Set in hip, urban environments, most of these stories deal with lesbian issues in some way or another, though most definitely *not* in any stereotypical Lesbian Literature ways. Common themes in her stories include running away from home as a teenager, panhandling, prostitution, and kinky sex. In some ways the content was a total surprise to me, because I vastly misjudged the book by its cover. The little picture of Gaitskill on the back suggests that these will be stories about the intimate struggles of the heart, drawn in fine, delicate lines. And I suppose in some ways they are, though the characters relate to their bodies, to their sexuality and to each other in ways that don’t resonate for me. A friend  praised her ability to characterize the subtle shifts of thought and feeling that can happen in a person even over a short period of time, but I was struck more by how much I couldn’t relate to the metaphors and images she used to do so. “Are there people who really think like this?” I found myself wondering. Of course no two people perceive the world, or the inner workings of the mind, in the same way, and most people probably think in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend, but it’s rare for me to experience such a marked contrast, especially in a writer I like.