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Where You'll Find Me, and Other Stories
Ann Beattie is a writer of enormous compassion and honesty. Beattie expertly draws contemporary domestic life and evokes the pain and confusion of modern relationships. Her characters are wonderfully authentic, her detailing of everyday life photographically true.
Beattie's stories offer starkly honest, often bittersweet glimpses of life -- women nursing broken hearts, men looking for love, married couples struggling to stay married, having affairs, leaving or wanting to leave. Disillusionment abounds. Love is often frustrated, unrequited, or absent. But Beattie moves gently among her characters, gracefully revealing their failings, their troubles, and ultimately their ability to endure. Her unsentimental voice propels these remarkable stories forward, and her keen insight affords us a rare glimpse into the human heart.
Beattie's stories offer starkly honest, often bittersweet glimpses of life -- women nursing broken hearts, men looking for love, married couples struggling to stay married, having affairs, leaving or wanting to leave. Disillusionment abounds. Love is often frustrated, unrequited, or absent. But Beattie moves gently among her characters, gracefully revealing their failings, their troubles, and ultimately their ability to endure. Her unsentimental voice propels these remarkable stories forward, and her keen insight affords us a rare glimpse into the human heart.
191 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1986
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874 people want to read
About the author
Ann Beattie
142 books409 followersAnn Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike. She holds an undergraduate degree from American University and a masters degree from the University of Connecticut.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 67 reviews
January 29, 2018
3.5 rounded up to 4.
I hadn’t read anything by Ann Beattie in a long time, and then last year one of her excellent stories popped up in the Best American Short Stories 2014 anthology, and I recalled that I owned a couple of her books that I’d begun and never finished. This was one of them.
I’m glad I finally read it. Not every story is a gem, but a few are outstanding. In addition, the book has a “wintry” feel that's oddly appropriate for the season. (Which reminds me: perhaps I should read her debut novel, Chilly Scenes Of Winter, this winter.)
As suggested by the title, Beattie’s characters are often lost and adrift, separated by any number of things: infidelity, a family member’s death, a falsehood. Or they long to go somewhere else, to escape and fly away (the title comes from the song “Over The Rainbow”).
In the brief opening story, “In The White Night,” a middle-aged couple returns home from a party, driving through a winter storm. They discuss the party before arriving and then collapse on their living room sofa, not talking about the thing they’re both thinking about: their dead daughter. In one of Beattie’s startling and effective conclusions, they imagine:
That's lovely writing. And the haunting image on the cover of my edition suggests the daughter/angel floating by.
In “Skeletons,” a trio of housemates loses touch with each other, but years later one of them suddenly has a vision of the other two – he “finds” them – on Halloween.
In the amusing story “Cards,” two women meet for lunch and are hit on by a group of men at a neighbouring table. The final lines of dialogue – and a stunt one of the men pulls with his credit card – will make you rethink the women’s conversation, particularly an anecdote about an ex lover.
The title story, set during a Christmas party, is filled with stories upon stories about affairs, second chances, and fateful encounters. Watching Beattie juggle all the different characters and their tales is thrilling.
The book’s standout story, however, is “Janus,” included in John Updike’s Best American Short Stories Of The Century. Told entirely in exposition, it’s about Andrea, a real estate agent who becomes obsessed with a bowl she displays in houses she’s showing.
The story is, if you’ll pardon the pun, wonderfully polished; Beattie’s prose is immaculate, with every detail ringing true. Yet beneath the surface sheen there’s the suggestion that Andrea, like the figure in the title, is two-faced, not just using the bowl as a trick to get people to buy a house, but also cheating on her husband.
There’s not much range to the book’s characters. Beattie’s protagonists tend to be white, educated and upper-middle-class, living in a big city or having moved from one and now ensconced in the country.
One of the few characters from outside this class, incidentally, isn’t very believable, and her name – a cruel joke? – is Mrs. Camp. Ouch.
