Books: The Dangerous Husband

Those looking for evidence that women have passed men on the evolutionary scale need look no further. The narrator of this dark satire is a sophisticated, self-aware photographer who, at 40, meets the perfect man: a charming, wealthy novelist. Shortly after their marriage, though, she finds he has turned into an oaf, banging around the house like a bull, routinely inflicting accidental injury. He never comes into focus, but the anger he arouses in his wife is all too clear.

--By Elizabeth L. Bland