I was reviewing my published stories yesterday and saw that 75% of them are told from a male POV. Phil refuses to let me analyze this with him and I am not sure I want to analyze it at all, but it got me thinking about what writers have done a good job of seeing the world through the eyes of the opposite sex.
A lot of female crime writers write credible male detectives. Ruth Rendell does an especially good job with Wexford although he doesn't exactly grow or change much. In other words, he is not a fully fleshed-out subject. Very few male crime writers write female protagonists--at this point I can only think of short story writer, Al Tucher's Diana.
But if we go to non-crime novels, we get a lot more of this. My favorite would be Emily Alone, written by Stewart O'Nan. I never once doubt Emily is a woman. And Tom Rachman has some convincing stories of women in THE IMPERFECTIONISTS. Evan O'Connell's MRS. BRIDGE also comes to mind.
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