This Is Pleasure: A Story

Starting with 'Bad Behavior' in the 1980s, Mary Gaitskill has been writing about gender relations with searing, even prophetic honesty. In 'This Is Pleasure', she considers our present moment through the lens of a particular #MeToo incident.

The effervescent, well-dressed Quin, a successful book editor and fixture on the New York arts scene, has been accused of repeated, unforgivable transgressions towards the women in his orbit. But, are they unforgivable? And who has the right to forgive him? To Quin's friend Margot, the wrongdoing is less clear. Alternating between Quin's and Margot's voices and perspectives, Gaitskill creates a nuanced tragicomedy, one that reveals her characters as whole persons - hurtful and hurting, infuriating and touching, and always deeply recognizable.

Gaitskill has said that fiction is the only way she can approach this subject since it is too emotionally faceted to treat in the more rational essay form. Her compliment to her characters - and to her readers - is that they are unvarnished and real. Her belief in our ability to understand them, even when we don't always admire them, is a gesture of genuine humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.

©2019 Mary Gaitskill (P)2019 Random House Audio