Mary Gaitskill (born November 11, 1954, in Lexington, Kentucky) 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. She lives in Rhinebeck, New York; Gaitskill has previously lived in New York City, 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.

Gaitskill made her book debut in 1988 with the short-story collection Bad Behavior, having been trying to publish her work since the age of 23. Her fiction typically is about female characters dealing with their own inner conflicts, and her subject matter matter-of-factly includes many "taboo" subjects such as prostitution, addiction, and sado-masochism. Gaitskill says that she herself had worked as a stripper and call girl.

She showed similar candor discussing her being raped in her essay "On Not Being a Victim" for Harper's. The film Secretary (2002) is based on the short story of the same name in Bad Behavior, although the two have little in common. She characterized the film as "the Pretty Woman version, heavy on the charm (and a little too nice)," but observed that the "bottom line is that if [a film adaptation is] made you get some money and exposure, and people can make up their minds from there." The novel Two Girls, Fat and Thin follows the childhood and adult lives of Justine Shade (thin) and Dorothy Never (fat).

Justine works through her sadomasochistic issues while Dorothy works through her up-and-down commitment to the philosophy of "Definitism" and its founder "Anna Granite" (thinly-veiled satires of Objectivism and Ayn Rand). When journalist Justine interviews Dorothy for an exposé of Definitism, an unusual relationship begins between the two women. In an interview, Gaitskill discussed what she was trying to convey about Justine via her sadomasochistic impulses:

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