"The Woman and the Men" is a modern psychological novel of manners. Its main characters are two married couples in their forties. The story is set in Warsaw in 2003 to 2004, but opens with a short flashback set in 1994. A childless couple, a doctor called Klara and an architect called Jacek, are going through a crisis. Jacek is suffering from depression because of some failures at work, and his neglected wife starts up an affair with a younger man, the charming Julian. Klara and Jacek are typical representatives of the liberal middle class. In turn the other couple, Joanna and Marek, represent the Catholic conservative classes. They have three children and are planning to have more. She is a housewife and he is so consumed by his job that he is hardly ever at home. This marriage too is facing a tough test. Ultimately Marek leaves his wife and three children to take up with a sexy young dentist. Jacek and Klara’s marriage survives. She leaves her young lover, he recovers from his depression and makes up with his wife. In this moral, fairly stereotypical tale Gretkowska includes a lot of digressive material that diagnoses the state of the modern Polish family. She describes modern morality within relationships between men and women, casts light on all sorts of social and cultural factors that determine the heroes’ life-changing decisions and behaviour and creates in-depth portraits of her characters. "The Woman and the Men" is a successful, amusing and intelligent novel.
There are more than 31,000 publishers registered in Poland. However, the market is highly concentrated. The 300 largest publishing firms still hold almost 98 per cent of it. More »
