- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Scribner; 1 edition (Jun 20 2006)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0743269624
- ISBN-13: 978-0743269629
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 15.6 x 1.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 318 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,788,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Odd but subtle coincidences, missed connections, strained family relations—these are the major dynamics in Beattie's latest collection of nine stories and a novella. In the latter, "Flechette Follies," a random accident—George Wissone rear-ends Nancy Gregerson at a stoplight—in Charlottesville, Va., sparks a connection that affects far-flung people. Nancy's troubled son is MIA in London, and she hires George (whom she correctly guesses to be in the CIA) to track him down. When George himself disappears, it affects not only Nancy but also George's on-again, off-again girlfriend and others who join forces to learn his fate. Beattie's stories of adult children attempting to make sense of their aging parents and their own relationships are also compelling. In "Find and Replace," a woman tries to comprehend her mother's decision to suddenly move in with another man following the death of her husband; "The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation" spools out the strained relations between two siblings after their mother has a stroke. While a few stories read more like extended vignettes, Beattie's trademarks are here: the careful language, the deft humor and the sad, slow sweetness of life winding its way on. Fans should be happy to find that after all these years, this esteemed writer's characters can still be expected to muse over life's ironies and find no easy conclusions. Agent, Lynn Nesbit. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
"Flechette Follies," the novella that opens Beattie's newest collection, is one of her most arresting and suspenseful tales. It begins with a fender bender in Charlottesville, and involves a special-ops agent, a nursing-home nurse, a missing-person quest in London, and a broken engagement in Southern California. As increasingly inexplicable and dismaying events unfold, Beattie's characters find themselves marooned on an island of misunderstandings as life crashes on, cruel and oblivious. In the nine masterfully crafted and unnerving stories that follow, Beattie displays her flair for dark comedy, her gift for writing dialogue as percussive as perfect tennis volleys, and her unwavering psychological acuity. Several searing yet cathartic stories portray exasperating and painful relationships between adults and their aging parents as Beattie, long the voice of the young, hip, and disaffected, proves herself also to be the bard of the resistant middle-aged and the addled elderly. Whatever the age of the character she invents, Beattie homes in on the perversity of emotion, the fallibility of instinct, and the relentless negotiations of the psyche. So in command is Beattie, she not only captures the absurdity of life but also brilliantly satirizes our effort to find coherence in its chaos. Simultaneously a shrewd observer of the particulars of the times and an oracle of the timeless nature of the human condition, Beattie is indispensable. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
10 of 14 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
"Follies" was an unfortunate choice of title, Oct 1 2005
By vicki - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Follies: New Stories (Hardcover)
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Well-intentioned, poorly executed, Nov 20 2009
By D. Chaudoir - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Follies: New Stories (Paperback)
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!
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