"You Will Behave" and other stories

At the heart of You Will Behave And Other Stories lies the conflict between reality and concepts of masculinity. Throughout, male characters struggle to reconcile who they are with who the world expects them to be as they encounter love, violence, and obsession. In the title story a mother berates her son for assaulting a Barbie doll as she tells him the story of his life. In "The Short Hairs" a would-be father-in-law traps a young man between the needs of women and the demands of manhood. Later, an alcoholic's unorthodox recovery plan exposes the links between love and addiction in "The Girl with the Scarf." Yet, always the collection offers hope. Especially in the redemptive "Oncoming Traffic," and the farcical "Epilogue for a Game of Kickball," You Will Behave And Other Stories asserts that, though we wander lost among myths and cruel realities, we are all connected.