First published 2020
Mary Gaitskill begins with a stark confession. Last year she lost Gattino, a seven-month-old cat she had rescued as a stray in Italy and brought to America. The young cat disappeared, probably dead but without certainty. This loss becomes the entry point for Gaitskill's most personal writing, a book-length essay that reads like memoir. She weaves the story of her missing cat with her experience fostering Caesar and Natalia, two siblings from the inner city who spent summers and holidays with Gaitskill and her husband. The relationship brought unexpected joys but also painful difficulties. Through these parallel experiences of attachment and separation, Gaitskill dissects the mechanics of loss, love, safety, and fear. She turns her precise, unforgiving prose inward, examining her own vulnerability and the trauma that surfaces when what we protect slips away.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, contemporary, memoir, non-fiction, biography-memoir
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, personal-journey
Setting: America, Italy
Period: Last Year
120 pages · Paperback · Daunt Books