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How To Get Along With Women

Elisabeth de Mariaffi

3.46 · Rating details · 100 ratings · 17 reviews

A sharply original debut collection, How To Get Along With Women showcases Elisabeth de Mariaffi''s keen eye and inventive voice. Infused with a close and present danger, these stories tighten the knot around power, identity, and sexuality, and draw the reader into the pivotal moments where - for better or for worse - we see ourselves for what we truly are. ...more

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Paperback, 192 pages

Published October 1st 2012 by Invisible Publishing

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Minister Without Portfolio by Michael Winter

2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize Longlist

13 books — 22 voters

[duplicate list] Giller 2013 longlist

13 books — 6 voters

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Sep 16, 2013 Daniel rated it liked it

Shelves: canlit, short-stories

If there were awards for best book titles, this would be a serious contender. The only problem with such a snappy and sassy title - assuming one can indeed call it a problem - is that it immediately raises expectations.

After a bit of a bumpy start with "Dancing on the Tether", I was quickly won over by the stories that followed. "Kiss Me Like I’m The Last Man On Earth" and "He Ate His French Fries in a Light–hearted Way" were both fantastic pieces that had me waging an internal war between linge ...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Ann Douglas rated it liked it

Shelves: canadian-fiction, read-in-2013, short-stories, fiction

The short stories in this collection read like assignments for a fiction-writing workshop. I like the fact that the author is willing to experiment with language and structure, but some of these things can become distracting to the reader (for example: the lack of quotation marks when characters are speaking). Maybe this type of book simply isn't my thing. PS The title was great. I would have loved a collection of short fiction tied to that theme. ...more

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Sep 19, 2013 Yutaka Dirks rated it liked it

I reviewed the collection for Briarpatch magazine:

http://briarpatchmagazine.com/article...

How to Get Along With Women is a finely written collection exploring the ways our identities, our most intimate relationships, and our experiences can be shaped by the world we inhabit, a world mapped by dynamics of power. De Mariaffi’s insights pierce deepest when she brings the reader close to the heart of her characters. ...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Suzanne rated it really liked it

Shelves: canadian, short-stories

A self-assured debut collection of short stories, focusing on female relationships and the power struggles that come along with them, whether these are romantic relationships or female friendships. Elisabeth de Mariaffi has such a keen eye for detail and a killer ability for getting into the minds of her characters.

Full review to come in Quill & Quire.

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Sep 23, 2013 David rated it liked it

Shelves: canadian, short-stories

Two stars for how much I actually enjoyed the collection (only 'The Astonishing Abercrombie!' did I really like), but three for the obvious craft and skill, which I could admire, even if most of these stories failed to connect with me on an emotional level. ...more

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Oct 21, 2013 Andrew rated it it was ok

I aligned myself with another researcher. We held meetings after hours and made lists and lists of questions. In partnership, we created a new study that would follow the men from their formative, pre-man years. This was to be our life’s work. My partner took charge of the Centre for Specimen Generation. It was her job to sweep the men’s holes for tissue, sample the tissue for DNA, fill our test tubes with nutritive agar. We built glass enclosures, fifteen per lab, and incubated the bodies as if I aligned myself with another researcher. We held meetings after hours and made lists and lists of questions. In partnership, we created a new study that would follow the men from their formative, pre-man years. This was to be our life’s work. My partner took charge of the Centre for Specimen Generation. It was her job to sweep the men’s holes for tissue, sample the tissue for DNA, fill our test tubes with nutritive agar. We built glass enclosures, fifteen per lab, and incubated the bodies as if they were our own babies. Sturdy volunteers pushed the tiny pre-men out from between their legs.

Predictably, we divided into factions. My research team argued for an increasingly close relationship with the men. Authenticity, we said, depends on empathy. We held a naming ceremony, carried their photos in our wallets.

Some believed the intimacy of this process compromised the study as a whole. These dissenters were removed from the project.

Are we field researchers? the outgoing Chair screamed, and she watched as the Maid Brigade cleaned out her desk—their blue uniforms, their embroidered name tags. I straightened my white coat and stood firm. The lab, I told my loyal colleagues, can be whatever you want it to be. The lab can be the field.

***

A sinister naivety drives much of Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s first published collection of short fiction, How to Get Along with Women. The twelve stories contained within offer a mostly monochromatic spectrum of broken families and tepid, fucked up relationships punctuated by Mariaffi’s sparse, economical prose.

Many of the stories focus on desired relationships that, for one reason or another, can’t or shouldn’t be. “Dancing on the Tether” introduces us to Zelda, her mother Mary, and Tim, Mary’s ex who Zelda wants to fuck, because he’s a stand-up guy who doesn’t beat dogs or command more respect than he deserves. The two young friends in “Kiss Me Like I’m the Last Man on Earth”—a girl and a boy—engage in a game of war that affords their lesser demons opportunity to rise to the surface. “He Ate His French Fries in a Light-Hearted Way” details the unconventional friendship between Del, a thirty-plus-year-old gay man dying of AIDS, and a teenage girl half his age, who, when she departs for university to find herself, abandons the one person to ever mean a damn thing to her.

“Field Work” is far and away the most playful entry in the collection—arguably the only playful entry. The story revolves around scientists—all women—observing the men of the future, who are all quite tiny and, well, useless, having shrunken over time because they were simply no longer needed. Interestingly enough, as much as the story works to knock men down a peg or two, it also serves as a brief indictment of the ways in which women are just as susceptible as men in painting the opposite gender’s worth in broad, stereotypical strokes.

