Featured New Authors
Featured Author: Ann Beattie
Featured Author: Ann Beattie
With Articles and Reviews From the Archives of The New York Times
In This Feature
Audio
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 Sigrid Estrada/Scribner |
| Ann Beattie |
AUDIO: ANN BEATTIE READS THREE STORIES FROM ‘PERFECT RECALL’
(48 min.)
(47 min.)
(32 min.)
Recording courtesy of Simon & Schuster. Copyright 2000 Ann Beattie. Copyright 2000 Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
(1976)
“. . . combines a remarkable array of technical skills with material of wide popular appeal. . . . ‘Chilly Scenes’ is also the funniest novel of unhappy yearning that one could imagine. Funnier.”
(1980)
“Her new novel at once confirms her status and marks a considerable advance on her previous work: ‘Falling in Place’ is stronger, more accomplished, larger in every way than anything she’s done . . .”
(1982)
“No one is better at the plangent detail, at evoking the floating, unreal ambiance of grief. I would say Ann Beattie is at her best here, except that I think she can do even better.”
(1985)
“Beattie is one of the most graceful writers we have; at times her prose is nothing short of exquisite. It is such sheer pleasure to read the dialogue in ‘Love Always,’ we almost don’t care what the characters
say to one another. But when we really do listen, the absence of desire and urgency is more than unsettling – it’s chilling.”
(1986)
“A few of the stories in ‘Where You’ll Find Me’ pursue economy to the point of inconclusiveness, but most of them have the sensitive elegance one hopes for from this remarkably gifted writer.”
(1990)
“. . . her best novel since ‘Chilly Scenes of Winter’ in 1976, and its depth and movement are a revelation.”
(1995)
“While Ms. Beattie’s structural conception is enticing enough to ponder, the narrative feels skewed. The basic plot . . . is, finally, not very interesting; its characters and events smack too much of the myriad campus
adultery novels of an earlier time.”
(1997)
“Beattie is as good at acute observation as she ever was, and she’s beautifully eloquent on both the quiet aggression within marriages and the pathos of families.”
(1998)
“There is a kind of magnificence to this collection . . . In reading [the stories], one after another, one feels amazed at the confidence, steadiness and quality of the output . . .”
(1980)
In a visit to Beattie’s house for an interview, Joyce Maynard writes, “If some of what Ann Beattie says and what her house contains reminds one of elements in her stories and novels, there is also a distinct difference
between this woman and much of the world she describes.”
(1982)
The original movie version of Beattie’s novel “Chilly Scenes” was sweetened with a happy ending and a happy title, “Head Over Heels.” But it didn’t play with its target audience until the book’s
title and ending were restored.
(1985)
Beattie says she doesn’t want to be considered a spokesperson for her generation.
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