Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 23/04/2025The original working title of Looking for Trouble was Dad Behavior 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 09/04/2025A new Thomas Pynchon in 2025—I’ll admit, the sophomore gags always got on my nerves, and we were never big potheads back in the 80s, but: the man has always had a real knack for timing. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/316427...penguinrandomhouse.comShadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon: 9781594206108 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: BooksThe new novel from Thomas Pynchon Milwaukee 1932, the Great Depression going full blast, repeal of Prohibition just around the corner, Al Capone in the federal pen, the private investigation busines... 020
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 22/02/2025Brodernism—stupid word. But there’s always been something embarrassing about the way critics fawn over these doorstoppers. That said, without all the far-flung world lit in translation the culture would be in a sorry state. lareviewofbooks.org/article/agai...lareviewofbooks.orgAgainst High Brodernism | Los Angeles Review of BooksFederico Perelmuter considers László Krasznahorkai’s “Herscht 07769,” translated by Ottilie Mulzet. 061
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/01/2025Not to discredit Lynch. I loved the show, of course. And the first few films, Eraserhead and Blue Velvet in particular… we all loved them. 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/01/2025This is a classic TV trope, isn’t it? 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 15/01/2025They really should launch an editorial wing. They have the money to pay writers, and who wouldn’t want the exposure? 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 14/01/2025“Mean girls only ever get away with such a stunt while they’re hot. Like any fad, it doesn’t last forever.” Finally someone hits those two where they live. 0121
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 30/12/2024The concept of the it girl is baffling. What is it. A girl who does drugs? We used to just call them girls. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/12/2024This is the thing about Bret: you went to his house because he opened his door knowing people would take advantage of the opportunity. You didn’t go because you were so excited to hang out at his pathetic apartment. Sure, he had drugs. He was a snob from LA. 010
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/12/2024I went to plenty of these parties. They were a chore. I had much more fun getting up to the same shenanigans at my friends’ apartments on a Tuesday. At least, until those same friends turned into helpless degenerates. 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/12/2024Is this what passes for decadent these days? People having sex with each other? People using drugs? www.thecut.com/article/publ...thecut.comTen Stories From Wild Publishing-Office Holiday Parties of YoreToday, it’s pizza in the conference room, but back in the day, there was caviar, Champagne, and some questionable behavior. 110
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 13/12/2024I could take Burroughs one-on-one, I think. But the whole gang? No way. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 13/12/2024Have thought about it plenty and I’m fairly certain the ultimate nightmare joint rotation (the word “blunt” was never in our drug vocabulary) would have to be Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Kerouac. 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 09/12/2024At least one life (the kid’s) could have been saved. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 09/12/2024Shame the shooter never followed through with Infinite Jest. Wallace is usually a reliable gateway drug to the ultimate literary chronicle of Gen X manhood: Looking for Trouble, by yours truly. 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 07/12/2024As always my recommendation to young men (and everyone) is to read A Nancy and A Bruiser (1991) by Male Mary Gaitskill 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 07/12/2024If anyone at @nytimes.com is interested in answering this question I’d be happy to do the dirty work. 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 07/12/2024Every day someone else is saying this. But who are these guys, really? Not the writers, the red-pilled dolts. Has anyone sat down with any of them? What are they actually like? www.nytimes.com/2024/12/07/o...nytimes.comOpinion | The Disappearance of Literary Men Should Worry EveryoneWhat happens if half the population is no longer involved in reading and writing? 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 05/12/2024Foster Wallace and Steely Dan—two flavors that do NOT go together. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 29/11/2024Up until about ten years ago you would be “on the phone.” Now you’re “on a call.” Ridiculous. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 28/11/2024There are some good questions here, if I might not answer them all the same way. Regardless it’s worth the read for the savvy debunking from Kenner and the perfect dismissal of Barney as “high on his own supply.” 010
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 25/11/2024This is the only reason I read books. 020
