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The Burning House
The now-classic, utterly unique voice of Ann Beattie is so dry it throws off sparks, her eye endowed with the emotional equivalent of X-ray vision. Her characters are young men and women discovering what it means to be a grown-up in a country that promised them they'd stay young forever. And here, in shapely, penetrating stories, Beattie confirms why she is one of the most widely imitated -- yet surely inimitable -- literary stylists of her generation.
In The Burning House , Beattie's characters go from dealing drugs to taking care of a bereaved friend. They watch their marriages fail not with a bang but with a wisecrack. And afterward, they may find themselves trading confidences with their spouses' new lovers. The Burning House proves that Beattie has no peer when it comes to revealing the hidden shapes of our relationships, or the depths of tenderness, grief, and anger that lie beneath the surfaces of our daily lives.
In The Burning House , Beattie's characters go from dealing drugs to taking care of a bereaved friend. They watch their marriages fail not with a bang but with a wisecrack. And afterward, they may find themselves trading confidences with their spouses' new lovers. The Burning House proves that Beattie has no peer when it comes to revealing the hidden shapes of our relationships, or the depths of tenderness, grief, and anger that lie beneath the surfaces of our daily lives.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
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About the author
Ann Beattie
141 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 - 26 of 26 reviews
July 1, 2015
people in the middle of changes. like reading a collected review of assorted slow burning mid-life crises, put to the page by a dry-eyed, not-exactly sympathetic observer. humans are sad! but this collection is beautiful and often surprising.
June 7, 2025
Like when you are months removed, and only then do you realize the in-between moments were really the moments. Off-page: car crashes, marriages, divorces, affairs, death, and remarriages. On-page: descriptions of tiny movements—left with the residue and trying to make sense of it.
As someone with a proclivity for melancholy and over-romanticizing the little things, this was everything I could have asked for from a short story collection. Really gorgeous descriptions that keep things moving from feeling to thought and back again. Stories that exist somewhere between nostalgia and mourning. Incredibly meditative fiction, and so intelligent on a sentence level.
I don’t think you could go wrong with a single story from this, but a few highlights for good measure: Jacklighting, Winter: 1978 and Sunshine and Shadow
As someone with a proclivity for melancholy and over-romanticizing the little things, this was everything I could have asked for from a short story collection. Really gorgeous descriptions that keep things moving from feeling to thought and back again. Stories that exist somewhere between nostalgia and mourning. Incredibly meditative fiction, and so intelligent on a sentence level.
I don’t think you could go wrong with a single story from this, but a few highlights for good measure: Jacklighting, Winter: 1978 and Sunshine and Shadow
March 28, 2024
I don’t know what to think. I might change the rating after discussing it in book club. Left me with many questions.
October 24, 2008
I think I mentioned this somewhere else, but I'd never read Beattie, even though it feels like I spent most of the nineties in writing programs trying to figure out what to do with the legacy of dirty realism (the programs and me both trying to figure it out-- syntactic ambiguity can be your friend). I'm not sure what I expected out of this, but since Susan Lohafer seemed so enamored with her, I thought I'd give Beattie a whirl, and I'm glad I did....
The stories aren't what I expected, given my experience with Carver and Mason. I recognize the flatness of the language and the connection with the other two of the unholy trinity, but it sort of resonates differently here-- I think this might be because this is a weird collection for Beattie, with unusual characters?-- but it was less that these characters had limited emotional vocabularies than they just talked this way, as if they were suppressing, rather than at the limits of their expressive range. But I'm more interested in the stories themselves which were, on first reading at least, really complex, fragmentary, and oddly shaped. I liked a lot of them, I like stories that come in odd shapes and start and end in unlikely places-- there's a real deliberate attempt here to make something artful out of these otherwise artless, prosy lives. And maybe that's what I found most surprising-- the shapes are so willful, so strange, that to me the stories moved well out of the realm of pretty much any sort of realism I know and into a totally different, transformed kind of reading experience-- maybe it leads more to someone like Amy Hempl (who is herself another student of Lish, but really, who isn't-- they proved it on an episode of Law and order: CI) but it was really different than what I expected.
