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Near the end of Veronica, author Mary Gaitskill's protagonist Alison tells the AIDS-infected Veronica: "You're the realest person I know. You are! Other people just write songs and strike poses."
The same could be said of Gaitskill, who uses no sentiment or pretense in a story that portrays how difficult it is for people to truly connect and how it often takes less effort to be cruel than to show genuine compassion.
The novel, which has been lauded for its unvarnished language and portrayal of a wasted life, has been shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It will be announced in March. The novel also was nominated for the National Book Award in 2005.
Though titled Veronica, the novel is mostly about Alison, an ex-model in her 40s who is stricken with hepatitis C.
Alison has spent her entire life struggling with the beauty she considers a blessing and a curse. As an up-and-coming model in the 1980s, she was on the cover of fashion magazines, stared at wherever she went and awash in luxuries. But she was bereft of self-love and allowed herself to be used and abused by countless men -- all while being self-absorbed in the physical beauty that had nothing in common with her wounded soul and seemingly frozen heart.
Like her beauty, Alison's modeling career doesn't last, and she returns to her family in New Jersey. There, she tries to live a less complicated life, dating the local boys and attending community college. But she still longs for her miserable life as a successful model in Paris.
She makes a run at renewing her career in New York and Los Angeles but lands only mediocre jobs.
Alison meets Veronica while working for a temp agency. They are as different in character as they are in appearance. "Her whole face looked askew, puckered like flesh around a badly healed wound," is Alison's first reaction to Veronica.
But Veronica may be Alison's ticket to redemption. She's given the chance to love for love's sake.
While the images Gaitskill conjures are ugly and often pessimistic, the writing is exquisite.
One can only look at the photo of Gaitskill on the book jacket and wonder how she has come to know so much. She's a beautiful woman, but the look in her eyes speaks of a knowledge that comes from intense self-scrutiny and a keen observation of others.
Gaitskill's story makes no apologies for the cruelty we inflict on each other and ourselves, but it laments lost opportunities for love, self-respect and a purposeful life.
Veronica
By Mary Gaitskill
Pantheon, 227 pp., $23
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