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Oppositions
Selected Essays
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Format: Paperback / softback
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This book is ideal for readers interested in arts and culture who appreciate thoughtful, complex essays that tackle difficult subjects with sincerity and wit. Fans of literary criticism, cultural analysis, and narratives exploring human relationships and power dynamics will find it especially rewarding.
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See moreA career-spanning collection by the legendary Mary Gaitskill - now in paperback
A career-spanning collection by the legendary Mary Gaitskill - now in paperback
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
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Description
'Mary Gaitskill is willing to think about the problematic with complexity and humanity, and without taking sides or engaging in all the fashionable moral hectoring that passes for serious thought these days.' - Eimear McBride
Nuanced, daring and tender, these essays from the celebrated author of This is Pleasure and Bad Behavior, consistently fascinate and provoke. Mary Gaitskill takes on a broad range of topics from Nabokov to horse-riding with her unique ability to tease out unexpected truths and cast aside received wisdom.
Written with startling grace and linguistic flair, and delving into the complicated nature of love and the responsibility we owe to the people we encounter, the work collected here inspires the reader to think beyond their first responses to life and art. Spanning thirty years of Mary Gaitskill's writing, and covering subjects as diverse as Dancer in the Dark, the world of Charles Dickens and the Book of Revelation with her characteristic blend of sincerity and wit, Oppositions is never less than enthralling.
Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Praised by The Guardian as 'gloriously trenchant, but never gimmicky,' Gaitskill's essays are both insightful and revealing. Lucy Scholes highlights her expertise in exploring power dynamics and consent, while Vogue calls her work 'provocative and wry.' Esteemed by The New York Times Book Review for her enormous gift, and lauded by the LA Times for her remarkable humanity, this collection is a testament to her sharp and thoughtful prose.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781788168168
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 09 November 2023
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Serpent's Tail
Edition: Main
Audience: General / adult, Tertiary education, Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 18.0mm
Width: 128.0mm
Height: 198.0mm
Weight: 180g
Pages: 224
About the Author
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, the novella This is Pleasure and the memoir Lost Cat. 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.
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Bad Behavior
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Because They Wanted To
A bestselling collection of short stories from the American master storyteller Mary Gaitskill, author of Bad Behavior. First published in the late 1990s and a bestseller at the time, this incisive collection of short stories explores connection and disconnection in families, between ex-lovers and friends. From a father reflecting on the daughter whose lesbianism he cannot accept, to two people...Paperback$2400Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
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So begins Mary Gaitskill's stunning long essay, the closest thing she has written to a memoir, about a lost cat and a pair of adopted children. In this searing piece about loss, love, safety and fear, Gaitskill applies her razor-sharp writing to her most personal subjects yet.Paperback$2299Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
This is Pleasure
'Gets deep under your skin ... Gaitskill is uniquely attuned to the moment.' - Sunday Times 'Gaitskill achieves a superb feat. She distils the suffering, anger, reactivity, danger and social recalibration of the #MeToo movement into an extremely potent, intelligent and nuanced account.' - Sarah Hall, Guardian 'I don't know why I behaved the way I did, and I kept...Paperback$1699Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Two Girls, Fat and Thin
A classic novel exploring loneliness and the nature of connection, from the bestselling author of Bad Behaviour. Dorothy Never—fat—lives alone in New York, spending her days alone ever since the downfall of her guru, the Ayn Rand-like Anna Granite. Justine Shade—thin—finds herself only able to connect with people who will hurt her and is writing an article about Anna Granite,...Paperback$2400Elsewhere:$2600Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips today -
Oppositions
‘Mary Gaitskill is willing to think about the problematic with complexity and humanity, and without taking sides or engaging in all the fashionable moral hectoring that passes for serious thought these days.’ - Eimear McBride Nuanced, daring and tender, these essays from the celebrated author of This is Pleasure and Bad Behavior, consistently fascinate and provoke. Mary Gaitskill takes on...Hardback$3999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Veronica
In this seductive and shattering novel, Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: one is a former modelling 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....PaperbackSold Out -
Don't Cry
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...PaperbackSold Out -
This is Pleasure
'The range of Gaitskill's humanity is astonishing' - LA Times 'I don't know why I behaved the way I did, and I kept doing it; he kept doing it. And though I might once have easily brushed it away, suddenly I could not. Nor could I confront him. The conversation moved too quickly.' Quin and Margot have been friends for...HardbackSold Out
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