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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Barely any
Brief violence in the modeling milieu; a character's disease progression
Language
Some
Profanity and frank language
Sexual Content
A lot
Explicit sexual content in the modeling and social world of 1980s New York; promiscuity and its consequences are central themes
Substance Use
Some
Drug and alcohol use in the fashion world
Emotional Intensity
A lot
AIDS death; the psychological cost of having been beautiful and no longer being so; class and the body
What this book is about
Alison, a former model who briefly tasted fame in the 1980s before her looks faded, recalls her friendship with Veronica, an older, unglamorous woman who died of AIDS contracted from her bisexual boyfriend. Gaitskill alternates between Alison's life-defining moment of beauty and its aftermath in a present of physical pain and manual labor. A novel about bodies, class, friendship across difference, and the cruelty of beauty as capital.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Explicit sexual content
AIDS death
Drug use in the fashion world
Reader Verification
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