Veronica
Mary Gaitskill
Pantheon, Oct 2005, $23.00
ISBN: 0375421459

Fifty something Alison suffers from Hepatitis that just adds to her look and feel of being much older than she is. She makes pocket change cleaning her friend's toilet, but often loses focus even on that menial chore. Mostly she lives in her past when she was a model in Paris and New York, her childhood in San Francisco or through her deceased friend Veronica, a victim of AIDS though she knows when lucid that except for Veronica her banality was superficial.

As she becomes sicker, Alison increasingly buries her mind in a time when she was pretty and treasured as a beauty. The present is too ugly and painful to stay in while the past though only skin deep and choosing to ignore the shallow, the failed love affair and any hardships is nicer even with Veronica death at least in what is left inside Alison's mind.

This is a powerful character study that grips the audience from the moment of understanding of the lead protagonist in her present state vs. when her former existence takes hold. Fans will not find this an easy novel to read, though it is well written and insightful, as Alison in the present is extremely ill with no hopes, and in the past a shallow life seems to have passed her by. Mary Gaitskill provides a strong drama that takes no prisoners, as she demonstrates to the audience that they will have one chance to live life to the fullest, so they should do it.

Harriet Klausner