Women and Men
First trade edition cover
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| Author | Joseph McElroy |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Carin Goldberg |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Postmodern literature |
| Published | 1987 (Knopf) |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 1192 |
| ISBN | |
Women and Men is Joseph McElroy's sixth novel. Published in 1987 (with a 1986 copyright), it is 1192 pages long. Somewhat notably, because of its size, the uncorrected proof was issued in two volumes.
The size and complexity of the novel have led it to be compared in significance with Ulysses, The Recognitions, and Gravity's Rainbow.
There were two first editions—neither dates itself before the other. In April 1987, the first trade edition was published by Knopf. Ultramarine Press published a limited, numbered, signed edition, consisting of the Knopf edition (including its copyright and title page) rebound in leather. One month later, Knopf issued a second printing, with an expanded copyright/acknowledgements page.
In 1993, a paperback edition was published by Dalkey Archive Press. Contrary to their usual policy, they let this edition go out of print.
Dzanc Books lists Women and Men as a forthcoming title in their e-book reprints.
A third print edition was announced by McElroy in March 2015, originally intended to be released in the spring of that year.
The novel is divided into three kinds of chapters. The chapters with all lowercase titles are, in essence, independent short stories about characters in the novel, but they can be read and appreciated separately from the rest of the novel. Most were, in fact, published as short stories, with two of them being anthologized in "best of the year" short story collections. Stylistically, they are some of the most accessible fictions McElroy has written.
Sections with titles in all-caps that include the word "BREATHER" in the title are narrated in a first-person plural, by a collective of so-called "angels". They are speaking in the second-person to their interrogator/torturer, whose identity changes, as if the interrogators/torturers were clocking in and out for their job. They tell of a future time when a certain naturally found alloy turns out to have special teleportation powers, and is used to send two people out to the Earth-Moon libration points, where they become merged (without prior knowledge) into one. Stylistically, they are quite difficult, with tense and point of view and topic not always clear. In the words of Frederick Karl, the breathers "are attempts to break away from historical narrative into simultaneity."
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