Park City

by Ann Beattie

The Barnes & Noble Review
"A generous, very welcome volume of stories from one of the most influential masters of the form." —Publishers Weekly

Famous for her spare, unsentimental fiction about aimless youth and ambivalent love, Ann Beattie has often been called the chronicler of her generation. Since her work first appeared in The New Yorker more than two decades ago, Beattie's stories have lost none of their wistful appeal or satirical bite. And neither has the author.

The 36 stories of Park City — including eight published for the first time, plus a generous selection from her earlier collections — give us Ann Beattie at stunning midcareer. Park City captures perfectly the moods and actions of our world in the '70s, '80s, and '90s: people on the go, living in group houses, smoking too much weed, contracting AIDS, and dying young; or getting jobs, settling down, having children, splitting up, coming to terms, and looking back on life.

Emotionally complex, insightful, and funny, the stories of Park City cover a wide range of tone and feeling. To Beattie fans, her themes will ring familiar. A woman grieving over a lost child comforts her husband with an extraordinary act of tenderness. A peripatetic man tries to ground himself in the universe. An intricate dance of adultery breaks up a marriage. A housekeeper experiences a startling epiphany while looking into her freezer one steamy summer evening. The long, comic roll of a couple's "four-night fight" finally explodes into joy. In an AIDS ward, particular questions take on special meaning.

Inproseboth lyrical and searing, these memorable, evocative stories recall the details and emotions of past and present eras. They speak to our minds and our hearts and are truly timeless. Kirkus Reviews says, "Beattie's spare, unfussy style, her pitch-perfect ear for the manner in which we really speak to one another, and her sharp analysis of the ways in which disaffection and loss deform relationships and character are all abundantly on display here.... Beattie is a perceptive and unsettling writer."

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, American

477 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

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 American University and a masters degree from the University of Connecticut.

Reviews

[AlePH505 · Rating 5 out of 5]

داستان های عجیب و زیبایی درش وجود داره ، کتاب ارزشمند و خوبیه

[Foroogh · Rating 4 out of 5]

مجموعه نه داستان کوتاه.

به نوئل گفتم :" ولی اخه عاشقت نیستم. نمی خوای با کسی زندگی کنی که عاشقت باشه؟"
نوئل جواب داد:" هیچکی تا حالا عاشقم نبوده ، هیچکی ام نمیشه. چی رو میخوام از دست بدم؟" ص 154 ورمونت

[Nima · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Sara Gerot · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a collection worth investing in. I too return to these stories. All of them are so dense and satisfying. There is always something going on in the subtext making them like puzzles to figure out. Although the material can be dark, the experience of reading this book is enjoyable. Very lovely.

[Holly Acker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not know if short stories are always for me... it took me actually forever to finish this and I think it was partly because reading a collection of short stories rather than a cohesive novel is Not always my vibe. Individually, I really enjoyed many of the stories in this collection! And I really admire Beattie's writing style and her ability to create such vivid scenes within her short stories. I think sometimes it was hard for me to connect to the stories because 1. the characters are older and 2. they were all written in the late 20th century. None of them felt SUPER dated (except one that was kind of umm... poorly aged), but def different scenarios than 21st century life. I am glad to be DONE with this so I can start reading novels again.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems like modern literary writers tend to congregate for the most part around university campuses and New York City. Their works are admired by the publishers of New Yorker, and perhaps in such magazines, that's where their work belongs. There isn't a whole lot to like about Ann Beattie's work. It's passable. It's mediocre. Nothing is really at stake because for the most part, the participants in her stories live a fairly comfortable life where the worst problems can potentially be resolved by a good psychiatrist and a pill or two.

[Vincent Scarpa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of the new stories, "Cosmos" and "Park City" are just phenomenal. The selected stories are also super well-chosen, and include some of my favorite Beattie stories, like "The Burning House" and "Windy Day at the Reservoir."

[Ammar Poursadegh · Rating 4 out of 5]

"خواب گرگ" نوشته آن بیتی، یک مجموعه داستان کوتاه برجسته است که با ظرافت و عمق به موضوعات روابط انسانی، تنهایی و جستجو برای معنا می‌پردازد. بیتی با نگاه تیزبین و نثری مینیمالیستی، دنیایی را خلق می‌کند که در آن شخصیت‌ها با احساساتی پیچیده و گاه متناقض دست و پنجه نرم می‌کنند. داستان حول شخصیت‌هایی می‌گردد که درون‌نگری‌هایشان به همان اندازه که روشن‌کننده است، تاریک و انعکاس‌دهنده‌ی دنیای درونی آنهاست. "خواب گرگ" با مهارتی بی‌نظیر توانسته است لحظاتی از توقف و تفکر در زندگی روزمره را که خوانندگان ممکن است به راحتی نادیده بگیرند، به تصویر بکشد و آن‌ها را به فکر فرو ببرد. این اثر همچون یک نقاشی آب‌مرکبی است که با جزئیات ظریفش، حسی از عدم قطعیت و در عین حال زنده بودن را منتقل می‌کند، و خواننده را دعوت می‌کند تا درون لایه‌های پیچیده زمان و تجربه انسانی کاوش کند.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, this is a strong collection. Perhaps it’s best for studying Beattie. Some are dynamite, others I had to keep flipping back and forth to keep all the details straight, and some I ended up tuning out. There are some that are maybe similar enough to others that I would have just omitted them from the book and made it a little less unwieldy as a whole. Just me though probably on that.

