What's Underneath: Book Review

Mary Gaitskill is an author that peels off the veneer of what is acceptable and exposes the scarred, mostly overlooked, and harsh realties of what really is. Her fiction is not about princesses, white knights, romance, and happily ever after. Rather it is about people that are isolated emotionally, naïve and exploited, even daring and sexually deviant. They are mostly female and caught, not necessarily sure which way to move forward or change their circumstances.

Gaitskill is a woman with many stories to tell. She had a tumultuous adolescence and ran away at 16 years of age and became a stripper. Gaitskill isn't afraid of laying herself bare. Her themes are about situations and issues that most people find uncomfortable. The average person would turn away to avoid looking at the homeless person or prostitutes littering the streets of cities in America and Europe. Gaitskill forces the readers to not only see the tattered, torn and bleeding, but to listen and possibly even understand them. Gaitskill delves into drug addiction, the darker side of sex, dislocation, rebellion and underneath it all the fierce need to belong. She's seen what drugs and AIDS can do. She is a survivor who shakes off what is considered proper in society and tells the truth, however much it may hurt. Gaitskill doesn't write about sex and drugs to be absolved. She isn't ashamed she is merely the storyteller.

Her books explore sex in all its glories, problems and perversities. Her characters are desperate to feel, but largely unable to express themselves emotionally. They are violent, self-loathing, cruel, but desperate for any sort of love. Gaitskill's experiences as a young girl are echoed in her literature.

She is widely known for her collection of short stories Bad Behavior, from whence her short story "Secretary" was taken and adapted for the big screen (starring James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal) in 2002.