<![CDATA[Veronica: A Novel]]>

false <![CDATA[Veronica: A Novel]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1167348012m/22259.jpg 22259 8 The extraordinary new novel from the acclaimed author of Bad Behavior and Two Girls, Fat and Thin, Veronica is about flesh and spirit, vanity, mortality, and mortal affection. Set mostly in Paris and Manhattan in the desperately glittering 1980s, it has the timeless depth and moral power of a fairy tale. 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 reader 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. It shines on every page with depth of feeling and formal beauty. 709164 11 10 2005 Veronica: A Novel total:1549|5:252|4:444|3:483|2:258|1:112| 1549 5113 2200 280 1 5 false false Sat Mar 29 19:39:25 -0700 2008 Sat Apr 12 13:42:22 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 2 false false Tue May 29 07:44:12 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 07:44:26 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 04 14:25:12 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 10 09:53:00 -0800 2008 once more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 20 17:07:15 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 20 17:32:42 -0700 2008 Two Girls, Fat and Thin, I immediately went to the library to check this one out. Like in the previous novel, the story focuses on the friendship between two women. One is a model. The other is a middle-aged woman diagnosed with AIDS in the epidemic of the 80s.

It's hard...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Aug 12 08:27:52 -0700 2009 Wed Aug 12 08:42:12 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 19:00:13 -0700 2009 Thu Jun 18 19:02:13 -0700 2009
Mary Gaitskill. Veronica. New York: Vintage Books, 2006.

Gaitskill is a disturbing writer. A good writer. But, after the first fifty pages, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read about her characters. The story is about Veronica, an eccentric New Yorke...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jun 10 09:51:35 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 10 09:58:02 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 05 09:36:30 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 05 09:36:30 -0800 2009 Ungainly. Gorgeously caustic. Full of celebrated repugnancies. Descriptions like these are not unusual for a Gaitskill novel. Even when writing about the fashion industry and its downside in this National Book Award finalist, Gaitskill (Two Girls, Fat and Thin, 1991) hones in on the dark, filthy und...

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So I guess I avoided reading this book for a while, b/c it was The Mary Gaitsk...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 08:24:53 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 20 09:29:38 -0700 2009
Veronica is a middle-aged woman dying of an AIDS related illness, which she contracted from her bisexual boyfriend (who was not faithful to her). Alison (the nar...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Oct 12 16:43:45 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 12 16:47:56 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 16 08:28:07 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 28 12:41:12 -0700 2009
This is not at all the book expected based on all the reviews and descriptions I read. I was expecting something brittle, cynical, knowing. Something social and tight. The models, the New York, the Eighties... I pu...more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Apr 29 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 22 12:24:30 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 10:50:28 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 true false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 11 08:56:18 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 11 10:35:30 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Wed Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Thu Feb 12 23:08:13 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 23:17:26 -0800 2009 1 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Oct 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 10:53:45 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 11:02:43 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=22259