Because They Wanted to: Stories

FIRst time buying Mary Gatskill. Heard her work on a podcast and recalled the name when browsingand stumbled upon this. If you enjoy Shirley Jackson, Flannery OConnor and writing that is frank yet heavy yet lightly layered so as not to over saturate the senses at once by being too wordy then you will most likely enjoy this. I was caught off guard by how much I did

Hey, all you Mary hatahs in the one star club -- didn't you get that half the time the author was poking fun at her characters, maybe the self that inspired them, and the simplistic solutions of nineties therapy culture?The Dentist is a good example, wherein a thirty-something intellectual writer and former sex-worker develops an outsized, almost childish crush on the kind, bland dentist who first inflicts pain, then tries to makes it right. She doesn't know how to accept his simple good will -- in lending her a computer when hers busts on deadline, in meeting her for nonphysical dates, and insisting he needs to know a person better before getting physically involved.Ex-junkie friends living on public assistance offer expert advice: He won't ___ you? 's He's sick! He's ___ing with your head!Honestly -- if you've ever had a girlfriend who just doesn't get that he's not into her -- it's the same story, and it's funny that M.G.'s characters, with their dense sexual histories, are really just like everyone else when it comes to unrequited love.The title story about a teenage runaway is poignant and not completely without redemption. It's realistic, it doesn't end on a dark note at all, but with some sense of progress and connection.The last group of stories, The Wrong Thing seems to represent a coming of maturity and moving on -- as if the dizzy characters of Bad Behavior are finally finding ways to work out their kinks (!) and find some peace in the world.The Girl on the Plane -- told from the point of view of a man who took part in the gang bang of an alcoholic friend -- isn't funny -- but it's very real, and breathtaking.

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.

I’m about 1/3 of the way through this book, so some may discount this review. Gaitskill is a master writer, there’s no doubt, but the themes that she chooses to write about are very dark and disturbing. Personally, I’m having to pace myself and make sure I’m not too down to read another one of her stories, but if I’m in the right mood they are amazing. You will not want to put this collection of stories down once you start.

There's a certain sameness to the characters who float through these stories, but how beautifully observed, how mordantly described. Something in Mary Gaitskill is a little off (OK, way off) -- and thank god for that. She's a great writer and a unique voice. I didn't enjoy this collection quite as much as "Bad Behavior," but close enough. Five stars.

Mary Gaitskill is among the most deadpan of satirists. You'll be reading along, minding your own business, and then BAM--she steps out from behind a hedgerow and ambushes you with a right cross to the funny bone! The old adage is "write what you know," and as the author goes gleefully and unabashedly on about kinky sex, one gets the impression that she has been-there-done-that in nearly every instance. (Read up on her early life for further clarification on this.)There is no plot to these stories. They are character sketches, but to describe them as such belies the depth and the detail to which the characters are fleshed out. Gaitskill shares a similar trait with novelist Donna Tartt--each of them maximalists in their own way--in that they compulsively go into (sometime tedious) detail about the physical appearance of even the briefest of window dressing characters. But where Tartt might leave it at that, Gaitskill often expands it into a kind of pop psychological evaluation as well. I'm not saying that's bad. It's just that Mary Gaitskill is an acquired taste, and if she is your cup of mud, you won't be disappointed in this volume. Because you just can't look away.

Just depressing characters living in bleak states

no comment

Effectively written but ultimately boring stories about scuzzy people you'd avoid in real life - although there's little risk of that as none of the characters are remotely believable.

These stories are well-written and intelligent. Gaitskill makes rather a speciality of the farther reaches of sex in them. You don't really like the protagonists who are mostly needy, entitled or just strange. There's one particularly horrid story called The Dentist

this is brilliant insight into relationships

Chaque histoire nous laisse toiujours réfléchir. Desfois même mal à l'aise