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Book Reviews of Two Girls, Fat and Thin

Two Girls, Fat and Thin
Two Girls Fat and Thin
Author: Mary Gaitskill
ISBN-13: 9780671685409
ISBN-10: 0671685406
Publication Date: 2/1991
Pages: 304
Rating:
  • Currently 2.8/5 Stars.
 5

2.8 stars, based on 5 ratings
Publisher: Poseidon Pr
Book Type: Hardcover
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

3 Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

AshsHeroine avatar reviewed Two Girls, Fat and Thin on + 34 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 1
A story about two women, contrastingly different but powerfully drawn to one another. As their relationship develops, they reveal what lies beneath the surface of their suburban childhoods - violence, pain, intimacy, isolation, denial, fulfilment and the betrayal of love and innocence.
reviewed Two Girls, Fat and Thin on + 255 more book reviews
From Publishers Weekly
An impressive but uneven novel by the author of the praised short fiction collection Bad Behavior. Two women, totally unalike in background, personality and social class, are brought together by a shared fascination with the philosophical movement founded by the late Anna Granite (read Ayn Rand). Justine is a chic journalist who wants to write an article about the followers of Granite's philosophy, Definitism. Dorothy is an obese, nocturnal word processor who answers Justine's advertisement in Manhattan Thing and offers to be interviewed about her involvement with the Definitists. As the two women come to know each other, their dismal life experiences gradually emerge, and their present circumstances are seen as a repetition of past connections and betrayals.
reviewed Two Girls, Fat and Thin on + 58 more book reviews
Two women, totally unalike in background, personality and social class, are brought together by a shared fascination with the philosophical movement founded by the late Anna Granite (read Ayn Rand). Justine is a chic journalist who wants to write an article about the followers of Granite's philosophy, Definitism. Dorothy is an obese, nocturnal word processor who answers Justine's advertisement in Manhattan Thing and offers to be interviewed about her involvement with the Definitists. As the two women come to know each other, their dismal life experiences gradually emerge, and their present circumstances are seen as a repetition of past connections and betrayals. This is a hard, edgy book, and Gaitskill's energy and flashy intelligence notwithstanding, the perhaps deliberate lack of polish ultimately detracts. The novel's raw, unsparing view is like that of certain contemporary paintings, and there are extraordinary moments of deeply examined female sexuality where Gaitskill is at her most original.