Perfect Recall

by Ann Beattie

Perfect Recall comprises Beattie's strongest work in years. It is a riveting commentary on the way we live now by a spectacular prose artist.

Ann Beattie published her first short story in The New Yorker in 1972. Twenty-eight years later, she received the 2000 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is, as the Washington Post Book World said, "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form."

The eleven stories in her new work are peopled by characters coming to terms with the legacies of long-held family myths or confronting altered circumstances -- new frailty or sudden, unlikely success. Beattie's ear for language, her complex and subtle wit, and her profound compassion are unparalleled.

From the elegiac story "The Famous Poet, Amid Bougainvillea," in which two men trade ruminations on illness, art, and servitude, to "The Big-Breasted Pilgrim," wherein a famous chef gets a series of bewildering phone calls from George Stephanopoulos, Perfect Recall comprises Beattie's strongest work in years. It is a riveting commentary on the way we live now by a spectacular prose artist.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Ebooks

352 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 2000

About the author

Ann 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.

Reviews

[Saleh MoonWalker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Onvan : Perfect Recall - Nevisande : Ann Beattie - ISBN : 743211707 - ISBN13 : 9780743211703 - Dar 352 Safhe - Saal e Chap : 2000

[Margaret Carmel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd heard good things about this author in my literature courses in college, so I was interested to read this collection of short stories. Sadly, I was disappointed.

Maybe it's just my personal taste but when I read short stories I am looking for short narratives, rather than vignettes. The roughly a dozen or so stories in Perfect Recall seemed to be mostly just short snapshots of happenings in the characters lives, rather than plot driven stories unto themselves.

The characters were well crafted and sentence per sentence the writing was engaging and strong, but I found the lack of a concrete plot made me disinterested really quickly once I realized halfway through the book that was her style.

I would be curious to read her novels because a full length work powered by her realistic character design and writing seems like it would be quite good, but these short works did not engage me.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Ann Beattie's stories took me back to the 80s when I first found her work. Many of the stories are pretty bleak, but very well written. They are mostly divided in setting between Maine and Key West, Beattie's two residences (at the time this book was published, at least). I bought this book many years ago, but set it aside for just a time like this when I had nothing I wanted to read. I would actually give the collection 3.5 stars.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 2 out of 5]

A surprisingly low point in my reading of all Beattie’s collections. There isn’t a story here I’d return to. The majority of them are overpopulated and overcomplicated, beginning and ending rather strangely and containing (for my taste) far too much whimsy. It’s not surprising that The New Yorker decided to take only one of these stories.

[Colin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Couldn’t get into this one…This is one of those boring reviews where I ask myself and therefore You was I just not in the mood? The first two stories had enough magic dust to get me a little buzzed but the rest was a prolonged false start

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyable. People call things "deeply flawed"; I'd call this book superficially flawed. There were just little things here and there that you'd think a veteran writer like Beattie wouldn't do. Little almost MFA-workshoppy things, or reader handholding that distracted or even condescended. Ah well. Overall a good, very straightforward, traditional (not necessarily in the Joycean sense) collection of stories. I liked it. One piece was really odd, starting with an un-attributed exchange of dialogue which switched, after like three pages of this, to a traditional narrative—why? Still good, though.

[Robin Yaklin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beattie is known for re-establishing the short story form. Her stories are character driven, mostly turned inward to thoughts. By the third story her style is apparent, but I want more action. In comparison read Robert Olen Butler's stories. They took me to a world I'll never discover by my own efforts. However, I like Beattie's characters. They could be real people. She must have studied people in real life and worked through those characters like an insane woman. I'm challenged to work on characters, create more depth, after reading these stories.

[Carol Vuillemenot · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read many books of short stories since college and I now wish that I hadn't waited so long to do so. Ann Beattie's short stories are easy-going, comfortable readings. Although this is not her best work, I like the way she writes without an overabundance of hyperboles. She lets the characters' dialogues reveal the story line. Reading her short stories is like peeking in people's living room windows and catching a small segment of their life.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really like Ann Beattie and really like Perfect Recall, especially the stories "The Big-Breasted Pilgrim" and "Perfect Recall."
This anthology is peopled with folks I'd like to know - and do know. The stories are largely driven by the characters who find themselves in varied states of marital disarray, family fuddling and questions about what to do - and when - and why.
Found myself "talking" to many characters because they're just so real - and really full of angst and burgeoning awareness.

[Cherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

C A lot of the stories were not very good, and some just mediocre

[Mary Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a frustrating book - not big on the short story form - just as you're getting into the details of the story, it ends! She is a terrific writer though.

[Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

The other side of Scott Fitzgerald. The decadent and damned - and the ironic. It doesn't get much better, or sinister, than this.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short stories, including a few gems. Not many do it better.

[Rick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unmemorable. I prefer the Old Stories.

[Dagny · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overall disappointing .