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Mary Gaitskill’s formidable new novella opens in the aftermath of an intense period of reckoning, during which sexual abusers and harassers have been called out. Trials are set; justice is pending. In other words, the book’s fictional world is our current one. The duo narrating the story are friends of 20 years – Quinlan Maximillian Saunders (known as Q), and Margot (M). Both are influential book editors in the US. The relationship has been one of affection, ambivalence, trust, humour and accommodation. In both narratives the tone is confessional; they are going on record, perhaps with a scrutinising world, and, more intimately, with the reader. Q must address his past behaviour. M is examining her friendship with him. They have never been lovers; the boundaries made clear since M unequivocally stopped Q grabbing her between the legs at their first lunch meeting. She has frequently upbraided him for, as well as been entertained by, his outlandish behaviour.

Q is an Englishman, a dandy dresser married to a beautiful, wealthy heiress, and he likes nothing more than working his way into the confidences and vulnerabilities of women, from which he creates ambiguous relationships. “As if I were a magician, she listened to me tell her about herself: what she was like, what she needed, what she needed to correct.” He’s generous, attentive, and a provocateur. He believes women act out, and out of, their own truths; that experiences of the world and our stories essentially construct the world.

He is accused of assaults on women in his employment and the wider community. Certainly, he understands that the world is changing; believes that “women are now very into the victim story”, and in his unguarded comments to M reveals a solipsistic analysis of the situation and a transferred brand of blame: “They are angry at what’s happening in the country and in the government. They can’t strike at the king, so they go for the jester.” He’s professionally punished. His family is deeply damaged. He feels spiritually cuffed, but maintains an ego-soothing optimism that his case will be dismissed.

And atonement? Is he sorry? Does he comprehend the nature and effect of his crimes? There’s room to feel sympathy with the flamboyant, roguish Q, and some readers will; it’s an astonishingly humane characterisation, articulated within mutable social dynamics. But more urgently, we are primed to penetrate Q’s defences and misogyny, primed for penitence. Here, Gaitskill nails one of the most disempowering and frustrating aspects of the recent sexual offences shakedown: the frequently unrewarded desire for enlightenment and apology, and genuine reformation of perpetrators.

M, however, is very quick to apologise; “I’m sorry to report …” she states early in the discourse. There’s much contrition and soul searching over her relationship with Q, her concomitant complicity with his attitudes. She endures scornful opinions about “women trying to defend these creeps. The ones who say, ‘That’s just what men are like.’” Others whisper covert admiration at her loyalty. Some of Q’s accusers express regret and M is furious with them; that they benefited from Q’s patronage before indicting him. She recognises a mutuality of arrangements between him and his carousel of ladies.

There’s much sex talk in the book, but few sexual acts. Q is never “unfaithful” to his wife, who slaps him publicly but stays with him, and she’s angrier about the fact that he’s an “idiot” rather than a straightforward “predator”. M is also upset by Q’s response. He doesn’t gaslight victims by telling them their reaction to his bad behaviour is crazy; instead he laments their loss as friends. M considers Q a better friend than many of her female acquaintances. But should she forgive him if he cannot metabolise his guilt? Perhaps the real question the author poses through Margot’s reflectiveness is, why are women often better than men at examining their responsibilities and complicity, and at holding themselves to account?

There are no easy answers or safe moral stations within the book. The two narratives converse, diverge, agree and disagree, brilliantly covering this hotly debated terrain. In fewer than 100 pages, Gaitskill achieves a superb feat. She distils the suffering, anger, reactivity, danger and social recalibration of the #MeToo movement into an extremely potent, intelligent and nuanced account. She pares a single story from the chorus of condemnations, with their similarities, varieties, truths and perceptions, and through select incidents and emotional focus we see the complex details of the wider picture. It takes an expert in short fiction to condense such a difficult subject, while allowing the reader interpretive space. Gaitskill is phenomenally gifted at the metaphysical microcosmic. She makes the abstruse world clearer. There are many ways the topic will be tackled in literature. This Is Pleasure sensitively and confidently holds its fury, momentum, contrary forces and imperfect humanity within a perfect frame.

Sarah Hall’s Sudden Traveller is published this week by Faber. This Is Pleasure is published by Serpent’s Tail (£7.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 020-3176 3837. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.

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