Don't Cry (Vintage Contemporaries)

I picked up Mary Gaitskill's "Don't Cry" after a fiction writing instructor (at a continuing ed course I took) told me that my writing was reminding him of her style, which he described as "exceptional" I think. Or a similar adjective starting with "e," I don't have the greatest memory and this was many years ago. I did not realize what a compliment he was paying me at the time. "Don't Cry" had a profound effect on me and helped to expand and liberate my mind in realizing what I am "allowed to write about." That might sound strange, but the way that Gaitskill tackles these societally taboo/off-limits subjects with such grace and humanity and imagery and skill, well, it inspired me. I actually think she and I might be on a similar wavelength in the collective consciousness because some of the stories in this collection were referencing things that have happened to me or people close to me or which I've heard and thought about, to the point where it was kind of eerie. I hope someday I will be able to write something containing even a fraction of the talent and skill and insight she creates. She is a huge inspiration to me, and this is my favorite collection of stories that I have read of hers so far. I just love it.

This is an excellent collection of short stories by a superb prose stylist with insight into the human condition. A few stories don't quite measure up and meander without many revelations, but overall this is quite compelling.

As my work hours grew longer and I did more business travel, I switched from reading novels to short stories every night. I am always on the lookout for a new collection to devour.Don't Cry is the fifth book Mary Gaitskill has written in the past two decades. Her 2005 novel Veronica was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Unfortunately, most people recognize her name from the movie Secretary, which is very loosely based on her short story Secretary in her Bad Behavior collection.Gaitskill is an author of unexpected depth that deserves a much wider audience. Hopefully the stories in Don't Cry will bring her a wider audience. She is fearless when it comes to dealing with emotional issues - especially with the effects of death on the human psyche.The title story Don't Cry deals with Janice, a creative writing professor who finally comes to terms with the death of her husband who suffered Alzheimer's. In The Little Boy, Bea copes with the death of her apathetic husband in a different way. These two stories stayed with me more than the others, as it seems in real life women always outlive their partners.I enjoyed reading all of the stories in this collection and look forward to Gaitskills' next set of short stories.

Mary Gaitskill invariably lifts the facades and personas of everyday life to present the human condition with raw power. She raises the most repressed unconscious thoughts and fantasies into the daylight of consciousness and "tells it like it is." I find it quite refreshing to read through these stories and respond with awe to her often astonishing characterizations. Written in a crisp, spare style with a lot of inner feeling and dialogue, these stories will leave you with singular, satisfying impact.

I've really enjoyed Mary Gaitskill's other work. The perspectives in Don't Cry, however, are much too negative for me. It seems that every woman in every story gets robbed of something precious when she engages sexually with a partner. While I found other women in Gaitskill's fiction interesting and powerful, the tone here was simply too dreary. The stories seemed redundant and I didn't finish the entire collection for fear of either jumping out the window or denouncing men for all eternity.

Very good short erstorieser

In one of the stories leading to the series Sandman: Season of the Mists, Neil Gaiman references an African village culture in which the women speak a different language among themselves than the men do and that no wise man learns it. Mary Gaitskill's story collection, Don't Cry, bears him out perfectly.It is difficult for me to say that I can do Gaitskill justice in a review of these stories because I have to admit that couldn't finish reading them no matter how hard I tried--and I did try. The problem with them is not that they are bad stories nor that Gaitskill is a bad writer (nothing could be further from the truth in either case) but that for a man reading Gaitskill again, long after having read the stories in the Bad Behavior collection, reading the stories in "Don't Cry" creates a leaden sense of deja vu.Mary Gaitskill's lifetime theme is women damaged by participation in a male-dominated, consumer culture and if that is what you expect and need, the majority of stories in "Don't Cry" will not disappoint you.In "Don't Cry," the women are more than damaged, they are chewed by dragons. They pull their hair out; they go through the motions in lives leached of purpose and seethe in silent rage as their friends turn to gossip and they can only watch through a haze of antidepressants at relationships they can never have.Gaitskill gives the reader women whose lives read like wandering a dreamscape. Sometimes Gaitskill's women are like unsellable products and to read about them is to witness nightmares rolled out of pain and self-loathing. Take this passage from the beginning of the opening story of the collection, "College Town, 1980":"...Thus it was not a good idea to pull her hair back with a scarf.Dolores knew this. She hated wearing the scarf, but she'd recently pulled huge chunks of her hair out and her head looked so weird that a scarf was necessary. It was the second episode if its kind in her life, and yet, now as then, she couldn't remember why it had ever been satisfying to pull her hair out, or even how it had felt, although you'd think it would have hurt. As if to remind herself, she'd actually kept the hair in a little box, until the sight of it sickened her one day..."The problem with things like this, with stories built around self-loathing and helplessness on the part of women or anyone else, is that if you've read one of them, you've read all of them and not even Gaitskill's intricate understanding of styles can make the substance of her stories or the structure of them more compelling.At the end of the day, reading many of the stories in "Don't Cry" collection leaves you wishing you could meet Ms Gaitskill and say, "Fine, message sent, lesson learned--what else have you got?" and this is a shame because Mary Gaitskill is not a good writer, but a great one; capable of all the elegant spareness that made Hemingway famous and making it work.She is a writer whose talent, ability and skills are things that should make any writer who aspires to art envious of her. Unfortunately, Gaitskill's status as a great writer only serves to remind you that there are or have been other great writers capable of beauty and technique--Marguerite Duras and Margaret Atwood come to mind--who can write about women in ways that make you understand all that Gaitskill has to say together with worlds of other things.To make the point bluntly, reading "Don't Cry" makes you wish that Ms Gaitskill would write something else.

Though it may not be for everyone what I love most about Gaitskill's writing is how very true it feels. Her descriptions and situations are never idealized or glossy - everything is gritty and sharp and blatant, even when that means overtly sexual or disgusting or what many people would consider deviant or perverted.The choice of Don't Cry as the overall title of the collection was a good one. Each story very much speaks to the need for great inner strength. Only in Don't Cry, does a character break down, let go, and cry.The subjects of the short stories are women, relationships, sex, turmoil, souls and soul-speak, writing, aging, grief, death (of a partner, in particular), inner strength.Mary Gaitskill is an author I wish I were able to write like but even if I did possess her talents I don’t know if I would be brave enough to.

A superb collection of short stories. Gaitskill's muscular prose uncovers moments of startling emotional clarity. The stories pivot on those points of connection we can share as human beings, whether we know each other or not. I was struck by how well she writes about the impact of emotional contact with strangers. We are so used to reading stories about relationships: to see this other experience (where a shared look might have the potential to change a life) represented in fiction, felt like truth-telling of the best kind. Gaitksill is staggeringly perceptive and honest; in this collection, she also presents us with our hope.

"The Agonized Face" is worth the price of admission, and a reminder Mary Gaitskill at her simmering and cynical best. Other stories in the collection are less compelling. Read Bad Behaviour first, and if you're drawn to Gaitskill's particular brand of wilted-rose genius, maybe give Don't Cry a try.

i just lover her writing style and insight into relationships, so easy to read and relate to