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Bad Behavior

Bad Behavior

Stories

About the Book

National Book Award finalist Mary Gaitskill’s classic debut collection from the 1980s—powerful stories of dislocation, longing, and desire

Now towering and inevitable in its influence on writing by and for young urbanites, Bad Behavior heralded Mary Gaitskill’s arrival on the literary scene and her establishment as one of the sharpest writing talents of her time, or any time: exquisitely funny and startlingly honest; bold and eye-opening on relationships, sex, and the erotic.

Set in Manhattan's Lower East Side and peopled with artistic freelancers and intelligent sex workers, smug yuppies and love-torn masochists, Bad Behavior depicts a world equally cruel and tender, where romance and danger go hand in hand. Gaitskill delivers unforgettable stories of a disenchanted and rebellious urban fringe generation groping for human connection.
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Vintage Contemporaries Series

Bad Behavior
The Last Ranger
Leave Society
Push (Revised)
The Queen's Gambit (Television Tie-in)
Sleep Donation
Water Witches
The Stories of Alice Adams
Sociable
The Tragedy of Brady Sims
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About the Author

Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To (nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award), and Don’t Cry, and the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for the National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Artforum, and Granta, among many other journals, as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. More by Mary Gaitskill
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