The New Yorker Stories

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Authors: Ann Beattie

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The New Yorker Stories

Ann Beattie

Simon Schuster (2010)

Tags: Fiction
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From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Gathered in chronological order from 1974 to 1986, these early stories elucidate tension, suspicion, and the uneasy truces between married and divorced couples. Women are in flux and a general malaise settles over the urban dwellers or small town transplants, with notable departures. Though readers may be tempted to regard Beattie's characters as emblematic of their time, even as uniquely "American" in their self-involved, luxurious problems, they have weathered well and transcend easy classification. Beattie has mastered the tango between intelligent, sometimes perplexed individuals, allowing gradual, believable erosions to stand in place of high drama. "The Cinderella Waltz" draws an empathetic triangulation between the narrator, her ex-husband, and his current partner; "Home to Marie" offers a cruel take on unfulfilled expectations. Taken in full, these stories are taut evocations of separation and resignation, even as they reveal tenderness, and the best of them portray love and hatred not as intense polarities, but as tempered forces with fine gradations. (Nov.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

From

While all critics professed respect for Ann Beattie’s significant influence on the American short story, how they reviewed her
New Yorker
collection depended on how much they really liked her minimalist style—one often devoid of tone, emotion, and cultural signposts. The
San Francisco Chronicle
categorized reaction to her work in three ways: “masterful,” “resistant and chilly,” or perhaps “both.” Appreciation, it seems, is a matter of literary taste. Certainly, there’s much to admire, even if only rarely do the stories tie together neatly. The earlier ones, those that made Beattie’s name, are more spartan; the later ones more nuanced, though they bear similarities to their predecessors. Whether or not one embraces her style, few writers capture the American psyche like Beattie.

Also by Ann Beattie

Distortions

Chilly Scenes of Winter

Secrets and Surprises

Falling in Place

The Burning House

Love Always

Where You’ll Find Me

Picturing Will

What Was Mine

Another You

My Life, Starring Dara Falcon

Park City

Perfect Recall

The Doctor’s House

Follies

Walks with Men

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2010032933

ISBN 978-1-4391-6874-5
ISBN 978-1-4391-6876-9 (ebook)

“Zalla,” “Second Question,” from
Park City: New and Selected Stories
by Ann Beattie, copyright © 1998 by Irony and Pity, Inc. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

“A Vintage Thunderbird,” “Colorado,” “The Lawn Party,” “Distant Music,” “Secrets and Surprises,” “Weekend,” “Tuesday Night,” “Shifting,” from
Secrets and Surprises
by Ann Beattie, copyright © 1976, 1977, 1978 by Ann Beattie. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

“Home to Marie,” “Television,” “Horatio’s Trick,” from
What Was Mine
by Ann Beattie, copyright © 1991 by Irony and Pity, Inc. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

“Coney Island,” “Lofty,” “Times,” “Heaven on a Summer Night,” “In the White Night,” “Janus,”
“Summer People,” “Skeletons,” and “Where You’ll Find Me,” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
Where You’ll Find Me and Other Stories
by Ann Beattie. Copyright © 1986 by Irony and Pity, Inc. All rights reserved.

“The Women of This World” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
Perfect Recall
by Ann Beattie. Copyright © 2001 by Irony and Pity, Inc. All rights reserved.

“Find and Replace,” “The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation,” and “That Last Odd Day in L.A.,” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., from
Follies
by Ann Beattie. Copyright © 2005 by Irony and Pity, Inc. All rights reserved.

The following stories appear courtesy of Ann Beattie: from
Distortions
(1976), “A Platonic Relationship,” “Fancy Flights,” “Wolf Dreams,” “Dwarf House,” “Snakes’ Shoes,” “Vermont,” “Downhill,” and “Wanda’s”; from
The Burning House
(1982), “The Cinderella Waltz,” “The Burning House,” “Waiting,” “Greenwich Time,” “Gravity,” “Running Dreams,” “Afloat,” “Girl Talk,” “Like Glass,” and “Desire”; previously uncollected, “Moving Water,” “One Day,” “Coping Stones,” and “The Confidence Decoy.”

For Lincoln

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