Overview

The collection begins with College Town 1980, which follows young people adrift in Ann Arbor debate the meaning of personal strength at the start of the Reagan era. The second opens with a disembodied list of newspaper headlines, before diving into a dissection of the lives of the characters behind the headlines, including a murderer who is slated for giving a prime-time interview, and a woman from San Francisco attempting to break a world record by having sex with one thousand men. Another story describes a nurse's obsession with her 43 year-old patient's virginity, and another a man who steals a girl's soul during a one night-stand. Dirty sex, broken people and powerful, original language. Don't Cry is a testament to Gaitskill's formal range and incomparable excavation of character in jagged, lived emotion.

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9781781255957

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Reviews

No writer understands and gratifies the voyeurism inherent in reading fiction better than Mary Gaitskill... Gaitskill writes with visceral power, with what sometimes feels like an exultantly destructive energy... They don't require suspense building toward a crisis and denouement, because they hold our attention with the promise of revealing what is ordinarily hidden from view. Hold it fiercely. Glimpses of what characters would forbid us to see are seductive, immediately involving. They insist we keep looking, just as we would at a car wreck; keep eavesdropping, as we would on a couple fighting next door; keep reading, as we would a diary left open by accident. The fierce artistry of Gaitskill's writing, its weirdly graceful introduction of the sublime into the sordid -- Kathryn Harrison New York Times Praise for Mary Gaitskill: Gaitskill's work feels more real than real life and reading her leads to a place that feels like a sacred space. Boston Globe Both stripped-bare fragile and 'fuck you' tough. Dazed & Confused Gaitskill writes beautifully about the agonising emotions we often try to keep under wraps in real life. Grazia A sensitive, astute and uncompromising exploration of the beauty and ugliness of human relationships Observer Gaitskill is a formidably gifted, astute writer. The Sunday Business Post Praise for The Mare: Visceral and haunting, and the telling, with its shifting first person narrative, is nothing short of masterful. GQ A thoroughly compelling read ... redemptive and moving, The Mare offers as much fresh air for the author (and the reader) as it does for her characters. Spectator Penetrating ... confronts, head-on, white privilege and black victimhood. Daily Mail Emotionally complex voices crafted with skill and sensitivity. Mail on Sunday The Mare is a dark, dreamlike novel, at times nightmarish, at others offering glimpses of the sublime, shocking in its raw depiction of violence, and beautiful in its evocation of flawed love. Financial Times A devastatingly good novel Psychologies Magazine a thrillingly talented writer -- Joanna Briscoe Guardian Gaitskill is more than a gifted story-teller. She is an enchanter New Republic

Gaitskill's work feels more real than real life and reading her leads to a place that feels like a sacred space. Boston Globe Both stripped-bare fragile and 'fuck you' tough. Dazed & Confused Gaitskill writes beautifully about the agonising emotions we often try to keep under wraps in real life. Grazia A sensitive, astute and uncompromising exploration of the beauty and ugliness of human relationships Observer Gaitskill is a formidably gifted, astute writer. The Sunday Business Post (Praise for The Mare) Visceral and haunting, and the telling, with its shifting first person narrative, is nothing short of masterful. GQ A poignant, beautiful coming of age story about race, class and motherhood. Women and Home A thoroughly compelling read ... redemptive and moving, The Mare offers as much fresh air for the author (and the reader) as it does for her characters. Spectator Penetrating ... confronts, head-on, white privilege and black victimhood. Daily Mail A timely examination of the pains and pleasures that follow one woman's attempt to bridge the yawning gap of understanding between two races. Sunday Express Emotionally complex voices crafted with skill and sensitivity. Mail on Sunday A novel about race, class and, as Gaitskill's convincingly drawn characters show how different worlds collide, the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the two in America. Daily Express The Mare is a dark, dreamlike novel, at times nightmarish, at others offering glimpses of the sublime, shocking in its raw depiction of violence, and beautiful in its evocation of flawed love. Financial Times A devastatingly good novel Psychologies Magazine

No writer understands and gratifies the voyeurism inherent in reading fiction better than Mary Gaitskill... Gaitskill writes with visceral power, with what sometimes feels like an exultantly destructive energy... They don't require suspense building toward a crisis and denouement, because they hold our attention with the promise of revealing what is ordinarily hidden from view. Hold it fiercely. Glimpses of what characters would forbid us to see are seductive, immediately involving. They insist we keep looking, just as we would at a car wreck; keep eavesdropping, as we would on a couple fighting next door; keep reading, as we would a diary left open by accident. The fierce artistry of Gaitskill's writing, its weirdly graceful introduction of the sublime into the sordid -- Kathryn Harrison * New York Times * Praise for Mary Gaitskill: Gaitskill's work feels more real than real life and reading her leads to a place that feels like a sacred space. * Boston Globe * Both stripped-bare fragile and 'fuck you' tough. * Dazed & Confused * Gaitskill writes beautifully about the agonising emotions we often try to keep under wraps in real life. * Grazia * A sensitive, astute and uncompromising exploration of the beauty and ugliness of human relationships * Observer * Gaitskill is a formidably gifted, astute writer. * The Sunday Business Post * Praise for The Mare: Visceral and haunting, and the telling, with its shifting first person narrative, is nothing short of masterful. * GQ * A thoroughly compelling read ... redemptive and moving, The Mare offers as much fresh air for the author (and the reader) as it does for her characters. * Spectator * Penetrating ... confronts, head-on, white privilege and black victimhood. * Daily Mail * Emotionally complex voices crafted with skill and sensitivity. * Mail on Sunday * The Mare is a dark, dreamlike novel, at times nightmarish, at others offering glimpses of the sublime, shocking in its raw depiction of violence, and beautiful in its evocation of flawed love. * Financial Times * A devastatingly good novel * Psychologies Magazine * a thrillingly talented writer -- Joanna Briscoe * Guardian * Gaitskill is more than a gifted story-teller. She is an enchanter * New Republic *

Author Information

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To, and Don't Cry, and the novels Veronica and Two Girls Fat and Thin. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories.

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