INTERVIEWER

Did you sell any of the individual stories before the collection was published?

GAITSKILL

No. I sent them to every quarterly I could think of, and I would sometimes get five rejection letters in my mailbox at once. The main thing editors would write was that the characters were too hapless, and it was all too depressing. I think part of it was that some of the stories were a little whimsical by themselves. I can see somebody feeling that, say, “Daisy’s Valentine”—which I happen to really like—is a little wispy. It just wanders off at the end.