Veronica
by Mary Gaitskill
Veronica is set in the 1980s, it tells the story of the friendship between Alison, a former model now in her 40s, and Veronica, a professional proofreader desperately in love with a bisexual man, whose transmitted AIDS virus ultimately kills her.
Recommendations from our site
“Gaitskill delights in peeling back the skins of her suffering, often nasty characters and showing you the vulnerable, frail human beings desperate for love underneath. There’s nothing quite like it…….Dubbed “the Jane Austen of sickos” for her caustic, darkly comic portrayals of the emotional brutality humans endure (and often inflict on one another), Mary Gaitskill rose to prominence again this year for her widely read #MeToo story “This is Pleasure”—recommended in book form by Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn in her yearly picks. After inhaling that and her acclaimed short story collection Bad Behavior, I tracked down the early novel Veronica on the recommendation of my friend Merve Emre and wasn’t disappointed.” Read more...
