The Review of Contemporary Fiction

How to Accommodate Men by Marilyn Krysl
Alan Tinkler

Marilyn Krysl. How to Accommodate Men. Coffee House, 1998. 238 pp. Paper: $15.00.

Marilyn Krysl’s collection of short stories, aptly titled, is a biting exploration of the relationship between men and women in societies where men, who are often obtuse, are oppressors and women are survivors. This pattern, Krysl recognizes, is not simply endemic in America but is prevalent throughout the world. Drawing on her experience of living and traveling in Asia, Krysl explores the survivability of women within a country, Sri Lanka, torn apart by civil war.
Within that reality, the payment of electric bills and the constructed notions of Western beauty are left behind; women are forced to discern a world where men employ technologies toward destruction—a destruction which is antithetical to the reproductive, maternal power of women. In the story “Iron Shard,” the iron in menstrual blood flow is positioned against the iron of weaponry. The story begins with Radika’s first menstruation: a cause for ceremony. However, before the ceremony can occur, soldiers take Radika’s father from home. He is not heard from after being seized, though Radika’s mother inquires at the local army post.
Even though the cover is too obvious (the famous mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion above a woman, dressed in a bikini, who is sheltering her eyes with her hand), the collection is satisfying since Krysl is not afraid to explore the intimate nature of societies. In “The Girls of Fortress America,” Sandra learns the lesson of silence rather early. Wanting to know about her father’s secret society, the Lodge, Sandra crawls up on his lap. After he asks what she wants, Sandra thinks, “Everything,” while saying simply, “Nothing.” Marilyn Krysl wants Fortress America to be less secure, and for that reason How to Accommodate Men is a successful collection. [Alan Tinkler]