Mary Gaitskill

Mary Gaitskill
Gaitskill at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival
Born	(1954-11-11) November 11, 1954 (age 62) Lexington, Kentucky, United States
Occupation	writer
Nationality	American
Alma mater	University of Michigan
Period	1980s-
Genre	literary short story, novel, essay, Transgressive Fiction

Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954) is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories (1993, 2006, 2012), and The O. Henry Prize Stories (1998, 2008).

Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky. She has lived in New York City, Toronto, San Francisco, and Marin County, CA, as well as attending the University of Michigan, where she earned her B.A. and won a Hopwood Award. She sold flowers in San Francisco as a teenage runaway. In a conversation with novelist and short story writer Matthew Sharpe for BOMB Magazine, Gaitskill said she chose to become a writer at age 18 because she was "indignant about things—it was the typical teenage sense of 'things are wrong in the world and I must say something.'" Gaitskill has also recounted (in her essay "Revelation") becoming a born-again Christian at age 21 but lapsing after six months. She married the writer Peter Trachtenberg in 2001. They separated in 2010. Gaitskill lives in Pennsylvania and teaches for the MFA program at Temple University.

Gaitskill made her book debut in 1988 with the short-story collection Bad Behavior, having been trying to publish her work since the age of 23. The first four stories are written in the third person point of view from the perspectives of male characters. The remaining five stories are written from the perspectives of female characters. Secretary is the only story in the book written in the first person point of view. Several of the stories have themes of sexuality, romance, love, sex work, sadomasochism, drug addiction, being a writer in New York City, and living in New York City. A Romantic Weekend and Secretary both explore themes of BDSM and psychological aspects of dominance and submission in sexual relationships. The story Connection is about a female friendship.