‘A writer of prodigious gifts’ Guardian
Full of jagged, complex emotion and powerful, incisive writing, the stories in Don’t Cry are a testament to Mary Gaitskill’s incomparable excavation of character.
‘An Old Virgin’ describes a nurse’s obsession with her forty-three-year-old patient’s virginity; ‘Folk Song’ dissects the lives of people behind newspaper headlines, including a murderer who gives a prime-time interview and a woman attempting to break a world record by having sex with one thousand men; in the title story ‘Don’t Cry’, a grieving widow reflects on her marriage whilst accompanying a friend on a journey to adopt an Ethiopian orphan during a violent election season; and a musician accidentally steals a girl’s soul during a one-night stand in the urban fable ‘Mirrorball’.
The provocative, searching stories of Don’t Cry remind us that no experiences should be taken lightly, but instead explored for their physical, emotional and even spiritual revelations.
A propos de l’auteur
Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To, and Don’t Cry, the novels Veronica, The Mare and Two Girls Fat and Thin and the novella This is Pleasure. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and her work has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories.