Read What Was Mine: & Other Stories Online
Authors: Ann Beattie
What Was Mine: & Other Stories
What Was Mine: Other Stories
Ann Beattie
Vintage (2011)
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories (Single Author)
Fictionttt Short Stories (Single Author)ttt
A collection of short fiction, twelve works in all, including two never-before-published novellas. Here are disconnected marriages and uneasy reunions, nostalgic reminiscences and sudden epiphanies--a remarkable and moving collage of contemporary lives.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In these 12 stories, whose protagonists represent a wide range of voices, ages and social classes, Beattie effectively conveys their epiphanies, though at times she carries subtlety to extremes.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Most of these 12 stories are quick studies of the lives of middle-class Americans caught in the kind of self-examination that exposes the frailties and limitations of their perceptions. In the title story, a boy gains a new and disturbing sense of his dead father's identity through the contemplation of loss. "Installation #6" is about the difference between objective and subjective reality. In it an artist has his handyman brother tape record "some thoughts you can listen to" to be played in the gallery where his construction is on display. The monolog thus becomes both a part of and a commentary on the artist's work. Next, against a sensuous Mediterranean backdrop, a woman vacationing with her husband faces the shortcomings of their relationship in "In Amalfi." This well-crafted and readable collection should appeal to fans of Beattie's other work.
- Francis Poole, Univ. of Dela ware, Newark
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Praise for
Ann Beattie
“Ann Beattie’s stories are the most perceptive since Salinger’s. They are not just good writing, not just true to life; they have wonder in them and vision.”
—Mary Lee Settle
“Beattie’s crisp, direct style is free of artifice; her observations penetrating.”
—
Newsweek
“[Beattie] stunningly captures the horror and beauty of life.”
—
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Through Beattie’s agency we are brought within sufficient sympathetic distance that our empathy is engaged. And that is how good writing begins to achieve the level of literature.”
—Richard Ford,
Esquire
“To say that Ann Beattie is a good writer would be an understatement. Her ear … is faultless, her eye … ruthless as a hawk’s.”
—
Washington Post Book World
“[With] her absolute ear and her masterly deadpan humor, the results are dazzling. Beattie is a natural writer.”
—
New Yorker
“Beattie reminds us why she stands out among her many imitators.”
—
Philadelphia Inquirer
“Beattie writes out of a wisdom and maturity that are timeless.”
—
The New York Times Book Review
Ann Beattie
WHAT WAS MINE
Ann Beattie lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Lincoln Perry.
ALSO BY ANN BEATTIE
Distortions
Chilly Scenes of Winter
Secrets and Surprises
Falling in Place
The Burning House
Love Always
Where You’ll Find Me
Picturing Will
Copyright © 1991 by Irony and Pity, Inc
.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New York, in 1991.
Some of the stories in this work were originally published in
Esquire, Fiction, Network, Harper’s
and
The New Yorker
.
“Honey” was originally published in
Ploughshares
.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Beattie, Ann.
What was mine: stories / by Ann Beattie.
contemporaries ed.
p. cm. — (Vintage contemporaries)
eISBN: 978-0-307-76576-5
I. Title.
PS3552.E177W38 1992
813′. 54—dc20 91-58076
v3.1
For Lynn Nesbit
,
Priscilla, and Claire
I would like to thank Rallou Malliarakis, whose painting
The Windy Day at the Reservoir
inspired my story.
CONTENTS
IMAGINE A DAY AT THE END OF YOUR LIFE
IN AMALFI
HONEY
THE LONGEST DAY OF THE YEAR
THE WORKING GIRL
HOME TO MARIE
INSTALLATION
#6
TELEVISION
HORATIO’S TRICK
YOU KNOW WHAT
WHAT WAS MINE
WINDY DAY AT THE RESERVOIR
S
ometimes I do feel subsumed by them. My wife, Harriet, only wanted two children in the first place. With the third and fourth, I was naturally pressing for a son. The fifth, Michael, was an accident. Allison was third and Denise was number four. Number one, Carolyn, was always the most intelligent and the most troublesome; Joan was always the one whose talent I thought would pan out, but there’s no arguing with what she says: dancers are obsessive, vain people, and many of them have problems with drugs and drink, and it’s no fun to watch people disfigure their bodies in the name of art. Allison was rather plain. She developed a good sense of humor, probably as compensation for not being as attractive or as talented as the older ones. The fourth, Denise, was almost as talented at painting as Joan was at dance, but she married young and gave it up, except for creating her family’s Christmas card. Michael is a ski instructor in Aspen—sends those tourists down the slopes with a smile. I think he likes the notion of keeping people at a distance. He has felt overwhelmed all his life.
My wife’s idea of real happiness is to have all the family lined up on the porch in their finery, with their spouses and all the children, being photographed like the Royal Family. She’s always bustled with energy. She gave the rocking chair to Goodwill last spring because, she said, it encouraged lethargy.