Ann Beattie arrived in New York young, observant and celebrated (as The New Yorker’s young fiction star) in one of the most compelling...
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Feb 16, 2012
Danielle
rated it: 
what was meant to be profound. insightful. and romantic. was 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.
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Jan 10, 2012
Paul
rated it: 
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
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Apr 01, 2011
Richard
rated it:
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, 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, More...
Sep 14, 2010
Ruby
rated it: 
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 mar
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Jan 11, 2011
Sabra
rated it:
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
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Aug 22, 2010
Bookmarks Magazine
rated it:
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 tel
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Sep 04, 2010
S.Annelise
rated it:
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
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Jul 13, 2010
Eliza
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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 e
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Aug 26, 2011
Geeta
rated it:
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 o
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May 13, 2011
Very
rated it:
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 (<spoiler>he is secretly married</spoiler>) or totally bizarre (<spoiler>he ends up disappearing, literally, and is presumed dead by the end, but we are never given even the slightest explanation</spoiler>). To distract you from the
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Oct 11, 2010
Jennifer
rated it:
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 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 More...
Oct 23, 2010
Knitme23
rated it: 
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 go
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Sep 03, 2010
Jason
rated it: 
(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 ch 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 ch More...
Jun 16, 2010
Lindsaygail
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Oct 08, 2010
Kate
rated it:
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 unde
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Jul 23, 2010
Jane
rated it:
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
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Apr 18, 2011
Ket
rated it:
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, an
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Aug 18, 2010
Emma
rated it:
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
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May 03, 2011
Nicole
rated it:
Excerpt from Linus's Blanket - Beattie is a talented writer, and while there was lots of clever imagery and astute life observations, there was also a lack of heart driving the reading of this tale. Jane does indeed learn from Neil (albeit probably not what either of them intended), but is also both extremely isolated and an amazingly selfish person (both of them were actually), with little insight into her own actions even as she tells this story from the distance of years. I couldn’t really g
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Jul 26, 2010
Rachael
rated it:
I love Beattie's brevity, her sharp humor, her apt eye. This is a lovely little book, one that is truly for those who can look back and see their mistakes clearly.
It's a short story, true, but who doesn't love a long short story? After reading so many novels that take up far more than the space they should ever be allotted, I like to read something that is the length that it is, because that's the length it should be. Sadly, only very famous writers like Beattie get that kind of fre
It's a short story, true, but who doesn't love a long short story? After reading so many novels that take up far more than the space they should ever be allotted, I like to read something that is the length that it is, because that's the length it should be. Sadly, only very famous writers like Beattie get that kind of fre
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Oct 02, 2011
Lindsay
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 15, 2012
Ani
rated it:
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
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Aug 07, 2010
Katie
rated it:
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.
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Jul 07, 2011
Tia
rated it:
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.
Oct 28, 2010
Marissa
rated it:
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.
Aug 31, 2011
K
rated it:
It starts out interesting and slides into I don't care. A nice book to have on a short train ride. I like small pocket books and I like novelettes, novelas, whatever you want to call them. They are not popular with the general public for some reason. I don't like the heroin chic cover, however.
Aug 02, 2011
Didn't like much. But had 1 good line that I liked so much, I copied it: "People say women are catty, but men are doggy: they just walk around silently with their bone until they want to bury it." Yeah!! So reading it wasn't a total waste of time. On to the next one...
Aug 14, 2010
Emily
rated it:
I found the first 40 pages of this book thoroughly enjoyable. Lots of twists and turns, and no wasted time or words explaining. She just jumps right in, and expects you'll follow. I did.
Kinda loses steam toward the end, but hey, it's only 100 pages. So how much time is lost in the puttering steam? Not much.
Enjoy!
Kinda loses steam toward the end, but hey, it's only 100 pages. So how much time is lost in the puttering steam? Not much.
Enjoy!
Oct 21, 2010
Joan
rated it:
Read it in the afternoon and evening after completing My Own Country, and the contrast was startling, so at first I felt that I was reading something superficial and trendy. Then it grew on me, and I understood how the author used superficialities to point to meaning.
Aug 08, 2010
Alyssa
rated it:
I felt like I shouldn't like this book but I did. I love novellas--this one's like a long and luxurious short story, and the ending did just what a good ending should: it felt both inevitable and surprising. (I think that's a Margaret Atwood rule for short story endings.)
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