Because They Wanted to: Stories

Some readers may argue that Gaitskill's characters merely resist growing up, and it's certainly true that their lives are much more in an uproar, much more in flux than the lives of their peers who are married with children. And yet to dismiss them as piquant malcontents seems unfair--they are, after all, after a more profound and dangerous intimacy than the intimacy that might be found in more stable relationships. Gaitskill has also managed to achieve, in this third book, a moving away from the voyeuristic; this has made the work inevitably quieter, and has even made some of the characters seem almost "normal". In Tiny, Smiling Daddy, the opening story in Because They Wanted To, a sexually prodigal daughter discharges "her strange jangling beauty" into her father's house, "changing the molecules of its air". In another story (Processing), a waitress, "vibrant with purpose" pours water for her dinner guests "with a harried rattle of ice". At a party in Palo Alto, light "runs and flirts on silverware". All of these glimpses into Gaitskill's latest stories illustrate how charged her language can be, and how much it is animated (in spite of its dark themes) by both boldness and joie de vivre. In other Gaitskill stories, many of the characters act as impish raconteurs of narratives that reveal their own pain or shame. Their audience is made up of a sort of floating opera of fast friends, scoffers, and therapists manque. Privacy is sacrificed to get at "the truth" about both intimacy and the potential that life has for the playful (and in particular for the sexually playful) to be extended into adulthood. But sex, in Gaitskill's world, is mischievous, cerebral, brutal, or even described with an almost dainty candour, the one thing it is not is sexy. There are also exquisite moments of non-sexual tenderness. In one of the final stories, a poet who teaches at Berkeley says of one of her students: "He didn't write very well, but he was a passionate student and so was a favourite of mine. He took me in with a wistful, subtle movement of his eyes. I felt him accept my fondness and shyly give it back. Without knowing it, he comforted me." But then Gaitskill's theme is (and always has been) intimacy: how to find it, create it, retrieve it, bestow it. And also--and this is where the tragedy in much of her work locates itself--how it's only longed for, squandered, or lost.

Mary Gaitskill's second story collection, "Because They Wanted To," seemed to me just as fresh as her first, with a quieter, deeper reflection on the human condition and dazzling gems of insight imbedded in its rich foundation. Each of the twelve stories (eight stories and four connected stories within a novella) is a tale of unrequited love in varying forms and degrees. In "Tiny, Smiling Daddy," a father discovers his lesbian daughter has published an article about their relationship; in "Because They Wanted To," a destitute runaway agrees to baby sit a stranger's three children for an afternoon while the woman hunts for a job, and reflects on the past that drove her to Canada; and in "The Girl on the Plane," a man is seated next to a woman that reminds him of a woman he once gang-raped and when confronted with the brutality of the act, desperately searches for ways in which he could excuse or explain his behavior. I most admire Gaitskill's incredible ability to pin down the nuanced behaviors and thoughts that make us all paradoxically universal and unique.

I loved this book! It?s a collection of short stories about men and women of all ages (mostly in their 30s though). Gaitskill has a beautiful style of writing. Her descriptions are wonderfully unique and filled with imagery. All of the relationships she portrays are fascinating because all of her characters are damaged in one way or another. Some of my favorite stories (almost all of them, really) were Tiny Smiling Daddy, about the father who recalls and regrets his reaction to learning of his daughter's "coming out." Because They Wanted To, was about Elise, a 16 year-old runaway who takes care of a stranger's kids. Orchid, about old friends seeing each other after so many years, thus stirring up memories of a close friendship bordering on love. The Blanket, about a relationship between an older woman and a younger man. Finally there's one of my favorites, Girl on a Plane, where a man looks back on his misdeeds after meeting a woman who mysteriously reminds him of a girl he once knew. Then there's The Dentist, where a girl named Jill endlessly chases this man whom the author gives no name (which clues you into his personality!). In the last four stories, the narration changes to the first person and takes on a much more lively pace. However, that does not take away the depth of the all of the preceding stories.Gaitskill is flawless at exposing the complexities of the human psyche. Furthermore, she exposes the maddening efforts people make to connect with one another. Illustrating every character as a unique individual, Gaitskill gives each person his or her own set of baggage, idiosyncrasies, and methods of survival. Instead of simple love stories where boy meets girl--boy and girl fall in love--they live happily ever after, here's a a collection of relationships, each with their own harrowing progressions, ups and downs, and a million different paths of resolution, not all necessarily "happy." As an amateur writer, I'm inspired by her work and each story teaches me something new.

I've been a short story fan since I was a teen, had a love-hate relationship with the New Yorker ever since. Too many short stories follow that formula--middle class protaganists, emphasis on interior life rather than plot, conflict deriving from relationships, with the epiphany arriving right on schedule in the last 2 pages. Updike and Munro do this really well. Even though Mary Gaitskill's collection follows some of these rules, I found it breathtakingly original and powerful. She pushes the interiority of her characters to an extreme, and I'd have to say the single trait of these stories I admire most is their ability to make you feel what her characters do. Forget plot, for the most part--the value here is in the subtle observations of love and sexuality. These stories have an edge unknown to your average buttoned-down New Yorker writer--only Thom Jones at his best can surpass her there. With Gaitskill, Jones and Junot Diaz, we're finally starting to get some short story writers who don't seem to have spent their lives hiding in the suburbs. Don't read this book in a hurry--savor it.

Mary Gaitskill showed in her previous stories a talent for dissecting the difficulties of human relationships. Now she demonstrates yet sharper blades and a surer cut. There is often a female protagonist who has an urgent need to love and to be loved, but who also has a tendency to turn a moment of developing intimacy and connection into one of separation. She responds to external cues, but often she seems to respond more strongly to coiled internal ones. The sense of this inner dimension grows as one reads more of Ms. Gaitskill1s stories. There is an emotional continuity, the same searching and not finding. What is new in this collection is her dissection of adult-child relationships, and her increased facility at shifting roles and viewpoints. Her portrayals of men in "Tiny, Smiling Daddy" and in several other stories are extraordinarily affecting. The short story form suits her purposes very well. In the end, the people in Mary Gaitskill's stories still fail to connect with one another, but the author connects with each so very well, and knows each so intimately, that one hopes, however naively, that someday there might be reconciliation