About this Book

These well-crafted stories range in subject from a jilted husband's attempt to win his family back by breaking the world push-up record to the cause-and-effect relationship between one man's attempted suicide and the disabling of his rescuer's son. The title story details a system of colour-coding husbands; earthtone for the ones who `never talk or if they do it's about crabgrass or the weather'; red for `the guys who are always maddern' hell and want to hit people'; black husbands, `the guys with hearts the colour of soot'; and green for `the ones who just want to grow'. In `Blue Husbands' Dickinson shows one man's transformation from a blue husband to a man who won't be confined by his father's paintbox reduction of marriage. Like `Blue Husbands', many of these stories explore the hazards of marriage and Dickinson, avoiding the pitfall of sentimentality, powerfully and persuasively celebrates our desire for love.