hit her stride. she tells it like it is...and in such beautiful language! let's have MORE from this author, who outdoes most short-story writers publishing in the larger mainstream.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Emotion before craft, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: How to Accommodate Men (Paperback)

Another tome from someone who's paycheck comes from a University rather than readers. And she teaches the same. These type of writers should get out of their ivory towers and into the trenches and learn their craft, especially before they set out to teach others. This book was strong on emotion, but weak on craft.