Somebody with a Little Hammer
Essays
Published on 17. April 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-307-47233-5 (ISBN)
Description
In essays on matters literary, social, cultural, and personal, Mary Gaitskill explores date rape and political adultery, the transcendentalism of the Talking Heads, the melancholy of Björk, and the playfulness of artist Laurel Nakadate. She celebrates the clownish grandiosity and the poetry of Norman Mailer's long career and maps the sociosexual cataclysm embodied by porn star Linda Lovelace. Witty, wide-ranging, tender, and beautiful, Somebody with a Little Hammer displays the same heat-seeking, revelatory understanding for which Gaitskill's writing has always been known.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 132 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
363 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-307-47233-5 (9780307472335)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To (nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award), and Don’t Cry, and the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for the National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Artforum, and Granta, among many other journals, as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories.
Content
A Lot of Exploding Heads
On Reading the Book of Revelation
The Trouble with Following the Rules
On “Date Rape,” “Victim Culture,” and Personal Responsibility
A Lovely Chaotic Silliness
A Review of The Fermata by Nicholson Baker
Toes ’n Hose
A Review of From the Tip of the Toes to the Top of the Hose by Elmer Batters, and Nothing But the Girl, edited by Susie Bright and Jill Posener
Crackpot Mystic Spirit
A Review of Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes by Greil Marcus
Bitch
A Review of Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Dye Hard
A Review of Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
Mechanical Rabbit
A Review of Licks of Love by John Updike
I’ve Seen It All
Thoughts on a Song by Björk
And It Would Not Be Wonderful to Meet a Megalosaurus
On Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Remain in Light
On the Talking Heads
Victims and Losers: A Love Story
Thoughts on the Movie Secretary
The Bridge
A Memoir of Saint Petersburg
Somebody with a Little Hammer
On Teaching “Gooseberries” by Anton Chekhov
Enchantment and Cruelty
On Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Worshipping the Overcoat
An Election Diary
This Doughty Nose
On Norman Mailer’s An American Dream and The Armies of the Night
Lost Cat
A Memoir
I See Their Hollowness
A Review of Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Lives of the Hags
A Review of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugresic
Leave the Woman Alone!
On the Never-Ending Political Extramarital Scandals
Master’s Mind
A Review of Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk
Imaginary Light
A Song Called “Nowhere Girl”
Form over Feeling
A Review of Out by Natsuo Kirino
Beg for Your Life
On the Films of Laurel Nakadate
The Cunning of Women
On One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan al-Shaykh
Pictures of Lo
On Covering Lolita
The Easiest Thing to Forget
On Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love
She’s Supposed to Make You Sick
A Review of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Icon
On Linda Lovelace
That Running Shadow of Your Voice
On Nabokov’s Letters to Véra
Acknowledgments
On Reading the Book of Revelation
The Trouble with Following the Rules
On “Date Rape,” “Victim Culture,” and Personal Responsibility
A Lovely Chaotic Silliness
A Review of The Fermata by Nicholson Baker
Toes ’n Hose
A Review of From the Tip of the Toes to the Top of the Hose by Elmer Batters, and Nothing But the Girl, edited by Susie Bright and Jill Posener
Crackpot Mystic Spirit
A Review of Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes by Greil Marcus
Bitch
A Review of Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Dye Hard
A Review of Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
Mechanical Rabbit
A Review of Licks of Love by John Updike
I’ve Seen It All
Thoughts on a Song by Björk
And It Would Not Be Wonderful to Meet a Megalosaurus
On Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Remain in Light
On the Talking Heads
Victims and Losers: A Love Story
Thoughts on the Movie Secretary
The Bridge
A Memoir of Saint Petersburg
Somebody with a Little Hammer
On Teaching “Gooseberries” by Anton Chekhov
Enchantment and Cruelty
On Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
Worshipping the Overcoat
An Election Diary
This Doughty Nose
On Norman Mailer’s An American Dream and The Armies of the Night
Lost Cat
A Memoir
I See Their Hollowness
A Review of Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Lives of the Hags
A Review of Baba Yaga Laid an Egg by Dubravka Ugresic
Leave the Woman Alone!
On the Never-Ending Political Extramarital Scandals
Master’s Mind
A Review of Agaat by Marlene van Niekerk
Imaginary Light
A Song Called “Nowhere Girl”
Form over Feeling
A Review of Out by Natsuo Kirino
Beg for Your Life
On the Films of Laurel Nakadate
The Cunning of Women
On One Thousand and One Nights by Hanan al-Shaykh
Pictures of Lo
On Covering Lolita
The Easiest Thing to Forget
On Carl Wilson’s Let’s Talk About Love
She’s Supposed to Make You Sick
A Review of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Icon
On Linda Lovelace
That Running Shadow of Your Voice
On Nabokov’s Letters to Véra
Acknowledgments