A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A stunning synthesis of eroticism, rage, pathos, and humor, this evergreen debut novel, with its "fine storyteller's pace and brilliant metaphors" (New York Times Book Review) examines the lives of two women as they journey into the dark side of contemporary life and the deepest recesses of the soul
"Darkly, erotically compelling."—USA Today
Originally published in 1991, this exploration of loneliness and connection draws us into an unforgettable and unlikely friendship. Dorothy Never—"fat"—lives alone in New York, eats and works the night shift as a proofreader. Justine Shade—"thin"—is a freelance journalist who sleeps with unsuitable men. They are superficially a study in contrasts, yet share equally haunting sexual burdens carried since youth. When Justine interviews Dorothy about her involvement with an infamous and charismatic philosophical guru, the two women are drawn together with an intense magnetism that throws their lives off balance.
Now a classic, Gaitskill's first novel sets out the concerns of all her work: the search for intimacy and for sexual frankness; the challenge, especially for women, of discovering our destiny as unique individuals in the complex thicket of our relationships, desires, and needs.
Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To (nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award), and Don’t Cry, and the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for the National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Artforum, and Granta, among many other journals, as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories.
View titles by Mary Gaitskill
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A stunning synthesis of eroticism, rage, pathos, and humor, this evergreen debut novel, with its "fine storyteller's pace and brilliant metaphors" (New York Times Book Review) examines the lives of two women as they journey into the dark side of contemporary life and the deepest recesses of the soul
"Darkly, erotically compelling."—USA Today
Originally published in 1991, this exploration of loneliness and connection draws us into an unforgettable and unlikely friendship. Dorothy Never—"fat"—lives alone in New York, eats and works the night shift as a proofreader. Justine Shade—"thin"—is a freelance journalist who sleeps with unsuitable men. They are superficially a study in contrasts, yet share equally haunting sexual burdens carried since youth. When Justine interviews Dorothy about her involvement with an infamous and charismatic philosophical guru, the two women are drawn together with an intense magnetism that throws their lives off balance.
Now a classic, Gaitskill's first novel sets out the concerns of all her work: the search for intimacy and for sexual frankness; the challenge, especially for women, of discovering our destiny as unique individuals in the complex thicket of our relationships, desires, and needs.
Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To (nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award), and Don’t Cry, and the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for the National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Artforum, and Granta, among many other journals, as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories.
View titles by Mary Gaitskill
