Most Popular Books by MARY GAITSKILL

National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill’s debut collection, Bad Behavior—powerful stories about dislocation, longing, and desire which depict a disenchanted and rebellious urban fringe generation that is searching for human connection. Now a classic, Bad Behavior made critical waves when it first published, heralding Gaitskill’s arrival on the literary scene and her establishment as one of the sharpest, erotically charged, and audaciously funny writing talents of contemporary literature. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called it “Pinteresque,” saying, “Ms. Gaitskill writes with such authority, such radar-perfect detail, that she is able to make even the most extreme situations seem real…her reportorial candor, uncompromised by sentimentality or voyeuristic charm…underscores the strength of her debut.”

Starting with Bad Behavior in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In This Is Pleasure, she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident. The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated unforgivable transgressions toward women in his orbit. But are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin’s friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating Quin’s and Margot’s voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons—hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable. Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way that she could approach this subject because it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters—and to her readers—is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don’t always admire them, is a gesture of humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.

A finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, here is an evocative novel about female friendship in the glittering 1980s. One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: One is a young model stumbling away from the wreck of her career, the other an eccentric middle-aged office temp. Over the next twenty years their friendship will encompass narcissism and tenderness, exploitation and self-sacrifice, love and mortality. Moving seamlessly from present and past, casting a fierce yet compassionate eye on two eras and their fixations, the result is a work of timeless depth and moral power.

A collection of startling and breathtaking stories about people struggling with the disparity between what they want and what they know. A New York Times Notable Book A man tells a story to a woman sitting beside him on a plane, little suspecting what it reveals about his capacity for cruelty and contempt. A callow runaway girl is stranded in a strange city with another woman’s fractiously needy children. An uncomprehending father helplessly lashes out at the daughter he both loves and resents. In these raw, startling, and incandescently lovely stories, the author of Veronica yields twelve indelible portraits of people struggling with the disparity between what they want and what they know. Because They Wanted To is further evidence that Gaitskill is one of the fiercest, funniest, and most subversively compassionate writers at work today.

One of the Best Books of the Year The New York Times • The Washington Post • NPR • San Francisco Chronicle • Vanity Fair • Milwaukee Journal Sentinel • Kansas City Star When Velveteen Vargas, an eleven-year-old Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn, comes to stay with a family in upstate New York, what begins as a two-week visit blossoms into something much more significant. Soon Velvet finds herself torn between her host family—Ginger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic; and Paul, a college professor—and her own deeply tormented mother. The one constant becomes Velvet’s newly discovered passion for horse riding—and especially for an abused, unruly mare named Fugly Girl. A stirring and deeply felt novel, The Mare is Mary Gaitskill’s most poignant and powerful work yet—a stunning exploration of a girl and her horse, and of the way we connect with people from all walks of life.

A Vintage Shorts “Short Story Month” Selection It was the first autumn of the Iraq War, when Ella saw Dani again. “Today I’m Yours” is a story of seduction and layered memory, a love affair fifteen years past but not forgotten—from the author of the National Book Award nominated and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Veronica. Mary Gaitskill is widely acclaimed as a caustically sharp observer of American culture high and low, of bodily temptations and sensual intelligence. A selection from Gaitskill’s story collection, Don’t Cry, a New York Times Notable Book. An eBook short.

Justine, a beautiful, lonely, sexually addicted young woman, meets Dorothy, fat, maladjusted, and unhappy since childhood. They are superficially a study in contrasts yet share equally haunting sexual burdens carried since youth. With common secrets, they are drawn into a remarkable friendship.

