“I have developed as a writer, and that has to mean change—but it is hard for me to really describe or evaluate that.” On the latest episode of our fiction podcast, Mary Gaitskill discusses her short story from the latest issue of the magazine.
” returns to an older story of yours, “Secretary,” which was first published in 1988. Rather than writing a straightforward sequel, you retell the earlier story, and then follow the main character, Debby, through the next three and a half decades of her life. What made you want to go back to “Secretary,” and how did you settle on this form of retelling and extending?
In “Secretary,” a teen-age girl goes to work as a secretary for a lawyer, who punishes her for typing errors by spanking and sexually dominating her. In “Minority Report,” you look at the effects that that experience has on her adult life. Did you know when you started writing what the effects would be?
I didn’t look at the old story initially. I went back to it after I’d written out the beginning of “Minority Report,” to be sure that I was describing certain things in the same way and having the characters say key things. But I did want to have Debby look at some things differently, forget some things, and include others that weren’t mentioned in the original. People usually tell stories differently over time, and I wanted the story to reflect that.
I still feel all of that about her. In the first story especially, you can see how stunted and flat her family and environment are, and how that has affected her. But, in the past, in some subtle way, my sense of her was a bitAs for the second question: I have developed as a writer, and that has to mean change—but it is hard for me to really describe or evaluate that. I’m experiencing the development from the inside and so can’t really see the shape or direction with any objectivity.
I think both. If her sexuality hadn’t been leaning in that direction already, she wouldn’t have spontaneously responded as she did. But the experience was damaging because it happened with someone who didn’t care about her and because she wasn’t even close to ready for it. It awakened deep feelings—and complex feelings—in a relationship with no potential for depth or complexity. That is painful and also bewildering.
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