Beattitudes

November 28, 2011 5:57 PM

The Nation's William Deresiewicz looks at Ann Beattie's evolution as a writer.
posted by reenum (5 comments total)

Audio interview with Beattie about her new book here.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 8:09 PM on November 28, 2011

Can I say that Anne Beattie's microscopic interest in a tiny segment of an elite audience might be brilliant marketing (as are the limited number of the stories) but terribly beige fiction. It is almost a parody of what one would imagine a New Yorker story should be like, but you know serious.
posted by PinkMoose at 8:24 PM on November 28, 2011

I don't know whether to love Beattie for inventing a new kind of story, as Updike says, or hate her for convincing the New Yorker that this is the only kind of story that exists.

Another assessment from Slate. Also praise but more honest.
posted by vecchio at 10:35 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of this writer before - what's her milieu?

And yes, I'm aware that that sentence may be the most pretentious thing ever written. But I'm not familiar with the New Yorker and the exact shade of fiction they publish.
posted by mippy at 9:10 AM on November 29, 2011

She writes about how white middle class heterosexual couples who live in New York pyschologically manipulate each other into pure hatred, but a hatred that is v. cold and amazingly shows little or no emotion. a kind of blanched updike with no ambition.
posted by PinkMoose at 11:01 AM on November 29, 2011 [1 favorite]