Somebody with a Little Hammer
Essays
Published on 4. April 2017
272 pages
978-1-101-87177-5 (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.
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04/2018
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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
- Intro
- Other Titles
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Contents
- 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
- About the Author