A rare work of criticism, memoir, and mythography from an author “aware of all the hidden chambers of the heart.” (Greil Marcus, New York Times Magazine) Mary Gaitskill is unique among American novelists in “her ability to evoke the hidden life, the life unseen, the life we don’t even know we are living.”* In this searching biography of the writer’s imagination, Gaitskill excavates her own novels, revealing their origins and obsessions, the personal and societal pressures that formed them, and the life story hidden between their pages. Using the techniques of collage, The Devil''s Treasure splices fiction together with commentary and personal history, and with the fairy tale that gives the book its title, about a little girl who ventures into Hell through a suburban cellar door. The result is an answer to Gaitskill’s critics and, simultaneously, the best book we have about contemporary fiction, the forces ranged against it, and the forces that bring it into being. “Even among other artists attracted to weakness as a theme, [Gaitskill] is rare in being able to look at it on its own terms. She doesn’t treat it like a curiosity, like Diane Arbus, or a chink in the armor that might let in faith, like Flannery O’Connor. She isn’t afraid of it, like Muriel Spark; nor does she insist its depictions rouse us to action, like Sontag. She looks—just looks—and sees everything.” —Parul Seghal, New York Times Magazine*

Mary Gaitskill returns with a luminous new collection of stories—her first in more than ten years. In “College Town l980,” young people adrift in Ann Arbor debate the meaning of personal strength at the start of the Reagan era; in the urban fairy tale “Mirrorball,” a young man steals a girl’s soul during a one-night stand; in “The Little Boy,” a woman haunted by the death of her former husband is finally able to grieve through a mysterious encounter with a needy child. Each story delivers the powerful, original language, and the dramatic engagement of the intelligent mind with the craving body—or of the intelligent body with the craving mind—that has come to be seen as stunningly emblematic of Gaitskill’s fiction.

"Engaging, unusual essays written over the last two decades, on matters literary, social, cultural, and personal--from the explosive date rape debates of the ''90s to the ubiquitous political adultery of the ''00s, from Anton Chekhov to Celine Dion. Here is Mary Gaitskill the essayist: witty, direct, penetrating to the core of each issue, personality, or literary trope (On Updike: "It is as if [he] has entered a tiny window marked ''Rabbit,'' and, by some inverse law, passed into a universe of energies both light and dark, expanded and contracted, infinite and workaday." On Elizabeth Wurtzell: "If this kooky, foot-stamping, self-loathing screed is meant to be, as it claims, a defense of ''difficult women,'' i.e. women who ''write their own operating manuals'' . . . all I can say is, bitches best duck and run for cover.") Gaitskill writes about the ridiculous and poetic ambition of Norman Mailer, about the socio-sexual cataclysm embodied by porn star Linda Lovelace, and, in the deceptively titled "Lost Cat," about how power and race can warp the most innocent and intimate of relationships. Appearing in chronological order, the essays offer their thoughts and reactions, always with the heat-seeking, revelatory understanding for which we value the author''s fiction"

''Last year I lost my cat Gattino. He was very young, at seven months barely an adolescent. He is probably dead but I don''t know for certain.''

" ... Essential reading for anyone who loves great music and impassioned writing about it"--Page 4 of cover.

Quin en Margot, ruim twintig jaar bevriend, zijn beiden getrouwd en zeer succesvol binnen de New Yorkse uitgeverswereld. Hun jarenlange, innige vriendschap is gebaseerd op wederzijdse behoeften en een ondefinieerbare spanning tussen de twee. De flamboyante Quin houdt van flirten en ongepaste grappen. Margot, vanaf het begin duidelijk over de grenzen van hun vriendschap, vermaant hem graag, maar wanneer ze niet boos op hem is, is ze dol op hem. Wanneer ze niet beledigd is, is ze nieuwsgierig. Soms is ze al deze dingen tegelijkertijd. Als Quin wordt beschuldigd van herhaaldelijk grensoverschrijdend gedrag op zijn werk raakt hij in de problemen. De gebeurtenissen zetten Margot ertoe aan om te werken aan een dieper begrip van haar vriend, de schade die hij mogelijk heeft veroorzaakt en de loyaliteit die hij verdient. Is zijn gedrag onvergeeflijk? En wie heeft het recht hem te vergeven? Dit is lust kijkt onbevooroordeeld naar de moeilijke debatten van ons huidige tijdperk. Het verwerpt morele zekerheden en doet op die manier eer aan de kern van alle menselijke relaties. Door de stemmen en standpunten van Quin en Margot af te wisselen, creëert Gaitskill een genuanceerde tragikomedie, een die haar personages als complete personen toont: ze zijn zowel kwetsend als kwetsbaar, razendmakend als ontroerend, en altijd zeer herkenbaar.

