Mary Gaitskill Books

It's hard to pick the best Dickens novel. Dickens himself favored David Copperfield and there is a lot to recommend that. But the novel of his that I most admire is Bleak House. It has a great range of characters, a personal mystery at its core, and the first detective in fiction. Dickens alternates the story-telling between the voice of the all-knowing author and that of the naive female lead character. From street sweepers to the lords and everyone in between, the dark theme of an impersonal social order and system grinding people up is remarkably like Kafka.

I had read Bleak House in college. My book at the time was a used version with pages falling out. Since I decided to reread the book this summer, I wanted to get a newer edition. I chose Modern Library Classics because it preserved a lot of the original illustrations when the work was first published. Of course, Dickens' opus is marvelous, and I recommend you read his story on the never-ending lawsuit and its repercussions on the characters involved. Rather than focusing on the merits of the story and why should should read the book, I think it's more helpful to recommend what edition to buy because there are a lot. I chose Modern Library Classics for its illustrations, its readable typeface, and strong binding. Overall, they have created beautiful edition Dickens' book deserves.

I've read most everything from Dickens but happend to pick this up in a book store, craving some good British literature. Though this book was some what predictable, it was a page turner and suspensful. This is one of my favorite Dickens works, and will keep you entertained for hours.

Few authors are able to probe the psyche of troubled women with more sure-handed skill than Mary Gaitskill. The nine stories in "Bad Behavior" bring the disturbing and psychologically true insights of its characters to life in a brilliantly blunt and matter-of-fact way.

Its best story is "Something Nice," an astoundingly incisive tale of a man who falls for the young prostitute he visits. "Secretary," like most of the stories here, works as a kind of prelude to her puissant follow-up novel, "Two Girls, Fat and Thin." Though this story does it in a completely atypical and even more unsettling way. The final story, "Heaven," a dark character piece, is an excellent change of pace from the preceding psychosexual drama.

This was Gaitskill's first published book and she definitely grew as a writer later on. The writing is occasionally simplistically arranged and at other times composed of vaguely strung-together behavioral key words that come off as a bit empty. The stories also get a tad redundant and are obviously autobiographical (Gaitskill was apparently a call girl at one time in her life).

But whatever she lacks in style, she more than makes up for in insight. Gaitskill's ability to expose the twisted, misfiring, black inner workings of her off-center characters is thrilling.

Many writers craft tales of disturbing behavior, but Gaitskill is one of the few who accurately and perceptively show you why they do it and how the characters got there.

i love mary gaitskill, and this book is a great example of what a fantastic character writer she is. her descriptions of people and situations are some of the best i've ever read. other writers have her eye for detail, but most don't know how to properly express it. some of the stories contain similar characters, but it never gets boring: only more and more tense.

i also really enjoyed two girls fat and thin: gaitskill seems to really understand women and their relationships with each other. can't recommend her more.

A collection of short stories about people whose idiosyncracies do not conform to society's view of "acceptable behavior," but who live essentially normal lives and who are for the most part indistinguishable from the man or women next door. As one might expect in a collection of short stories, not each story is of equal merit, but I found only one (Daisy's Valentine) which I would rate subpar. In my subjective view, the other eight ranged from excellent (Trying To Be, Secretary) to good (Something Nice, Other Factors, Heaven,) to above average (Connection, A Roamtic Weekend, An Affair Ended). Secretary was made into the movie of the same name and Heaven seemed more of an outline for a novel than a short story.

In her first book, North-American writer Mary Gaitskill deals with what most people would call `strange persons'. Most of the characters in "Bad Behavior" do not fit what society calls normal -- nevertheless, they lead a so-called average life. They sleep, eat, love, hate, watch tv, work, and in between they feed the emotional detour. The best ability of this skillful writer is to avoid making them look like freaks.

In "Secretary" (the only Gaitskill adapted to the cinema so far), for instance, the title character is a young woman who has emotional issues, and meets a new boss who likes spanking her -- and she starts enjoying that. It is match made in heaven. What could be a freakshow, here is a sort of love story with a strong emotional core. The relationship in the work environment -- sexual harassment? -- is a slap in the face of the post-feminism. The writer is able o convince that those people need that kind of relationship, that they are happy with that.

