A provocative, nuanced novella about power, consent and friendship - and a masterful fictional contribution to the #MeToo debate.
'Gets deep under your skin ... Gaitskill is uniquely attuned to the moment.' - Sunday Times
'Gaitskill achieves a superb feat. She distils the suffering, anger, reactivity, danger and social recalibration of the #MeToo movement into an extremely potent, intelligent and nuanced account.' - Sarah Hall, Guardian
'I don't know why I behaved the way I did, and I kept doing it; he kept doing it. And though I might once have easily brushed it away, suddenly I could not. Nor could I confront him. The conversation moved too quickly.'
This is Pleasure is an extraordinary work by one of the world's finest writers, and achieves more in 15,000 words than most full-length novels. Following the unravelling of the life of a male publisher undone by allegations of sexual impropriety and harassment, and the female friend who tries to understand, and explain, his actions, it looks unflinchingly at our present moment and rejects moral certainties to show us that there are many sides to every story.
Mary Gaitskill has spent her whole career mining the complexity of human relationships on both an individual and societal scale with wisdom and grace. Here her insights are more piercing and timely than ever.
