Somebody with a Little Hammer: Essays

If you're a fan of Gaitskill's writing, chances are you've caught some of these essays when they were published in magazines or anthologies, but it doesn't hurt to read them again. They're arranged more or less chronologically, so reading through from beginning to end gives a sort of interesting time travel sensation. A few of them gain a great deal if you've actually read or heard the piece of work she's commenting on, but most of them are developed and emotionally complex enough that you don't necessarily need to do a bunch of preparatory work before cracking this book. The positive things usually said about Gaitskill's work are definitely true, here, but this is the first time I've really felt a riveting empathy while reading her. I know, in my mind, that times before I was born were populated by real thinking, feeling, complicated people, but something in me references emotion as a very transient thing, something that often doesn't leave any visible marks, that can't be fully excavated or recovered. But Gaitskill is so attuned to the emotion of common things, that it makes sense that she'd be able to share the echo of both personal and cultural feelings from decades and movements past. She'll take you places: an oddly tattered Russia, a classy strip joint, her old apartment in Syracuse, but she succeeds in bringing you to the 60's and the 80's and the emotional imbroglio of everyday people just as effectively. That isn't common at all.

At first glance it appears to be a collection of disparate book and film reviews, memoir, and essays on the likes of Sarah Palin, Linda Lovelace, and Vladimir Nabokov (there's a trifecta for ya!). Is there a unifying thread that pulls it all together? The reader will have to decide. But at its best, Somebody With a Little Hammer is life from Gaitskill's perspective, which is a street level view, and when we're walking the streets one foot sometimes slips into the gutter. What we find here is a refreshingly plain-spoken voice from a time when most of us delivered our thoughts in a straightforward manner without agonizing over the political correctness ramifications--consequently there was less confusion all around. And while literary criticism always reveals a bit of insight into the writer herself, I would have preferred a book that was more Mary on Mary. As in the touching piece, "Lost Cat," which reveals a soul as compassionate and beautiful as there ever was, belying the hard edges of the author's life to that point. So five stars for the luminescent brilliance of Gaitskill as a writer...four stars for the concept of the book itself.

The book seemed to have the potential for artistic and cultural insight. It seemed more of a convoluted account of author’s previous experiences and cultural (i.e. American culture) critiques. And these centered on events and times when most Americans, including yours truly, could barely relate to. Hers were etiolated branches of the social ecosphere in America.Where the author writes “We’d had dinner and drinks a few times when I’d been on the East Coast” tortures basic good grammar. How about “We had…when we were [or I was] on the East Coast”?In a couple of places author refers to rolling in crap [Amazon does not accept the slang version]. In one case what a mother with twin daughters afflicted by a severe skin consider would do to find a cure. And author’s response seems illogical and unwarranted, viz., “they didn’t actually do it.” In the same rolling in crap notion, this time only smearing it to find a missing cat, somehow the author fails the nuanced mind test.Author mentions how her father was brutally unhappy, due it seems to his wartime (WW II) experience. Yet we are not told how his happiness was expressed.Author mentions how pop music has the “ability to enter a person’s private schema” without elaborating what a “schema” is. Is this some ‘80s version of what is typically called a person’s imagination? Or their “gestalt”, another hazy social-psychology term?According to the author “porn has become more normalized” with reference to porn star Linda Lovelace. Seems to me, porn is more of a distortion of the “normal”, and given its easy online access is probably only more widespread, thereby feeding the vulnerable minds with images of sexual fantasies unfulfilled.

This is a fantastic collection of occasional essays & more. Gaitskill does go the heart of things, an understatement, and proves her ability to take the trivial and transform it into evocative meaning. Magic &, as it is a collection, something for everyone. If you enjoy her fiction, you will love these gems.

I liked the lengths of the stories. I used them as part of my reading day.

I will read anything by Mary Gaitskill. These essays invite the reader to think and rethink so many important issues.

Insightful and enlightening! It was a refreshing change from my typical reading, and I gained perspectives and knowledge of cultural history.

Good strong writing style and intellectually rigorous, but a heavier on memoir than I expected and commentary on older issues and books that don't interest me now. I lost interest.

Fans will love it. Disappointing as a whole though, the sum of the parts comes to a tiny little hammer.