Status Updates From Bad Behavior

There’s a weird sense that Gaitskill was influenced by Flannery O’Connor with the Gnosticism being specific kinks? The characterization in Trying to Be is easily the strongest in the collection so far.

Connection reveals the most explicit influences from Updike (refracting Proust).

A Romantic Weekend reads a bit like someone who has ingested Roth and Updike as an adolescent and turned them inside out.

This reminds me of Tama Janowitz’s Slaves of New York and the early stories of Leonard Michaels.