Mary Gaitskill has 6 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 14 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4★ across 4 ratings. The most-rated is The Mare.
The Mare
Summary
From the author of Veronica, a finalist for the National Book Award for fiction, comes Mary Gaitskill's most poignant and powerful work yet: the story of a Dominican girl, the white woman who introduces her to riding, and the horse who changes everything for her. Velveteen Vargas is an 11-year-old from Brooklyn who is granted a summer vacation in the country, courtesy of the nonprofit Fresh Air Fund. Her host family is a couple in upstate New York: Ginger, a failed artist on the fringe of Alcoholics Anonymous; and Paul, an academic who wonders what it will mean to "make a difference" in such a contrived situation. Here we see the couple's changing relationship with Velvet over the course of several years as well as Velvet's powerful encounter with the horses at the stable down the road, as Gaitskill weaves together Velvet's vital inner-city community and the privileged country world of Ginger and Paul. The timeless story of a girl and a horse is joined with the story of people from different races and socioeconomic backgrounds trying to meet one another honestly. It is a novel that is raw, striking, and completely original.
©2015 Mary Gaitskill (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Veronica
Summary
As a teenager on the streets of San Francisco, Alison is discovered by a photographer and swept into the world of fashion-modeling in Paris and Rome. When her career crashes and a love affair ends disastrously, she moves to New York City to build a new life. There she meets Veronica: an older wisecracking eccentric with her own ideas about style, a proofreader who comes to work with a personal "office kit" and a plaque that reads "Still Anal After All These Years". Improbably, the two women become friends. Their friendship will survive not only Alison's reentry into the seductive nocturnal realm of fashion, but also Veronica's terrible descent into the then-uncharted realm of AIDS. The memory of their friendship will continue to haunt Alison years later, when she, too, is aging and ill and is questioning the meaning of what she experienced and who she became during that time. Masterfully layering time and space, thought and sensation, Mary Gaitskill dazzles the listener with psychological insight and a mystical sense of the soul's hurtling passage through the world. A novel unlike any other, Veronica is a tour de force about the fragility and mystery of human relationships, the failure of love, and love's abiding power.
©2005 Mary Gaitskill (P)2006 Random House, Inc.
Bad Behavior
Summary
This is a reissue of National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill's debut collection, Bad Behavior - powerful stories about dislocation, longing, and desire that depict a disenchanted and rebellious urban-fringe generation as it searches for human connection. Now a classic, Bad Behavior made critical waves when it was first published, heralding Gaitskill's arrival on the literary scene and her establishment as a sharp, erotically charged, and audaciously funny writer of contemporary literature. Stories included here are "Daisy's Valentine", "A Romantic Weekend", "Something Nice", "An Affair, Edited", "Connection", "Trying to Be", "Secretary", "Other Factors", and "Heaven".
©1988 Mary Gaitskill (P)2016 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
This Is Pleasure
Summary
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 toward 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 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 that she could approach this subject because 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 humanity from one of our greatest contemporary writers.
©2019 Mary Gaitskill (P)2019 Random House Audio
Out of Line
Summary
What happens when women step out of line and take control of their own stories? Big fears, small frustrations, and the power of hope collide as seven award-winning authors explore the possibilities. From demanding equal pay to resisting a genetically engineered future, this collection offers up visions that are grimly funny, deeply touching, and chillingly conceivable. THIS TELLING, by Cheryl Strayed, read by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) A genealogy test sparks a woman’s reflection on the two accounts of her life - the real one and the one she’s always told the world - in this poignant short story by the bestselling author of Wild. GRACEFUL BURDENS, by Roxane Gay, read by Samira Wiley (The Handmaid’s Tale) From the New York Times bestselling author of Bad Feminist comes an unforgettable tale of nightmarish bureaucracy in which genetic profiling has redefined the “unfit mother.” SWEET VIRGINIA, by Caroline Kepnes, read by Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) What’s a woman to do when she fails to live up to feminine ideals? It depends on what she’s willing to give up in this dark rom-com dream by the bestselling author of You. THE CONTRACTORS, by Lisa Ko, read by Lea Salonga (Aladdin) A split-screen view of the tech industry’s underbelly - and the unifying campaign of two distant women seeking to expose their employer - from the award-winning author of The Leavers. HALFWAY TO FREE, by Emma Donoghue, read by Samira Wiley (The Handmaid’s Tale) Raising a family is the ultimate luxury as the human race teeters on the brink of extinction in this modern nightmare by Emma Donoghue, the bestselling author of Room. BEAR WITNESS, by Mary Gaitskill, read by Margo Martindale (Mrs. America) In the wake of a brutal crime, three people cross paths in this unflinching deconstruction of moral uncertainty, shifting perceptions, and sexual violence, from the critically acclaimed author of Bad Behavior. SHINE, PAMELA! SHINE!, by Kate Atkinson, read by Gwendoline Christie (Game of Thrones) Thoroughly divorced but ever the optimist, Pamela faces the realities of aging and the leaps of faith required to put a “sparkle” on her daily life in this small miracle of a short story by the bestselling author of Life After Life.
©2020 This Telling © 2020 by Cheryl Strayed. Graceful Burdens © 2020 by Roxane Gay. Sweet Virginia © 2020 by Caroline Kepnes. The Contractors © 2020 by Lisa Ko. Halfway to Free © 2020 by Emma Donoghue. Bear Witness © 2020 by Mary Gaitskill. Shine, Pamela! Shine! © 2020 by Kate Costello Ltd. (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.
Bear Witness
Summary
Audible narration by Margo Martindale (Mrs. America) In the wake of a brutal crime, three people cross paths in this unflinching deconstruction of moral uncertainty, shifting perceptions, and sexual violence by Mary Gaitskill, the critically acclaimed author of Bad Behavior. Mark is the accused rapist. Miss P. is the victim, his former teacher. Moira M. is an apathetic juror. As the trial unfolds in this intense short story, three personal histories emerge, along with three alarmingly different points of view: Obsessed and angry. Menaced and disillusioned. Disaffected and searching through an unexamined life for moral conviction. Mary Gaitskill’s Bear Witness is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
©2020 Mary Gaitskill (P)2020 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.