INTERVIEWER

Did you keep working all these different jobs right up until you finished the collection?

GAITSKILL

Yes—I didn’t quit working until I’d sold the paperback rights. I eventually became a freelance proofreader, which paid much better than the Strand, so I had more uninterrupted blocks of time. I tend to think of the period in which I was writing Bad Behavior as being really long, and it was probably six years altogether, but I actually wrote a lot of the strongest stories between the ages of thirty and thirty-two—“Romantic Weekend,” “Secretary,” “Heaven,” and “Trying to Be.” I started Two Girls, Fat and Thin during that period, too, although I didn’t get that far into it then. I didn’t really have a writing routine—I’ve never had one—but it was easier to get work done when I didn’t have to wait until eleven at night.