Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #582046 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
This impressive but uneven novel by the author of the praised short fiction collection Bad Behavior makes promises it does not keep. Two women, totally unalike in background, personality and social class, are brought together by a shared fascination with the philosophical movement founded by the late Anna Granite (read Ayn Rand). Justine is a chic journalist who wants to write an article about the followers of Granite's philosophy, Definitism. Dorothy is an obese, nocturnal word processor who answers Justine's advertisement in Manhattan Thing and offers to be interviewed about her involvement with the Definitists. As the two women come to know each other, their dismal life experiences gradually emerge, and their present circumstances are seen as a repetition of past connections and betrayals. This is a hard, edgy book, and Gaitskill's energy and flashy intelligence notwithstanding, the perhaps deliberate lack of polish ultimately detracts. The novel's raw, unsparing view is like that of certain contemporary paintings, and there are extraordinary moments of deeply examined female sexuality where Gaitskill is at her most original. But an underdeveloped and fragmented style has not served her well with the narrative and structural demands here. Thus this distinctive novel falls short of its potential. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The New York Times Book Review, Ginger Danto
It is a credit to Ms. Gaitskill's prose, with its fine storyteller's pace and brilliant metaphors, that we are drawn along, loath to abandon this grim story.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful, powerful, and Real
This is, quite possibly, the most intense book I have ever read. The characters are perfect examples of imperfect woman. I couldn't put this book down. Justine and Dorothy are two completely different woman, yet you feel yourself totally understanding both of them. The story unfolds beautifully. It is a strangely moving, strangely erotic, strangely sad book. I loved it. I would reccommend it, highly.

Anna Granite?
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)

Sharply and brilliantly insightful.
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.