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 25/11/2024This could actually be useful. Fewer bad manuscripts clogging up the slush pile at real publishers and agencies. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 24/11/2024This kid’s nothing but a wannabe so far, but—there’s no denying this kind of up-your-own-ass insouciance is what many great novelists are made of slate.com/culture/2024...slate.comHe Bungled the Literary Scoop of the Year. Now He’s Ready to Explain Himself.An interview with the Vanity Fair writer whose astounding revelations about Cormac McCarthy went viral for all the wrong reasons. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 23/11/2024What is this supposed to mean, exactly? 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 22/11/2024Maybe I met Dave once or twice. I definitely never intuited any of what’s documented here in person. But in his work… that’s a different story. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 22/11/2024All authors are narcissists, but it takes a special kind of narcissist to use literature—and your family—to build your own commercial empire www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/ar...hollywoodreporter.comA Heartbreaking Rift of Staggering Intensity: Toph Eggers on His Estrangement From Brother DaveIntroduced to millions as the kid in Dave Eggers’ 'A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius,' Toph re-emerges to reclaim his tragic family history and explain why his famous sibling is no longer a pa... 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 22/11/2024Well… the hordes have come for me before. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 22/11/2024Two marquee male names in American fiction tarnished in one week… will I be next?! 100
Reposted by Male Mary Gaitskilljoycecaroloates.bsky.social @joycecaroloates.bsky.social · 21/11/2024One reviewer grumbled about the parentheses—(but we know that it’s inside the parenthesis that reality happens). 1355
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/11/2024There was even a time in the late nineties when I was asked to do a panel of male writers on sex. It never happened. They couldn’t find anyone else to do it. Chabon, Lethem, Safran Foer—none of them was eligible. They asked Vollmann but, of course, he was in Antarctica. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/11/2024Without being too self-righteous about it, maybe this is why male writers need to write about sex? I don’t think I ever had the same kind of distorted psyche as McCarthy, but writing A Nancy and a Bruiser when I did definitely helped me sort a few things out. 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/11/2024We’ve known this about rock stars forever. Bowie, Zeppelin, etc. What made everyone think writers were in some class of their own? 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 21/11/2024If we’re going to go down this road… what do we think the odds are that, say, Faulkner also had a teenage mistress no one knew about? Joyce? Dickens? 100
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 20/11/2024Here, for example—not only is it hard to tell where the reality ends and where the fantasy begins, it’s not even clear whose fantasy this is. 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 20/11/2024This is plenty entertaining—but I’m not sure yet whether the woman Vincenzo Barney (an Italian dinosaur, I’m guessing) is profiling is Cormac McCarthy’s secret muse or Barney’s www.vanityfair.com/style/story/...vanityfair.comCormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: “I Loved Him. He Was My Safety.”When he was 42, Cormac McCarthy fell in love with a 16-year-old girl he met by a motel pool. Augusta Britt would go on to become one of the most significant—and secret—inspirations in literary history... 000
Reposted by Male Mary Gaitskillspeedy ortiz ÷ sad13 ÷ sadie dupuis ÷ haunted guy @sad13.horse · 20/11/2024kathy acker, ‘great expectations’ 2255
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 19/11/2024An exquisite irony: the incel king conquers the virgin kingdom, only to see his subjects flee and finally sow their oats in their adopted homeland. 000
Reposted by Male Mary GaitskillMoira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 19/11/2024It is honestly a sign of progress that no feminist has written a “Stop kink shaming Matt Gaetz” piece. 1652118
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 19/11/2024I won’t deny that Kissick is on to something about the cynicism of the art-market’s political bent—but the “transgression” he longs for, the “deranged” character of the art world of a decade or so ago… that could get pretty damn boring too harpers.org/archive/2024...harpers.orgThe Painted Protest, by Dean KissickHow politics destroyed contemporary art 020
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Maybe. But is it not also, occasionally, the only way to realistically assess and thus, the only way to move forward? 000
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/11/2024This whole crisis of masculinity thing—used to be Mailer would spin his wheels in Harper’s and we’d all have a good laugh. Sad to see it’s gotten so dour. 010
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Maybe young men just need someone cool to look up to who’s actually attracted to and motivated by female prowess, instead of utterly paralyzed with fear of it? 020
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Back in the eighties and nineties you could be a swaggering prick without resorting to these kinds of pathetic lunkhead tropes. You could even be politically left wing. 110
Male Mary Gaitskill @malemarygaitskill.bsky.social · 18/11/2024This is quite a piece—Sophie Kemp is good. But I’m also troubled by the notion that this Bronze Age conception of masculinity is the only one young men will actually find seductive. lareviewofbooks.org/article/new-...lareviewofbooks.orgNew Tyrannies | Los Angeles Review of BooksSophie Kemp considers the recent and ongoing radicalization of young men in the United States. 140