Secretary

by Mary Gaitskill

Short Story

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Contemporary

Paperback

Published May 14, 1989

About the author

Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories (1993 and 2006), and The O. Henry Prize Stories (1998). She married writer Peter Trachtenberg in 2001. As of 2005, she lived in New York City; Gaitskill has previously lived in Toronto, San Francisco, and Marin County, CA, as well as attending the University of Michigan where she earned her B.A. and won a Hopwood Award. Gaitskill has recounted (in her essay "Revelation") becoming a born-again Christian at age 21 but lapsing after six months.

Reviews

[sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

underwhelming and imbalanced
if i were to compare the story to the movie, i'd say i liked the movie and its emotions and message better. if i were to take the movie out of the equation, i would still not like the story because the message it has is not even clear.
no development of the main character which is the only person’s pov we have in the story so you would think we’d know her better
there’s also an element in the movie that is such an odd choice that i assumed it came from the story and was underdeveloped for movie purposes but come to find out that it’s not even in the story ???
anyway

[reyla · Rating 3 out of 5]

i expected more because i love the movie so much and i read an interview of gaitskill and she just presented this story in a much more bigger way? i am doing my humanities final on the movie and thought i should read the short story for fun but there’s nothing to add😭

[dilara may · Rating 2 out of 5]

quite underwhelming compared to the movie, but i’m biased because it’s my favourite movie of all time. there where well thought out themes and the character of debby was complex despite the shortness of the story. i liked it, it’s nice to see weirdo representation

[Ray LaManna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very precise tale getting inside the mind of a young woman...the story left us kind of hanging, but still interesting

[Darcel Anastasia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I much prefer the 2002 film adaptation.

[Nayareth Gutiérrez Vera · Rating 4 out of 5]

“‘You scored higher than anyone else I’ve interviewed,’ she said. ‘You’re really overqualified for this job. There’s no challenge. You’d be bored to death.’

‘I want to be bored,’ I said.”

Reading other reviews, I noticed people didn’t quite like this one. I don’t blame them—there’s always some kind of dislike when something gets adapted, and the adaptation manages to go far beyond the lines of the source material. Either way, I understand. On the other hand, though, I liked this enough to mark it 4 stars.

I don’t know what it says about me that I felt somewhat connected to Debby, its peculiar protagonist. I, too, want to feel bored. Better bored than nothing at all.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's interesting to me that the movie this was based on decided to take a completely different direction. anyway really loved the voice of this, a lot of great imagery invoked. all these books about isolated weird disaffected girlies are desperately trying to emulate this and they all fall short.

[mink · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8/5 tbh

surprisingly underwhelming. i was expecting a lot more since the movie was soooo exaggerated but this story didn't contain much that really kept me on edge. 'bad behavior' is fantastic but not so much the actual short story of 'secretary.' it was pretty hard to follow along.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have yet to see the movie, so this review is entirely based on this very brief short story. I loved it, everything was very well done, my only complaint is that I want more. So, so much more, which is perhaps what made this become the inspiration for such a cult classic film. What impressed me so much though is the realness, the intense believability of the characters in such a short piece. Maybe it's just because I feel me and Debby are cut from the same cloth, regardless I felt very connected to her and the side characters too immediately. A truly impressive 4 stars ♥︎

[A Mallinckrodt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelming. Might be the first time that I prefer the movie adaptation over the original story. Relatively impressed the movie directors got such a good film/dialogue / setting out of this (bland) short text. Was also disappointed to see, that the addition of self-harm is also only part of the plot in the movie. (Served as a great explanation for both of their eccentric desires...).

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a short story in a newspaper so it's kind of cheating to put it on my reading challenge but it's the first thing I've read by Mary Gaitskill and I feel like she has a lot of answers to some of my life's biggest questions.

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

The short story that birthed the Maggie Gyllenhall film of the same name and the original Mr Grey. This one is actually quite good, like a redux Fight Club for disillusioned women. The ending is a bit lacking.

[sav · Rating 3 out of 5]

all love but the movie is better <3

[Khadj · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yeah, I wasn't a fan. I do love the movie adaptation though

[lara · Rating 2 out of 5]

movie better

[sofia gonzalez · Rating 3 out of 5]

imo the discourse about this is outsized

[Rachael Hanly]

movie was more fun, book was more...intriguing

[Sara Guzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salirme de mi cuerpo y verme desde arriba no fue una sensación desagradable en absoluto

[haych · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really underwhelming. The writing was really boring. I watched the film and enjoyed it much, much more.

[fawn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately uninspiring and anti-climactic compared to its movie counterpart. I'm surprised by how starkly different the messages of both respective pieces are.

[✧ bree ✧ · Rating 1 out of 5]

ummm. that was kinda bad...

with the film being one of my favourites i had heard the original short story was rather different but i cant avoid comparing them bc i did nottt like this. the film does such a magnificent job of building its characters and their respective strangeness and weirdness and complicated humanity and intimate shyness and simultaneously ashamed yet unashamed desires that all culminate in such a proudly honest and unique love story that i feel like you rarely get to see <3 so its fascinating to see that EVERY single bit of that was purely the film's doing!! thank u steven shainberg for making something so beautiful out of such mediocre (and very blandly written, at such odds with the film's strong visual stylings) origins. the film's ending and message are just SO important that it's bizarre to see the story take an opposite route — while it clearly is trying to say something of its own and i can acknowledge that, i simply FARRRR prefer what the film has to offer (love and warmth and unconventional acceptance and desire and freedom!!!!). truly zero reason to read this just go watch the film again.

+ if there weren't a few near exact scene pulls the film would be practically unrelated bc these people were NOTTTT queen maggie gyllenhaal and THE james spader like... mr grey was filmic genius i fear. inspired casting can literally change the world guys ❤️

[tam · Rating 3 out of 5]

my roommate is not very happy that the movie is open in another tab

[Dominik Chromicz · Rating 1 out of 5]

just bad and disgusting lol

[virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.8/5

[coldnessonmyarm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The movie is miles better.

[Danilo DiPietro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proxy for ‘Minority Report’, short story in the New Yorker. Gaitskill’s modern take on her earlier story.