Audible narration by Margo Martindale (Mrs. America) In the wake of a brutal crime, three people cross paths in this unflinching deconstruction of moral uncertainty, shifting perceptions, and sexual violence by Mary Gaitskill, the critically acclaimed author of Bad Behavior.
Mark is the accused rapist. Miss P. is the victim, his former teacher. Moira M. is an apathetic juror. As the trial unfolds in this intense short story, three personal histories emerge, along with three alarmingly different points of view: Obsessed and angry. Menaced and disillusioned. Disaffected and searching through an unexamined life for moral conviction.
Mary Gaitskill’s Bear Witness is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.
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.
This 27 page short story is part of the Out of Line Collection which is currently available on Kindle Unlimited.
What happens when women step out of line and take control of their own lives?
This is the story of Mark Carter and his teacher and the proceeding court case. Multiple perspectives including people on the jury, Mark, his teacher and Marks friend.
These 27 pages are intense and left me feeling exhausted.
This 7 book collection is exclusive to Amazon and a great way to try out some new authors.
This story was so good. You get insights into a woman who was raped, the man who raped her, and some of the jurors who are hearing the case. The story is also framed as happening around the time of the Brett Kavanaugh hearing.
The story I thought was great and you have a slow dread as you are reading since you realize what has occurred. The different parts to the story were wonderfully done and I felt devastated in the end because cases like this still show that women are not given the benefit of the doubt. There’s still a little bit of what did she do to invite this in.
The ending has a sort of realization for the jury character, but one wonders how things will change for her now.
This was a fairly bland story from the outset, and in this particular instance, I feel that there was a lack of a solid plot. I disliked the way that nothing was elaborated on, characters were skeletal in description, and the actual writing was pretty basic. One does not simply take a shock topic such as rape, and expect that story to be popular, purely due to that, there just has to be more to it. An extremely undercooked pie.
The blurb is misleading - there is no real moral discussion, no intrigue, no thought-provoking message. Sad concept, flat characters, and underwhelming writing. I think I'm most disappointed that this idea wasn't elevated by the author. There's just no complexity.
As I've been thinking about this whole Out of Line collection so far, I feel like the authors (or Amazon) are going for shocking and powerful, and they hope to achieve this through controversial topics like population control and rape cases. But, as any reader knows, a good idea isn't enough to create a good story - it needs more. And that more isn't here.
Maybe I'm critical because I'm coming off a Daphne du Maurier short story collection, in which each tale is layered with symbolism, intrigue, emotion, and ambiguity - all things needed here, but are sadly missing. du Maurier is just one of the authors who prove a short story can, and often should, pack a punch. This collection so far, which certainly wants to, hasn't done that.
‘Bear Witness’ by Mary Gaitskill left me a little shaken. At the end of the short novella, the thoughts I had were about the differences in men and women.
The two different genders have human bodies. They both have brains, hormones, nerves, organs, blood - a lot of physical similarities. Our bodies work at keeping us alive the same. Emotions and self-awareness are felt and known the same in both genders. Yet, somehow, when emotions and self-awareness are felt, the way they are acted on by the two different genders is often quite dissimilar.
In many men, they often don’t seem to know what to do with the emotions of affection or love or attachment or caring.
Most women seem to actively seek for and openly nurture the different emotional forms of love, affection, and caring. Many women desire emotional closeness to make life fulfilling and to create a safe nest of emotional warmth and family connections.
Men sometimes - maybe instinctually? - turn their emotions of needing love, affection and caring into the colder harsher, more military fulfillments of dogpack culture - power, hierarchy, sexual ‘rights’. I am aware men either turn away from dogpacks or embrace them. Since I am a woman, I can only go by what I have observed in the many men I’ve known in my life.
The way we humans are, is it nature or nurture? Or nature/nurture combined, with childhood experiences either bringing out balance or imbalance between inborn gender instincts?
I have copied the book blurb because it is accurate:
”In the wake of a brutal crime, three people cross paths in this unflinching deconstruction of moral uncertainty, shifting perceptions, and sexual violence by Mary Gaitskill, the critically acclaimed author of Bad Behavior.
Mark is the accused rapist. Miss P. is the victim, his former teacher. Moira M. is an apathetic juror. As the trial unfolds in this intense short story, three personal histories emerge, along with three alarmingly different points of view: Obsessed and angry. Menaced and disillusioned. Disaffected and searching through an unexamined life for moral conviction.
Mary Gaitskill’s Bear Witness is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.”
