Is It Sexual Harassment Yet

by Cris Mazza

In this new collection of short fictions, Cris Mazza shows herself to be a true inheritor of that "American grotesque" brought into our cultural consciousness by Sherwood Anderson. Her first collection, Animal Acts, was widely reviewed and critically acclaimed. Is It Sexual Harassment Yet? confirms her talent to investigating the strangely erotic and oddly exotic private lives of middling America.

Genres: Short Stories

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Cris Mazza is the author of a dozen books of fiction, mostly recently Waterbaby (Soft Skull Press 2007). Her other titles include the critically acclaimed Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, and the PEN Nelson Algren Award winning How to Leave a Country. She also has a collection of personal essays, Indigenous: Growing Up Californian. Mazza has been the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and three Illinois Arts Council literary awards. A native of Southern California, Mazza grew up in San Diego County. Currently she lives 50 miles west of Chicago. She is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago "

Reviews

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

With only a few exceptions, this book of short stories pretty much tells the same story each time. I sincerely (truly; no irony) hope this author found help she needed.

I have no interest in reading the final story. Just a gimmicky layout; the tedium of effort far overwhelms any possible enjoyment.

[Matthew · Rating 1 out of 5]

This comes down to the presentation of two different points of view or stories presented as co-linear, each on it's own half of the page.. The writing is well done, very professional. The problematic part of the story is that instead of tackling something problematic (sexual harassment) head-on and the problems exuded by some authority figures in demeaning of others at a very core element of identity, it moves through dementia or what appears to be psychologically distorted mind frame and contrasts it with an apparently more rational mind frame . The basic dislike I have for this book is that it is written in such a way that instead of instructing and pointing people upward in it's resolution it instead highlights negative behavior and appears to just open more problems and exemplifies the negative. Not something I would consider good literature, more of an academic exercise with a bad story-line and focus.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as keen on these stories now as when I read this collection when this edition came out in 1998. Full of inside voice claustrophobically inside of chaotic relationships these stories have revelatory power. But I think they are better as one-offs. Reading them back to back to back and the collection all seemed to run together.