Saturday, November 11, 2006

Happy Birthday, Mary Gaitskill!

The Writer's Almanac from American Public Media: "It's the birthday of the novelist and short-story writer Mary Gaitskill, (books by this author) born in Lexington Kentucky (1954). She had a difficult childhood. Her parents moved around a lot, and she never felt like she fit in anywhere. When she was 15, she was kicked out of boarding school. A psychiatrist recommended that her parents have her committed to a mental hospital. She ran away from home, but her parents tracked her down and had her hospitalized anyway. She was released after two months, and at the age of 16 she took off to San Francisco to live on her own."

There's an excerpt from Gaitskill's new novel in Murdaland, reason enough right there for you to get a copy if you haven't already.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gaitskill is a very dark literary, and every noir fiction fan should give her stuff a chance--especially her story collection BAD BEHAVIOR and the most recent novel, VERONICA.

Anonymous said...

A very dark literary WRITER, I mean to say. Probably obvious...

Anonymous said...

seemed amusingly vague. I vote for Gaitskill, too. Found her comment on how the film of "Secretary" Disneyfied the short story (in ZOETROPE ALL-STORY a few years back) almost as amusing as the story itself.