Books
July, 1984
The stitchwork in Roy Blount Jr.'s crazy-quilt collection of essays What Men Don't Tell Women (Atlantic-Little Brown) is a series of enigmatic "Blue Yodels," 27 monologs and dialogs so named to honor country-music legend Jimmie Rodgers, who "made an art of the pained moaning sound." Blount's male monologists palaver grandly on such topics as unrequited love, sexist jokes, whether the toilet seat should be left up or down and other sources of male/female friction. The pieces b...
