Mary Gaitskill

A finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, here is an evocative novel about female friendship in the glittering 1980s. Alison and Veronica meet amid the nocturnal glamour of 1980s New York: One is a young model stumbling away from the wreck of her career, the other an eccentric middle-aged office temp. Over the next twenty years their friendship will encompass narcissism and tenderness, exploitation and self-sacrifice, love and mortality. Moving seamlessly from present and past, casting a fierce yet compassionate eye on two eras and their fixations, the result is a work of timeless depth and moral power.

Veronica

bella

“she walked proudly, thrusting out not only her breasts, which most girls did, but her stomach and her jaw too, like those were also good. she walked like a dog — aggressive, interested and curious.”

“there is my father, listening to his music hard enough to break his own heart. trying to borrow shapes for his emotions so that he might hold them out to the world and the world might say, Yes, we see. we feel. we understand.”

Veronica quotes

Join the club