At times these stories made me down-right uncomfortable (as the mother of daughters, especially), but that's what good fiction does sometimes. I cannot imagine living some (most) of these lives, but Gay helps me understand them.
It's beautiful and raw and dark and real. Maybe because it does tell stories of women doing slightly (and some not-so-slightly) crazy things because its the only way their lives can work and make sense. Maybe because I'm a woman and I can be difficult. But somehow this one really connected with me. I say this every time I read a collection of stories, but short stories aren't my favorite. By going to the dark corners of her character's minds, she often tells us why some these women are so difficult (although some of them are just crazy, tbh). Because, as crazy and difficult as these women are, Gay does a great job of explaining them a bit. This group of stories are sometimes difficult and some of the women are a little off-kilter (again, I hope), but they're enlightening, and my favorite kind of stories. She also uses a gated community (I think it's gated it's that type of community, at any rate) to tell a variety of stories from that community. She uses the small, Upper Michigan town to tell a variety of stories of women trapped in a smallish northern town.
There is a couple who deal with their infertility during hunting season.Ī couple of times in Difficult Women Gay creates mini-collections, using the same setting to tell readers stories of the women who live there. There is the black engineer who moves to Northern Michigan in an attempt to put her past behind her. There are the sisters who were abducted as children, and now, as grown women, are inseparable, although one is married. There's the woman who goes to a fight-club in her off time, with a co-worker who is the only person who understands her.
Varying socio-economic statuses and difficulties, all these women live rare (I hope), quirky, disturbing lives. A collection of short stories, Difficult Women exactly what it promises.