Editors Reads Verdict
Seven stories about loss, desire, and the specific absence that women leave in men's lives — Murakami at his most emotionally concentrated and least reliant on magical machinery.
What We Loved
- The thematic unity gives the collection unusual coherence
- 'Yesterday' and 'Scheherazade' are among his finest recent stories
- More emotionally direct than his earlier story collections
Minor Drawbacks
- Seven stories feels slim as a collection
- Some stories feel like minor variations on the same situation
Key Takeaways
- → Loss as the structuring condition of masculine life in Murakami
- → The woman's absence as more present than her presence
- → The most mature and restrained of his story collections
| Author | Haruki Murakami |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Vintage |
| Pages | 240 |
| Published | January 1, 2014 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short Stories, Literary Fiction |
| Difficulty | Beginner |
| Best For | Murakami fans; readers who prefer short fiction |
Seven stories, each about a man in the condition the title names: without a woman, or becoming without, or discovering he already is. The women have left — through death, through departure, through the gradual withdrawal of attention that amounts to the same thing. What remains is the shape of absence: men whose lives are organised around a loss they can name but not explain.
In ‘Drive My Car’, an actor who has lost his wife to infidelity hires a young woman to drive him in the battered yellow Saab he can no longer drive himself. In ‘Yesterday’, a man is asked by his friend to pursue the friend’s girlfriend — the emotional logic of which takes years to become clear. In ‘Scheherazade’, a woman who visits a man in his enforced isolation tells him a story every time, each one a kind of survival mechanism.
Men Without Women is the most emotionally concentrated of Murakami’s story collections — the one that most directly examines the emotional world of his male narrators, without the magical apparatus his novels often require. It is also his most Hemingway-inflected: the title is from Hemingway’s 1927 collection, and the stripped directness is a tribute to that inheritance.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Men Without Women" about?
Seven stories united by a single condition: men who have lost women — through departure, death, separation, or the gradual erosion of connection. A doctor whose wife has had an affair; a man who receives a phone call from the husband of a woman he loved twenty years ago. Murakami's most emotionally concentrated story collection.
Who should read "Men Without Women"?
Murakami fans; readers who prefer short fiction
What are the key takeaways from "Men Without Women"?
Loss as the structuring condition of masculine life in Murakami The woman's absence as more present than her presence The most mature and restrained of his story collections
Is "Men Without Women" worth reading?
Seven stories about loss, desire, and the specific absence that women leave in men's lives — Murakami at his most emotionally concentrated and least reliant on magical machinery.
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