Mary Gaitskill

Gaitskill writes with such authority, such radar-perfect detail. -- New York TimesLast year I lost my cat Gattino. He was very young, at seven months barely an adolescent. He is probably dead but I dont know for certain.So begins Mary Gaitskills stunning book-length essay, the closest thing she has written to a memoir. Lost Cat begins with the story of how Gaitskill rescued a stray cat in Italy and brought him to live with her in the US, where he went missing.As she explores the unexpected trauma of her loss, Gaitskill describes how she came to foster two siblings, Caesar and Natalia, two inner-city children who spent summers and holidays with Gaitskill and her husband. The joys and ultimate difficulties of this relationship lead to a searing examination of loss, love, safety and fear, and how our limited understandings brush against our unlimited hopes. Gaitskill applies her razor-sharp writing to her most personal subjects yet.Stubbornly original, with a sort of rhythm and fine moments that flatten you out when you dont expect it. -- Alice Munro

In this seductive and shattering novel, Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: one is a former modeling sensation, stumbling away from the wreck of her career, the other an eccentric middle-aged proofreader with a meticulous eye. Over the next twenty years their friendship will encompass narcissism and tenderness, exploitation and self-sacrifice, love and mortality. Moving seamlessly between the glamorous and gritty '80s, when beauty and style gave licence to excess, and the broken world of the decade's survivors twenty years later, Gaitskill casts a fierce yet compassionate eye on the two eras and their fixations. Veronica masterfully evokes the fragility and mystery of human relationships in a world where love is rife with contradictions. Evocative, raw and entirely unique, Veronica was shortlisted for the prestigious 2005 National Book Award in the USA.

When Velveteen Vargas, an eleven-year-old Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn, comes to stay with a family in upstate New York, what begins as a two-week visit blossoms into something much more significant.Soon Velvet finds herself torn between her host familyGinger, a failed artist and shakily recovered alcoholic; and Paul, a college professorand her own deeply tormented mother. The one constant becomes Velvets newly discovered passion for horse ridingand especially for an abused, unruly mare named Fugly Girl.A stirring and deeply felt novel, The Mare is Mary Gaitskills most poignant and powerful work yeta stunning exploration of a girl and her horse, and of the way we connect with people from all walks of life.

Ginger is in her forties and a recovering alcoholic when she meets and marries Paul. When it becomes clear it's too late for her to have a baby of her own, she tries to persuade him to consider adoption, but he already has a child from a previous marriage and is ten years older than her, so doesn't share her longing to be a parent at any cost. As a compromise, they sign up to an organisation that sends poor inner-city kids to stay with country families for a few weeks in the summer, and so one hot July day eleven year old Velveteen Vargas, a Dominican girl from one of Brooklyn's toughest neighbourhoods, arrives in their lives, and Ginger is instantly besotted. Bemused by her gentle middle-aged hosts, but deeply intuitive in the way of clever children, Velvet quickly senses the longing behind Ginger's rapturous attention. While Velvet returns her affection, she finds the intensity of it bewildering. Velvet's own passions are more excited by the stables nearby, where she discovers she has a natural talent for riding and a deep affinity with the damaged horses cared for there. But when Ginger begins to entertain fantasies of adopting her, things start to get complicated for everyone involved. This is a heartbreakingly honest and profoundly moving portrait of the nearly unbridgeable gaps between people, and the way we long for fairytale endings despite knowing that they don't exist

Un homme et une femme se rencontrent dans un avion. La conversation tourne à la confidence, voire à laveu. Un père découvre quil ne comprendra jamais sa fille, tout comme son propre père était resté

Dans les années 80, Alison a connu son heure de gloire comme mannequin à New York. Mais le rêve a tourné court et s’est transformé en ballade de la dépendance. La drogue, l’argent facile et les succè

Dans les années 80, Alison a connu son heure de gloire comme mannequin à New York. Mais le rêve a tourné court et s’est transformé en ballade de la dépendance. La drogue, l’argent facile et les succè