Similar to “Field Work,” “Everything Under Your Feet” showcases a more imaginative, image-focused side of Mariaffi’s writing. The story introduces us to Lydia, who upon finishing school sets out to make her mark on the world, only to settle in the very same place she runs out of gas. She begins running up the side of a nearby mountain every day, determined to do something more worthwhile with her life than becoming just another factory drone (preferring, as she repeats the same actions day in and day out, to be a drone of a different colour). Lydia is certainly the most developed and intriguing character in the collection.

Contrary to the inventiveness and intrigue of these two entries in the collection, however, the stories “Super Carnicería,” “Jim and Nadine, Nadine and Jim,” and the titular “How to Get Along with Women” feel academic and isolated. The latter in particular is a bird’s eye view of a relationship over an extended period of time, told in short vignettes. Reading the story I felt like a voyeuristic neighbour peering in the living room or bedroom window of a couple, and each time I looked in it was another day, or another season, but my connection to the people inside was fleeting and without emotional resonance.

By the end of the collection I felt unexpectedly worn out by Mariaffi’s writing. As much as “Field Work” and “Everything Under Your Feet” are the stand-out stories within this collection, the remaining entries all fell into that unfortunate grey category of “just not all that interesting.” And unfortunately, like at least three other short fiction collections I’ve read this year, How to Get Along with Women saves its weakest for last with “You Know How I Feel.” It’s difficult not to feel at least a little let down when that happens.

Unfortunately, Mariaffi’s disaffected tone overwhelmed the content of her stories for me. So many of the characters within the stories were maudlin and without purpose that it was at times frustratingly dull; it seemed to me while reading the book as if the author were disinterested in her own characters, who mostly lacked distinctive voices of their own. Part of this can be boiled down to the sparseness of Mariaffi’s language, which was often punctuated to its detriment. Another element of this, going part and parcel with the aforementioned, is the stylistic decision of not using quotation marks to denote dialogue. This is a personal thing but worth mentioning as I find when confronted with this decision I often feel as if I’m being held at an emotional distance by the author through their employment of a stylistic device that hampers comprehension and increases the prevailing monotone voice.

How to Get Along with Women has received a tremendous amount of praise since its release, even landing a coveted spot on this year’s Giller Prize longlist. Unfortunately, like Lynn Coady’s recent collection Hellgoing (which was also nominated and subsequently made the shortlist), I simply didn’t feel enough of an emotional connection to any of the characters or stories within this collection. ...more

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Dec 21, 2017 Peter B rated it liked it

A short story collection on the Giller LongList and I usually like short stories but these abandoned me somehow. I enjoyed the characters but struggled with the style and the absence of a thread to hold as I went through each story.

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Aug 12, 2015 rabble.ca added it

Shelves: canlit, fiction, feminism

http://rabble.ca/books/reviews/2013/0...

Review by Yutaka Dirks

The 11 stories in Elisabeth de Mariaffi's debut story collection, How to Get Along With Women, take place in locales as diverse as Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and Marseille, France. The stories are intimately linked to their particular settings; in each, de Mariaffi explores how the characters' actions are shaped by their geographical, historical or political place in the world.

The 10-year-old protagonist of "Kiss Me Like I'm The Last ...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Chris rated it liked it

de Mariaffi does a lot of things really well here, most notably layering emotional TNT and building tension as the reader waits for it to go off, tentatively turning pages. But often the explosion never quite happens, or it fizzles and smokes and chokes and is never quite resolved. Something like that. But she's a very skilled writer, some kind of expert in the frail human psyche. Best gems included "Kiss Me Like I'm the Last Man on Earth" and "The Astonishing Abercrombie!" ...more

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Apr 27, 2014 Corinne Wasilewski rated it really liked it

Stories with deeply flawed (immature? selfish?)characters who lack insight and tend to behave in ways that hurt others and/or themselves. Many stories left me with a pit in my stomach -- they were that good ("good" as in true to life). Reminded me of "Hellgoing" by Lynn Coady, although, I think this is a better collection. The writing is stellar, by the way. ...more

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Feb 07, 2013 George rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Reading this book is like grappling with a skilled, but sexy fighter: you'll come away exhilarated, sweaty, and more-than-likely punched in the balls. Really sharp stuff, and a very original voice for Canada. ...more

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Oct 13, 2013 Carolyn rated it it was amazing

Excellent collection of short fiction -- a smart, surprising voice, memorable writing with narrative and turns of phrase that at times just blew me away. I can't wait to read whatever Elisabeth writes next. Highly recommended! ...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Peter Darbyshire rated it it was amazing

I loved this book so much I wanted to give it six stars instead of just five. So I carved a new star into the screen of my computer.

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Feb 03, 2014 Céline rated it did not like it

Wasn't my cup of tea. ...more

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Oct 03, 2013 Tina rated it liked it

Some of the stories in this book were deeply inspiring while others left me downright confused by their placing in this book.

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Oct 28, 2014 Caitlin rated it really liked it

Excellent. Loved the flow and language. I like the curtness of her writing and her people.

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About Elisabeth de Mariaffi

Elisabeth de Mariaffi

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Elisabeth de Mariaffi is the author of a new collection of short stories, How To Get Along With Women (Invisible Publishing, 2012).

Her poetry and short fiction have been widely published in magazines across Canada, and she's one of the wild minds behind the highly original Toronto Poetry Vendors, a small press that sells single poems by established Canadian poets through toonie vending machines. ...more