'Last year I lost my cat Gattino. He was very young, at seven months barely an adolescent. He is probably dead but I don't know for certain.'

So begins Mary Gaitskill's stunning long essay, the closest thing she has written to a memoir, about a lost cat and a pair of adopted children. In this searing piece about loss, love, safety and fear, Gaitskill applies her razor-sharp writing to her most personal subjects yet.

About the Author

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the story collections Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To (nominated for the PEN/ Faulkner Award), and Don't Cry, the novels The Mare, Veronica (nominated for the National Book Award), and Two Girls, Fat and Thin, and a collection of essays, Somebody With A Little Hammer.

Her stories and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, Harper's, Artforum>, and Granta, among many other journals, as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories.