Review: 'Because They Wanted To: Stories' by Mary Gaitskill

 Mary Gaitskill has been on my 'to read' list for quite  a long time, ever since I found out the film Secretary was based on a short story of hers. Yet I never got around to reading any of her work until last month, when I saw one of the stories from Because They Wanted To discussed on Electric Literature. After that peek I just had to jump aboard as soon as possible. So I gifted myself the Simon & Schuster edition and began reading.

Pub. Date: 2/27/1998
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

With complexity, compassion and truth, Gaitskill tells stories of people who want badly, without quite knowing what it is that they want or how to get it. Too often their wants conflict with their deeper needs and moral sense, and it is with this conflict that they struggle, sometimes ineptly, but always with fierce humanity.

The collection opens with 'Tiny, Smiling Daddy', in which a father learns his lesbian and slightly estranged daughter has written an article about their fractured relationship. In 'Because They Wanted To', the collection's title story, a young, homeless girl lands herself a job as a babysitter. As the hours tick by and the mother becomes increasingly late in returning, we revisit her childhood until she finds herself having to make a difficult choice. Next is 'Orchid', in which old college roommates Margot and Patrick run into each other and tentatively renew a friendship that is fraught with tension and realizations. 'The Blanket' is perhaps one of my favourite stories in the collection, describing a heady, new relationship full of passionate sex and role-playing which eventually balances on a knife's edge when fantasy and reality meet. 

In 'Comfort' a son races home after his mother is in a car accident. As he confronts old family dynamics, he questions the dynamics and patterns in his own relationship as well, though never his own actions. 'The Girl on the Plane' is the story I read about at Electric Literature and although I find it fascinating it is also horrifying. A man on a plane is enticed to tell a tale of sexual exploitation to the woman sitting next to him, due to her passing likeness to the girl at the heart of his tale. 'The Dentist' describes a woman's obsession with her dentist, as well as how their relationship moves between understanding, interest, and even horror. 'Kiss and Tell' is a tale of love turned obsession turned to anger after a man feels rejected and decides to take revenge via a screenplay. The collection ends with an extended story or novella, 'The Wrong Thing', which is split into four chapters. It details the thoughts and exploits of an aging female poet as she is repeatedly disillusioned in romantic relationships, yet finds potential happiness in friendship. This is the only story told in a first-person narration, and therefore is an interesting way to end the collection.

There is an odd repetitiveness at work in these stories, each of which hits you like a sledgehammer but leaves no mark. The way Gaitskill describes loneliness and longing, the way we hurt each other inadvertently and on purpose absolutely strikes true, but sometimes it remains a little surface-level. Although I had full access to her characters' emotional and internal lives, I never truly connected in the way I would have liked to. It felt like watching a very dramatic, intense movie, in which everything is beautifully lit to reveal the ugly, but walking away you mostly remember the drama and the glamour of it all. And perhaps that is why I couldn't be fully into this collection, because despite the hurt and the pain, there was a sheen of glamour attached to the suffering that made it distant. And this was an odd realization for me to have, since Gaitskill's writing is like no other. There is no doubt she excells at this and each story she created felt complete, from the clear image of apartments, houses, outfits, plants and gestures, yet there was an awareness to the language when it came from the characters that I couldn't quite get behind. They are so aware of themselves, in a way I believe we humans rarely are. Take the instance where a woman answers her deli owner's question of how she is with the statement that she has longings that will never be satisfied. It's a beautiful moment, you can picture it, but who would actually say that? And if someone did, wouldn't they be a little bit insufferable, rather than empathetic?

There is no doubt Mary Gaitskill is a brilliant author. There is such precision in each word that she almost reminds me of Beethoven; take one note away and the whole thing will crumble. It is a joy to read and makes for a sumptuous reading experience. The general sadness of the collection almost became addicting, however, in that I was waiting for each story to hit its high moment of sadness or violence or doubt or loss. There was something cathartic about reading these stories, seeing that shared experience of striving for something unknown, knowing that you're not the only one. But then, because there was a real sense in which these characters didn't feel like real people, that recognition could only go so far. Rather you ask yourself why your midnight ruminations never happen at fancy parties full of poets and sex-workers and professors, but rather alone, in your room, and in the dark. In a sense this approach allows for a more precise, almost clinical approach to the deep and conflicting emotions these characters feel, setting up a little bit of a contrast where you know everything but are at a remove. This way Gaitskill performs the ultimate trick in that the reader themselves is now longing to be a part of it, reaching for a connection, perfectly aware of their needs and not having them met entirely. 

I give this collection...

4 Universes!

I'm aware this review sounds very conflicted and that is the case. The stories in Because They Wanted To are stunning, ferocious, quiet, and violent all at once and I couldn't stop reading them. But now I'm sat in the aftermath and there is a sense of having wanted more. So I will be reading Gaitskill's Don't Cry next.