Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
Walks With Men: Fiction
by
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie arrived in New York young, observant and celebrated (as The New Yorker’s young fiction star) in one of the most compelling and creative eras of recent times. So does the protagonist of her intense new novella, Walks with Men.
It is 1980 in New York City, and Jane, a valedictorian fresh out of Harvard, strikes a deal with Neil, an intoxicating writer twenty year
...moreHardcover, 112 pages
Published
June 8th 2010
by Scribner
(first published 2010)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
1,589)
what was meant to be profound. insightful. and romantic. turned out to be trite. infantile. and somber.
i am not fond of books that romanticize abusive relationships and abusive people.
i am not fond of books that romanticize abusive relationships and abusive people.
Pret-ty great. Moves along swiftly (I read it in an afternoon (and a night)), engaging all the way through, great characters. A really interesting relationship, where the guy's an asshole, but she knows it, and calls him on it, and yet they're still together. Seemed symbolic/metaphoric, yet this was pure realism. At first Beattie seemed to do a lot of work to explain why/how they were together, and I paid super close attention to all this, read lines over, etc., but in the end that didn't really...more
Ann Beattie is synonymous with short stories and The New Yorker. Not knowing the genealogy of this novella, perhaps that's how it started. Regardless, the DNA is evident, her prose is polished, and the setting and premise ring true as a bell.
Not only is the book small and thin - precious is a term often used to describe book packages like this -- but the text/story is presented as a series of vignettes (which while pithy, work against feeling a strong narrative pull). Dip in, dip out - that s...more
Not only is the book small and thin - precious is a term often used to describe book packages like this -- but the text/story is presented as a series of vignettes (which while pithy, work against feeling a strong narrative pull). Dip in, dip out - that s...more
Sep 14, 2010
Ruby
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who likes Beattie, or short stories
Recommended to Ruby by:
newspaper review
A slim book easily read but more complex than it seems at first. Jane comes to NYC in 1980 at the vulnerable age of 20+ and meets a 40+ man who wants to devote himself to teaching her the rules of society that show one is clued-in. His rules are more amusing than serious, at least to this reader to whom the rules of society have always been murky. Jane at first thinks there really are such rules but soon realizes the phoniness and superficiality; she stays with it, on and off until finally marri...more
Only 102 pages, Walks With Men was a quick read, also in part to the fact that the story was presented in a standard, straight-forward way. It read like an extended memoir entry with names changed, a glimpse into the yesteryear of one relationship between a woman and a man, overlapping a new relationship with a different type of man. A young yogi dreamer, for an older, wiser writer. All in the perspective of a young woman fresh from Harvard, moving to Manhattan from a stint in Vermont, finding s...more
Aug 22, 2010
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sept-oct-2010
A hybrid of the minimalist style she pioneered forty years ago and the more evocative stories she has produced more recently, Beattie's new novella drew mixed reviews. Detractors panned the detached, camera-like record of events, claiming that the lack of depth rendered her characters passive and prevented readers from empathizing with them. On the other hand, the Miami Herald praised Beattie for "kick[ing] away all the scaffolding of psychobabble and pathography and let[ting] the story tell its...more
Everyone has had a mentor-as-lover at some point. If not, one should. Ideally the mentor-as-lover should appear before one turns thirty, when neural pathways are more like rambling and rather wistful dirt roads than the intricate super highways that deliver us to our doom, more or less, as older adults. (This is a Life Tip that could have been delivered by the protagonist's mentor-as-lover. At first I nod. Hmmmm: it seems wise. And then I want to punch whomever said it for his/her arrogance, fo...more
If you've ever slept with or loved an asshole in spite of yourself, then this book is for you.
