After the flashy debut of her story collection, Bad Behavior, Gaitskill's first novel seems downright demure. Despite its disturbing scene of S-M, it's mostly a thoughtful and eloquent psychological profile of two strangely connected lives. What draws the two girls of the title together is the popular philosopher Anna Granite (a thinly disguised version of Ayn Rand). Justine Shade, a pretty and slender part-time secretary, also writes for a Village Voice-like tabloid; her investigation into the dying cult of Granite brings her into contact with Dorothy Storm (nÇe Footie), an obese Wall St. word-processor who changed her life for the better when she dropped out of college and became part of Granite's inner circle. The long middle section of the novel, acutely observed forays into the two women's pasts, reveals their oddly parallel lives. Despite dramatic differences in class and family life, both women have been victimized: Dorothy by her sexually abusive father, and Justine by her emotionally damaging parents—cool and distant, and oh-so liberal-minded. Both imaginative, articulate, and literate girls, they find themselves outsiders among their peers: one shunned for her apparent physical difference; the other appalled by the cruelty and betrayal that young people are given to. If Dorothy punishes herself by eating her way into oblivion, Justine begins to discover kinky sexuality: first, through masturbatory fantasies of torture, and then by acting out some bizarre adolescent rites. As adults, Justine continues to subject herself to violent, degrading sex, while Dorothy has found psychic liberation through the erotically charged ideas of Granite, who teaches her how life can matter if we decide to make it matter, and other such "definitist" nostrums. Meanwhile, Justine publishes her smart and cynical article, which properly debunks the pseudo-philosophy of Granite, and betrays the oft-abused Dorothy. But the latter's rage subsides when she becomes the very screwed-up Justine's literal savior. Gaitskill fully understands the psycho-dynamics of being a misfit, and hence the appeal of such as Rand. But her fine and disturbing novel is also a stunning work of the imagination—genuine and luminous.
Pub Date: Feb. 27, 1991
ISBN: 671-68540-6
Page Count: -
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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