In another duo of stories, Gaitskill exploits two sides of the relationship between prostitutes and clients. More than dealing with the facts, the writer is concerned with what emotional ties these people can create. "Something Nice" is a story about a fifty-something married man who falls for a professional lady. All we learn about her is through his eyes and ears. We aren't able to see her without him. On the other hand, in "Trying to Be" we meet another girl -- who could work at the same place of the previous one -- and her struggle to make ends meet taking another job as a prostitute besides her daytime job. In this story, the situation is inverted. We spend time with her, rarely known about her clients. Both stories reach their peak questioning what people wanting from these kind of relationship.

In the nine stories that are in "Bad Behavior", Gaitskill asks what we consider normal. In the end she proves that it is a relative concept. Apparently normality is someone trying to be happy -- despite his/her preferences. Or better, happiness is the consequences of being able to handle what other people would call abnormality.

In a highly graphic and incredibly well written book of short stories, Gaitskill creates a picture of sociopathy. In this collection of 9 short stories, Gaitskill runs the gamut of human bad behaviors. From College Girls and Prospective Writers practicing prostitution, to lesbianism, to homosexuality, to adultery, to just plain inappropriate social conduct, Gaitskill gives us an up close and personal look at the seemlier side of human interaction.

With a particularly well constructed style, each story uses incredible sentence structure, well placed profanity and illustrative descriptions of people doing the things that no one admits to doing. Yes, the "bad behavior" in society is really rampant within American society.

Each story deals with a different type of aberrant activity. The book culminates with a brilliantly written story, "Heaven" that describes the disintegration of an entire family. First one child then the next and finally the death of one is only followed by suffering and pain for all involved. Everyone gets divorced except the parents. Yet the parents see their children as failures, and thus themselves as failures as well.

While the book is not for the faint of heart, it is superb. For a look inside American society that is mostly hidden, this book brings it to the surface. It is strongly recommended for all readers who wish to see behind the curtain of façade, into the real life activities of so many men and women in America today.

I like it more as I look back on it, but VERONICA is still a much more sodden and uneven book than Gaitskill's collection of stories, BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO, although there's still plenty of evidence of her uncanny gift for seizing moments and gestures in all their primal intensity. In one of the stories in BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO a waitress, "vibrant with purpose" pours water for her dinner guests "with a harried rattle of ice" and at a party in Palo Alto, light "runs and flirts on silverware". These electric glimpses into Gaitskill's stories illustrate how charged her language can be, and how much it is animated (in spite of its dark themes) by both boldness and joie de vivre.

There's great momentum in Veronica's language too, even if it is a less thrilling book. And Gaitskill is so emotionally honest that she knows how to make so many of her scenes, so many of her moments, in whatever form she's writing in, so utterly memorable.

I particularly loved the scene that takes place in the first two pages of the book; everything about it is enchanted, frightening, and (in terms of Gaitskill's use of language, tempo, tenderness, mockery, and fear) everything also has a stunning intensity.

Gaitskill's central theme is, I think, the relationship between love and lust. Is being beautiful a fatal gift? The main relationship she describes is between Alison, the former model, and Veronica the unlikable AIDS infected proofreading temp, but there are multiple other dyads and triads, all illustrating types of love.
This represents an advance in Gaitskill's work in many ways. It is more ambitious and profound, but also, I am afraid, a little less readable than her early work. If you're new to Gaitskill I would recommend starting with her earlier work, such as "Bad Behavior" which is written in a more straightforward style (and also contains more humor). In this one she uses a fancy-shmancy system of flashbacks, so that sometimes you don't know whether what you're reading is about the framing day in California, or reminiscences of Alison's childhood in New Jersey, or experiences in New York, or San Francisco or Paris.

This novel is a near-masterpiece, and Mary Gaitskill displays her obvious brilliance throughout. She shows that she's a poet as well as a fiction writer. I loved Alison's story, but the last one-fourth of this book isn't in turn with the rest. It seemed as though the author had grown tired of the tale and just wanted to get it down on paper. I didn't see the beautiful imagery and narrative intertwining that had previously held me transfixed. At a certain point, the story focuses too much on Veronica, a character who never quite seems clear enough to me. I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the first part of this book is simply brilliant, but then it all falls apart. I also want to say that I don't really care. I'm glad I read this book. The author is one of the most talented writers of our time and I will read anything she writes, always.