Many critics didn't like the narrator's detachment, or accused this book as romanticizing abuse. What they're missing is that when you are in your early twenties, detachment and romanticizing abuse (which pretty much go together) and being swept up and easily impressed by worldliness and style and bohemianism are often what it's all about, red flags be dammed. All of which frequently lead to sleeping wi...more
Many critics didn't like the narrator's detachment, or accused this book as romanticizing abuse. What they're missing is that when you are in your early twenties, detachment and romanticizing abuse (which pretty much go together) and being swept up and easily impressed by worldliness and style and bohemianism are often what it's all about, red flags be dammed. All of which frequently lead to sleeping wi...more
7/9/2010: This is a mystifying story...either I'm too old for its charms or require too much explanation in my fiction, but when I finished it I was so busy scratching my head trying to figure out what happened that I might have missed the point. Anyway, the writing is wonderful, and the tone is perfect. Many images will stick in my mind for a long time: the white robe pooling on the floor; the impossibility of sliding out of a diner banquette after a piece of bad news has been delivered; the ex...more
The particular stance Beattie takes to her character and the "scene" of New York City circa 1980-90 was much too ironizing for my tastes. I wished she'd've leveled her tone and stretched the first section of the book into a more scenic exploration of the events she seems almost too content to confine to one-liners. When the book does stretch out toward its end--the two full-blown scenes that close this book are models of what a writer can do when setting crisp dialogue against the grain of the c...more
I've never read anything of Beattie's before, nor had I heard of her. And while this novella was different from the sort of book I tend to be drawn to - I liked it. It won't be added to my "favorites," but I liked it all the same. It caught your attention. It was like... bursts of lightning that gave you tiny glimpses into the lives of the characters with each flash; quick & bright. It was scattered, and yet, put-together. Moments were real. & it was sad because it was real. How many of...more
This book is 102 pages long, and I thought it would never end. The main character is a pretty, Harvard-educated wunderkind who falls for a rich, manipulative man who speaks entirely in one-liners. Every plot twist is either ridiculously cliché ((view spoiler)) or totally bizarre ((view spoiler)). To distract you from the...more
4 likes · like · see review
Favorite quotes from this book:
People talk about other people, and they make things up. Then it becomes real to them. But it doesn't have anything to do with the other person.
If you take food home from a restaurant, don't say it's for "the dog." Say you want the bones for "a friend who does autopsies."
When did I ever say talk solved anything? It's a device of politicians, to obfuscate. It might be slightly useful for priests who are cornering alter boys. Or to teach a dog it's name. Talk? That's...more
People talk about other people, and they make things up. Then it becomes real to them. But it doesn't have anything to do with the other person.
If you take food home from a restaurant, don't say it's for "the dog." Say you want the bones for "a friend who does autopsies."
When did I ever say talk solved anything? It's a device of politicians, to obfuscate. It might be slightly useful for priests who are cornering alter boys. Or to teach a dog it's name. Talk? That's...more
Well, this was a weird little book. It's noticeable: hot pink piping on the covers, really small size. It sounds like a secret autobio, but I didn't really care enough to dig around and find out who the famous man "Jane" lived with really was. It started seeming like a story about a friend who's fashionable and popular but makes really bad choices so knowing her is like getting to watch a train wreck, again and again, but it wasn't really that interesting and the narrative structure got weird so...more
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
As regular readers know, although I don't make a habit of it, I do occasionally enjoy a well-crafted piece of short "literary" fiction, the kind of $20 novella-sized book that I'm usually railing against here; for example, check out the latest from lit veteran Ann Beattie, the '80s character drama Walks Wi...more
As regular readers know, although I don't make a habit of it, I do occasionally enjoy a well-crafted piece of short "literary" fiction, the kind of $20 novella-sized book that I'm usually railing against here; for example, check out the latest from lit veteran Ann Beattie, the '80s character drama Walks Wi...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I heard this is THE local author to know, so I was excited to get my hands on this one. Short and sweet? A woman tells about her many varied relationships with men: her drunk step-father, her gay downstairs neighbor, her lover-turned-husband-turned-missing-person, her Buddhist ex-boyfriend who changed his name to "Goodness". The overall effect is a little amusing and a lotta annoying. It's as if the narrator's speaking through a scratchy, distant PA system so you can't really understand what's g...more
This book was good for what it was, I did find it confusing that the author kept jumping around in time, I like stories to be told in sequence, it was hard to tell what was now and what was a flashback. I also found it very strange that she decided to switch from first person to third person for a chunk of the story. Very odd...
