Human antagonism, compassion
Ted Gentle, Special to The Gazette
Friday, July 3, 2009
“Don’t Cry” by Mary Gaitskill, Pantheon Books, $16.29.
By Ted Gentle
Special to The Gazette
The principle strength of Mary Gaitskill’s “Don’t Cry” is its ability to evoke the depth and intricacy of its characters’ interpersonal relationships. Each story of the anthology begins with a highlighted moment or observation, usually involving a single character or intimate group of characters.
Dolores sits alone in a café in “College Town, 1980,” ignored by the waitress and covered in a scarf.
A musician and a young woman chat casually in a bar in “Mirror Ball.”
Jim Smith takes a train to Syracuse, N.Y., after returning from Iraq in “The Arms and Legs of the Lake.”
Joseph and Kevin set out for a hike in the woods after completing their master’s degrees in fine arts in “Description.”
Although these stories begin with a simple episode, however, they each slowly expand to reveal a greater pattern of thoughts, emotions, and personal connections. The main character or characters have startling new experiences that are intellectual, as in “The Agonized Face” or “Description,” rooted in memory, as in “An Old Virgin” or “Today I’m Yours,” and often fiercely sexual.
Each series of revelations takes the character and the reader to a new place, frightening and sad and joyful, that he or she “on the surface, would not understand.”
The most effective example of this is in the story “The Little Boy,” where a woman named Bea passes alone through an airport while vividly recalling memories of her family. Bea is introduced walking down a corridor of glowing lights on the way to her gate, speaking unintelligibly to herself. She glimpses a woman and her little boy and wonders whether she recognizes them.
As she makes the journey from this corridor to her final destination, the complicated relationship between the boy and her own memories is slowly revealed. Bea herself also gradually comes into focus, and we see that she is very different than our first introduction to her.
The character of Janice in the story “Don’t Cry” is a more dramatic example of such a revelation. Through an ingenious technique, she is revealed to have much greater depth of feeling and motivation than we initially suspect. These revelations are brought about through a sense of obligation in “Don’t Cry,” but they may just as easily lead to antagonism, manipulation and death. The one night stand of “Mirror Ball” is described as the abduction of a soul, and a serial killer follows the women of “Folk Song.”
Gaitskill’s collection describes a world that is as unpredictable, shocking and dangerous as human thought and sensation. As they cross each barrier, her characters discover a new part of themselves that may open their senses further or swallow them whole.
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