MEN: An Owner's Manual

by Stephanie Bruah ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1984

Wisecracks about cohabiting and surviving--lightly grained with truth, agonizingly cutesy en masse. Why Invest in a Man At All? ""You will never have to go on dates again."" ""All male roommates at 8 a.m. look appreciably rumpled, yet adorable. . . . All female roommates at 8 a.m. look like Lon Chaney."" Drawbacks of the American Prince (he'll embarrass you in public), of High-Concept Men (commercial pilots are humorless, writers don't wash their hair); hang-ups of the '60s, '70s, '80s generations; peculiarities of Frenchmen, Scandinavians, Arabs, etc. Getting down to the nitty-gritty of shared quarters, Brush speaks some rueful sense. ""A Very Neat Woman is just an ordinary, well-meaning, anal-compulsive sap who's been taught to shake the crumbs out of the bed linen herself because, good gosh, who else is going to do it. A Very Neat Man is from Mars."" And, sure, ""sleeping together"" has as much to do with ""territoriality, internal clocks,"" etc., as with sex--but that leads into a rundown on Men's Favorite Late Night Movies (Forbidden Planet, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Magnificent Seven). Pop-culture icons get parodied (The Ralph and Alice Kramden Guide to Living Together, The Lucy and Ricky Ricardo Guide to Living Together, etc.). Topical topics get joked about--e.g., Why Men Never Want to Have ""A Serious Talk."" Some few situations--men in cars, men on boats--get some of their satirical due. But mostly this is lame, between-us-Cosmo-girls humor, for a preselected, unselective audience.

Pub Date: June 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Linden/Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION