Mary Gaitskill's sad story in current NYer

The Mary Gaitskill story, Acceptance Journey, in the current NYer, despite its loose connection to the xmas season (the protagonist, Carol, poses as the Grinch and carries on a "secret" correspondence w/ a young girl living across the street) is a typical Gaitskill story in the vein she's been working since her groundbreaking debut story collection from the 80s. This story like so many of her others tells of a woman with terrible luck or very poor decisions about relationships, beautiful though by now in a fading light (Carol is 57), on a wobbly career path (Carol doing a one-semester fill-in in the admin office at an upstate college, Bard it seems like), lonely, w/ lots of thoughts about sex, probably drinking too much, and always in search of a better, cleaner life that always seems elusive and out of reach. What's somewhat different in this story is that Carol seems to have some spiritual yearnings; the title refers to some sort of healing service that she sees promoted on billboards in her aimless driving around the rural outskirts of her temporary home. She actually tries to join a church service that she mistakenly believes to be the Acceptance Journey, but recognizes that she's not especially welcomed at the black church that she enters and that the Acceptance Journey is another service altogether  - one she never joins (she hears that it's a program for individuals in gender transition). The story ends in to abrupt a manner - although that's typical of MG's work as well - her characters never quite get to the resolution that we often expect from short fiction. She's troubled at the outset - marriage dissolved, walked out on man she dismissively calls "the boyfriend" (in quotes), no kids, probably w a fair # of friends plus a sister but the communication w/ these feels strained and distanced, and not at all fitting into the neighborhood where she's received temp housing - and we see nothing of her interaction w/ colleagues or students. In short, a sad story part of the sad ouvre that MG has developed and chronicled over the past 40 or so years - and not at all, not that it should be, in the xmas spirit.