Women with Men : Three Stories (Paperback)

by Richard Ford (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
This audiobook features an unabridged story taken from author Ford's recent collection, Women with Men. As narrator, Ford's voice is melancholic and perfect for evoking the downbeat tone of the work. In brief, a tangle of jealousy erupts among a Montana family, leading directly to the unnecessary death of a total stranger. The telling of the story is enhanced by the program's production values: effective music, good sound quality, and an appropriately somber pace. The story is so subtle that listeners may need to hear it twice to catch a single line in the narrative that is critical for insight into the real cause of the tragic event, never admitted or even spoken by the character responsible for it. A wholly absorbing work for adults.?Mark Pumphrey, Polk Cty. P.L., Columbus, N.C.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist
Ford's novel, Independence Day (1995), won both the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and there is no question that he is a gifted storyteller, albeit a morose and relentlessly precise one. Here, in three powerful long stories, he explores precarious and complicated relationships between men and women. Each tale revolves around the fractured emotions aroused by the dissolution of a marriage: feelings of failure and the dizzying sense of spinning unsteadily and off course through life, like a wheel without an axle. In "The Womanizer," a man who believes he still loves his wife goes to Paris alone on a business trip and becomes obsessed with a Frenchwoman, an awkward and futile pursuit with a near-disastrous denouement. In "Jealousy," set in a bleak little Montana town, a 17-year-old finds himself skewered on the sharp psyches of his unhappily separated parents and lonely aunt Doris (a wonderful character with a taste for schnapps, a pink Cadillac, and a red dress). Ford returns to Paris in "Occidentals," rendering the city intolerably gray and extremely dangerous to the mental health of its fuzzy-minded American visitors. All of Ford's magnetic characters seem permanently jet-lagged, woozy with displacement and disappointment, and their troubles escalate accordingly, with surreal and sickening inevitability. Donna Seaman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 28, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679776680
• ISBN-13: 978-0679776680
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #672,765 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Take Two, November 22, 1999

By	David Antonelli (Windsor, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Women with Men (Hardcover)

I think this is one of Richard Ford's best along with Wildlife, Rock Springs, and The Ultimate Good Luck. The subject matter and setting are quite different from the Americana we've come to expect from him, yet the depth of insight is there in maybe even more intensity than in any other works. I rank the first story, The Womanizer, up there with more obvious and less subtle works by Camus concerning "the human condition" While some reviwers found the protagonist lacking direction and substance, I felt that this was precisely WHY this story was so good. Ford has managed to portray a character who is non-commital and self-deceptive to the point of ridiculousness. He is an onion skin of lies and apathy floating back and forth between Paris and the US under the illusion that he is having an affair with a woman that he really doesn't care about. There are so many great scenes in here from the one where he imagines himself in court with his wife to when he presents the little boy with a gift. Ford undermines him with irony from start to finish and presents us with incredible detail and insight a character who is fundementally vague and doesn't even know himself let alone others. A classic of the short novel which should be ranked with the best of Peter Handke in this genre. There is a little of this protagonist in all of us. Well done.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Portraits of Depression, October 18, 1998

By	Tom Fulton (Minneapolis, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews

Richard Ford's Women with Men is a collection of three short stories. The first and third seem closely related. They focus on two men from the Midwest, both entering middle age, and both profoundly confused and clueless. The city of Paris features prominently in both stories. The third, story, much shorter and sandwiched between the Paris tales is a sort of coming of age tale of a teenage boy in Montana. It seems somewhat out of place.

In the first story, "The Womanizer", Martin Austin a supposedly happily married man, has traveled to Paris for a business trip where he finds himself intrigued by a somber, enigmatic woman undergoing a painful divorce. The story chronicles what happens when Austin becomes unaccountably obsessed with her. In the other Paris story, "Occidentals", Charley Matthews, whose wife has recently abandoned him, is visiting Paris on business, accompanied by his lover, Helen. I found both stories painful and dreary but was struck by how congruent Ford's writing style was with the psyche of the characters. Both the characters and the writing are ponderous, and humorless and grim. The result is an unusually intense portrayal of unconscious grief, depression, and delusion and quiet despair among men (and the women in their lives) who are groping for meaning and purpose in a soul-dead existence, and who are floundering for human connection without the slightest capacity for autheticity or intimacy.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A required read for Ford fans, February 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Women with Men (Hardcover)

This collection of stories extends a major theme in Ford's work: women sans men do just fine. Drop a male or two into the picture, and the problems start to pile up. This collection throws this thematic cream pie in your face. It's not a subtle message; the title's obvious poke at Hemingway gives it away before Page One. Fortunately, its thematic constructs do not overshadow the absolute quality of the work. Ford is a premier American writer, and this volume upholds his lofty standing, although it may not raise it to the next level (whatever that may be). Still, there are nits to pick. To the well initiated, these stories may well read like highly developed drafts of finer works to come. While the characters are true and well-developed, they lack a certain depth of those in other Ford works. And the internal dialogs, for which Ford is famous, sometimes border on whining, particularly in the third story, Occidentals. If you're not a Ford fan, these shortcomings may leave you searching for a more engaging read. Still, anyone interested in serious American literature, should check out Women with Men.