Who can keep up with Ann Beattie? How many gazillion stories has she written? Why is there a faux-looking deer on the hardcover edition of this book, and a droopy-eyed dog on the paperback edition? These are mysteries I cannot begin to fathom (Leonard Nimoy, where are you?). Nor, exactly, can I fathom how these stories work so well, how in their deceptive simplicity they lull you into a sense of plain enjoyment, then take a few unexpected turns and you wind up someplace unexpected. Favorite so far is "Just Going Out," which starts out in the first person from the perspective of an adult re-examining a series of incidents from her childhood, then breaks into the third person mid-story, and takes some very odd twists indeed. The main character is a writer, and so this switch of point of view is self-conscious but it strangely doesn't undermine the "continuous waking dream" of this story, only enhances it.
"Duchais" is also very strong in its portrayal of an eccentric professor, and the student who finds himself entangled in his life. "Find and Replace" starts off really well, with an engaging if embittered narrator whose recently-widowed mother is about to move in with her neighbor, whom she barely knows. It sags toward the end with its pivotal scenes at a rental car agency (even Beattie can't pull this off, needs to upgrade to a bigger climax). One other quibble is with her propensity to rely on musical allusions in the following formulaic way, "I drove to Venice, singing along with Mick Jagger about beasts of burden"; "Sting was on the radio, singing about fields of barley." But more than making up for it are great lines like these: "He wore a silver stud in one ear and had little, bony hands that looked vestigial."