Mary Gaitskill: belief

Transcript context

…Someone like you would write a character out. Does that add to our literal explanation of why these people are unhappy? Or is it just mirroring what you might say? Part of what I want to do in writing about some characters — not so much Velvet’s mother, but also people like Ginger, the other woman in this story, who seems to have a much better life, who actually does have a much better life. Her suffering is more she’s a lost soul, in a way. With somebody like that, I’m not trying to literally tell people how they should understand them, but what I want is to acknowledge that many people like that exist. Also, I think part of Velvet’s mother’s problem is that, not only she doesn’t fit in with her own community — she, in a way, is like Ginger. They’re both oddballs. They’re both very sensitive people in their own ways, and there are many, many people like that on Earth that, for whatever reason, have a great deal of trouble fitting into the world around them, even if it’s not a bad world, and that’s really hard. It’s not that I’m trying to say, “Here are the reasons why, and you should understand.” It’s more like I want you to feel those people. I want the reader to feel them, and that’s something that’s more unconscious almost. But I think that I want to create almost a feeling that you’re in the room with that person, and instead of dismissing them quickly, you open your psyche and just feel them. That’s ideally what I’m wanting to achieve. Why are we all to be pitied? You said that in The New Yorker once, I believe.…

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