Characters reveal inner weaknesses in Mary Gaitskill’s ‘Don’t Cry’
Mary Gaitskill’s new short story collection, “Don’t Cry,” is an eccentric novel that covers many things, among them Ethiopian babies, one-night stands, widows, soldiers and 43-year-old red-headed virgins. With little prologue, she is able to plumb the emotional depths of these and other idiosyncratically imagined characters, microscopically examining the bloody pulp of their thoughts and feelings — horrors, indignities, uncomfortable wants and all. Though these are certainly raw and bruise-inducing stories, at their core they are about our persistent drive as people to connect, love and know others and ourselves.