Un homme et une femme se rencontrent dans un avion. La conversation tourne à la confidence, voire à laveu. Un père découvre quil ne comprendra jamais sa fille, tout comme son propre père était resté

Quin est licencié de la maison dédition new-yorkaise où il travaille depuis de longues années. Il est accusé par plusieurs femmes de conduite " inappropriée ". Pourtant, il peine à comprendre ce quon

Quin est licencié de la maison dédition new-yorkaise où il travaille depuis de longues années. Il est accusé par plusieurs femmes de conduite " inappropriée ". Pourtant, il peine à comprendre ce quon

The intense, caustically funny first novel from the bestselling author of Bad BehaviourDark, menacing and original Joanna Briscoe, GuardianDorothy 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. Both are isolated. Both are damaged by their pasts. 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. Mary Gaitskills first novel is an intense, darkly funny and caustic portrayal of loneliness and the search for intimacy.What makes her scary, and what makes her exciting, is her ability to evoke the hidden life, the life unseen, the life we dont even know we are living Parul Sehgal, The New York Times

A National Bestseller and New York Times Notable Book!From the bestselling author of Veronica, a breathtaking collection of short stories about people struggling with the disparity between what they want and what they know.A man tells a story to a woman sitting beside him on a plane, little suspecting what it reveals about his capacity for cruelty and contempt. A callow runaway girl is stranded in a strange city with another womans fractiously needy children. An uncomprehending father helplessly lashes out at the daughter he both loves and resents. In these raw, startling, and incandescently lovely stories, bestselling author Mary Gaitskill yields twelve indelible portraits of people grappling with the gap between their desires and what they know. Because They Wanted To is further evidence that Gaitskill is one of the fiercest, funniest, and most subversively compassionate writers at work today.

"Constaín no ha escrito (solamente) una novela sobre fútbol. La suya es una novela erudita sin ser solemne, brutalmente divertida pero nunca chabacana".Juan Gabriel VásquezEl profesor Arnaldo Momigliano asiste en Oxford al legendario "zoologico", un exclusivo conciliabulo en el que los mas respetados eruditos en el mundo clasico hacian una pausa en sus serisimas faenas para desmelenarse y divertirse en un campeonato de improvisaciones. Su tema parecia ser inocente: los juegos de pelota de la antiguedad. Pero en su intervencion sugiere, nada menos que rodeado de pundonorosos britanicos, que el futbol no nacio en Inglaterra sino en Italia. El divertimento academico deriva en un asunto de honor nacional, y para dirimirlo Momigliano desempolva un documento que da cuenta del primer partido de futbol de la historia, un zafarrancho epico en la Florencia renacentista entre los soldados invasores del emperador Carlos V y los sitiados soldados leales al papa Clemente VII.Literatura Random House recupera, diez años despues de su publicacion, la segunda novela de Juan Esteban Constain, una obra "extraña, original", como la saludo Arturo Perez-Reverte cuando la conocio admirado, y tambien ludica, inteligente, gratisima de leer.

A perfectly formed set of stories about alienation in modern timesIndependentMesmerizing - almost ecstaticThe New York TimesMary Gaitskills coolly compelling, quietly devastating stories explore the messy complexity of relationships between lovers, families and friends. An unsettling encounter on a plane; a tentative affair between an older woman and a younger man; the chasm between a father and his daughter: each expresses our longing for, and our fear of, human connection.

Mary Gaitskills tales of desire and dislocation in 1980s New York caused a sensation with their frank, caustic portrayals of men and womens inner lives. As her characters have sex, try and fail to connect, play power games and inflict myriad cruelties on each other, she skewers urban life with precision and candour.Stubbornly original, with a sort of rhythm and fine moments that flatten you out when you dont expect it, these stories are a pleasure to read Alice MunroAn air of Pinteresque menace hangs over these peoples social exchanges like black funereal bunting ... Gaitskill writes with such authority, such radar-perfect detail Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times