A review by emilylandry
Two Girls Fat and Thin by Mary Gaitskill

5.0

Mary Gaitskill is one of my favorite authors. Her stories and novels are frightening, dark, and revealing. Her characters are often cruel, scared, ugly, and in pain. But they also seem familiar somehow, and sympathetic even when they should be unlikeable. Gaitskill's "girls" in this novel are developed through vignettes about their childhoods interspersed with present interactions between themselves and with others. I love this book especially for its satire of Ayn Rand (Anna Granite) and Objectivism (Definitism); Justine, a Manhattan journalist, and Dorothy, a former follower of Definitism, meet when Justine begins working on a research article on the movement. Like other Gaitskill characters, the tenuous relationship between Justine and Dorothy, both of whom seem to clearly self-identify as straight, has queer overtones. One review states that this book shows, once again, "how family fucks you up." Beyond that, I think this book is about how adults (from fucked up families or not) can become so isolated and the ways that they try to compensate for scarce emotional connections.