Excerpts
Excerpt from “The Agonized Face” by Mary Gaitskill
On one of those long-ago assignments, I had interviewed a topless dancer, a desiccated blonde with desperate intelligence burning in her otherwise-lusterless eyes. She was big on Hegel and Nietzsche and she talked about the power of beautiful girls versus the power of men with money. In the middle of the power talk, she told me a story about a customer who had said he would give her fifty dollars if she would get on her hands and knees with her butt facing him, pull down her G-string, and then turn around and smile at him. They had negotiated at length. “I made him promise that he wouldn’t stick a finger in,” she said. “We went over it and over it and he promised me, like three times. So I pulled down my G-string, and as soon as I turned around, his finger went right in. I was so mad!” Then bang, she was right back at the Hegel and Nietzsche. The combination was pathetic, and yet it had the dignity of awful truth. Not only because it was titillating–though, yes, it was–but because in the telling of it, a certain foundation of humanity was revealed; the crude cinder blocks of make and female down in the basement, holding up a house. Those of us who have spouses and/or children forget this part-not because we have an aversion to those cinder blocks necessarily, but because we are busy on the upper levels, building a home with furniture, decorations, and personalities in it. We are glad to have the topless dancer to remind us of that dark area in the basement where personality is irrelevant and crude truth prevails. Her philosophical patter even added to the power of her story because it created a stark polarity; intelligent words on one side, and mute genitals on the other. Between the poles, there was darkness and mystery, and the dancer respected the mystery with her ignorant and touching pretense.
Tags: Mary Gaitskill
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It’s a really good story.
I am going to buy some books. So far I got Sandra Beasley and Olena K. Davis (poets), but I want to round it off with some fiction. What do you think of Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior? I can’t find ‘The Agonized Face’ so I am assuming it’s a story in one of her collections…… which one?
I am going to buy some books. So far I got Sandra Beasley and Olena K. Davis (poets), but I want to round it off with some fiction. What do you think of Gaitskill’s Bad Behavior? I can’t find ‘The Agonized Face’ so I am assuming it’s a story in one of her collections…… which one?
I love all of her books. “The Agonized Face” is from her recent collection, DON’T CRY. I think her work gets stronger and stronger, but start at the beginning with Bad Behavior and if you dig it, then read more of her stuff. She’s not prolific, so here’s her publications in order-
bad behavior (Stories)
two girls, fat and thin
Because they wanted to (stories)
Veronica
Don’t Cry (stories)
She’s in my top ten. I’m a huge huge fan.
I love all of her books. “The Agonized Face” is from her recent collection, DON’T CRY. I think her work gets stronger and stronger, but start at the beginning with Bad Behavior and if you dig it, then read more of her stuff. She’s not prolific, so here’s her publications in order-
bad behavior (Stories)
two girls, fat and thin
Because they wanted to (stories)
Veronica
Don’t Cry (stories)
She’s in my top ten. I’m a huge huge fan.
one more thing PR… do you have any other women writers (specifically short stories, although maybe they have written novels) that you can recommend?
one more thing PR… do you have any other women writers (specifically short stories, although maybe they have written novels) that you can recommend?
Were the man who read Achebe? I liked his stories, Girls at War and still haven’t read Things Fall Apart. But I mention him because Buchi Emecheta’s novel, The Joys of Motherhood, is brilliant. I have read it twice. That said, unlike Gaitskill- whose entire body of work I have read- I have yet to get through her other books- The Bride Price, The Slave Girl being the two others I tried. But man, Joys of Motherhood? BRILLIANT.
Anyway, regarding short stories- HI! I’m the old lady of the Giant- I have read everything that Alice Munro has written. So kill me. I love her. She has this one story from the POV of a mother whose husband kills their two kids and she goes to jail to visit him against her social workers advice- I’m telling you, the complexity of humanity. She gets it.
I’ve written here on Flannery O’Connor. Did you read that thing on Parker’s Back I wrote?
I like “upon the sweeping flood” and “where have are you going , where have you been?” and others by Joyce Carol Oates.
Wait, those are some old timers. Do you want new people? Sorry!
Have you read Alicia Erian? The Brutal Langauge of Love? Very, very good book if you like sexually explicit and emotionally intense stuff. She wrote “Towelhead”- she’s half Middle Eastern- it was made into a movie that I have not seen. I just know her stories.
OK.I’m not so helpful. I mostly sit around reading Tolstoy’s religious tracks and Evolutionary Theory from the turn of the century (recently). I’m also reading a collection of stories by some guy called Knockemstiff (the town where he grew up in Ohio) – Parker? It’s fantastic.
Alicia Erian just became my new author to read. The first five sentences in The Brutal Language of Love sold me too quick. I couldn’t cursor fast enough.
Alicia Erian just became my new author to read. The first five sentences in The Brutal Language of Love sold me too quick. I couldn’t cursor fast enough.
Gaitskill’s stare just melted my computer screen. Thanks, Mary.
Gaitskill’s stare just melted my computer screen. Thanks, Mary.
Every story in that book is good. Really really good. There is no “filler” (I think Lorrie Moore is guilty of filler…). I think you’ll love it, but do let me know what you think.
Every story in that book is good. Really really good. There is no “filler” (I think Lorrie Moore is guilty of filler…). I think you’ll love it, but do let me know what you think.
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