I'm an intelligent person and read 3-5 books a week of all genres, but especially enjoy Philip Roth, Richard Russo and my favorite in the arena of contemporary fiction, Ian McEwan. I also read 1 biography or non-fiction a week, so I have been exposed to many writers and many syles. I'm not finished with "Veronica," and I'm not sure that I will finish it. So far, I truly dislike this book. It is so disjointed, has not one character that I could relate to or even care about. I guess I just don't get it, which really surprises me. The timelines are incorrect and, as another reviewer mentioned, inaccurate. There is no continuity or depth of character. This is not the book for me.

Not an easy book to describe, recount, or read. The story arch begins and ends on the same day. An older woman with a debilitating disease and injuries that will never heal is on her way to and from her job as a cleaning lady for her former agent from her high flying modeling days. Flashing back and forth in time with memories of her family, running away from home in the hippie days, high fashion modeling, and her friend Veronica, who serves as a touchstone. With all her flights of fancy, Veronica is the realist to the narrator's world of mirrors and quick sand. The drugs may change, but the distorted perceptions remain the same, and the prose that expresses the desperate search for happiness is unbelievably gripping.

This moved me to tears. So depressing! That poor dog in the cartoon- hopefully it wasn't really aired! And "Anna Granite" (you will know soon enough who she was based on) and her compadres- that was funny, actually. :0)

I was a little wary about the title but this was not at all about weight gain and/or loss; weight was incidental. In this fiercely intelligent novel, Dorothy and Justine are both desperately lonely women, both victims of abuse, and yet are different in other ways. Their parents often failed them, their childhood was often full of shame and self-sabotage, but Gaitskill writes this with complexity, always aware that a victim can also be a victimizer. Gaitskill is never sentimental. Underneath her narrative, underneath the pain and the sex scenes (which are never fully loving) and the disappointments and loneliness, is a raging anger at the inability of human beings to connect - on race, on class, but mostly on gender. I sensed that Anna Granite, the intellectual whose shadow dominates this narrative, and who is the reason Dorothy and Justine first meet, is Gaitskill's platform for displaying her keen intellect; and sometimes there is a hint of didactism. But this is a minor quibble. The last section moved me very much and proved that although Gaitskill abhors sentimentality, she can certainly do sentiment well. `Humanity' is a word often found in this book. Our sexuality is connected to our humanity. Our ability to treat other human beings like human beings is what makes us human. In the end, Gaitskill's brilliant, wonderfully feminist novel was, for me, about how easily we strip each other of our humanity.

The book begins with the narrator noticing a message on a laundromat bulletin board, instantly drawing my interest. My interest never flags, with the author's symbolic visual and intellectualized descriptions of her environment and things that happen to her. The books feels like I was watching a movie in 3D.

The two main characters are both young women. Dorothy Never is overweight and masochistic while Justine Shade is a thin, masochistic and sadistic free lance journalist. Dorothy meets her through the bulletin board ad she sees on the "Definitist" philosophy. This author-created philosophy permits the main character (Dorothy) to work out neuroses formed by childhood traumas such as peer teasing and especially incest, and move forward in her life.

I found the names of characters, places and philosophy to be both creative and entertaining, as were the Hopper-esque visuals of New York City which added magical touches to the novel, making it all the more seductive. The references to the weight of the two women -- one fat, the other thin -- symbolized in an interesting way the always present theme of emotional deprivation.

Many things happen in this book that detail the intellectual and mostly emotional journal of two shattered personalities.

Reading Mary Gaitskill is like reading Kathryn Harrison's prolix sister.

This book tells the tale of two damaged women who coincidentally meet and after doing so reexamine their pasts, which include sexual trauma and unstable family situations.

Though Gaitskill's prose occasionally reads like a psychology textbook, she thrills the reader with sparkling, profound insight into the cruel hothouse of sexuality and confusion her characters grow up in. One girl, the overweight one, is friendless and lonely; the other, the thin one, is pretty, popular, and indulges in a mean streak, though certain early encounters in her life have mixed up the wiring in her brain and made her a masochist.

I didn't think the book was quite as interesting when dealing with the characters as adults (in particular the overweight woman, Dorothy), and the ending left a little something to be desired, but Gaitskill is unrivaled in her ability to put you right into the minds of her wounded characters, and lay bare the world they live in (internally and externally).

Despite getting a little soft in the end, I thought this was a brilliant book at showing the trace-line from what happens to us as children and how our confused, uncomprehending, inchoate, not-yet-mature-enough-to-understand thoughts and reasoning colors who we are and what we do for the rest of our lives.

Maybe it's because I read Veronica before reading Two Girls, but I was somewhat disappointed. I'm always interested to see the evolution of an author I enjoy, but I could feel myself backpeddling.

As always with Gaitskill's writing, she paints a beautiful portrait of lonliness and isolation without necessarily writing a "sad" book. Her major characters are clearly cut, interesting and incredibly multi-faceted, and her minor characters are sketches that weave in and out of the background without feeling like characitures--a feat well accomplished. You feel for both Justine and Dorothy, but maybe not as much as you wish you could. Because while they are both interesting and sympathetic, they are simultaneously repulsive and unlikable.

The needs are there and the language is moving but the background of the Ayn Rand character and her followers is somewhat laborious. While Anna Granite served to bring the two girls together, she was uninteresting and the segments involving her were draggy. Perhaps my reaction to this part of the story has something to do with the fact that, like Justine, I never "got" the whole Ayn Rand thing. Her books and so-called "philosophy" were uninspired and uninspiring to me.

All in all, an enjoyable read, but it doesn't hold much of a candle to Gaitskill's later works. If you thought this book was decent or better, I'd suggest picking up some later Gaitskill. It's worth the time and investment.

Good stuff. She has a perspective on "alternative" lifestyles that is honest and not just shock value. All of the taboo activities her characters participate in are part of her exploration through human drive and desire.

I'd still recommend starting with "Bad Behavior" if you haven't read any Gaitskill before. She gets more ambitious and profound as she gets older and the reading is not as easy. In this short story collection the character descriptions are clever but sometimes bewildering, such as "a thin excitable woman who appeared to be keeping a strict inner watch over an invisible set of perfectly balanced inner objects, lest any of them fall over or even fractionally shift position."
The first nine stories are about screenwriters, philosophers, hookers, musicians, dentists, social workers, vagrants etc in California, Seattle, Vancouver, Iowa and Greenwich Village. Plots are (very roughly) as follows:
Lesbian tells all about homophobic father.
Runaway babysitter gets stiffed.
Psychopharmacologist neglects sick sister for bisexual social worker.
Rape fantasy spoils relationship.
Girl friend doesn't send a get well card.
Rapist confesses (perhaps to victim).
Helpful dentist is too shy.
Screenwriter tells all about actress ex.
The last four stories are interrelated, about a group of San Franciscans whose love lives are exemplified by " Ellie called, very excited, to tell me about her cutting experience with the dominatrix" which is vintage Gaitskill stuff. Enjoy.

BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO is an absolute masterpiece of literature! Gaitskill's ability to describe the most complex and dark human emotions is stunning; each story is well-written down to the smallest detail, and you are able to relate to the pain of the characters--even if you have never experienced the things that they are going through yourself.

"The Wrong Thing," a four-part story of one woman's inability to find a meaningful romantic relationship, was my favorite one in the book. The main character, Susan, is presented in a way that allows readers to feel her pain and to sympathize with her as she goes through various struggles. This story was the last one in the collection, and its ending was also a great ending for the entire book.

The other stories are also good: from a woman who is obsessed with her dentist, to a 16-year-old runaway who is just trying to find ways to support herself, to a woman who realizes that she just might love a much younger man...these stories all touch the soul. This collection is in some ways lighter than Gaitskill's gritty BAD BEHAVIOR, but it is still full of complexity and people who display extreme examples of human emotion.

Highly recommended!!!

Some readers may argue that Gaitskill's characters merely resist growing up, and it's certainly true that their lives are much more in an uproar, much more in flux than the lives of their peers who are married with children. And yet to dismiss them as piquant malcontents seems unfair--they are, after all, after a more profound and dangerous intimacy than the intimacy that might be found in more stable relationships. Gaitskill has also managed to achieve, in this third book, a moving away from the voyeuristic; this has made the work inevitably quieter, and has even made some of the characters seem almost "normal".

In Tiny, Smiling Daddy, the opening story in Because They Wanted To, a sexually prodigal daughter discharges "her strange jangling beauty" into her father's house, "changing the molecules of its air". In another story (Processing), a waitress, "vibrant with purpose" pours water for her dinner guests "with a harried rattle of ice". At a party in Palo Alto, light "runs and flirts on silverware". All of these glimpses into Gaitskill's latest stories illustrate how charged her language can be, and how much it is animated (in spite of its dark themes) by both boldness and joie de vivre.

In other Gaitskill stories, many of the characters act as impish raconteurs of narratives that reveal their own pain or shame. Their audience is made up of a sort of floating opera of fast friends, scoffers, and therapists manque. Privacy is sacrificed to get at "the truth" about both intimacy and the potential that life has for the playful (and in particular for the sexually playful) to be extended into adulthood. But sex, in Gaitskill's world, is mischievous, cerebral, brutal, or even described with an almost dainty candour, the one thing it is not is sexy.

There are also exquisite moments of non-sexual tenderness. In one of the final stories, a poet who teaches at Berkeley says of one of her students: "He didn't write very well, but he was a passionate student and so was a favourite of mine. He took me in with a wistful, subtle movement of his eyes. I felt him accept my fondness and shyly give it back. Without knowing it, he comforted me." But then Gaitskill's theme is (and always has been) intimacy: how to find it, create it, retrieve it, bestow it. And also--and this is where the tragedy in much of her work locates itself--how it's only longed for, squandered, or lost.

Mary Gaitskill's second story collection, "Because They Wanted To," seemed to me just as fresh as her first, with a quieter, deeper reflection on the human condition and dazzling gems of insight imbedded in its rich foundation. Each of the twelve stories (eight stories and four connected stories within a novella) is a tale of unrequited love in varying forms and degrees. In "Tiny, Smiling Daddy," a father discovers his lesbian daughter has published an article about their relationship; in "Because They Wanted To," a destitute runaway agrees to baby sit a stranger's three children for an afternoon while the woman hunts for a job, and reflects on the past that drove her to Canada; and in "The Girl on the Plane," a man is seated next to a woman that reminds him of a woman he once gang-raped and when confronted with the brutality of the act, desperately searches for ways in which he could excuse or explain his behavior. I most admire Gaitskill's incredible ability to pin down the nuanced behaviors and thoughts that make us all paradoxically universal and unique.

Mary Gaitskill proves to be masterful in her placement of words and the creation of images. Often while reading the book, I would have to pause to take in the beauty of the image she was presenting or to suck in my breath at the sadness of what I was reading.

She gives us a new twist on the theme of resurrection where instead of god-like or angelic intervention, two lost souls save each other and learn the cleansing effects of love. Mary Gaitskills shows us the beauty in breakdown and ugliness. The last sentence sums up the secret to a "good" life.

Like another reviewer, I too read this for a book club and all of us agreed this book was flawed and a chore to get through. The characters never jumped off the page, least of all the namesake of the book. The author jumped around so much I found myself not caring what decade I was in. The only reason I finished this book at all was out of loyalty to the book club, and after we discussed it we all threw our copies away.

I cannot believe people feel this book's strength is in the writing. That must speak loads about the plot because this is some of the very worst writing I have ever seen in a book that is supposedly above preschool level. I don't mean grammar, I mean style. As someone else already said, it was like reading someone's laundry list. I have read high school essays with more style and feeling. It was seriously god awful. I'm not even going to get into the plot of it, because I don't want to sit here all night writing my review of this drivel. I guess anyone can get published nowadays.

Also, Gaitskill clearly copied her writing style from one of my all time favorite books when I was about three, which is "I am a Puppy". Here's a passage from that book to illustrate: "I am a puppy. My name is Bruno. I am a Beagle. I like to play outside. Sometimes I meet bigger dogs, but they turn out to be friendly. I like to play in the mud, but when I get dirty I have to take a bath. I hate baths." The writing styles are so alike that it could almost be the same book.

