Genre Fiction
![Mary Gaitskill - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_mary_gaitskill.jpg)
This Is Pleasure: A Story
Starting with Bad Behavior in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In This Is Pleasure, she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident.
The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated unforgivable transgressions toward women in his orbit. But are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin's friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating Quin's and Margot's voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons-hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable.
Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way that she could approach this subject because it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters-and to her readers-is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don't always admire them, is a gesture of humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.
The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated unforgivable transgressions toward women in his orbit. But are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin's friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating Quin's and Margot's voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons-hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable.
Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way that she could approach this subject because it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters-and to her readers-is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don't always admire them, is a gesture of humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.
Editorial Reviews
"Give it to someone you want to talk to . . . It is time to have these conversations, to explore the nuances . . . Mary Gaitskill, who practically invented female sexual agency in her 1988 debut collection, Bad Behavior . . . is just the person to take on the task of questioning #MeToo's harasser vs. victim scenarios in a fictional context." -Marion Winik, The Washington Post
"A tale for our time, if ever there was one." -Katy Thompsett, Refinery29
"Incendiary . . . Enigmatic and ambiguous . . . In This Is Pleasure, one of our greatest living writers brings to the most inflammatory of topics nuance, subtlety, and a capacious humanity that grants mercy even as it never excuses." -Priscilla Gilman, The Boston Globe
"A must-read." -People
"Clean, rigorous prose . . . An exquisitely compressed, morally tangly saga [that] gets deep under your skin . . . [Gaitskill] writes fiction that militates against easy answers." -Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Sunday Times (London)
"[A] timely, provocative work . . . This Is Pleasure dares to seek nuance in the #MeToo orthodoxy." -Kurt Wenzel, The East Hampton Star (The Year's 10 Best Books)
"A brilliant expedition across the minefields of the #MeToo wars. Detailing the fall of a massively handsy New York book editor, it's a deft and funny and thought-provoking story, and it never shies away from the most difficult truths, such as the way that men who genuinely listen to women can subsequently get away with almost anything. Gaitskill's fiction gets close in to the migraine whine of the contemporary moment like that of few others." -Kevin Barry, The Irish Times
"Formidable . . . In fewer than 100 pages, 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. She pares a single story from the chorus of condemnations, with their similarities, varieties, truths...
"A tale for our time, if ever there was one." -Katy Thompsett, Refinery29
"Incendiary . . . Enigmatic and ambiguous . . . In This Is Pleasure, one of our greatest living writers brings to the most inflammatory of topics nuance, subtlety, and a capacious humanity that grants mercy even as it never excuses." -Priscilla Gilman, The Boston Globe
"A must-read." -People
"Clean, rigorous prose . . . An exquisitely compressed, morally tangly saga [that] gets deep under your skin . . . [Gaitskill] writes fiction that militates against easy answers." -Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Sunday Times (London)
"[A] timely, provocative work . . . This Is Pleasure dares to seek nuance in the #MeToo orthodoxy." -Kurt Wenzel, The East Hampton Star (The Year's 10 Best Books)
"A brilliant expedition across the minefields of the #MeToo wars. Detailing the fall of a massively handsy New York book editor, it's a deft and funny and thought-provoking story, and it never shies away from the most difficult truths, such as the way that men who genuinely listen to women can subsequently get away with almost anything. Gaitskill's fiction gets close in to the migraine whine of the contemporary moment like that of few others." -Kevin Barry, The Irish Times
"Formidable . . . In fewer than 100 pages, 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. She pares a single story from the chorus of condemnations, with their similarities, varieties, truths...
Readers Top Reviews
Anna Lee Adams Joa
A quick read with a different perspective. Well worth reading.
Jelly Bean
Mary is a literary goddess. The Mare is one of my favorite books. This was smart and highly engaging as usual, my only complaint is that to was too short! Write more Mary. I heart you.
Jennifer
For everyone. For women who have had those subtly uncomfortable there-is-something-wrong-with-this (or am I overreacting) moments, for men who think #metoo is much ado about nothing and wonder whether they have been guilty too, for women who have been there, suffered that, and been doubted and maligned. When people dismiss women/people’s pain over being disrespected by men/people in power who are “just harmlessly flirting” or “it was a 2-way street” (when it wasn’t) or “we were just having fun” (guess what, only you were). Not a strident feminist diatribe, just a story from the point of view of a hapless but not-innocent man facing his #metoo moment and his friend’s mixed feelings about him and his behavior. But make no mistake, the “victims” for lack of a better word and the “abuses” (sorry but they are, even if their entitlement blinds them to that) can be any gender. Obviously, this book moved me tremendously.
S. Dennis
I venture to say that no one has tackled the subject of the impact of #metoo on the men of my generation with more sensitivity, more insight, more nuance than this author in this amazing short piece. Reading it, I am reminded of the woman who destroyed the career of a comedian turned Senator with accusations of conduct at a USO show, only to have details emerge about another obviously more favored comedian making what turned out to be "welcomed" advances (how does one really know the difference, in many cases?) at a USO show that apparenly did not prompt her to make similar efforts to destroy THAT career. I guess the only way to win is not to play (see War Games) and that is a sad way for us to have to move forward.
Ruth Rosamond
What a fabulous novella. This story is for those of us (so many) who have sensed there is something not quite tangible, but definitely something off in the way a man is making us feel. Inappropriate touching, suggestions on how we can look sexier/more interesting/more youthful/more appealing, the implication we, as women, need to spice things up in order to be approved. We are (unconsciously?) being objectified instead of respected, treated as less important, less viable as humans. How often does this happen in reverse, where a woman makes these “harmless” suggestions of improvement to men, or men make these moves and flirt “harmlessly” with a man in work or social environments? Subtle and not-so-subtle sexism is mostly gender based against women. Mary Gaitskill brilliantly demonstrates the art of ambiguity through persistent lack of insight in the man’s behaviour, seen through his own eyes, side by side with the growing realisation, from the woman’s point of view, that her friend is not at all a nice man. While the #metoo movement isn’t mentioned, this story has been written in a time when women are becoming conscious of the reality of sexual harassment and that it’s okay to object to behaviour that makes women feel awkward or embarrassed, and that it’s not okay to pretend nothing happened, to brush it under the carpet.
Short Excerpt Teaser
"I don't want to say, ‘I don't understand.' That's weak and whining," I said. "And besides, I do understand."
"What do you understand?" she asked.
I answered calmly. "That this is the end of men like me. That they are angry at what's happening in the country and in the government. They can't strike at the king, so they go for the jester. They may not win now, but eventually they will. And who am I to stand in the way? I don't want to stand in the way."
"What do you understand?" she asked.
I answered calmly. "That this is the end of men like me. That they are angry at what's happening in the country and in the government. They can't strike at the king, so they go for the jester. They may not win now, but eventually they will. And who am I to stand in the way? I don't want to stand in the way."