Bizarrely, my edition of the book includes three stories that feature characters named Kate; two of them feature characters named Kate and Frank. And yet I don’t think these are meant to be the same characters. This is obviously an editorial oversight. (I noticed the problem was fixed when Beattie’s The New Yorker Stories was published.)
But these are quibbles. For half a collection’s stories to be strong and worth rereading is a decent average. Beattie’s prose is very quotable. And revisiting the stories I knew, I was surprised with how many details I still recalled: the mark of a great writer.
I hadn’t read anything by Ann Beattie in a long time, and then last year one of her excellent stories popped up in the Best American Short Stories 2014 anthology, and I recalled that I owned a couple of her books that I’d begun and never finished. This was one of them.
I’m glad I finally read it. Not every story is a gem, but a few are outstanding. In addition, the book has a “wintry” feel that's oddly appropriate for the season. (Which reminds me: perhaps I should read her debut novel, Chilly Scenes Of Winter, this winter.)
As suggested by the title, Beattie’s characters are often lost and adrift, separated by any number of things: infidelity, a family member’s death, a falsehood. Or they long to go somewhere else, to escape and fly away (the title comes from the song “Over The Rainbow”).
In the brief opening story, “In The White Night,” a middle-aged couple returns home from a party, driving through a winter storm. They discuss the party before arriving and then collapse on their living room sofa, not talking about the thing they’re both thinking about: their dead daughter. In one of Beattie’s startling and effective conclusions, they imagine:
In the white night world outside, their daughter might be drifting past like an angel, and she would see this tableau, for the second that she hovered, as a necessary small adjustment.
That's lovely writing. And the haunting image on the cover of my edition suggests the daughter/angel floating by.
In “Skeletons,” a trio of housemates loses touch with each other, but years later one of them suddenly has a vision of the other two – he “finds” them – on Halloween.
In the amusing story “Cards,” two women meet for lunch and are hit on by a group of men at a neighbouring table. The final lines of dialogue – and a stunt one of the men pulls with his credit card – will make you rethink the women’s conversation, particularly an anecdote about an ex lover.
The title story, set during a Christmas party, is filled with stories upon stories about affairs, second chances, and fateful encounters. Watching Beattie juggle all the different characters and their tales is thrilling.
The book’s standout story, however, is “Janus,” included in John Updike’s Best American Short Stories Of The Century. Told entirely in exposition, it’s about Andrea, a real estate agent who becomes obsessed with a bowl she displays in houses she’s showing.
The story is, if you’ll pardon the pun, wonderfully polished; Beattie’s prose is immaculate, with every detail ringing true. Yet beneath the surface sheen there’s the suggestion that Andrea, like the figure in the title, is two-faced, not just using the bowl as a trick to get people to buy a house, but also cheating on her husband.
There’s not much range to the book’s characters. Beattie’s protagonists tend to be white, educated and upper-middle-class, living in a big city or having moved from one and now ensconced in the country.
One of the few characters from outside this class, incidentally, isn’t very believable, and her name – a cruel joke? – is Mrs. Camp. Ouch.
Bizarrely, my edition of the book includes three stories that feature characters named Kate; two of them feature characters named Kate and Frank. And yet I don’t think these are meant to be the same characters. This is obviously an editorial oversight. (I noticed the problem was fixed when Beattie’s The New Yorker Stories was published.)
But these are quibbles. For half a collection’s stories to be strong and worth rereading is a decent average. Beattie’s prose is very quotable. And revisiting the stories I knew, I was surprised with how many details I still recalled: the mark of a great writer.
January 8, 2020
I read the short story "Janus" which had been first published in The New Yorker in 1986. The Roman god Janus is two-faced with one face looking forward and the other looking backward. Andrea is two-faced in her relationship with her husband, and uses little tricks to present houses in the best possible manner as a real estate agent. Minimalist author Ann Beattie uses a beautiful bowl as a vehicle to show Andrea looking forward in her job, and backward in her personal life to someone she cannot forget.
December 26, 2015
Who else other than Ann Beattie could write a five-page story about a bowl? Beattie describes this bowl in-depth as well as our main character's obsession with it. A great story for those who enjoy aesthetic writing - because this bowl gets a lot of it - and some minor psychological themes. Andrea, our protagonist, transfers herself and her hopeless love life onto this bowl, making for a dynamic relationship that stays static all the same. Not my favorite short story, but one I could see a creative writing class discussing in brief.
June 19, 2013
This book of short stories includes some in NYC and others about NYC people. I love NYC. The age of the characters does not matter because I always start out thinking of them in their 50s with comfortable clothes and tosseled hair, maybe like Archie and Edith Bunker. Then if it turns out they have a two year old child, I know I was wrong but am not always successful at altering my imagination. I am comfortable being around Ann Beattie’s people.
This is my introduction to Ann Beattie. I was looking at some used books for short stories and this turned up. These are my kind of short stories: three maybe four pages with big margins. Every word counts and there is no excess information except what the author wants there to be. The writing is sharp and the stories are often quirky. Lots of stories full of routine life: summer vacations, going out to dinner, having a beer, winter nights, summer days, walking the dog, going to the Goodwill, watching TV, going out to run. Even though one story – Summer People – had some suspense and it ended without a resolution, I didn’t mind the question marks. There was tension in some of the relationships but nothing out of the ordinary: trip to the in-laws at Christmas, child custody situations, marital and family relationships. Almost all of the action was in the heads of the people. But I found the words often to be mesmerizing and beautiful.
It is not fair to say nothing dramatic happens in these stories. Most of the drama happens quietly between people. You are reminded that small but important events are folded into our lives. Or maybe to say that there is some poignancy and profundity in everyday life. I think that is what the skill of Beattie’s writing does for me. I notice and remember things that I might have ignored the first time they went by. I think to appreciate the people I care about even if they spend the vast majority of their time being regular folks.
Here are some key sentences for each story. You can use them at your next party. Read the sentence and then have someone construct a story around it.
In the White Night – In time, both of them had learned to stop passing judgment on how they coped with the inevitable sadness that set in, always unexpectedly but so real it was met with the instant acceptance one gave to a snowfall.
Snow – “Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.”
Skeletons – . . . when she was drawing she always sensed the model’s bones and muscles, and what she did was stroke a soft surface over them until a body took form.
The Big Outside World – She wasn’t going to carry them home, so she invented a scenario in which the man was right: an employee inside would see the bags, open the door, and take them in.
Coney Island – If they can have a child and if it’s a girl, Holly wants to name it for a flower: Rose or Lily or Margy – is that what she thought up? Short for Marigold.
When Can I See You Again? – “Gooseberries are probably the most popular. I don’t know why. I think because people love something exotic. Gooseberries mean ‘I want to see you again.’”
Lofty – Wadding newspaper to stuff into the urn for another summer, she had been shocked at how tightly she crushed it – as if by directing her energy into her hands she could fight back tears.
High School – My myopia is getting worse; until we come close, I mistake a bunch of broccoli for a bonsai tree.
Janus – the wonderful thing about the bowl, Andrea thought, was that it was both subtle and noticeable – a paradox of a bowl.
Spiritus – There was a rose of Sharon down the road that had been grafted so that it blossomed both pink and lavender.
Times – If either one became interested in someone else, they would handle the situation in whatever way they felt best, but there would be no flaunting of the other person, and they wouldn’t talk about it.
Summer People – He was flattered but also slightly worried that she wanted to make love every night.
Cards – “They’re wondering what perfume you have on, and whether you now hate your husband so much because he voted for Reagan that you’d do anything behind his back in the afternoon.”
Heaven On a Summer Night – On the job, construction workers sat up straight and drove tractors over piles of dirt and banged through potholes big enough to sink a bicycle, but at home, where the women she knew most often saw their men, they spent their time stretched out in big chairs, or standing by barbecue grills, languidly turning a hamburger as the meat charred.
Where You’ll Find Me – “. . . at the end of the summer, after I had mailed the picture, I’d be walking along or doing whatever I was doing and this feeling would come over me that he was thinking about me.”
