TO BE A MAN by Nicole Krauss

I very rarely read a collection of short stories, but I read this one for book club, and I do really like Nicole Krauss.  I much prefer characters that mature over the course of a novel and a plot that I can sink my teeth into, but this collection has its merits.  Some stories here can stand on their own just fine, and others feel like the first chapter of a novel, and that may indeed be their purpose, as they seem to end with a cliffhanger.  One in particular ends with a man taking a baby up to a building’s roof.  My favorite is “The Husband,” the first part of which is an odd phone conversation between mother and daughter.  This story seemed not only the most compelling but also the most complete, although it did leave me puzzling over a few unanswered questions.  Some of the stories have a dreamlike quality, and a few seem to be missing a beginning.  In one case, the city is distributing gas masks to everyone in response to an undisclosed emergency, and I love how the author compares the look of these masks to an anteater.  The last story, whose title is also the title of the collection, concerns the perils of an open marriage.  The stories cover a wide variety of topics, although several have a connection to Israel, but not all characters are pro-Israel from a political standpoint.  Actually, neither politics nor religion factors heavily into these stories.  They are all very human stories, mostly about relationships being built, being solidified, or being torn asunder.