Try our Advanced SearchShort stories by Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories (1993, 2006, 2012, 2020), and The O. Henry Prize Stories (1998, 2008). Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky. She has lived in New York City, Toronto, San Francisco, Marin County and Pennsylvania, as well as attending the University of Michigan, where she earned her B.A. in 1981[1] and won a Hopwood Award. She sold flowers in San Francisco as a teenage runaway. In a conversation with novelist and short story writer Matthew Sharpe for BOMB Magazine, Gaitskill said she chose to become a writer at age 18 because she was "indignant about things—it was the typical teenage sense of 'things are wrong in the world and I must say something.'"[2] Gaitskill has also recounted (in her essay "Revelation") becoming a born-again Christian at age 21 but lapsing after six months. She married the writer Peter Trachtenberg in 2001. They divorced in 2010.[3] Gaitskill has taught at UC Berkeley, the University of Houston, New York University, The New School, Brown University, in the MFA program at Temple University[4] and Syracuse University. She was the Writer-In-Residence at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. As of 2020, Gaitskill is a visiting professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College.[5]
Listing 5 stories.
A woman on a grand jury hears the case of an older woman who was brutally raped by one of her former students. She attempts to understand the different ways the story disturbs her.
Sitting on a plane headed for Cincinnati, a man meets a woman who reminds him of a girl he once knew, and the worst thing he's ever done.
An encounter with a little boy and his abusive mother at an airport causes an old woman to reflect upon her relationship with her children and her late, depressive, and abusive ex-husband.
A quasi-reformed stalker worries about the influence of his creepy behaviors on his son.
An aging female author recalls the intimate and vivid memories of a fifteen-year-long love affair with another woman. The elusive relationship between them stretches across time and distance as both women keep pace with their own lives.