MARY GAITSKILL is the author of the story collections Because They Wanted To (nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award) and Don't Cry, the novels The Mare , Veronica (nominated for a National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin, and the essay collection Somebody with a Little Hammer . She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories .