My Men

A cross between kiss-and-tell and curse-and-tell, Malika Mokeddem’s memoir of the men in her life presents a mosaic of relationships defining what it is to be a woman, an immigrant, a doctor, and a citizen of an uncertain world. From her childhood days in French colonial Algeria to her later years as a doctor in Paris and a writer in Montpellier, Mokeddem traces the path of a brilliant girl in a world of men. Anorexia, insomnia, financial independence, escapism in books, atheism, self-imposed exile, painting, and the poetics of free love—such are the various ways in which she has responded to discrimination. Mokeddem hauntingly describes how her literary and medical careers blossomed along with her sexuality and her desire to escape the gender bias that shackled Algerian tradition. At once a scathing critique of Algerian patriarchy and a soaring tribute to the men who opened a window on the world, Mokeddem’s story is a fascinating portrait of gender as it is actually felt, lived, and never left behind.

Alina Sherwin has had to fight for every victory in her life. Raised in Poland, she moves to Australia with her family as a young girl. There, in the early 1970s, she becomes the first woman in her state to graduate with an engineering degree and quickly finds that her new industry wont employ her. Undaunted by rejection from the Australian scientific community and encouraged by her new American husband, Wayne, Alina decides to move again, in hopes of finding what she desires in his homeland. To her distress, Waynes unconditional love is marred by his desire for an open marriage. She is shockedand intrigued. Convinced that Wayne would make a great father, she resolves to have a baby with him, as long as his yearning is limited to words. On a return visit to Poland, Alina regains confidence in her abilities and finds peace in leaving her childhood behind. The American society that spawned a secular constitution and a vibrant feminist movement, promises to be an inspiring new home. Alina is ready to seek fulfillment once again.

"My Men is a stylistic tour de force . . . It reads like an expressionist prose-poem penned by a stark-minded zealot . . . Kielland is clearly a gifted writer, and My Men is an impressively realized creation." —Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal "This fascinating, off-kilter novel about a female serial killer is an unexpectedly thrilling read.” —Karl Ove Knausgård, author of My Struggle and The Morning Star "Kielland’s dense, lyrical novel offers both insight and opacity . . . Despite the subject matter, this novel is not your typical thriller. The language, in Searls’ translation, is dense, poetic, and deeply figurative." —Kirkus Reviews Based on the true story of Norwegian maid turned Midwestern farmwife Belle Gunness, the first female serial killer in American history. My Men is a fictional account of one broken woman's descent into inescapable madness. Among thousands of other Norwegian immigrants seeking freedom, Brynhild Størset emigrated to the American Upper Midwest in the late nineteenth century, changing her name and her life. As Bella, later Belle Gunness, she came in search of not only fortune and true faith but, most of all, love. From Victoria Kielland, a rising star of Norwegian literature, comes My Men, a literary reimagining of the harrowing true story of Belle Gunness, who slowly but irreversibly turned to senseless murder for release from her pain, becoming America’s first known female serial killer. In pursuit of her American Dream, Kielland’s Belle grows increasingly alienated, ruthless, and perversely compelling. Raw, visceral, and altogether hypnotic, My Men is a brutal yet radically empathetic glimpse into the world of a woman consumed by desire.

It is 1973 as a plane soars into the clouds above Amsterdam and heads for New York City. Aboard are Alina Sherwin and her American husband, Wayne. Alinas aspiration is nothing less than happiness, but her enthusiasm is marred by the fear of another career failure. Her worries are justified. Alina, the first female chemical engineer in Australia, has yet to find employment in her profession. Thankfully it does not take long before America feels like home to Alina. As she is finally propelled into the executive ranks by supportive colleagues, she uses her influence to elevate skilled workers who do not fit the standard profile. But when her modernization efforts place her in the path of powerful enemies, she must fight to preserve her legacy. Meanwhile, her husbands insistence on an open marriage compels her to leave him, and they both attempt to build new lives. Their love is still very much alive, but is it powerful enough to bring them back together? My Men Too continues the international adventures of an intrepid woman in her quest for personal fulfillment and a more just society.

