What Men Know About Women

David E. Kemp, a former drama professor at Queen’s University, is the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Ron Smith, the author of three books of poetry and a play, has written a
collection of short stories that explore the unspoken complexities men
and women experience when they enter into an intimate relationship. Many
of the characters are engaged in a struggle to maintain a balance
between opposites: commitment and estrangement, insight and uncertainty,
loving affection and fear of rejection. “Sometimes stories are a path
to the heart,” the author writes at the end of the first of these
deeply insightful stories, “other times they show us our place in the
world.” By turns surreal, realistic, and lyrical, Smith’s stories
are notable for their directness and economy of language. Ron Smith is a
writer to watch.