No todo es blanco o negro. Mary Gaitskill condensa en esta inteligente novela toda la rabia y la complejidad del #MeToo. El efervescente y elegante Quin, un reputado editor y destacado miembro de la escena artística de Nueva York, está en el punto de mira tras recibir distintas acusaciones de abuso sexual. Su amiga Margot, sin embargo, las pone en duda. Él es un hombre que escucha de verdad a las mujeres. Sí, es cierto, es un seductor, tiene unamanera peculiar de ganarse su confianza y siente debilidad por un coqueteo sin filtros, pero ¿le convierte esto en un acosador? Alternando los puntos de vista de los dos personajes, Mary Gaitskill cruza en apenas cien páginas los campos de minas del #MeToo. Esta novela urgente condensa toda la rabia y toda la complejidad del debate para situarlo en zona de grises y demostrar que la ficción es el mejor espacio para poner a prueba la realidad. Reseñas: «La ficción de Gaitskill milita contra las respuestas fáciles.» The Sunday Times «Mary Gaitskill es la persona idónea para cuestionar la relación entre las versiones de los acosadores del #MeToo y las de las víctimas en un contexto ficcional. Es hora de tener estas conversaciones, de explorar los matices.» The Washington Post «Incendiario, enigmático y ambiguo [...]. Una de las grandes escritoras vivas nos trae el matiz más inflamatorio de los temas del momento.» The Boston Globe «En el centro de esta historia extraordinaria, atrevida, y provocativa, contada con el tono perfecto, se encuentra la idea de que, a veces, exteriorizamos una verdad tan solo para huir de ella. Lo sensato de nosotros sabe que esa huida es real, y que entre esas dos realidades se esconde un mundo de placer tras el que, de manera abrupta, aparece el dolor.» The Guardian «Gaitskill nunca se queda en la superficie [...] Cree, aunque quizás a regañadientes, en la absoluta primacía de las conexiones humanas, sin importarle los desastres que solemos hacer con ellas.» Chicago Tribune

No todo es blanco o negro. Mary Gaitskill condensa en esta inteligente novela toda la rabia y la complejidad del #MeToo. El efervescente y elegante Quin, un reputado editor y destacado miembro de la escena artística de Nueva York, está en el punto de mira tras recibir distintas acusaciones de abuso sexual. Su amiga Margot, sin embargo, las pone en duda. Él es un hombre que escucha de verdad a las mujeres. Sí, es cierto, es un seductor, tiene una manera peculiar de ganarse su confianza y siente debilidad por un coqueteo sin filtros, pero ¿le convierte esto en un acosador? Alternando los puntos de vista de los dos personajes, Mary Gaitskill cruza en apenas cien páginas los campos de minas del #MeToo. Esta novela urgente condensa toda la rabia y toda la complejidad del debate para situarlo en zona de grises y demostrar que la ficción es el mejor espacio para poner a prueba la realidad. ENGLISH DESCRIPTION Starting with Bad Behavior in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In This Is Pleasure, she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident. The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated unforgivable transgressions toward women in his orbit. But are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin’s friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating Quin’s and Margot’s voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons—hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable. Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way that she could approach this subject because it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters—and to her readers—is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don’t always admire them, is a gesture of humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.