Writing this was fun, even if no one else really wants to know something about every story in the book. Looking for that one sentence keeps my attention. That might seem like a strange thing to say about a book of short stories, but I really sometimes have a very short attention span. Usually I have to go back and read the story again. My selection of nibs might be my version of a Rorschach test with words. It is hard when I have more than one candidate and have to make a selection. Of course, you couldn’t do this with a book, but it works nicely for me with short stories.
Where You’ll Find Me was published in 1986 so has a few years on her. But most of the stories hardly seemed at all dated. I didn’t miss the computers and cell phones. Well, yes, there was smoking allowed in this fancy restaurant and the reference to Reagan and the 1977 Volvo. Well, it was just a book of short stories.
Excuse me if I was a little fresh (or maybe flip) in this review. It was just the feeling of the book. I add this book of short stories up to four stars. Maybe if I read it in 1986, it would get five.
This is my introduction to Ann Beattie. I was looking at some used books for short stories and this turned up. These are my kind of short stories: three maybe four pages with big margins. Every word counts and there is no excess information except what the author wants there to be. The writing is sharp and the stories are often quirky. Lots of stories full of routine life: summer vacations, going out to dinner, having a beer, winter nights, summer days, walking the dog, going to the Goodwill, watching TV, going out to run. Even though one story – Summer People – had some suspense and it ended without a resolution, I didn’t mind the question marks. There was tension in some of the relationships but nothing out of the ordinary: trip to the in-laws at Christmas, child custody situations, marital and family relationships. Almost all of the action was in the heads of the people. But I found the words often to be mesmerizing and beautiful.
It is not fair to say nothing dramatic happens in these stories. Most of the drama happens quietly between people. You are reminded that small but important events are folded into our lives. Or maybe to say that there is some poignancy and profundity in everyday life. I think that is what the skill of Beattie’s writing does for me. I notice and remember things that I might have ignored the first time they went by. I think to appreciate the people I care about even if they spend the vast majority of their time being regular folks.
Here are some key sentences for each story. You can use them at your next party. Read the sentence and then have someone construct a story around it.
In the White Night – In time, both of them had learned to stop passing judgment on how they coped with the inevitable sadness that set in, always unexpectedly but so real it was met with the instant acceptance one gave to a snowfall.
Snow – “Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.”
Skeletons – . . . when she was drawing she always sensed the model’s bones and muscles, and what she did was stroke a soft surface over them until a body took form.
The Big Outside World – She wasn’t going to carry them home, so she invented a scenario in which the man was right: an employee inside would see the bags, open the door, and take them in.
Coney Island – If they can have a child and if it’s a girl, Holly wants to name it for a flower: Rose or Lily or Margy – is that what she thought up? Short for Marigold.
When Can I See You Again? – “Gooseberries are probably the most popular. I don’t know why. I think because people love something exotic. Gooseberries mean ‘I want to see you again.’”
Lofty – Wadding newspaper to stuff into the urn for another summer, she had been shocked at how tightly she crushed it – as if by directing her energy into her hands she could fight back tears.
High School – My myopia is getting worse; until we come close, I mistake a bunch of broccoli for a bonsai tree.
Janus – the wonderful thing about the bowl, Andrea thought, was that it was both subtle and noticeable – a paradox of a bowl.
Spiritus – There was a rose of Sharon down the road that had been grafted so that it blossomed both pink and lavender.
Times – If either one became interested in someone else, they would handle the situation in whatever way they felt best, but there would be no flaunting of the other person, and they wouldn’t talk about it.
Summer People – He was flattered but also slightly worried that she wanted to make love every night.
Cards – “They’re wondering what perfume you have on, and whether you now hate your husband so much because he voted for Reagan that you’d do anything behind his back in the afternoon.”
Heaven On a Summer Night – On the job, construction workers sat up straight and drove tractors over piles of dirt and banged through potholes big enough to sink a bicycle, but at home, where the women she knew most often saw their men, they spent their time stretched out in big chairs, or standing by barbecue grills, languidly turning a hamburger as the meat charred.
