Bad Behavior

Stubbornly original, with a sort of rhythm and fine moments that flatten you out when you don’t expect it, these stories are a pleasure to read – Alice MunroPinteresque…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 – Michiko KakutaniRazor-sharp brilliance – D. M. ThomasQuite honestly changed my life… I cannot believe I was 32 before I discovered it. I just thought it was one of the most amazing things I’d ever read and it now lives on my desk so that I can revisit it any time – Pandora Sykes * The High Low *Delicious … comedy is balanced by genuine pathos, and Gaitskill is perceptive about how our desires can elude and confound even ourselves … Gaitskill masters human dynamics: the nuance of her portrayal of emotion and psychology; the daring of her selection of challenging subjects and people; the quality of her prose, with its occasional flights of gorgeous imagery … Her stories portray oddballs and free spirits on the fringes of 80s New York, often embroiled in complex sexual or romantic lives – Matt Rowland Hill * i, The book I read every New Year *

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, the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for the National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin, and a collection of essays, Somebody With A Little Hammer. 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.