Picturing Will [Paperback]

Ann Beattie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 1991

Picturing Will, the widely acclaimed new novel by Ann Beattie, unravels the complexities of a postmodern family. There's Will, a curious five-year-old who listens to the heartbeat of a plant through his toy stethoscope; Jody, his mother, a photographer poised on the threshold of celebrity; Mel, Jody's perfect -- perhaps too perfect -- lover; and Wayne, the rather who left Will without warning and now sees his infrequent visits as a crimp in his bedhopping. Beattie shows us how these lives intersect, attract, and repel one another with dazzling shifts and moments of heartbreaking directness.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this meditation on psychic survival in the 1980s, five-year-old Will adapts to unconventional family life with his single mother, his philandering father and his mother's lover. PW remarked that although the book flounders in parts, "Beattie offers gimlet insights on the compromises of marriage, men's emotional armor, sex as escape, the terrors of childhood."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Beattie here aims to flesh out her characteristically bone-thin writing, but the skeleton still shows through. Aspiring photographer Jody, abandoned by husband Wayne--now on his third wife--is deeply devoted to her young son Will but hesitant to commit to lover Mel. Still, she visits Mel in faraway New York City, where Mel's friend, gallery owner Haverford (whose name she can recall only as Haveabud), takes a shine to her work--or to her. When Mel takes Will to visit his father in Florida, Haveabud goes along for the ride, bringing Spencer, a former protege's son with whom he engages in sexual acts shockingly direct in their description. Meanwhile, Wayne demonstrates his continued instability by cheating flagrantly on his new wife, Corky. As the story moves from life to life, we see the characters more fully, as in multiple exposures; but this approach does not so much enrich our understanding as distance us from the characters. A pity; there are some insightful comments here, and some sharp, bright writing. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/89.
- Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition edition (January 2, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679731946
• ISBN-13: 978-0679731948
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,288,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ann Beattie has been included in four O. Henry Award Collections and in John Updike's Best American Short Stories of the Century. In 2000, she received the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story form. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Key West, Florida, and Charlottesville, Virginia, where she is Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars UGH!, August 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Picturing Will (Paperback)

After having finished this novel, I have now read six of Ann Beattie's books -- her first four, written in the late 70s and early 80s, and two recent novels ANOTHER YOU (1995) and this book PICTURING WILL (1989). Clearly something happened during the intervening years. Whereas Beattie's early fiction was full of odd characters, delightful non-sequiters, and brilliant dialogue, PICTURING WILL is dull, dull, dull. The characters are totally bland and whereas a muscular plot might have fleshed them out more, there is no plot to speak of. Beattie looks at the lives of character and explains, explains, explains; she doesn't DRAMATIZE. This tendency not to dramatize was brilliantly exploited in her earlier work, which recreated the ennui and anomie of her characters lives in prose that was razor sharp. PICTURING WILL is filled with none-too-original characters doing nothing much in prose that is lackluster and undistinguished. PICTURING WILL is so bad it makes ANOTHER YOU look distinguished.

3.0 out of 5 stars Dream-like, May 4, 2009

By 

BJ Knapp - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Picturing Will (Paperback)

Beattie writes beautifully. But I found this story flowed kind of like a dream that you can vaguely remember when you wake up. I felt that the story didn't really go anywhere.

4.0 out of 5 stars Will's Life, May 2, 2009

By 

Bonnie Brody "Book Lover and Knitter" (Port St. Lucie, FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Picturing Will (Paperback)

This is a very well-written account of adult lives as perceived through their relationships with a young boy, Will.

The mother and father divorce when Will is young and the first half of the book is devoted to Will's life with his mother. The second half of the book is about Will with his father. The very last part is a flashback - Will is an adult viewing his childhood.

This book is very different from Ann Beattie's characteristic minimalist style writing, and much better!