Book description
A New York Times Notable Book
A man tells a story to a woman sitting beside him on a plane, little suspecting what it reveals about his capacity for cruelty and contempt. A callow runaway girl is stranded in a strange city with another woman’s fractiously needy children. An uncomprehending…
Why read it?
1 author picked Because They Wanted to as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Mary Gaitskill is capable of infuriating empathy. I shouldn’t be invested in her characters as deeply as I am: The vagrant in love with her toxic brother; the aging suburbanite who once raped a friend; the homophobic, abusive midwestern father. Gaitskill tackles one difficult character after another through her surgical exploration of the human experience: All the embarrassing things people hate about themselves, the nervous tics, the in-jokes, the often contradictory feelings running through our heads.
Just when you think you’ve got her pegged as this dark, gothic writer pumping out weird sex stories, she crafts a hilarious piece about…
From Elwin's list on The best books that stare into the abyss.
If you love Because They Wanted to...
Slow Blink
Archy was living out of the dumpsters of the apartment complex when Louise moved in. She noticed him. He noticed her too.
It took months to earn his trust. He stayed for one year. What happened in that year—and in the years following his death—became the story she spent thirty-five…
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