American writer Mary Gaitskill traverses a lot of ground in her new collection of provocative essays, Oppositions. Compelling and oddly cohesive, the essays see Gaitskill put her sharp writing style and nuanced mind to a wide range of topics including the Book of Revelation, Nabokov and the ubiquitous music of Talking Heads.
Written over the last 30 years, the collection forms a loose autobiography of Gaitskill, who ran away from home as a teenager and became a born-again Christian at 21, but lapsed after six months.
Gaitskill's other works include Bad Behavior and This is Pleasure. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002, and her work has appeared in many publications including The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine and Esquire.
Photo: Derek Shapton / Supplied