I found this book exhausting. First, Gatskill jumps around in time incessantly. She'll place the character in three different places in time in the space of a paragraph. No warning, no transitions. It's difficult to know where you are at any one point. More importantly, though, is that Gatskill completely assaults the reader with in-depth analysis and details. She overuses words (must have used the word "flesh" at least 20 times in the first half of the book alone), and wastes her gift for description. She gives you so much that you become hardened to its power. It no longer provides insight into the story, it just comes off as self-indulgent and tedious. It's like eating an entire cake. One or two bites could be sublime and satisfying. Consuming the whole thing just makes you sick. I do not recommend this book.

This book was chosen for a book club read and I was so excited to begin it. I finished this book and felt compelled to give my opinion on it as it was chosen for the opinions of others, and maybe someone else will not make the mistake because of this opinion. Firstly, I don't know why this book was called "Veronica", because other than a few mentions of her name, you don't meet the character until more than half way through the book. And I did not take anything of significance from her character when she did appear. I could not find anything of significance in this book at all from any character. I still am wondering why the author felt the need to write this book, or better yet the publisher felt the need to publish it. A good story makes us want to be a character in that story, it transports us to that time and place and we are saddened when we have to leave. This book does not tell a story, it is words put together made to resemble a story, but comes far short of the goal. The characters are not characters that you love, but you can't hate them, you just can't feel anything for them. I wish I could at least say this book was well written, but I can't even compliment the writing style because it jumps from time period to time period in a single paragraph, you never know where you are.
For anyone who still desires to read this book, by all means do, but check it out from your local library before wasting good money on a bad book

Let's start by saying tastes in erotica vary. This collection has a little something for everyone. The stories are more consistently sensual than erotic per say. While some of the story lines did nothing for me there are a number of gems here that make the collection well worth the read.

Of course I recognize that a sense of the erotic is a very individual taste. However, when an anthology self asserts that it is the "best" American erotica then delivers like this, I find myself longing to shop in Europe.

I'll acknowledge these short vignettes are masterfully written...murals of metaphor and simile. But one expects that erotica would appeal to more than one's appreciation of literature. One expects that erotica would stir regions a bit farther below one's cerebral cortex.

I find little of that here. Many of the stories are poignant clips of human interaction with precious little erotica to be found. Generally good short stories with a bit more nudity and profanity than one might encounter at the public library.

These stories often succeed in stirring emotion if not the libido. I find I am repulsed by the celebration of just how base human nature can be portrayed. It's as if Ms Bright's idea of the erotic is directly linked to the degree of perversity, pain, and meanness illustrated. For example, there is one story that illustrates the destruction of a man and his family at the hands of a narcissistic drug addict. Please explain how this sad story is considered erotica?

At first, I believed my disappointment was rooted in my "maleness"...that perhaps these stories were written to appeal to women. My wife has also read them. She thinks it's more like watching the freak show at the circus...plenty to gawk at, but nothing you'd want to touch.

I've seen this general trend in erotica in other anthologies as well. If this is the direction it is headed, then perhaps we just need to start renaming the series "The Best Short Stories with Naked Bodies and Profanity"

I've read the stories and loved them all, but my favorite one is,
"It's never too late in New York," by, Nelson George.
I don't want to explain too much, it's such a short story; I might tell it all in one paragraph. But I will say, I was excited to see slang writing, quoted for the characters.
This was an urban story, African-American based.
This story and all the others were engaging. In the story, I liked the character, Walter's personality. He had a sexy way about him. Walter mentioned to his friend Dwayne, about a girl whose nickname was Medina, a stripper he met in a club. Dwayne reminded Walter both he and him went to the movies with Medina together, in the past; he also reminded Walter of her real name. Dispite Dwayne's jealously towards Walter, in dating Medina, Walter remained cool about it all.
Throughout the whole book, these hot, erotic stories were really worth reading.
I recommend it.

I received the 2000 edition from a friend and I thought it was a bit over the top. Then I decided to buy this one and I was very disappointed. It was boring.

I found this book to be very boring. Not what I would call erotica at all. I will not waste my money on another of the series