Mary Gaitskill returns with a luminous new collection of storiesâher first in more than ten years. In âCollege Town l980,â young people adrift in Ann Arbor debate the meaning of personal strength at the start of the Reagan era; in the urban fairy tale âMirrorball,â a young man steals a girlâs soul during a one-night stand; in âThe Little Boy,â 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 bodyâor of the intelligent body with the craving mindâthat has come to be seen as stunningly emblematic of Gaitskillâs fiction.
Mary Gaitskill returns with a luminous new collection of storiesâher first in more than ten years. In âCollege Town l980,â young people adrift in Ann Arbor debate the meaning of personal strength at the start of the Reagan era; in the urban fairy tale âMirrorball,â a young man steals a girlâs soul during a one-night stand; in âThe Little Boy,â 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 bodyâor of the intelligent body with the craving mindâthat has come to be seen as stunningly emblematic of Gaitskillâs fiction.