My Men Are My Heroes introduces its readers to a living standard of Marine Corps esprit de corps and military decorum. Sergeant Major Bradley Kasal, the pride of Iowa, is a small town boy who wanted to be a United States Marine even before a poster perfect Marine recruiter marched into his high school gym and offered him a challenge Kasal couldn’t resist. Two decades later Kasal stood stiffly at attention, one leg literally shot in half, while the Navy Cross was pinned to his chest. Kasal is currently the Sergeant Major of the Infantry School at Camp Pendleton, CA until he retires in May, 2012. After a brief visit to his childhood Kasal’s story quickly gathers steam, introducing the reader to his early Marine career; adventure filled years that earned him the name “Robo-Grunt” from men who don’t offer accolades easily. Kasal uses his experience climbing the ranks to illustrate how Marines grow, and how they are shaped by the uncompromising attitudes of the officers and non-coms charged with turning young Marines into tigers. Kasal’s adventures culminate in Iraq. By now he is 1st Sergeant Kasal, ramrodding Kilo Company, 3/1, a rifle company in 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, the mighty “Thunder Third” that would cover itself with glory in 2004. Two days into Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003 Kilo is ordered to hold open a critical road between two bridges that Saddam’s fierce Fedayeen Saddam were just as determined to take away. Kasal makes in his stand on that road, literally standing tall amidst fierce gunfire, demonstrating the kind of leadership Kilo Company needed to get the job done. Kilo’s fight was part of the first big test of Marine Corps combat capabilities in the second Iraqi War and the only major engagement the Marine Corps fought during the heady days of the “Drive Up” to Baghdad. When it was over the so-called “Ninjas” of the Fedayeen Saddam were smashed. A week later Kasal was in Baghdad, welcomed with open arms by the exuberant population. A year later 3/1 was back to Iraq, in Anbar Province, the epicenter of the brutal war now raging in the former tribal stronghold of Saddam and his henchmen. The smiling faces that had greeted 3/1 the year before were gone. Kasal is the 1st Sergeant of Weapons Company, 3/1, the armored fist of a light infantry battalion. After four months of ambushes, IEDs, and deadly skirmishes 3/1 is ordered into Fallujah, to take the ancient city back from Al Qaeda and the foreign fighters who had turned the ancient “City of Mosques” into a fortress. It is there, in November, 2004 that the “Thundering Third” entered into Marine Corps legend and Kasal into the Pantheon of Heroes for his actions during the most savage battle the Marines fought in the Iraq War. At a non-descript house in a walled neighborhood in Fallujah Kasal, at the time accompanying a squad of Kilo’s riflemen into a contested house, becomes involved in a close-quarter duel with fanatical Chechen fighters. The fight rages throughout the house, at times Marines and the foreign fighters were exchanging rifle fire and grenades at ranges of less than 10 feet. For almost two hours the squad is trapped inside the house. During the brawl Kasal is shot seven times, almost loses his leg when it is nearly severed from his body, and sustains 47shrapnel wounds when he used his body to shield a wounded Marine laying next to him from an enemy grenade. In the skirmish, forever known as the “Hell House” fight, Kasal was awarded the Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest award for heroism."

The National Book Critics Circle Award–winning author delivers a collection of essays that serve as the perfect “antidote to mansplaining” (The Stranger). In her comic, scathing essay “Men Explain Things to Me,” Rebecca Solnit took on what often goes wrong in conversations between men and women. She wrote about men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don’t, about why this arises, and how this aspect of the gender wars works, airing some of her own hilariously awful encounters. She ends on a serious note— because the ultimate problem is the silencing of women who have something to say, including those saying things like, “He’s trying to kill me!” This book features that now-classic essay with six perfect complements, including an examination of the great feminist writer Virginia Woolf’s embrace of mystery, of not knowing, of doubt and ambiguity, a highly original inquiry into marriage equality, and a terrifying survey of the scope of contemporary violence against women. “In this series of personal but unsentimental essays, Solnit gives succinct shorthand to a familiar female experience that before had gone unarticulated, perhaps even unrecognized.” —The New York Times “Essential feminist reading.” —The New Republic “This slim book hums with power and wit.” —Boston Globe “Solnit tackles big themes of gender and power in these accessible essays. Honest and full of wit, this is an integral read that furthers the conversation on feminism and contemporary society.” —San Francisco Chronicle “Essential.” —Marketplace “Feminist, frequently funny, unflinchingly honest and often scathing in its conclusions.” —Salon

In the early 1990s, at the watershed age of thirty, Marilyn Abildskov decided she needed to start over. She accepted an offer to move from Utah to Matsumoto, Japan, to teach English to junior high school students. “All I knew is that I had to get away and when I stared at my name on the Japanese contract, the squiggles of katakana, my name typed in English sturdily beneath, I liked how it looked. As if it—as if I—were translated, transformed, emerging now as someone new.” The Men in My Country is the story of an American woman living and loving in Japan. Satisfied at first to observe her exotic surroundings, the woman falls in love with the place, with the light, with the curve of a river, with the smell of bonfires during obon, with blue and white porcelain dishes, with pencil boxes, and with small origami birds. Later, struggling for a deeper connection—“I wanted the country under my skin”—Abildskov meets the three men who will be part of her transformation and the one man with whom she will fall deeply in love. A travel memoir offering an artful depiction of a very real place, The Men in My Country also covers the terrain of a complex emotional journey, tracing a geography of the heart, showing how we move to be moved, how in losing ourselves in a foreign place we can become dangerously—and gloriously—undone.

Alina Sherwin has had to fight for every victory in her life. Raised in Poland, she moves to Australia with her family as a young girl. There, in the early 1970s, she becomes the first woman in her state to graduate with an engineering degree and quickly finds that her new industry won't employ her. Undaunted by rejection from the Australian scientific community and encouraged by her new American husband, Wayne, Alina decides to move again, in hopes of finding what she desires in his homeland. To her distress, Wayne's unconditional love is marred by his desire for an open marriage. She is shocked and intrigued. Convinced that Wayne would make a great father, she resolves to have a baby with him, as long as his yearning is limited to words. On a return visit to Poland, Alina regains confidence in her abilities and finds peace in leaving her childhood behind. The American society that spawned a secular constitution and a vibrant feminist movement, promises to be an inspiring new home. Alina is ready to seek fulfillment once again.