The Night of the Weeping Women

Rating:
Summary: I thought 'Man-Bashing' was "out."
Review: Much of this book read as it was advertised. It was a stark look at the institute of marriage. It was indeed dark in humor, and the characters were very interesting and complex. If it were just advertised as an entertainging, fictional read, based on these characters I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. (Other than it's terribly flat conclusion). But when it is touted as a "required read before obtaining a marriage license" that is where I have a big problem with this book. The men in this book are all terribly flawed as far as morality, character, and self-centeredness issues are concerned. The problems or faults of the women in the story, can all be traced back to a man, and are. It causes me to wonder if the author, and I say this with absolutley no malice, or insult intended, is gay. That would help explain the obvious slant against the man in traditional male-female relationships. The mothers role in the traumatic episode with her young daughter is almost totally ignored, and she never was asked to be accountable for it. Yet the Man had to be "broken" because of it. I thought for it to be a book to truly gain insight before marriage, it could have spent more time on the two way streets of real life, rather than the one way, dead end street this book ended up on.

Rating:
Summary: I thought 'Man-Bashing' was "out."
Review: Much of this book read as it was advertised. It was a stark look at the institute of marriage. It was indeed dark in humor, and the characters were very interesting and complex. If it were just advertised as an entertainging, fictional read, based on these characters I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it. (Other than it's terribly flat conclusion). But when it is touted as a "required read before obtaining a marriage license" that is where I have a big problem with this book. The men in this book are all terribly flawed as far as morality, character, and self-centeredness issues are concerned. The problems or faults of the women in the story, can all be traced back to a man, and are. It causes me to wonder if the author, and I say this with absolutley no malice, or insult intended, is gay. That would help explain the obvious slant against the man in traditional male-female relationships. The mothers role in the traumatic episode with her young daughter is almost totally ignored, and she never was asked to be accountable for it. Yet the Man had to be "broken" because of it. I thought for it to be a book to truly gain insight before marriage, it could have spent more time on the two way streets of real life, rather than the one way, dead end street this book ended up on.

Rating:
Summary: searing portrait of marriage and family life
Review: The author has written a searing portrait of marriage and family life. As Reynolds Price suggests, this book should be required reading before obtaining a marriage license. Naumoff deftly traces the decomposition of two long term marriages and the seeds it lays in the marriage of the adult children. Dark comedy but illuminating in the ways that cruelty, unkindness and alienation can settle into marriages.