Where You’ll Find Me – “. . . at the end of the summer, after I had mailed the picture, I’d be walking along or doing whatever I was doing and this feeling would come over me that he was thinking about me.”
Writing this was fun, even if no one else really wants to know something about every story in the book. Looking for that one sentence keeps my attention. That might seem like a strange thing to say about a book of short stories, but I really sometimes have a very short attention span. Usually I have to go back and read the story again. My selection of nibs might be my version of a Rorschach test with words. It is hard when I have more than one candidate and have to make a selection. Of course, you couldn’t do this with a book, but it works nicely for me with short stories.
Where You’ll Find Me was published in 1986 so has a few years on her. But most of the stories hardly seemed at all dated. I didn’t miss the computers and cell phones. Well, yes, there was smoking allowed in this fancy restaurant and the reference to Reagan and the 1977 Volvo. Well, it was just a book of short stories.
Excuse me if I was a little fresh (or maybe flip) in this review. It was just the feeling of the book. I add this book of short stories up to four stars. Maybe if I read it in 1986, it would get five.
Want to read
June 29, 2007SNOW
"This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent the winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to discuss. It's as pointless as throwing birdseed on the ground while snow still falls fast. Who expects small things to survive when even the largest getlost? People forget years and remember moments. Seconds and symols are left to sum things up: the black shroud over the pool. Love, in its shortest form, becomes a word. What I remember about that time is one winter. The snow. Even now, saying 'snow,' my lips move so that they kiss the air."
"This is a story, told the way you say stories should be told: Somebody grew up, fell in love, and spent the winter with her lover in the country. This, of course, is the barest outline, and futile to discuss. It's as pointless as throwing birdseed on the ground while snow still falls fast. Who expects small things to survive when even the largest getlost? People forget years and remember moments. Seconds and symols are left to sum things up: the black shroud over the pool. Love, in its shortest form, becomes a word. What I remember about that time is one winter. The snow. Even now, saying 'snow,' my lips move so that they kiss the air."
August 25, 2008
One of the most beautifully written collections of short fiction that I have ever read. Ann Beattie has a way of scooping out a hollow space in my soul and filling it with some indescribable weight. She has so much meaning in the simplest stories. After each one, I ended up holding the book close to my chest and just feeling it. Powerful. I love this book.
September 26, 2022
DNF/ transphobia
in my cursed short story era but hoping the new Ling Ma will break said curse...
in my cursed short story era but hoping the new Ling Ma will break said curse...
November 25, 2008
There's something pale and cold about this book, but that's not an insult. The prose is well crafted. The stories in which not much happens are well told and make you care about the details. That said, even the heavy stories (such as the one about the effect a child's death has on a married couple) seem to understand life from a distance. The experience seems more intellectual than emotional. Perhaps that is the writer's art.
May 14, 2023
Read Ann Beatties stories with your eyes half closed and miss it entirely. Beautiful compact storylines that draw you in and ask you, ‘look for me.’
September 22, 2007
The writing's excellent. Clear and concise, just how I like it. It was hard for me to personally relate to some of the characters, but that's not for lack of Beattie's trying. I can relate to folks who "summer" and have second apartments in the City about as well as I can relate the hard-drinking, hard-living folks in Raymond Carver's stories, which is to say not really all that much. Doesn't really stop either writers' stories from punching me in the gut, though.
Some might call some of the references in Beattie's stories a bit dated. I find them nostalgic. She references Pac Man & Space Invaders (the arcade machines), Bowie playing on the radio, LBJ, and est. It's risky when a writer does that, but maybe I'm just (barely) old enough for those references to resonate with me.
Some might call some of the references in Beattie's stories a bit dated. I find them nostalgic. She references Pac Man & Space Invaders (the arcade machines), Bowie playing on the radio, LBJ, and est. It's risky when a writer does that, but maybe I'm just (barely) old enough for those references to resonate with me.