[Glendalee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the short stories but some of these stories were so frustrating because the characters were difficult to like (not all but most) but if an author is making you feel that she’s doing something right in her writing. So I recommend this book if you want to take a break from novels and read some fast paced interesting short stories.

[Fereshteh · Rating 4 out of 5]

داستان هایی با سبکب کاملن واقعی از زندگی آدم هایی با زندگی کاملن معمول-شبیه همه آدمهای دیگر .آنها نیزمرسض میشوند طلاق میگیرند عاشق میشوند و ... منتها این برش داستانی زندگی آنهاست که این کتاب را خواندنی میکند.

[Justin Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painterly stories, with very consistent themes over 25 prolific years of writing. Encouraging. Human.

[Jeff Hobbs]

Read so far:

New stories:
Cosmos--
Second question--
*Going home with Uccello--
The Siamese twins go snorkeling--
Zalla--
Ed and Dave visit the city--
The four-night fight--
*Park City --

from Distortions (1975):
Vermont--
Wolf dreams--
*Dwarf house--
Snakes' shoes --
***
It's just another day in Big Bear, California --3

from Secrets and surprises (1978):
Secrets and surprises--
Weekend--3
A vintage Thunderbird--2
*Shifting--
The lawn party--
Colorado --
***
Distant music

from The Burning House (1982):
Learning to fall--
The Cinderella waltz--3
*Jacklighting--
Waiting--
Desire--
Greenwich time--
*The burning house --
***
Winter 1978

from Where You'll Find Me (1986):
Janus--3
In the white night--3
Heaven on a summer night--
Summer people--
Skeletons--
Where you'll find me --
***
Snow --2

from What Was Mine (1991):
The working girl--
*In Amalfi--
What was mine--
*Windy day at the reservoir--
Imagine a day at the end of your life--
***
Honey--2

***
from Perfect Recall (2001):
The big-breasted pilgrim

from Follies (2005):
That last odd day in L.A.

from The Accomplished Guest (2017):
The Indian uprising
Anecdotes

Lavande
Mr. Nobody at all
Solid wood

[Susan Emmet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of 38 stories, eight of them new, is sort of my Midnight Cowboy in print: dark, elucidating, sad, sorry, wry, gloriously detailed, ironic, and timeless, despite the fact that I'm older and can fully "relate" to time and character and quandary.
When Beattie hits it hard - and most of these stories do resonate - I found myself remembering what I'd read already and how her parents and lovers and children inhabit a far reach in my mind.
Beattie is a consummate writer, I think, when she's hitting hard and I again find that her stories are full of edges that catch a reader when least aware. And then they resonate. Small things matter. So do big things. So does Beattie.
I liked the grouping - Park City, Distortions, Secrets and Surprises, The Burning House, Where You'll Find Me and What Was Mine.
The last story, "Imagine a Day at the End of Your Life," felt so present that I thought I'd found my feet in the ground, surrounded by leaves and sky and sun.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never read anything by Ann Beattie before this book and my decision to pick it up was brought about by an interview I read with her in The Paris Review. She really intrigued me as a writer; however I'm not sure this was the best book to begin with. One of the cover blurbs compared it to a Miles Davis boxed set and I think that's appropriate, both in terms of scope and breadth as well as not a great way to get introduced to a writer or a musician. The book contained selections from many of her previous collections and like a boxed set, as soon as I got the feel for what that collection was like it was off the next and the next. The stories themselves were great and she truly is an amazing writer, but being new to her work I may have missed the full impact of each individual book or 'album' as it were.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beattie is a literary giant! This book pulls together her best stories from countless collections. Beattie helped redefine the short story, along with Ray Carver, Mary Robison, and Amy Hempel. These are stories about mostly well to do New Yorkers struggling to define their relationships to friends and family.

Beattie did a lot for the gay community in writing such monuments as "The Burning House" and "The Cinderella Waltz". Side note: David Leavitt is known as the first writer to get a story whose central characters were gay into the New Yorker (1982). But really Beattie's "The Cinderalla Waltz", which I find to be the truly superior story, was published first (1979).

Buy this, borrow it, get it.

[KW · Rating 3 out of 5]

Possibly the best of minimalism I've encountered, aside from Raymond Carver. The most engaging part of Beattie's work is her rendering of place, which she carries out in this controlled, reigned-in prose. Her characters have embraced void, and make you believe completely that they have done so.

My favorite short story is about a blue bowl. It's one of the most beautifully written short stories I have ever read.

[Jim Cheng · Rating 3 out of 5]

My first exposure to Ann Beattie's short stories. Real and sometimes raw slices of life. With the humor and pathos that comes with them. I read in order of release rather than the order in the collection. It seems you can sense the author's confidence growing with the years, so the newest in the collection have a brio that might be lacking in the earlier works.

[Joan Winnek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I broke off my reading of this long, almost 500 page collection of short stories, several times to read other things, but I always wanted to go back and finish. I'm glad I did. They are wonderful, realistic, long enough to be affecting, well-crafted.

[snackywombat (v.m.) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting sweep of her trajectory as a short story writer. As a fan, I loved seeing the voice of the stories grow in confidence as the selections got more recent.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just don't get why people like her. Random dull thoughts strung together on paper do not make a story (no matter how ordinary and depressing).

[Lisa]

Good book, but took me a long time to read!

[Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant, funny, ironic, iconic.

[Dona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful collection! These are some of the best short stories written from the 1970s to the 1990s. A good collection for readers who want to fall in love with Ann Beattie.