VILE MEN by Rebecca Jones-Howe

There's a certain kind of man who goes for damaged girls.

This is a collection of Rebecca Jones-Howe's unflinching short fiction, brave tales about damaged people and their dysfunctions. Mostly the stories focus on sexual dysfunction, but also emotional and social impairments as well. If you go strictly by the title, you would jump into this book thinking that the stories are about all of the shitty things that men do, but in reality, Jones-Howe equally examines the scarred and emotionally crippled women that are involved with these same men.

The cab driver is the kind of guy I'd fuck in my dreams. He's got dark hair and olive skin and thick bench-pressed triceps. He's probably got a monster dick, a big dick that's actually a monster, a throbbing snake with a face. That's just the way my dreams are. They've been nightmares since I started university. 

I pop another pill.

Rebecca writes with serious courage and an unrelenting eye for illuminating issues that both sexes should be tackling. In "The Paper Bag Princess," she takes the infamous saying, "I'd only fuck her with a paper bag over her head," and focuses on that woman that would take that phrase to heart, desperate for affection.The book is filled with stories like this, ones not for the easily offended and prudish, stories that are uncomfortable but provocative and thoughtful. "The Paper Bag Princess" is good, but tales like "Thinspiration", "Masturbating Megan's Strip Mall Exhibition" are particularly memorable.

GRADE: B+