December 10, 2008
Its a somewhat complex story about a woman who has a strange "relationship" with a bowl that her lover bought her at a cafts fair. She thinks it brings her luck, that it has some power over her life. She takes it everywhere with her. Its not a funny story by any means. It was sad for the most part. She begins to dream of the bowl, fear that the bowl may be broken, wont let other things (pitchers, flowers, china sets) sit near it. She even wakes up at the middle of the night to see if its ok. Her husband, she feels she cant talk about the bowl with (in part because it was a man she was having an affair with who bought it for her).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 17, 2016
Listened to the title story on "Selected Shorts" podcast. An adult brother and sister share intimate secrets while preparing for a Christmas party.
Selected Shorts - Between Meals: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Select...
Selected Shorts - Between Meals: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Select...
October 25, 2012
The most memorable moments in life, distilled to a fine point. Beattie makes a relatable argument for theory of mind and how we each have different perspectives on identical instances.
July 13, 2020
The first sentence of this collection's last story is the micronarrative that is at the center of Where You'll Find Me. If you're looking for a succinct summary, you can skip to that.
Atmosphere and tone builds these stories. The smoke and snow is the point. The specificity of Pepperidge Farm rolls, Heineken bottles, and Kool cigarettes, and arm placement, are the only tangible things we can cling to and remember.
Characters are stuck in the grayness of life's transitions points. Everyone is approaching the end of childhood, leaving for college, meeting friends are divorces, anxious the night before the bar exam, movements caused by inertia, and not desire.
There are some cyclical moments where characters appear in other stories (there is a shared universe), but in different contexts, and from different perspectives. I haven't identified them all and it would be interesting to map them.
The writing and voices resemble oft-hand eulogies. They are the kind of speeches you hear at funerals when someone who hasn't prepared one decides to speak. It's the wondering of "where did it all go," and feeling dumbstruck at not being able to articulate the question, but resigned to it.
Atmosphere and tone builds these stories. The smoke and snow is the point. The specificity of Pepperidge Farm rolls, Heineken bottles, and Kool cigarettes, and arm placement, are the only tangible things we can cling to and remember.
Characters are stuck in the grayness of life's transitions points. Everyone is approaching the end of childhood, leaving for college, meeting friends are divorces, anxious the night before the bar exam, movements caused by inertia, and not desire.
There are some cyclical moments where characters appear in other stories (there is a shared universe), but in different contexts, and from different perspectives. I haven't identified them all and it would be interesting to map them.
The writing and voices resemble oft-hand eulogies. They are the kind of speeches you hear at funerals when someone who hasn't prepared one decides to speak. It's the wondering of "where did it all go," and feeling dumbstruck at not being able to articulate the question, but resigned to it.
December 10, 2021
My favorite story in this collection is the last one. It's also the title story. It's about a woman who's had her arm broken and takes a trip far away to her brother's place for Christmas and tells him a story of a man she met at a restaurant. Then later he tells her of an affair he had with a student. The backdrop is a snowy day. It was a very warm story for me on this cold morning. Like tea.
Other stories are less successful, a lot of them are just snapshots of Americans doing American things. The three page 'Snow' is an exception. It's about nothing. But it's very pleasant to read.
There were some here that I especially disliked - Janus, Spiritus, Times, Cards, Heaven on a Summer Night. But that's only five stories. There's 15 stories here. I got this book for less than a dollar. It was definitely worth it.
Other stories are less successful, a lot of them are just snapshots of Americans doing American things. The three page 'Snow' is an exception. It's about nothing. But it's very pleasant to read.
There were some here that I especially disliked - Janus, Spiritus, Times, Cards, Heaven on a Summer Night. But that's only five stories. There's 15 stories here. I got this book for less than a dollar. It was definitely worth it.
December 8, 2025
Snowy sketches of people looking amongst each other for meanings and connections — hoping the answers they can’t quite reach might be there, in someone else’s eyes.
This is the third collection of short stories I’ve read by Ann Beattie this year, and while some are a bit more choppy, overall it reiterates how much I feel Beattie’s writing highlights some emotional truths that are so difficult to express. A few of these are a bit too short-lived, but the good ones here are arguably more mature and developed than any I had read previously. I absolutely adore her writing, no one else hits these same emotional chords for me.
