Mary Gaitskill

Mary Gaitskill is a writer who has built her career on illuminating the uneasy spaces between people—the moments of vulnerability, desire, cruelty, and connection that many prefer to keep hidden. Born in Michigan and drawn to New York City in her youth, she spent years observing the city’s beauty and abrasiveness in equal measure. Those early impressions shaped her debut collection Bad Behavior, a book that made her an instant literary voice to watch.

Since then, Gaitskill has published novels and story collections including Two Girls, Fat and Thin; Veronica; Don’t Cry; This Is Pleasure; and The Devil’s Treasure: A Book of Stories and Dreams. Her work has earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship and an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and has been praised for its precision, fearlessness, and ability to pierce through social surfaces to reveal what’s beneath.