I understood the character Miss Pietrisinski down to the bone. I have met men like the characters Mark Carter and Jack, who crossed her path. Jack is the kind of man many women know immediately is a bad man, that deep down he hates women, wants to shame them, put them “in their place”. Some women are intensely drawn to men like Jack. But Mark Carter? He’s the kind of guy a lot of women want to help, to fix his issues. He is someone observers feel has a gaping emptiness inside, and he wants help with it. He was a victim as a child, gave off those victimized vibes. Some women are moved into wanting to protect victimized manboys, that victim vibe sets off the underlying nurturing mother aspect that is in many women, I suspect. I understood the character Ana, I related to her and her youthful views. But Moira? She irritated me. I think my irritation with the character is she doesn’t like insights. Her instinct seems to be to try to avoid insights, maybe because it causes emotions or a sense of needing to take responsibility she doesn’t want to face swirl up into her consciousness that she wants to keep buried. However, she seems to have gained some insight over time, with reluctance.
This is a great story! Book club members might be discussing these 28 pages for hours, and thinking about it for days….
This is an odd tale, a moving and disturbing story in equal measure. It takes a little while to get going and I wasn’t a fan of the way it jumped back and forth from points of view. However it was a powerful story in the end.
The ending actually surprised me a bit but I suppose it shouldn’t have. There are some very tough questions and opinions raised in this book, which makes you think. The subject of rape however is a diffiuclt one for many.
A cleverly written book, perhaps too brief for this subject, however I felt it was handled rather well.
„They wondered how you would get over knowing that the man you planned to marry had forced an old woman to put on crotchless panties, raped her, then come home and deposited the evidence in your garbage pail where you would see it.“
4/5
Po „This is Pleasure“ jau žinojau ko iš Mary Gaitskill tikėtis. Sunki tema, sodrus tekstas, tobulai parinkti žodžiai ir nedidukė apimtis. Viena iš tų autorių, kurių trumpas istorijas sąmoningai renkuosi – kažkaip ji sugeba pasakyti tiek daug, o neišsiplėsti. Galėtų tai tapti puikiu romanu, nes tema – gniaužianti kvapą, tačiau ir šio mažo lašelio pakanka, kad į veidą plūstelėtų empatijos, pasišlykštėjimo, siaubo jūra. Ir niekas nevienareikšmiška, ir niekas nėra paprasta, ir niekas nėra nei juoda, nei balta. Ir nors „This is Pleasure“ pasirodė stipresnė, jau žinau, kad imsiu kokį autorės apsakymų rinkinį. Jei reikėtų palyginti tai sakyčiau, kad balsas, temos, amerikietiškumas ir pasakojimo stilius man primena Joyce Carol Oates. Jos fanams neabejotinai rekomenduočiau, bet ir šiaip aktualu tiems, kurie ieško supurtančio teksto, tokio greito šūvio į galvą. Tokio, kuris ne iš karto nužudo, palieka pasikankinti. Ir smegenys dar veikia.
Pasakojimas nėra painus, nors dėliojasi iš skirtingų laikmečių ir veikėjų perspektyvų. Ypač įdomiai ir skaudinančiai aktualiai Gaitskill perteikia skirtingą požiūrį į seksualinę prievartą – kaip net jury duty atliekantys žmonės ieško pasiteisinimų, kaip vienus nuteisia, o kitiems yra linkę atleisti, kaip baisisi, šaiposi, numoja ranka. Labai apmaudu, kad Gaitskill neturim lietuviškai. Tikiuosi, tik kol kas.
I absolutely hated this. Ugh, I'm mad just thinking about it. Like, the summation of this collection is "What happens when women step out of line and take control of their own stories?" and that is, EMPHATICALLY, not happening here. Everyone is a complete victim of the patriarchy living deeply depressing lives with terrible consequences. That's actually my problem with this collection as a whole--it's like Amazon told the writers to write the most depressing stories about being women they could think of but then sold it as a collection of empowering stories. Most of these stories haven't felt empowering to me, and this one DEFINITELY DID NOT. I truly wanted to throw up when I finished it. It definitely evoked emotion, but not what I was looking for and I did. not. like. it.
Yet another powerful story in this six episode series from Amazon Prime.
This is a rape case told from the perspective of the defendant, a juror and the victim. It's so cleverly written that I was at first confused about who was relaying what, since the characters see themselves and each other in such different ways. Gaitskill may have done this on purpose and if so, I applaud her.
