Customer Reviews

Follies: New Stories

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I used to like Ann Beattie a whole lot back in the 70s and 80s when she seemed to have an ear for the anomie afflicting a generation. But this book seemed off-key most of time. Too many characters and too many plot threads for short stories. "Write A Story" shares an unfortunate stylistic connection with the children's book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." The one story with any strong emotional effect is "The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation" about a woman's experience with her mother's Alzheimer's. But it was mistake to begin the collection with the dreary "Flechette's Follies." I would never have toiled to the end of that very long short story, or the collection, if I hadn't been stuck on a 14-hour plane ride. As a complete aside I must say, Beattie looks a bit like Joni Mitchell in the cover shot.

I really am an Ann Beattie fan. But as I read this collection over a long weekend, I did not find the Beattie voice which so imaginatively gave us portraits of real lives in novels like PICTURING WILL and MY LIFE STARRING DARA FALCON. The main problem plaguing this collection was a lack of focus and imagination, leading to pedantic stories which go down like a bowl of bland oatmeal. Although Beattie is a talented writer I felt like these stories may have been written on autopilot. Stories don't always have to "do" something, but they have to at least be interesting to read; Updike isn't always a master of plot, but his precise and imaginative use of language is always a delight. I found neither interesting plots nor beautiful sentences in this disappointing book. Let's hope for a new, great novel or a strong collection from Ann Beattie again very soon!