Perfect Recall: New Stories

(Paperback)

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A moving and beautifully written collection of short stories from the award-winning author of FALLING IN PLACE (Vintage). Ann Beattie published her first short story in The New Yorker in 1972. Twenty-eight years later, she received the 2000 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is, as the Washington Post said, "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form." The eleven stories in her new work are peopled by characters coming to terms with the legacies of long-held family myths or confronting altered circumstances, new frailty or sudden, unlikely success. Beattie's ear for language, her complex and subtle wit, and her profound compassion are unparalleled. From the elegiac story "The Famous Poet, Amid Bougainvillea," in which two men trade ruminations on illness, art, and servitude, to "The Big-Breasted Pilgrim," wherein a famous chef gets a series of bewildering phone calls from George Stephanopoulos, PERFECT RECALL comprises Beattie's strongest work in years. It is a riveting commentary on the way we live now by a spectacular prose artist.

Reviews

The Washington Post Book World One of our era's most vital masters of the short form. Jennifer Schuessler The New York Times Book Review So vivid and beguiling is Beattie's writing that it isn't until you look again that you realize how rarely she reaches for metaphors or other figures of speech, and how little she needs to...More often than anyone has a right to, Ann Beattie nails it. Conan Putnam San Francisco Chronicle ...Beattie has become an expert at probing the essential mysteries of human character. Mark Levine Men's Journal The stories are always brilliantly real and slightly askew...Add to her total recall the gift of perfect pitch and what you get is indelible writing. Diane Roberts The Atlanta Journal-Constitution This collection is sleek, urbane, eminently readable...Beattie beats Updike any day for elegance of style and profundity of wit. Intelligence combines with sympathy to create a first-rate collection.

Author Bio

Ann Beattie has published six previous collections of stories and six novels. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Maine and Key West, Florida.