En Quin i la Margot fa més de vint anys que són amics. En Quin és extravertit i molt sensual, té una personalitat magnètica, i sempre es mou en l''ambigüitat del flirteig. És incapaç d''establir un lligam superficial amb les dones que l''envolten, i necessita conèixer la seva realitat i els seus secrets. Tot i això, la Margot va saber traçar unes fronteres sòlides a la seva relació, i ara observa en Quin amb una barreja d''enuig i afecte. Però tot canvia el dia que les accions d''en Quin es tornen a la seva contra i la seva vida comença a esfondrar-se. La Margot intentarà entendre la naturalesa dels actes del seu amic, el mal que les seves accions han provocat i la lleialtat que mereix. Una aproximació a les complexitats de l''assetjament sexual, la responsabilitat moral que implica i els límits de la lleialtat. «Una novel·la exquisida, i moralment molt palpable.» The Sunday Times «Una lectura incendiària. Extraordinària, atrevida, provocadora. Perfecta.» The Observer «L''obra de Gaitskill se sent més real que la vida mateixa.» The Boston Globe «Gaitskill és una escriptora enormement talentosa.» The New York Times «L''obra de Gaitskill és d''una gran profunditat humana.» LA Times

Quin est licencié de la maison d''édition new-yorkaise où il travaille depuis de longues années. Il est accusé par plusieurs femmes de conduite " inappropriée ". Pourtant, il peine à comprendre ce qu''on lui reproche. Margot est sa meilleure amie. Si elle approuve la punition infligée à Quin, elle ne peut s''empêcher d''y voir une sorte d''injustice. Au fond, que désirons-nous vraiment, et pourquoi ? Qu''est-ce que le consentement ? Dans ce récit percutant à deux voix, c''est toute l''ambiguïté de nos comportements qui se révèle, cette zone grise à laquelle seuls les écrivains ont accès. Car rien ne les oblige, eux, à juger leurs personnages. Traduit de l''anglais (États-Unis) par Marguerite Capelle.

"No ano passado, perdi meu gato. Gattino era muito novo, apenas um adolescente de sete meses. Provavelmente está morto." O gato perdido começa com a história de como Mary Gaitskill resgatou um gato de rua na Itália e o levou para os Estados Unidos. Enquanto explora o trauma inesperado da perda, ela descreve sua relação com três crianças menos privilegiadas que passavam verões com a autora e seu marido em seu mundo de afluência e contatos culturais.

El debut literario de Mary Gaitskill: un viaje a la lujuria exento de sentimentalismos. Hace treinta y cinco años, Mary Gaitskill debutaba como escritora en la escena literaria con un libro de relatos punzante y divertido, cargado de erotismo, que cosechó rápidamente las alabanzas de la crítica. El libro en cuestión era Mal comportamiento, la opera prima que catapultó a la autora como una de las voces más prometedoras del momento por su asombrosa capacidad de retratar la perversión sexual entre los seres humanos. En esta colección de nueve relatos, hallamos las vidas de hombres y mujeres que se entrecruzan en la crueldad y la intimidad más profundas para hablarnos de la adicción a las drogas, del trabajo sexual, de la curiosidad y de la desesperación. La única forma de aplacar su soledad es mediante encuentros sexuales de todo tipo: secretarias que se someten a juegos masoquistas con sus jefes, veterinarios insatisfechos que se enamoran de intelectuales que ejercen la prostitución... Con un tono despiadado, los personajes asumen sus contradicciones para explorar el deseo hasta sus últimas consecuencias. Sin pedir perdón y sin pedir permiso. Con una fuerza arrolladora, Mal comportamiento nos impulsa a abandonar nuestros prejuicios con una obra pionera en reflejar la voluntad sexual femenina en literatura. Críticas: «La ficción de Gaitskill milita contra las respuestas fáciles». The Sunday Times «Pintoresca [...]. Gaitskill escribe con tal autoridad, con un radar tan perceptivo, que es capaz de hacer que incluso las situaciones más extremas parezcan reales [...]. Su franqueza periodística, sin compromisoscon el sentimentalismo o el encanto voyerista [...] subraya la fuerza de su debut». Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times «Al escribir sobre la naturaleza humana en su forma más perversa y desesperada, Gaitskill ha creado una serie de imágenes íntimas y casi hermosas». Publishers Weekly «¡Ese cambio de perspectiva tan agudo! ¡Esa manera de diseccionar! Es muy buena. Muy hábil. Me encanta. Por no mencionar todo el trabajo que hace la imaginación de un solo personaje femenino. En esta obra no se malgasta ni una palabra». Emily Temple, Lit Hub «Esto es lo que más admiro de la escritura de Gaitskill [...]: su capacidad para seguirle el rastro a las mentes que luchan por salir de sus caminos habituales. Al permitir a sus personajes esta libertad, Gaitskill empuja al lector a esos mismos espacios abiertos de conciencia y allí formula una pregunta: ¿puedes dejar de juzgar a estos personajes, a las personas que te rodean, incluso a ti mismo, para ver lo que no estás viendo?». Alan Rossi, Granta

