Is There a Better World Than the Social World?

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

"I think people tell the truth with their face much more than they do with their words and their tone of voice," she says. "You can't expect people to be perfect or to be your idea of good or moral all the time, you're probably not either." Her therapist once quoted her as saying: 'The sooner you realize that, the happier you'll be'

Mary Gaitskill’s knack for writing about the social and physical world with unapologetic clarity has led to her style being described both as "cold and brutal” and “tender and compassionate.” Tyler considers her works The Mare, Veronica, and Lost Cat to be some of the best and most insightful American fiction in recent times. And lately she’s taken to writing essays on Substack, where she frankly analyzes “subjects that are vexing everybody,” including incels, Depp v. Heard, and political fiction.

She joined Tyler to discuss the reasons some people seem to choose to be unhappy, why she writes about oddballs, the fragility of personality, how she’s developed her natural knack for describing the physical world, why we’re better off just accepting that people are horrible, her advice for troubled teenagers, why she wouldn’t clone a lost cat, the benefits and drawbacks of writing online, what she’s learned from writing a Substack, what gets lost in Kubrick’s adaptation of Lolita, the not-so-subtle eroticism of Victorian novels, the ground rules for writing about other people, how creative writing programs are harming (some) writers, what she learned about men when working as a stripper, how her views of sexual permissiveness have changed since the ‘90s, how college students have changed over time, what she learned working at The Strand bookstore, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded September 26th, 2022 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.