Description

‘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.

Publisher Review

This new collection shows one of the great American writers continuing to evolve, proving that she can surprise as well as shock. * Sunday Times * Gaitskill's prose is conceptual, clean-limbed and immediate... The media still presents sex, despite progressive gestures, in such a limited, codified way that to read an author who takes it seriously, as one of the soul's deep concerns, is an experience to savour -- Vidyan Ravinthiran * Daily Telegraph * No writer understands and gratifies the voyeurism inherent in reading fiction better than Mary Gaitskill... Gaitskill writes with visceral power, with what sometimes feels like an exultantly destructive energy... They don't require suspense building toward a crisis and denouement, because they hold our attention with the promise of revealing what is ordinarily hidden from view. Hold it fiercely. Glimpses of what characters would forbid us to see are seductive, immediately involving. They insist we keep looking, just as we would at a car wreck; keep eavesdropping, as we would on a couple fighting next door; keep reading, as we would a diary left open by accident. The fierce artistry of Gaitskill's writing, its weirdly graceful introduction of the sublime into the sordid -- Kathryn Harrison * New York Times * Gaitskill is good at the throb and pop of cities and populates her stories with startling ugly-beautiful sentences. * Observer * Economical, intimate and unsparing, the story's control of perspective and acuity of insight give it the rich, satisfying feel of a novel. * Press Association * Each of the stories in Don't Cry ... makes for similarly hazardous reading, fractured with faultlines, traps for the unsteady reader ... in probing the unseemly, Gaitskill sees what others can't ... sentences throughout prickle with a similar tactile electricity, whether it's the soft glow of nostalgia ... brimming with this sensual and soothing disquiet, these stories are impossible to ignore. * Financial Times * Compelling -- Houman Barekat * Spectator * This new collection shows one of the great American writers continuing to evolve, proving that she can surprise as well as shock * Sunday Times * Praise for Mary Gaitskill: Gaitskill's work feels more real than real life and reading her leads to a place that feels like a sacred space. * Boston Globe * Both stripped-bare fragile and 'fuck you' tough. * Dazed & Confused * Gaitskill writes beautifully about the agonising emotions we often try to keep under wraps in real life. * Grazia * A sensitive, astute and uncompromising exploration of the beauty and ugliness of human relationships * Observer * Gaitskill is a formidably gifted, astute writer. * The Sunday Business Post * Praise for The Mare: Visceral and haunting, and the telling, with its shifting first person narrative, is nothing short of masterful. * GQ * A thoroughly compelling read ... redemptive and moving, The Mare offers as much fresh air for the author (and the reader) as it does for her characters. * Spectator * Penetrating ... confronts, head-on, white privilege and black victimhood. * Daily Mail * Emotionally complex voices crafted with skill and sensitivity. * Mail on Sunday * The Mare is a dark, dreamlike novel, at times nightmarish, at others offering glimpses of the sublime, shocking in its raw depiction of violence, and beautiful in its evocation of flawed love. * Financial Times * A devastatingly good novel * Psychologies Magazine * a thrillingly talented writer -- Joanna Briscoe * Guardian * Gaitskill is more than a gifted story-teller. She is an enchanter * New Republic *