Fave stories:
Coney Island, Janus & Where You’ll Find Me
This is the third collection of short stories I’ve read by Ann Beattie this year, and while some are a bit more choppy, overall it reiterates how much I feel Beattie’s writing highlights some emotional truths that are so difficult to express. A few of these are a bit too short-lived, but the good ones here are arguably more mature and developed than any I had read previously. I absolutely adore her writing, no one else hits these same emotional chords for me.
Fave stories:
Coney Island, Janus & Where You’ll Find Me
September 11, 2020
Minimalist and yet lyrical stories. Ann Beattie can transform a seemingly banal scene (a couple awkwardly lying on their sofa, a wife climbing a tree, a woman talking about a bowl, and a man confiding to his sister about a dog he and his mistress found while they were having a tryst) into an emotionally heavy, but not heavy-handedly emotional, moment. Faves: "In the White Night," "Snow," "Skeletons," "Lofty," "Janus," and "Where You'll Find Me." Start with "Snow" to get a feel of Beattie's prose.
Read
June 22, 2021"I couldn't believe how well the picture came out. And that night, on the white part on the bottom I wrote, 'I'm somebody whose name you still don't know. Are you going to find me?' and I put it in an envelope and mailed it to him in San Francisco. I don't know why I did it. I mean, it doesn't seem like something I'd ever do, you know?"
"But how will he find you?"
...
"I haven't thought about it in months."
"How is that possible?"
"How is it possible that somebody can go into a restaurant and be hit by lightning and the other person is, too? It's like a bad movie or something."
"But how will he find you?"
...
"I haven't thought about it in months."
"How is that possible?"
"How is it possible that somebody can go into a restaurant and be hit by lightning and the other person is, too? It's like a bad movie or something."
March 29, 2022
Loving it. Bought it because I read "Snow" in another book of short stories. It's like literally looking into someone's life for a moment. In the midst of other things (movements, conversations, what have you) a story happens. I'm sure there's a better way to say that. But, I love her writing.
Some stories have left me hanging, like there could be more; the ending was too soon. Or, are we supposed to understand, like in life, all problems don't necessarily get fixed; they just get recognized as a problem.
Some stories have left me hanging, like there could be more; the ending was too soon. Or, are we supposed to understand, like in life, all problems don't necessarily get fixed; they just get recognized as a problem.
January 30, 2025
--Hi if you see this add me on storygraph (tenniscoats) i am trying to leave this app--
I REALLY loved this collection, found it to be the exact sort of listless musing on relationships and family that I can read on and on. Particularly enjoyed Summer People, Lofty, In the White Night, and the titular story.
I REALLY loved this collection, found it to be the exact sort of listless musing on relationships and family that I can read on and on. Particularly enjoyed Summer People, Lofty, In the White Night, and the titular story.
Read
May 24, 2024The sort of collection where every story has been in the New Yorker & is taut, driven, and introspective
Massively impressive & a feel for structure that is sorely missed in contemporary collections
Massively impressive & a feel for structure that is sorely missed in contemporary collections
December 3, 2025
Thoroughly enjoyed her stories. They were maybe more character sketches than full bodies short stories, but I enjoyed her characterization, attention to detail, and plot all the same. Went between and 3 and 4 star multiple times.
May 27, 2017
Pretty forgettable. Just read Lorrie Moore's short fiction instead. Don't waste your time with this.
June 13, 2017
Short, obsessively detailed, schizophrenic snapshots. A Raymond Carver for Generation X. Janus was a standout. Unfortunately though, I left the stories feeling more confused than enlightened.
March 26, 2018
The ending makes the rest of the story actually make sense.
March 17, 2020
16 short glimpses into moments of life.
August 22, 2020
Highlights include "In the White Night," "Snow," "Janus," and the perfect title story.
January 6, 2021
Review to follow...
August 22, 2021
Nothing tied the stories together. They all were interesting but felt incomplete.
April 4, 2024
Well written but rather depressing.
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