Because They Wanted To by Mary Gaitskill
#57 in my 2007 Book Challenge was Mary Gaitskill’s Because They Wanted To, which has sat on my bookshelf in four different abodes over nearly ten years. I should have read this book when I bought it; it would have meant more to me then. Gaitskill’s stories are skillfully crafted and full of painstaking and painful emotional truths, many of which cut so deep I had to set down the book. But they are stories of young women, crashing bullishly through often brutal relationships. Frequently bruised literally and figuratively, though never entirely broken, Gaitskill’s girls are tough to take. Gaitskill’s honesty about the ugliness that underlies so much of sexual relationships is astonishing in its insight and clarity. Ultimately, though, I wanted to shake these girls and tell them to get on with it, to use their obvious talents and move toward maturity, rather than continuing to muck about in their own emotional detritus. Some books I read and appreciate more now that I’m older, married, and a mother. This, I would have appreciated more then, when such things were more relevant. Now, they just feel distant and somewhat poignant, which hardly does justice to the potential power of these stories.
A disturbing recollection: before the book was published, a male friend, with whom I often discussed books, gave me a photocopy of the story “The Girl on the Plane” and said he’d thought it good. Re-reading this story, about a man who confesses to participating in a gang rape of a friend of his, I am bewildered that I did not take offense at this at the time. WTF?
December 31st, 2007 at 11:01 am
Odd story to suggest to a female friend, one would think!