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Man’s Companions
"Thirty-one brief, clever tales from the author of The Mothering Coven . . . underscore absurdities in the human species. . . . Ruocco's understated humor and irony have a playful, experimental appeal."
--Publishers Weekly
"This is a marvelous sequence of linked stories deftly portraying those animals inside of us which long ago tracked down and ate our inner child. A wry book that combines the obsessive music of Lydia Davis and the stripped precision of Muriel Spark, Man s Companions is not to be missed. "
--Brian Evenson
"Reading this work I imagine what it must have been like for people reading Donald Barthelme for the first time, that fully formed stylist suddenly sprung as if from nothing, this vision or version of the world that is our world and also isn t--it s wonderful and peculiar and radiant and much funnier and maybe a little bit sadder. Each of Ruocco s tales is its own little triumph."
--Danielle Dutton
For the characters in Man s Companions, the self is a degraded version of someone else. Fantasy is stymied by performance anxiety. Delayed gratification phones in a last-minute cancellation. Thee fictions in this collection are mongrel, troubling the genus of story with miscegenations and mutations, and at the heart of the book is the figure of the anima non grata, the unwanted woman, a degraded version of man. Using language by turns digressive, obsessive, overblown, romantic, fickle, and mundane, Man s Companions manipulates feminine tropes and finds a kind of joyous liberty in its proliferation of thwarted affairs and awkward interludes. Â Â Â
About the Author
Joanna Ruocco is the author of The Mothering Coven. She co-edits Birkensnake, a fiction journal. She currently resides in Denver, Colorado.
131 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2010
2 people are currently reading
80 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Ruocco
19 books33 followersJoanna Ruocco is a prize-winning American author and co-editor of the fiction journal Birkensnake. In 2013, she received the Pushcart Prize for her story "If the Man Took” and is also winner of the Catherine Doctorow Innovative Fiction Prize. Ruocco received her MFA at Brown, and a Ph.D. in creative writing from the University of Denver. Her most recent novel is Dan, published by Dorothy, A Publishing Project. She also serves as Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at Wake Forest University.
Ruocco has also published romance novels under the pseudonyms Toni Jones and Alessandra Shahbaz.
(from Wikipedia)
Ruocco has also published romance novels under the pseudonyms Toni Jones and Alessandra Shahbaz.
(from Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 2, 2021
"The people are all dead and the animals are too, but new animals are coming now, down through the mountains, so it must be safe again, and the bones in the tree knock together and no one tells us it's time to go home anymore, but we go."
WOW. Another 10/10 from Ruocco. Nothing I've read has disappointed.
WOW. Another 10/10 from Ruocco. Nothing I've read has disappointed.
July 30, 2024
Short stories exploring the various relationships between women and men. I found these compelling at times, annoying at others. Some were so well done and impactful, others fell short. But the theme of men’s companions carried through the entire book and kept the central theme of relationships as a gripping force in each story. I loved the writing style as well and I look forward to more.
October 24, 2012
Joanna Ruocco captivated me with Man's Companions. The quick fire nature of each chapter named almost exclusively after animals made me feel like I was switching between channels at 2am. Sometimes when you drop in, you have a fair understanding of what you have stumbled upon, and other times, you are trying to simply figure out what the hell is going on. The mixture of these sensations make the book dynamic, never letting you figure out what the next chapter will be about, because the book has no set storyline. Again, you are jumping in and out of scenes, seeing only blurbs of a moment, turning to another before you can even think to get bored.
Disjointed stories mold together into a greater narrative that feels cohesive. When you look at a chapter like Endangered Species, it shows off this power, with a quick-fire burst of a chapter, following one that was an easily followed story. But this chapter is a mystery, making the reader take in this aberration, digest it and move on. “ “Your ass,” he says. “The record.” Shade. A rattan chair. He dandles something fuzzy. I ship turtles. They ship back: “Fumigate for weevils.” I get my knapsack. The attachments. I spray-hose turtles. I feel woozy. What are turtles? They are Zulus”(41). Figure that out. Or don't. Or read it over and over and peel back every layer before flipping the page. There is so much freedom in her writing. She doesn't have a set model she is following and it allows you to read each chapter how you would like.
