Best Living (or Recent) Male Writer of Women?

[sonmi451]

Cormac McCarthy said, "I don't pretend to understand women."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSLediYNEVo#t=39s

There is a robust masculine tradition among many male writers, but who do you think is currently the best male writer of women?

[Joeldi]

John Marsden sure likes getting into the heads of teenage girls. Not being one, I don't know how accurate, but he's a pretty good, if rather dark, writer.

[sje46]

Stephen King is wonderful at all his characters, including women.

Tom Robbins, definitely, has strong heroines. All of his books I've read had a strong female protagonist.

[najradanti]

The world it is set in is an appallingly brutal sexist place, but I think it is entirely possible to write in a non-sexist way about a sexist culture; that said, though it definitely has its share of problems, I think Martin's Song of Ice and Fire has some very well-done female characters in its ensemble.

[thicknavyrain]

Terry Moore's "Strangers in Paradise" was praised by more than a few for it's accurate and sensible portrayal of women. It's generally just quite good.

[Kendo_Bunny]

Garth Nix and Timothy Zahn. Both have strong women who fail a lot of the time, deal with their failures, and move on. I get sick of the super-over-powered woman who does right all the time - they aren't relatable.

[poxic]

Tom Robbins is an entertaining and creative writer, and yes, he does feature strong, somewhat flawed women. To nitpick a bit: he doesn't understand women as well as he thinks he does. Every few pages or so, there's something that makes me roll my eyes (me and the several other women I've compared notes with, anyway). He seems to write about his ideal woman, rather than a real one. Still a good read, though.

Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns was hella impressive. Again, he gets some details wrong, but it was a very engaging book with two interesting (and flawed) female main characters.

The hands-down most accurate male writer of women that I've encountered was Wally Lamb. She's Come Undone was a very difficult read for me (and for at least one other woman of my acquaintance), hitting home in too many ways. Lamb's central character is very real, very believable, very female, and very troubled. I had a hard time believing that the author was really a man, since he hit so many nails square on the head. It would be interesting ...

... (several minutes and a couple of Wiki links later) ...

... to find that interview with Lamb that I just found, where he says this: "I was the only boy in our household and lived on a street full of girls, so I was the odd-kid-out." So he got to know women pretty well, then. It shows.