Mary Gaitskill and American Transgressive Fiction Writing

I am uncomfortable comparing Mary Gaitskill's work with the novels we have studied in class for the sole fact that the writing was mediocre. My entire experience with the piece was unsatisfying and I just really did not enjoy reading it. The descriptions were very topical and devoid of sensory clues, I never understood what the grand concepts like "souls" and "spirits" and "Gentleness" meant, and thus never felt anything towards the story. In novels like Crash and Nights at the Circus I was with the characters being moved by the same emotions they were being moved by and that connection comes down to the value of the descriptions. I don't want to feel like the author is telling me how to feel towards there words, which was everything I got out of "Mirrorball." I was extremely disappointed to not enjoy this story because Robin has hyped Gaitskill up to sky-high proportions, and I felt so much less. I feel we would have gotten a better sense of an  American trasngressive author from someone like Hubert Selby Jr. and his short story "Tralala."