The counter to this passage is one that put a smirk on my own face, a more cohesive, more logical, more traditional writing that reads easily. She decides “I wanted Andy to take me to Germany, to Essen. We would live with a clockwork couple, tiny doors that opened every hour on the hour, the two of us parading past, jerkily, on metal runners, him first and me chasing after, my arm going up and down, with a frying pan, my cheeks bright red, and lips, our bodies always in synch...”(53). A perfect yin to the turtles named Zulu yang. She makes this fantasy up after listening to 99 Luft Balloons, a song I'm sure almost everyone has heard, that lets you get into the mindset of the character. A character that seems to change now and then (even sexes as it would seem she jumps into the partners body she just commented on), but this doesn't take you away from the experience. Her ability to take the reader from setting to setting, scene to scene is something to be applauded. The book begs you to read it, promising to never keep you long if you like, but never disappointing if you decide to stay for a while.
Disjointed stories mold together into a greater narrative that feels cohesive. When you look at a chapter like Endangered Species, it shows off this power, with a quick-fire burst of a chapter, following one that was an easily followed story. But this chapter is a mystery, making the reader take in this aberration, digest it and move on. “ “Your ass,” he says. “The record.” Shade. A rattan chair. He dandles something fuzzy. I ship turtles. They ship back: “Fumigate for weevils.” I get my knapsack. The attachments. I spray-hose turtles. I feel woozy. What are turtles? They are Zulus”(41). Figure that out. Or don't. Or read it over and over and peel back every layer before flipping the page. There is so much freedom in her writing. She doesn't have a set model she is following and it allows you to read each chapter how you would like.
The counter to this passage is one that put a smirk on my own face, a more cohesive, more logical, more traditional writing that reads easily. She decides “I wanted Andy to take me to Germany, to Essen. We would live with a clockwork couple, tiny doors that opened every hour on the hour, the two of us parading past, jerkily, on metal runners, him first and me chasing after, my arm going up and down, with a frying pan, my cheeks bright red, and lips, our bodies always in synch...”(53). A perfect yin to the turtles named Zulu yang. She makes this fantasy up after listening to 99 Luft Balloons, a song I'm sure almost everyone has heard, that lets you get into the mindset of the character. A character that seems to change now and then (even sexes as it would seem she jumps into the partners body she just commented on), but this doesn't take you away from the experience. Her ability to take the reader from setting to setting, scene to scene is something to be applauded. The book begs you to read it, promising to never keep you long if you like, but never disappointing if you decide to stay for a while.
January 13, 2011
Some lines I really liked:
"Whenever a guy tells me his family history I eat croutons. I eat the croutons from my salad and then I can't hear anything."
"My boyfriend is a catfish, whiskery with threads of white cotton. One time I had a lover. He was short and divorced."
"She did not turn her head to see if the empty swings were moving in the wind, because empty swings moving in the wind would be too much for her to bear."
"Ms. Hill, a sizzling blonde, divorced, with war-mongering breasts, raises her hand...'In my life I have gone through two periods,' she says. 'A period with a kitty and a period without a kitty.'"
"Whenever a guy tells me his family history I eat croutons. I eat the croutons from my salad and then I can't hear anything."
"My boyfriend is a catfish, whiskery with threads of white cotton. One time I had a lover. He was short and divorced."
"She did not turn her head to see if the empty swings were moving in the wind, because empty swings moving in the wind would be too much for her to bear."
"Ms. Hill, a sizzling blonde, divorced, with war-mongering breasts, raises her hand...'In my life I have gone through two periods,' she says. 'A period with a kitty and a period without a kitty.'"
May 24, 2012
I liked "Hart" and "Bones" the best. I found many of the short stories disconcerting and unsettling, but I got the feeling that was what the author intended. I enjoyed the change of pace from my usual genres, and the stories were thought-provoking enough to keep me reading despite intermittent confusion.
June 17, 2010
really impressive
September 5, 2011
can't stop reading 'Unicorns' and 'Snake'
May 23, 2012
I liked some of the pieces in this book more than others, but overall I enjoyed reading this book of stories. It fit well with the other books I've read lately (Brandi Wells, Lizzy Acket, xTx, etc.)
August 3, 2015
This very odd collection can't really be referred to as short stories...perhaps flash fiction? Either way, I closed the book wondering what I had just read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews