The Country of Marriage - Softcover

Giardina, Anthony

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0006551408 ISBN 13: 9780006551409

Publisher: Flamingo, 1999

Synopsis

The many embarrassments of the married man – a Madame Bovary for males.

· Want to know what is really going on in your husband’s head? Want to know what his real desires and discontents, never voiced, are? Then here is a user’s manual for wives.
· Marriage is a foreign land. Those who visit are always altered, often disoriented and occasionally shattered by the experience.
· Many men, bedded down firmly into the wedded state, find themselves in a curious, cosy emotional paralysis – this book describes that paralysis, and married men’s inability to act.
· Psychologically acute, excruciatingly accurate, bewitchingly well written.
· The best debut of the season.

About this title

Review:

‘These stories offer no lists of things to do to improve your marriage overnight. They simply describe what being inside a marriage is like, with elegant and often painful accuracy... Giardina’s prose is full of insights that will make men nod in rueful recognition.’
Brandon Robshaw, Independent

‘These are disturbingly well written stories which manage to be pitiless without being cruel. Giardina has an extraordinary gift for describing the eddies of power in what seem to be familiar relationships. The effect is frightening and, I fear, true.’
David Hare

From the Back Cover:

“Welcome to the psyche of the married man. Through the eyes of the passive adulterer, the contented father, the guilty cheater and the cuckold, this strange and honest set of portraits affords insight into the masculine desire to act without making decisions or taking responsibility.”
Sally Feldman,
'Good Housekeeping'

“Here's a rare thing: a man writing about men and their marriages. And though these are regular, middle-aged Americans – medics, firemen, academics, with their wives, neighbours, kids and affairs – they are among the most gripping fictional characters I've ever encountered. Imagine all those monosyllabic guys in the books and the movies of the past decade suddenly turning around and explaining themselves. Quite how Giardina makes domestic drama seem so urgent and thrilling is a mystery, but every story in this classic collection is a page-turner.”
Julie Myerson,
'Mail on Sunday'

“It's not all jam being a man these days. Pilloried in the media for our risible shortcomings, we can't even respond by being strong and silent. Strong and silent gets you no points any more. Sensitive and articulate is the thing – not our forte . . . Anthony Giardina's stories offer no lists of things to do to improve your marriage overnight. They simply describe what being inside a marriage is like, with elegant and often painful accuracy . . .All are written in the same icy, skilful prose. Giardina's men are self-aware but paralysed. They smoke cigarettes and look at the stars after their wives have gone to bed. They know precisely what's going wrong but can't lift a finger to change it. Giardina's prose is full of insights which will make men nod in rueful recognition.”
Brandon Robshaw, 'Independent'

About this edition

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0006551408
• ISBN 13: 9780006551409
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224