Scan barcode
A review by balancinghistorybooks
Don't Cry by Mary Gaitskill
2.0
Mary Gaitskill's short story collection, Don't Cry, was first published in the USA in 2009, and in the United Kingdom in 2017. Gaitskill was not an author whom I had read before, but I'd heard such great things about her writing, and consequently picked up Don't Cry when browsing in my local library.
Described as 'full of jagged, lived emotion and powerful, incisive writing', I was certainly intrigued by this collection, which is made up of ten stories. Gaitskill's opening sentences are often quite startling and unusual, and sometimes packed a real punch. 'College Town, 1980', for instance, begins: 'Dolores did not look good in a scarf'; and 'Mirror Bowl' opens 'He took her soul - though, being a secular-minded person, he didn't think about it that way'. They also provide a sense of intrigue. 'Don't Cry', the title story, has 'Our first day in Addis Ababa, we woke up to wedding music playing outside our hotel' as its first sentence.
I admired Gaitskill's skill at creating striking sentences and images, but found that there was perhaps a little too much sexual content, darkness, and grit in Don't Cry for my personal taste. I found a few of the stories grotesque, and quite difficult to read in consequence. Whilst Gaitskill's stories are largely about everyday occurrences, she twists them around until they seem nasty and unsettling. Only some of her characters interested me, and I wasn't that taken by her quite matter-of-fact writing. The title story in the collection was by far my favourite, but it has not led me to want to pick up any more of Gaitskill's work in future.
Described as 'full of jagged, lived emotion and powerful, incisive writing', I was certainly intrigued by this collection, which is made up of ten stories. Gaitskill's opening sentences are often quite startling and unusual, and sometimes packed a real punch. 'College Town, 1980', for instance, begins: 'Dolores did not look good in a scarf'; and 'Mirror Bowl' opens 'He took her soul - though, being a secular-minded person, he didn't think about it that way'. They also provide a sense of intrigue. 'Don't Cry', the title story, has 'Our first day in Addis Ababa, we woke up to wedding music playing outside our hotel' as its first sentence.
I admired Gaitskill's skill at creating striking sentences and images, but found that there was perhaps a little too much sexual content, darkness, and grit in Don't Cry for my personal taste. I found a few of the stories grotesque, and quite difficult to read in consequence. Whilst Gaitskill's stories are largely about everyday occurrences, she twists them around until they seem nasty and unsettling. Only some of her characters interested me, and I wasn't that taken by her quite matter-of-fact writing. The title story in the collection was by far my favourite, but it has not led me to want to pick up any more of Gaitskill's work in future.