Margot sa che Quin le donne le ascolta, le spalleggia e le ama. Ma sa che allo stesso tempo le fruga, le manipola, le offende. Ora che un''accusa di molestie sessuali travolge la vita e la carriera di Quin, Margot deve chiedersi quanto sia tagliente la lama che separa la seduzione dall''abuso, l''empatia dalla giustizia. «Incendiario... e ambiguo. In Questo è il piacere una delle piú grandi scrittrici viventi affronta un tema al calor bianco con sottigliezza e rispetto delle sfumature. La sua capace umanità accorda compassione anche quando non giustifica». «The Boston Globe»

«Cosí, lei può essere la ragazza innocente e la prostituta e la scrittrice, eh? Bè, immaginate un intero mazzo di carte, e su ogni carta dei simboli di donna - la trovatella, la meretrice, la madre, la guerriera, la regina - fino all''ultima carta, raffigurante Medea, un coltello nella sua implacabile mano alzata. Ecco, quella sono io e qualunque donna può esserlo». Mary Gaitskill, Oggi sono tua *** Nel conturbante mazzo di carte di Mary Gaitskill ogni figura è nuda. Qualcuna la si fissa ossessivamente, da qualcun''altra si distoglie lo sguardo con pudore. Difficile non ritrovare la propria.

Journal of literature and art

The most important new literary journal to emerge since Granta, Open City has published some of the best work by major writers and artists such as Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Jeff Koons, David Foster Wallace, Irvine Welsh, Terry Southern, Patrick McCabe, Sam Lipsyte, and David Berman. Edited by the writers Thomas Beller and Daniel Pinchbeck and originally published by the late Robert Bingham, writing from Open City has been included in many prestigious anthologies, including Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. Known for launching the careers of today''s best new writers, the editors are also committed to printing important unpublished work by writers from past eras, such as Richard Yates, Delmore Schwartz, Jim Thompson, Cyril Connolly, Edvard Munch, and Gregor von Rezzori. With its innovative and daring mix of the old and the new, Open City combines undiscovered writing by classic authors with a fascinating portrait of a literary generation in the making. Open City #12 includes "After the Wall", a special section on Berlin''s new generation of fiction writers; a story by Lewis Cole on the end of radicalism; and debut fiction by Sam Brumbaugh and Heather Lorimer. This issue features a previously unpublished story by Ford Maddox Ford.

»Eigensinnig und höchst originell, mit diesem Rhythmus und den besonderen Wendungen, die einen umhauen, wenn man es am wenigsten erwartet – reines Lesevergnügen!« Alice Munro. Endlich wieder auf Deutsch – das Kultbuch, das heute Vorbild für eine neue Generation von Autorinnen ist: Mary Gaitskills Storys sorgten in den achtziger Jahren für eine Sensation. Wie ein Komet schlug ihr Debüt in der New Yorker Literaturszene ein, so schonungslos ehrlich sind ihre Geschichten über die geheimsten Wünsche und Sehnsüchte ihrer Figuren. Ein faszinierender Einblick in die wahren Nachtseiten der Großstadt. Mit einem Nachwort von Kristen Roupenian, Autorin von »Cat Person«. »Mary Gaitskill bleibt das Maß aller Dinge.« The Guardian.