This was a random book that caught my eye while I was standing at the library with my son whining that I was taking too long. I wanted something short to bring to the pa...more
This was a random book that caught my eye while I was standing at the library with my son whining that I was taking too long. I wanted something short to bring to the pa...more
I wrote a review and then had it scratched when I tried to save. I said that I had been looking for a new book by Ann Beatty. I think I wrote that I liked the writing, the sentences, the way it was put together, but not the characters or the entire plot. The blurb makes it seem as though this might be autobiographical. I don't think so. It might be peripherally about Beatty's life but I think it feels like fiction. I wanted a novel. That's why I wasn't as happy with this book as I might have bee...more
Walks With Men is a wisp of a book about a famous-for-fifteen-minutes, young, female, who has a relationship with a manipulative older man in New York. "The deal was this: he'd tell me anything, anything, as long as the information went unattributed, as long as no one knew he and I had any real relationship." With an agreement like that, one expects to learn something remarkable about men. Instead, we whip through a novella about a self-absorbed guy who barely tells us anything, and what he does...more
Ann Beattie’s new novella starts with a little idea: Jane Jay Costner, who recently dropped out of college as a radical gesture and now lives on a farm in Vermont with a hippie boyfriend, joins up with an older man who promises to teach her how to live. Even after certain illusions about him are shattered, Jane stays with Neil. She makes fun of her devotion, but never disowns it. I really enjoyed this short and seductively superficial story about a woman who doesn’t come to any final conclusions...more
I stopped reading this a quarter of the way in. I was so annoyed I couldn't take it anymore, and considering how short this book is that is saying something. The story itself tries so desperately to be profound but rings pretty hollow instead, and the characters themselves are so pretentious that if I were at a cocktail party with them I'd tell them to take their New York Times essays to someone who cares, and then I'd turn around and leave before even tasting the hors d'ourves.
I really hate giving books low star reviews, but sometimes it happens. Honestly, I have no idea what this novella is trying to accomplish. I feel that the writing is sloppy along with the characterization and plot structure. One moment we're in the 80's and in the next we're in the present time? I feel that the message of the story is completely lost. Some clever quotes and philosophical comments are peppered in throughout the pages. It still doesn't change my experience reading it.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
nice quick read. i felt more attracted to its style than its content and kept being more interested in how it was written than what it was about. i guess because in part i find stories of women who depend on men quite painful and so my instinctive response is boredom. even when they are trying to show 'self-acceptance' or 'letting go' or 'courage' or 'coming to terms' or 'girl power' or whatever other 'moral of the story' is trying to be imparted to me, though that is not to say that i found it...more
I really could not get into this book at all. I completely could not sympathize with, or relate to, the characters. I didn't enjoy the plot. I didn't really understand the purpose of the book. The writing style was distracting--lots of parantheses, changes in point of view, flashbacks all over the place, words that appeared to be used just to show off, and brief little paragraphs that didn't really fit in anywhere. Not my style at all.
3 stars? Maybe 2. I love New Yorker fiction but have never been that into Ann Beattie. This novella is like journal entries from someone who didn't learn her lesson about a creepy old dude who belittled her. Why? Well, there was the money, apparently. But can living in a great apartment in NYC ever have been more depressing? I don't think so. (Never order wine. Just say you're having a drink. What a douche.)
This was a total waste of my time. This book was so random and all over the place. There wasn't a storyline. Her "walks with men" were very dysfunctional and weird. I have so many unanswered questions. Where did her husband disappear to? The ashes? Ben and the train incident?? Her mother? Her relationship with her friends? I'm so confused. I'm just glad it's over and super glad it was only 102 pages long.
The Strand highly recommended her book so I trusted their recommendation. The story is set in NYC and that is probably the only reason, besides The Strand's recommendation, why I read it. The romantic storyline is a bit cliche as I have known many women/men who have been in similar enough situations. Glad I read it but not my favorite story.
This was not a satisfying story. The main character is one of those yakety-yak-let-me-tell-you-all-about-ME types, which is as dull in fiction as it is in real life. She's also just not very interesting, aside from being involved with some kooky men. This book would be much better if it were retold as a comedy.
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Get Lit!: Walks with Men | Discussion Questions | 1 | 1 | Apr 26, 2013 07:38pm |
Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike. She holds an undergraduate degree from Americ...more
More about Ann Beattie...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.”
—
12 people liked it
“Clouds are poems, and the most moving poems linger on the blackboard so long, written in cursive so lovely, they also exist inside our fingertips. We never really erase them at the end of the lesson.”
—
8 people liked it
More quotes…
Nov 02, 2012 09:34pm