Walks With Men: Fiction

(Paperback)

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From bestselling author Ann Beattie comes an intense, knockout novella that perfectly captures a time and a placeNew York in the '80s.

It is 1980 in New York City, and Jane, a valedictorian fresh out of Harvard, strikes a deal with Neil, an intoxicating writer twenty years her senior. The two quickly become lovers, living together in a Chelsea brownstone, and Neil reveals the rules for a life well lived: If you take food home from a restaurant, dont say its because you want leftovers for "the dog." Say that you want the bones for "a friend who does autopsies." If you cant stand on your head (which is best), learn to do cartwheels. Have sex in airplane bathrooms. Wear only raincoats made in England. Neils certainties, Jane discovers, mask his deceptions. Her true education begins.

"One of our eras most vital masters of the short form" (The Washington Post), Beattie brilliantly captures a time, a place and a style of engagement. Her voice is original and iconic.

Reviews

All women who have thought run! -- but did not run -- will experience this book like a familiar dream. It's full of echoes and resonant fractures, and so beguiling in its eerie simplicity. I read it twice.Miranda July, author of No One Belongs Here More Than You

Author Bio

Ann Beattiehas been included in five O. Henry Award Collections, inThe Best American Short StoriesandThe Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. The former Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, she is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Maine, Virginia, and Florida.