Out of It

Aug 5, 2024 | marygaitskill.substack.com | Mary Gaitskill

'Something Beautiful', as always with Mary, so evocative and incisive, a delightful read. Going by the sneak peek of the three sisters and their revolting father, two things that struck me: How siblings can be so different, despite a lifetime of shared experience, experience that, in this case, bonds thicker than blood.

Aug 5, 2024 | marygaitskill.substack.com | Mary Gaitskill

It’s been a very long minute. During the last few months I’ve thought of subjects to post about and hesitated because, given the monstrous events cresting and crashing around us—especially the ongoing, rapidly escalating horror in Gaza and now in Lebanon, Northern Israel and the West Bank—almost anything else, even things that I know are important in their own right, seem trivial. I’ve also, frankly, become subject to exhaustion that feels physical.

Dec 31, 2023 | marygaitskill.substack.com | Mary Gaitskill

“…the worst of war is the fear and suspicion and the awful expression in all the eyes you meet…as if they had pulled down the shutters over their minds and hearts and were peering out at you, ready to leap if you make one gesture or say one word they do not understand instantly. It frightens me…it’s the skulking about, and the lying.

Apr 28, 2023 | marygaitskill.substack.com | Mary Gaitskill

This is a follow-up to my last post The Despair of the Young; if you haven’t read that one, it will be hard to follow this one.

Apr 14, 2023 | marygaitskill.substack.com | Mary Gaitskill

This is very long for SStack. I didn’t write it originally for SStack, though I was certainly thinking about it—the despair of the young—when I started this project. My thoughts eventually took the form of this essay about a weird, wrenching experience I had teaching last year (which will likely be, by my choice, my last teaching experience).