This definitely left me with a lot to think about. Not the guilt of the accused, that bastard was wrong, but about the juror and her life and how her life has shaped her views and forced acceptance of the unacceptable. Will she wake up?
Nə oxudum, İlahi! Amazonun bu qısa hekayə seriyalarını çox sevirəm. "Out of line" - "Normadan kənar" adlı seriyaya daxil olan bu hekayə fərqli həyat keçirən 3 insanın bir cinayətə qarşı fərqli münasibətlərinə keçmiş həyatlarını işıqlandırmaqla izahat verir.
It’s an unique idea, a story with the POV of a rapist, the survivor, and a juror. The juror seemed to take up the most space, and I didn’t find her thoughts very interesting.
From Detention to Incarceration Review of the Amazon Original Kindle eBook (September 2020)
The constant change of narrators felt disjointed in this short story. Initial bad kid grows up to be a predator and is judged by the banal commentary of the jurors in their off-court time.
Bear Witness is one of seven Amazon Kindle eBooks released September 1, 2020 as part of their Amazon Original Out of Line collection of short stories about women taking control.
Of the seven short stories in Amazon's "Out of Line" collection, this sixth installment is the most difficult and challenging. Those familiar with Mary Gaitskill's storytelling will expect her forceful and ambiguous endings with so many possible yet different interpretations. Wow!
This story centers around three people, Mark (a slow learner and difficult student who grows up to be accused of assaulting his teacher), Jenny (Mark's teacher twice and later victim of the assault), and Moira (a reluctant jury member at Mark's trial). Three interwoven storylines portray each character's involvement up to the final days of the trial as final testimonies are given. Ugh!
This is not light reading. The characters each have complex lives and issues defining their perspectives. Their unique and twisted personalities, though compelling, are hard to like and difficult to interpret.
The author's chilling story creates a troubling and complicated narrative with no clear answers to too many questions. Although I intended this as a one-and-done quick "escape" read, I pored through the short work several times, looking for more clues, more evidence, things I might have missed. My conclusions (note the plural wording) gave me three possible final ending viewpoints. Each different. Each troubling in it's own way. Each worthwhile and appropriate. But you'll need to discover the best conclusion for yourself.
Although the complementary Audible narration was helpful, it too only added to the story's mysterious circumstances. Wow!
I didn't know whether the story deserved 3 stars or 5 stars. I could argue well both ratings. So, I settled on 4 stars, as my own ambiguous conclusion. Ugh!
Another short story from the Out of Line collection of Amazon original stories. This story centres on three people involved in a rape trial - the accused, the survivor an a juror. An uncomfortable but compelling read that raised difficult questions about toxic masculinity, internalized misogyny and the ethics of the criminal justice system.
I listened to all of the Out of Line short story collection through Audible and none of the books really interested me. I don't think I am the right audience for these books and so I am not going to rate them.
This out of line series book is actually very sad. I thought short court room drama when I read the description but there is some much more emotionally behind the scenes. Good read.
This short story is part of the Out of Line: Women on the Verge of a Breakthrough collection from Amazon Original Stories. The less you know about these stories going in the better, and they can be read in any order.
I listened to the audiobook which was well narrated by Margo Martindale (Mrs. America) and R.C. Bray.
Since I didn't read the blurb, it took me a bit to realize that while there where two audio narrators, there are three POVs. This is well written story, with good character development. My second fave of the collection. There is a brutal crime at the heart of this tale, so proceed with caution.
Like a few others, I seem to be in the minority here.
I quite enjoyed Bear Witness as it felt vaguely reminiscent of the new iteration of Stephen King. The interweaving storylines and the eventual conclusion were right out of something he would pen these days.
I feel that had Gaitskill turned this into a full length novel, or should she somehow be able to get the rights back from Amazon and, at the very least expand this to a novella, Bear Witness could have easily been a 5 star read.
At very worst, I now have a new author I may need to check out.
This was only a short story (28 pages), so it was a very quick read. However, for a short story, it is surprisingly deep and leave you with a lot to think about. The character development, personal insights and great writing really made me wish it was longer - and that is honestly my only complaint.
4.5 Fantastic short story told through the eyes of a few people at different times in their lives. I resonated with the special Ed teacher who did what she could to see the good in a troubled young man. I’ve been there. Sometimes the hardest kids need the most positive attention.
Least favorite of the collection so far. Idk the writing never pulled me in and i found myself skimming it which isn’t a good sign seeing as it’s less than thirty pages long