There’s no guessing where a Beattie story will lead. And while one might intuit its catalyst––a “snake’s shoes,” a man who lost an arm, a vintage car, a wisteria pushing through a skylight, a crumbling stone wall around an old graveyard, a beautifully carved decoy––it feels as though Beattie herself is taken by surprise as each adroitly unsettling tale uncoils. Beattie made her mark as an audaciously understated yet resoundingly on-the-mark writer in the 1970s in the New Yorker, and it is testimony both to her unceasing artistic growth and the magazine’s unshakable commitment to exceptional short stories that the final works in this grand retrospective collection are as provocative as the first. Forty-eight Beattie stories appeared in the New Yorker between 1974 and 2006, and until now nearly half remained uncollected. This scintillating volume showcases Beattie’s stunning insights into the eternal isolation of individuals and each decade’s signature longings and conflicts. An incisive dramatist of family strife, marital discord, unconventional alliances, and the aftershocks of violence and death, Beattie portrays characters “numbed out,” wistful, or furious. Laced with ambivalence and irony and punctuated with unexpected reprieves, Beattie’s brilliantly structured stories are mordantly funny, haunting, and wise, making for a glorious collection. --Donna Seaman
Review
"As much as anyone in the past fifty years--you give me your Mavis Gallant, I'll give you my Frank O'Connor--Ann Beattie's slow-forming monument of a lifework defines what the short story can do, the extent of human life it can encompass."--Jonathan Lethem
“It is a testament to [Beattie’s] unceasing artistic growth … that the final works in this grand retrospective are as provocative as the first… This scintillating volume showcases Beattie’s stunning insights into the eternal isolation of individuals and each decade’s signature longing and conflicts. … Laced with ambivalence and irony and punctuated with unexpected reprieves, Beattie’s brilliantly structured stories are mordantly funny, haunting, wise, making for a glorious collection.”—Donna Seaman, Booklist