A conversation with the acclaimed author, Nicole Krause ('96), on her newest work. Moderated by Stanford Professor Robert Pogue Harrison.
ABOUT THE PUBLICATION
In TO BE A MAN , her first, dazzling collection of short fiction, National Book Award Finalist and bestselling novelist Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into tackling age-old questions about human nature with nuance and ferocity: What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman? What lies at the heart of the perplexing intimacies, tensions, and mysteries that have always arisen between couples?
TO BE A MAN traverses the globe from Japan to South America, but the concerns of its vibrant characters, who Krauss depicts with a gaze that’s both unflinching and compassionate, are universal: aging parents and grandparents grapple with regret and questions of the legacies they will leave behind; young women explore their sexual power and the vulnerability that accompanies it; those wading through middle age find new leases on life arising from unexpected sources. Featuring male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all, the stories gathered in TO BE A MAN build upon, mirror, and resonate with one other.
As in her four widely acclaimed, groundbreaking novels, in these deft stories, Krauss makes use of her gift for foregrounding small but potent details that render her characters, the lives they lead, and the peculiar choices they make unforgettable. Reflecting back on a high-school friend’s much older lover, the now middle-aged female narrator of “Switzerland” observes, “It’s a certain kind of man that can take what is essentially an act of violence and turn it into elegance.” Attempting to land a dream job, the young, ambitious gardener who narrates “In the Garden” describes himself to his prospective employer as “the kind that can wring new life out of the dead,” and in doing so, forever alters his life’s trajectory. In the title story, “To Be a Man,” a divorced mother of two sons attempts to make sense of the undercurrent of male physicality that borders on brutality in the men and boys closest to her.
As haunting as it is lyrical and commanding, TO BE A MAN creates an incisive mosaic of individuals attempting to achieve balances between sex and intimacy, freedom and safety, duty and desire, self-discovery and sacrifice, obsession and devotion.
Buy links: HarperCollins, Bookshop
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicole Krauss ('96) is the author of the novels Forest Dark, Great House, The History of Love, and Man Walks Into a Room. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, and The Best American Short Stories, and her books have been translated into more than 35 languages. She is currently the inaugural writer-in-residence at Columbia University’s Mind, Brain, and Behavior Institute. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Professor Harrison teaches literature at Stanford. He writes regularly for the New York Review, is the author of several books, and hosts the radio show and podcast "Entitled Opinions.” In 2014 he was knighted "Chevalier" by the French Republic. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and lead guitarist for the cerebral rock band Glass Wave.