Status Updates From The Burning House

I put this collection of short stories (bought at a second-hand store somewhere upstate) down for a few years and then picked it up again. I know I had read it many years before, but hardly remember most of the stories. I recalled The Cinderella Waltz and its subtle portrayal of a divorced woman still in love with her gay ex-husband and her relationship with their daughter and the husband's new lover.

last one!!!

"Running Dreams" might be my new favorite. I don't know how I hadn't made this connection before, but Ann Beattie's writing is the gen x equivalent to Sally Rooney.

last couple stories have been alright-- nothing particularly long or impactful but I still enjoy the writing!

I really, really like “Winter 1978”

So many beautiful bits of profundity in conversations. All these stories have similar elements; deep old friendships, complicated families, evaporating marriages, and the shadow of something bigger like death.

Beattie is one of those writers that have a canny sense of the everyday interactions between people, you know. My favorite is “Playback” so far

Re-reading my top 10 favorite books!

I found an old paperback copy of this collection in the basement of my condo building. My fellow tenants put books down there that they are finished with and no longer want to keep. I read this a long time ago. I couldn't remember any of the stories except The Cinderella Waltz which I enjoyed reading again. Details the not uncommon phenomenon of a repressed gay man leaving his wife and daughter for another man.

Second time through. What an amazing collection.