THE CURSE OF THE APPROPRIATE MAN

A witty, accomplished debut collection from the South African–born novelist (House of Women, 2002, etc.).

Beginning with “Under the House,” the taut tale of a first sexual experience that ends in violence and retribution—and becomes the erotic cornerstone of a woman’s life—these impeccably written stories detail the complicated pull of sexuality, power, and love. The title story puts a wicked twist on the ludicrous possibilities of dating for a woman who’s “parched for adventure” after dating only “appropriate men.” Enter a bearded Bavarian “in the seventeenth year of his doctoral dissertation” on “ecology and Chinese” (he also plays cello on the street and teaches archery at a community college). This man invites the narrator to dinner—and serves squirrel. His improvised kitchen hovers above the floor on a system of ropes and pulleys that also hold his cello, a music-stand, and a chair (“He reaches for a winch and winds down the toaster oven, which makes a neat four-point landing on the ledge”). Bachelor Number Two is an unpublished and impoverished Irish writer working on his sixth novel. He brings the woman flowers and will dine off nothing but china, though bought at a secondhand store. Story’s end, which comes a bit quickly, is as pointed as its characterizations. In “The First Rule of Happiness,” Antonia, her elderly mother, and her current lover, Thomas, vacation together in a gruesome love triangle. Thomas astutely sees that “she counted on him to understand that her mother’s happiness ruled her life” and that “mother and daughter were held together in a sort of grip of need—one to give, the other to snatch for herself.” By the end, that need is out in the open. Several pieces—like “Selina Comes to the City” and “William”—are knowing explorations of master-servant relationships in South Africa, while a young girl in “Songbird” learns that a Holocaust survivor’s story—that her singing kept her alive—isn’t true.

Fourteen sophisticated treasures.