“[‘Lost Cat’ is] a gutting, brutal, lovely piece of work. Deserving of many more adjectives, though these will suffice. It’s ‘ideal Gaitskill’ as well, and a pinnacle display of her power as a writer. It’s worth the purchase of Somebody With A little Hammer just to read it … Gaitskill’s bi-pronged commitment to both gentleness and unsparing clarity gives us a wholly new perspective from which to consider her subject. This is her style, and largely hers alone, crafted over decades; she’s emotional without ever being cloudy or sodden, intellectual but never cold or removed. And not only is there no one doing what she does better than she does it, there’s really no one else doing it at all … Too much at once can be repellent. But Gaitskill’s writing is somehow crucial in a way few of her peers can achieve. She says the things you didn’t know needed to be said until she says them, and only then do you know what you’ve been missing.”
–Emily Simon, The Buffalo News, April 7, 2017
