Don't Cry (English)

In her first collection of short stories in over a decade, Mary Gaitskill explores the fluctuating space between the changing world and our permanent values. Her characters reminisce about their former selves with a mix of nostalgia and nausea, before realizing that the core of their moral identity has remained solid. In "The Arms and Legs of the Lake," a group of strangers on a New York train, including several veterans and a liberal journalist, find themselves bitterly aroused and then remorsefully contemplative as they discuss the war in Iraq. In "College Town 1980," Gaitskill perfectly applies hindsight to dissect the chilling mix of personal ambition and collective nationalism that marked the onset of the Reagan era in America. Her acute stories encourage us to pause and examine the transformations we are constantly undergoing, changes that seem subtle while they are happening, but gain clarity and distinction with time. minimize