So, I really liked this book, even when I didn't totally understand it, and I suspect that if I were to read all these stories again, I might like it even more. A solid collection.
The stories aren't what I expected, given my experience with Carver and Mason. I recognize the flatness of the language and the connection with the other two of the unholy trinity, but it sort of resonates differently here-- I think this might be because this is a weird collection for Beattie, with unusual characters?-- but it was less that these characters had limited emotional vocabularies than they just talked this way, as if they were suppressing, rather than at the limits of their expressive range. But I'm more interested in the stories themselves which were, on first reading at least, really complex, fragmentary, and oddly shaped. I liked a lot of them, I like stories that come in odd shapes and start and end in unlikely places-- there's a real deliberate attempt here to make something artful out of these otherwise artless, prosy lives. And maybe that's what I found most surprising-- the shapes are so willful, so strange, that to me the stories moved well out of the realm of pretty much any sort of realism I know and into a totally different, transformed kind of reading experience-- maybe it leads more to someone like Amy Hempl (who is herself another student of Lish, but really, who isn't-- they proved it on an episode of Law and order: CI) but it was really different than what I expected.
So, I really liked this book, even when I didn't totally understand it, and I suspect that if I were to read all these stories again, I might like it even more. A solid collection.
May 24, 2016
Each of these stories felt like a small clip in the lives of their characters instead of a complete story, but somehoe this was better than knowing everything surrounding the characters. Each character grappled with serious, depressing, and life changing circumstances, and the format made these situations feel incredibly real and that much more powerful. Would absolutely recommend if you're ready for a bit of a downer.
March 24, 2008
Best stories in my opinion are "Greenwich Time" and "The Burning House," which happen to be the last two.
April 20, 2025
(Bought at a used-book store somewhere.) I know I had read this collection of Ann Beattie stories a long time ago, but I found a copy at a used bookstore somewhere, began it again, then put it down for a couple of years and recently picked it up again after reading a later Beattie collection. Except for striking details, I did not remember the stories. The only one I could recall was The Cinderella Waltz about a woman whose husband leaves her for another man. Rereading that one, I found themes deeper than just the novelty of a gay angle. The husband is now thinking of moving to San Francisco for a new job. In an interesting detail, the wife recalls the husband not being satisfied with any of the Christmas gifts, and being disappointed with a six-slice toaster when he wanted a eight-slice model. This seemingly insignificant piece of information shows us the husband always wants more, whether it's a present or a relationship. You have to look hard at what Beattie includes and why she includes it.
Reading these stories again now that I'm older and lived through situations similar to those of the characters gives me a better understanding of Beattie's craft. She offers pieces of a person's life, like flashes, and imparts why they do what they do. I like Greenwich Time with the divorced husband killing time in Manhattan until he forces himself to drive to Connecticut and ask his remarried ex-wife for custody of their little boy.
Reading these stories again now that I'm older and lived through situations similar to those of the characters gives me a better understanding of Beattie's craft. She offers pieces of a person's life, like flashes, and imparts why they do what they do. I like Greenwich Time with the divorced husband killing time in Manhattan until he forces himself to drive to Connecticut and ask his remarried ex-wife for custody of their little boy.
October 14, 2023
I find collections of short stories kind of hard to review because I have Thoughts about each of the stories individually, but also the essence of the writer's work is better discussed from a big-picture standpoint. (see: my unwritten review for Dubliners)Beattie's work is best enjoyed with time, with enough detail to really know the characters, making the longest stories, including "Greenwich Time" my favorites for that reason. In the beginning and middle, Beattie experimented with shorter, shock-based, almost flash fiction stories, which delivered the right vibe but missed the beauty and depth category. I also have her novel Chilly Scenes of Winter on my TBR shelf, and I'm excited to see how it compares.
I mentioned this already, but Beattie's writing reminds me a lot of Sally Rooney, which makes me wonder if Rooney was inspired by Beattie's scenes of relationship and life discontent. Beattie's characters are usually well-read intellectual types dealing with intense changes and facing unsteady ground in relationships. The melancholy and the whirling gyre of the mind are integral facets of the plot. Our pasts come back to haunt us, humorous memories, good memories, bad ones. The characters contextualize their time together through the time they spend alone-- it's given a character's mind is always on something else.
