Women and Children First

By Francine Prose

Book Overview

"Reading this book] is like driving down the road with a companion who is so smart and funny and insightful that her conversation transforms the landscape" (Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-winning author... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394565738
• ISBN13: 9780394565736
• Release Date: February 1988
• Publisher: Pantheon
• Length: 229 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.

Customer Reviews

(four and half stars) Every story was good

I'm not the best short story reader, because I'm always wondering what point I'm missing. I'll finish a ten page story written by a well-known author and think that there must be some deep message I'm just not getting because the story tends to end so abruptly (in the past, I read poetry much the same way). On the other hand, an author who's used to writing books that are several hundred pages long, is forced to cut the fat and get to the point when they're writing a short story, which can be a good thing. That's why for me, an author like Francine Prose, who's books sometimes get bogged down in the minutia of detail, thrives with this type of story telling. Rather than describe and review each of the dozen stories in "Women and Children First," let me simply say that every story is interesting and a good read. In fact, there's not one weak one in the bunch. Prose covers some of the same themes she does with her novels, but in a much scaled down way. Even though I'm sure I didn't get some of the "points" made by the author, I throughly enjoyed "Women and Children First," and I hope that Prose writes more short stories. The book also gave me the incentive to read other books that contain short-stories from additional authors that I like (something I rarely do).