Despite what the cheeky title suggests, I would actually like to discuss a short story of which I actually do know the name, “Another Manhattan”. Through the first read, I actually really liked this story and its depiction of mental illness, showing how confusing and nonsensical is can be for someone like Jim to try and navigate normal social situations when he is weighed down by his own mind. I also really liked the way it treated Jim and Kate’s relationship, how it refused to show love in the clean, simple boxes that so many narratives seem to reiterate. However, when we brought up the different relationship dynamics the story presents, the heavy emphasis on Elliot and Kate’s relationship was noted as opposed to the lesser importance of Jim and Susan’s relationship. After going back and considering the story, I started to see the way Antrim’s story fits into the pattern that many male authors fall into when writing stories with female characters.
The story opens with Jim talking about his tense relationship with Kate and how “it was wrong to hate her.” The perspective then shifts to Kate, although all she talks about is her relationship with Jim, and her relationship with Elliot, and how he manipulates her. Right from the get-go we see Kate’s character defined only by her relationships with other men. We then move back to Jim’s perspective, and we get interesting history about him and an inner struggle that really defines the narrative. There’s nothing wrong with that per say, but with him being really our only choice for a protagonist combined with his weird treatment of women (Kate, Susan, the “twenty years younger” flowershop clerk), it just rubs me the wrong way.
My main issue with this story, however, is Susan. Now, I understand it’s supposed to be a short story, and therefore maybe the author can’t do everything he wants to develop the characters, but his treatment of Susan was just pathetic. Elliot was at least interesting, had something of a backstory, and a few witty one-liners to make him a perfectly acceptable side character. If a houseplant could speak, it could’ve played Susan. Her most interesting line is “I love you,” directed at Jim, over the phone, after she does her most interesting action, when goes to the bathroom. She’s literally just a shell that Jim had an affair with five months ago, and I hate it.
This story isn’t one of the worst examples of sexism in literature I’ve read, but it still had a lot of room to improve. I think it was a good lesson on how we need to work harder to create positive representation of women in narratives, and not just write women lazily to support your male characters. I still liked this story, but I wish it was better in this aspect.