Beattie is obviously an apt observer of human nature and the complexity of our brief interactions. Her writing makes small moments huge and the simplest of observations are turning points. She writes the beginnings of her stories like a mystery, leaving the reader to figure out the situation before it dawns on them and little profound insights are dropped. In this sense, re-reading the stories helps. As a whole, these stories are of crossroads; between sorrow and longing, giving and taking, grief and the contentedness of normalcy. There is a wry, hidden humor too, in the dry delivery and situational mirth.
My favorites are "Running Dreams", "Winter 1978", "The Burning House", and "Jacklighting"
I mentioned this already, but Beattie's writing reminds me a lot of Sally Rooney, which makes me wonder if Rooney was inspired by Beattie's scenes of relationship and life discontent. Beattie's characters are usually well-read intellectual types dealing with intense changes and facing unsteady ground in relationships. The melancholy and the whirling gyre of the mind are integral facets of the plot. Our pasts come back to haunt us, humorous memories, good memories, bad ones. The characters contextualize their time together through the time they spend alone-- it's given a character's mind is always on something else.
Beattie is obviously an apt observer of human nature and the complexity of our brief interactions. Her writing makes small moments huge and the simplest of observations are turning points. She writes the beginnings of her stories like a mystery, leaving the reader to figure out the situation before it dawns on them and little profound insights are dropped. In this sense, re-reading the stories helps. As a whole, these stories are of crossroads; between sorrow and longing, giving and taking, grief and the contentedness of normalcy. There is a wry, hidden humor too, in the dry delivery and situational mirth.
My favorites are "Running Dreams", "Winter 1978", "The Burning House", and "Jacklighting"
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June 21, 2025It was weird reading these again 40-some years after I read them the first time. At the time it was not even just fashionable to write like Beattie...it was just that there didn’t even seem to be an alternative. Looking at these stories now, it’s almost hard to see how they ever got published. The pileup of the same characters - the floaty woman, the guy who won’t commit, the flamboyant gay guy, the sad divorced mom, everyone stoned - From story to story I couldn’t keep anyone straight. Maybe this creates a confusion in the mind of the reader similar to the stoned state of the characters. My god, why are they all so confused and depressed? These boomers? They had it all. Yikes. On the other hand, they do paint a vivid portrait of a time and place. But too much of the people-being-characterized-by-the-weird-thing-they-love-that-they-bought-in-antique-store. Final question to self: Do you like the “boom-epiphany” endings? She puts an awful lot of weight on them. They don’t always work. But sometimes when they do, they still seem kind of cool.
December 11, 2018
I read three of these stories and just didn't enjoy them. I have too many other books I want to read so I abandoned it.
November 7, 2019
When I read this a few years ago, this colleciton of short stories definietley struck me as "ridiculously awesome." Very empathetic characters.
August 10, 2020
The title story is one of the best stories in all of literature. If the rest don’t quite compare, how could they possibly.
July 27, 2012
Beattie is pretty much the archetype of strictly minimalist New Yorker fiction, specifically, she's really emblematic of a very particular moment in American fiction of the seventies. This dedication to observation and capturing the moment means, in practice, a lot of colorless characters who blend together and stories that don't really go anywhere. And while I think you can still write good stories about the well-to-do, I did find it difficult to relate to yet another WASP with a summer home. On the other hand, I found myself highlighting quite a few lines. And there are transcendent exceptions to the rule here, namely: "Girl Talk," "The Cinderella Waltz," "Playback" and "Running Dreams."
"Today he is wearing his blue jeans with the Superman patch on the knee. If Superman launched himself from Andrew's knee, he would be flying a foot or so off the ground. People would think that small figure in blue was a piece of trash caught by the wind, a stick blowing, something to gather their hems against."
"I am really at some out-of-the-way beach house, with a man I am not married to and people I do not love, in labor."
"That was why deer had such sad eyes, Benton told Jason---because they were once something else."
"Today he is wearing his blue jeans with the Superman patch on the knee. If Superman launched himself from Andrew's knee, he would be flying a foot or so off the ground. People would think that small figure in blue was a piece of trash caught by the wind, a stick blowing, something to gather their hems against."
"I am really at some out-of-the-way beach house, with a man I am not married to and people I do not love, in labor."
"That was why deer had such sad eyes, Benton told Jason---because they were once something else."
September 20, 2009
I have yet to read an Ann Beattie book that I don't like. Part of me wants to give this 4 stars, some stories are definitely that, and some are 3's, maybe one 2 and one five also. My first preference of Ann Beattie's workse are her novels. Her short stories are powerful, tightly written, very brief. She reaches one or two layers into the character while her books are very fully revealing. If someone else attempted to write her characters stories it would be a depressing read. Her stories are like an intimate glimpse into her characters life, understanding and acceptance. The short stories usually start with peripheral dialogue revealing the characters. She has a particularly soft ear for the misfits and artistic souls. She carefully crafts nostalgia into each story as a point of reference and a frame for the story.
August 12, 2012
Years ago I loved Ann Beattie's work. Been away a while and returned to her through "The Burning House."
Older now, I found many characters and stories shallow, callow and...not very self-aware. Then thought again about the time in which they were written, time when I lived in NY and Maine, and said "Be careful."
Beattie is careful with her characters, shallow though they are at times.
And she's working settings in which people were what she captures - unfaithful, fickle, questing, wondering.
My favorites are "The Burning House," "Greenwich Time" and "Gravity."
Well worth the read. Finding some sadness having known some she captures, often with keen craft.
Older now, I found many characters and stories shallow, callow and...not very self-aware. Then thought again about the time in which they were written, time when I lived in NY and Maine, and said "Be careful."
Beattie is careful with her characters, shallow though they are at times.
And she's working settings in which people were what she captures - unfaithful, fickle, questing, wondering.
My favorites are "The Burning House," "Greenwich Time" and "Gravity."
Well worth the read. Finding some sadness having known some she captures, often with keen craft.
July 12, 2015
Interesting snapshots of life among a group of similar, often drunk or stoned lonely people with wide-open, unfinished edges, like the deckle-edged black and white photos mentioned in one of the stories. In another of the odd coincidences that have been occurring in my life of late, Beattie's name was in the crossword I did on the same day I started reading this. I found this and another collection of her stories at an antiquarian bookseller in Manassas, in unedited proofs. I was almost as intrigued by seeing the unedited text as I was in reading the stories.
July 16, 2014
This is one of those books that was probably unique or broke new ground in its time (it was first published in 1982). I like her "flat" style. The characters and situations are interesting, the dialogue is good... but I'm not sure it still gives satisfaction. It didn't for me, but that may have to do with my relationship with short stories. If the characters and plots are interesting enough, I want to spend more time with them than a short story lasts, so ultimately I'm frustrated.
August 11, 2010
For years I've been hearing what a master of the shorty story Ann Beattie is. This was my first foray into her fictive realm, and it was disappointing (I confess I did not read the entire collection). All the stories were about privileged white hetero couples whining about their relationships. Not too different from what you'd find in ABC primetime. Skip it.
August 11, 2010
This is the book that made me want to write short stories. Every story in it is perfect, fully formed. I wish Beattie's other collections and novels (the ones I've read, at least) came close to the achievement of this one.
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March 7, 2007Even more Beattie.
August 24, 2007
B Some of the stories were really great, but other ones were mediocre and skimmed those
April 13, 2008
"Jacklighting" is an exceptionally beautiful story of loss.
July 8, 2008
jacklighting is still my all time piece of favorite contemporary short fiction.
May 2, 2010
the stars are only for the title story. greenwich time merits 3, cinderella waltz 1, and the rest were unread by me
November 15, 2016
It was confusing at times and some parts absolutely did not make sense, but I guess that's the way it works with 1st person povs.
Other than that, it's a pretty good short story.
Other than that, it's a pretty good short story.
June 16, 2009
A most revealing series of stories.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews