Bad Behavior

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.

MARY GAITSKILL is the author of the story collections Because They Wanted To (nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award) and Don’t Cry, the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for a National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin, and the essay collection Somebody with a Little Hammer. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.