Rambling Raconteur’s Reviews > Bad Behavior > Status Update

Other Factors seems like one of the more mature stories in the collection. Connie could be an older version of one of the characters in the earlier stories.

Secretary is still transgressive, perhaps more so in 2025 than when it was first published and certainly far more haunting than the film adaptation.

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.