Men on Divorce: The Other Side of the Story (Harvest Book) [Paperback]

Penny Kaganoff (Author), Susan Spano (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1997 | Series: Harvest Book

The fifteen original essays in this “rare, unusually focused anthology” (Publishers Weekly)-by writers such as Lawrence Block, Benjamin Cheever, Edward Hoagland, and Walter Kirn - explore divorce and its repercussions from a male perspective.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The editors of the anthology Women on Divorce now use the same format to examine the men's side of marriage break-up: 15 authors write about their divorces. Benjamin Cheever is droll: "Like most men, I thought that I'd married the woman I loved because she wanted to get married." John A. Williams discusses how his decision to become a writer ended his marriage; Richard Gilman analyzes his wife's Japanese divorce; Edward Hoagland sees fidelity in a sociological and territorial way (the Beats and Manhattan's East Village in the 1950s, the West Village and the hippies in the 1960s); Lawrence Block writes humorously about learning to live as a "single" rather than as someone simply between relationships (and how that led to a successful new marriage). In their introduction, the editors compare their two anthologies and note that the children of divorce play a much less prominent role here than in the women's collection and that the men seem to have idealized their wives-at first-much more than the women had their husbands. Men also seem more prone to "serial divorce" (repeating the same pattern in one marriage after another) and are more aware of how divorce can become a family tradition. Other contributors include Tim Parks, Daniel Asa Rose, Ted Solotaroff, Stephen Dobyns, Walter Kirn and Louis Rodriguez. The literary quality is uniformly high, making this a rare, unusually focused anthology of original essays that both entertains and instructs. First serial to the New Yorker. (Feb.) FYI: Also in February, Harcourt Brace/Harvest will publish a paperback edition of Women on Divorce ($12 ISBN 0-15-600462-3).
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Marriage and divorce are insightfully explored in this follow-up to Kaganoff and Spano's Women on Divorce: A Bedside Companion (1995). Here, 15 original essays by male writers include novelist Walter Kim discussing his parents' divorce and how it prefigured his own years later and social commentator Luis Rodriguez writing about why men often romanticize love and marriage, even to the point that the woman becomes nearly inanimate, just one part of the larger dream. Similar themes are examined, as when Stephen Dobyns probes his tendency to idealize his lovers and himself during the courtship phase of his relationships. Imperfections are initially ignored, but once the facade is breached, the relationship inevitably founders. "How to Get Divorced," by Michael Ryan, is a sharp, satiric take on the ways men persecute the ones they love. Perceptive and revealing, it should be required reading of all men who say, "I do" --preferably before the vows. Brian McCombie --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (January 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156005476
• ISBN-13: 978-0156005470
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,726,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disappointing effort, June 23, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Men on Divorce: The Other Side of the Story (Hardcover)

This is a sad book that seems to be written by men to confirm the (female) editor's views of men. I'm a man that's been divorced and have had serious non-marital relationships. I also know many men who have been divorced. None of these essays resonate with our experiences.

If I were cynical, I would suspect that these are professionals writing for a market with preconceived notions, or the editors selected those essays to match their preconceptions.

Jerome A. Schroeder

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Perpetuating stereotypes., April 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Men on Divorce: The Other Side of the Story (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

Following publication of their book "Women on Divorce", which dealt with how bad women feel about divorcing their drunken, lazy, cheating husbands, Kaganoff and Spano attempt to show the man's side of the story in "Men on Divorce". Sure enough, the book is a collection of essays about how bad men feel about being drunken, lazy, cheating husbands. This book is a disservice to myself and millions of other men who have and continue to struggle to maintain the bonds of their marriage and their responsibilities to family.
Kaganoff and Spano should be ashamed to perpetuate such one-sided stereotypes.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good effort, September 15, 2000

By 

J. Charles Hansen (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Men on Divorce: The Other Side of the Story (Harvest Book) (Paperback)

A mixed bag of essays by men about how they've viewed their divorce, or divorces. Almost all are written many years after the event, allowing some life perspective on the very complex, all too common experience of divorce. I found it very refreshing to read men's largely unheard feelings on this subject.

This is a follow up to the editors first compilation titled "Women on Divorce: A Bedside Companion." Why women's essays about their divorce are a "bedside companion" while men's feelings on the subject are seen as a second thought and "the other side of the story" I found telling of the editors mindset and sadly the prevailing societal notion that women's feelings are valued more than men's.

I noticed that the essays were slanted mostly towards men who led a life of extreme womanizing and numerous relationships after their divorces. This doesn't resonate with my experience of the other divorced men I know.

The editors have put together an interesting read and deserve credit for acknowledging the experience divorce has on men. I could easily have passed on some of the selections, but the following alone I found worth the cost of the book:

- Michael Ventura's "The Ex-Files" speaks eloquently to the specific loss and guilt that is divorce, and on the unresolved feelings we carry around. "Let's not pretend that divorce is anything but failure... Whether it was reckless or silly or inspired (or all of the above), it was still important... You hurt others, you got hurt, and you failed... Of course, failure is not confined to divorce. Many a marriage is a walking failure - people joined in a pact not to know themselves or one another, who try to pull that not-knowing around themselves like a shield against the world."

-Michael Ryan's "How to Get Divorced" absolutely killed me. A completely sarcastic guide book for how to wreck a marriage. Example: "If something about your wife bothers you, speak right up! There's really no good reason why your wife can't be better in every way, if only she would try harder. Scrutinize her aloud on a daily basis." And "Stop Having Fun! This is tricky, because you and your wife probably wouldn't have gotten married in the first place unless you had been having at least a little fun together." But his best advice for ruining your marriage is "When in doubt, be selfish!" It allowed me to totally laugh at my own divorce and my role in messing up the marriage.

-Daniel Asa Rose has a great essay about the love/hate/grief that he has for his ex, and how his promiscuity hides the fact that at heart he's a one woman man.