A collection of short stories loosely related to the state of Maine, this audio presentation put the reviewer in mind of what Sarah Orne Jewett might write were she alive today. Cassandra Campbell’s narration savors the slow exploration of character and place in each narrative, few of which contain any real plot. Wisely, she refrains from attempting any of the state’s distinctive accents. But one would think a professional like Campbell would know better than to commit the dreaded pronunciation errors of “Banger” for Maine’s city of Bangor and “Bow-dwin” for Bowdoin College. But these and other scattered hiccups aside, her performance suits Beattie’s gentle exploration of “Vacationland.” The listener will want to savor each tale. R.L.L. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

★ 05/18/2015
The 15 loosely connected stories in Beattie’s latest collection, set on Maine’s southern coast, feature drifting adults and their rootless offspring at seemingly unimportant moments that are in fact critical. In “What Magical Realism Would Be,” a high school student living with her aunt and uncle rants about summer school. “Writing essays was retarded,” Jocelyn asserts. “It totally was.” Jocelyn prefers nights on the beach with friends. “Road Movie” describes an unlucky tryst at a California hotel; “The Fledgling” shows an ungainly attempt to rescue a wayward bird; Elvis lamps are auctioned off in “The Repurposed Barn,” in which Jocelyn sees her teacher in a new light. “Adirondack Chairs” uses furniture to reflect a couple’s abandoned future; in “The Little Hutchinsons,” a wedding hosted by the titular characters goes awry. In “Missed Calls,” an encounter between a photographer’s widow and a writer distracted by concern for his stepdaughter starts with the widow’s memory of Truman Capote but becomes an unsettling view of the stepdaughter and her family. “Major Maybe,” in which a Portland doctor remembers 1980s New York, begins with a woman getting hit by a car, then weaves its way back to the narrator, her roommate, and the flower in their apartment window. The collection demonstrates Beattie’s craftsmanship, precise language, and her knack for revealing psychological truths. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (Aug.)

"Moving fluidly between adolescents and septuagenarians, it leaves us with the sense that uncertainty, disconnection, is not a matter of chronology but rather of being alive."

A peerless, contemplative page-turner.

Ann Beattie’s gorgeous The State We’re In makes a strong case for the significance of place."

Marvelous… all part of a masterful narrative structure in which seeds planted early bloom powerfully near the end, never quite as we expect. It happens in every story, and the effect is even more pleasurable across the span of this linked collection… a book packed with emotional errors and lines that will take your breath away.

Some things never change, but that can be a good thing — as in the subtlety and wit of Ann Beattie’s fiction… Beattie’s sharp, funny dialogue is evident throughout…The State We’re In is a strong collection, offering Beattie’s sly insights into marriage, family,home, friendship, and much more.

No one writes a short story quite like Beattie does…what unifies these gems is the author's droll, off-kilter perspective on the human race.

The incomparable Ann Beattie’s cunning new story collection... remarkable (and witty)... finding meaning in the mundane and using the small to define the large... Beattie’s Maine can be another’s New York, Tennessee or Montana— so distinct and so quotidian are her characters."

"What has always set Beattie’s stories apart is their open-ended capaciousness, so unlike the deterministic, epiphany-shaped prose that has defined the short form... THE STATE WE'RE IN is a revelation, and is shaded by the perspective of an author who now understands both sides of a generational divide... In a Beattie story, perspective is preeminent, and it’s never one you expect. The unwieldiness of human nature, the strangeness of time and circumstance, inevitably shine through."

Slyly funny, still exhibiting the author’s nonlinear narrative style and unique gift of reflecting our inner angst with our surroundings... With a few deft strokes and not a little humor, Beattie paints the nuances... A sense of discomfort pervades The State We’re In, but thanks to the Beattie’s trademark sleek prose and perfectly calibrated authorial distance, it makes for weirdly entertaining reading."

"Splendid... memorable... Beattie’s sociological wit and probity are truly unsurpassed in our literature... though I didn’t think this was possible, I experienced an even more heightened awe of Beattie’s skills... The dexterity of tone, fearless honesty, and close mapping of lives that may lead to ghastly revelations or even redemption are sheer gifts of reading... this collection has many, many moments of utter surprise. In fact, every page is fitted out with the blessed finery of hypnotic storytelling."

A delicious new collection… Funny and consistently surprising,the stories of The State We’re In have the precision and softness of watercolor sketches... masterfully executed, each contributing to a portrait of a place... Imbued with clear-eyed compassion…These stories are also rife with the secret rituals and intimacies of marriage, with all its warfare and devotion.

Cause for readers to celebrate… edgy, unfiltered.

"Edgy, funny and dark... Beattie’s unerring dialogue exposes each story’s truths... effortless grace."

"Short-story queen Beattie is back with her first new collection in 10 years... These tales explore the range of emotional states the author is famous for: longing, disaffection, ambivalence, love, regret. It's nice to hear her voice again."

"Sparkling.... [her stories] finish with a quiet flourish, throwing a sudden subtle twist at us... In the end, these carefully drawn, minutely illustrated portraits of women— and men— depict slices of life in all its complexity."

Interconnected stories from a master of the form.

A real keeper…[these stories] give voice to teens in turmoil, bad parents, tête-à-têtes of all sorts, and so much more.

"Beattie’s signature gifts – her finely tuned language, droll wit, unerring feel for popular culture– are on rich display here…vivid…More than a paean to the Pine Tree State, The State We’re In underscores the indelible contribution Beattie has made to American short fiction.”

“Beattie is a master at depicting the peculiarly painful valor necessary for contending with troubled family members,spouses, lovers, neighbors, even pets. She is also that rarest of beings, a brilliantly comic literary writer… Most often, it’s her skirmishing dialogue that makes us laugh out loud… [a] stellar collection by Beattie, a writer revered and honored for her keen insights and wit.

As always, she illuminates the outskirts of interpersonal apocalypse, a ‘state’ more material than geographical, riddled with cultural paraphernalia."

"Beattie’s stories are about life at its most basic and genuine. But her special gift of language and insight raise them above the ordinary.

One of America’s finest authors—and arguably best living short-story writer.

Call her the American Alice Munro, call her a New Yorker darling,call this the perfect summer read.

The epiphany-resistant nature of Beattie's stories demands much of her readers, and ultimately is a gift. For without easy closure or false resolutions, we leave these pages with her characters still acting in an unpredictable world that looks very much like our own.

"Short-story queen Beattie is back with her first new collection in 10 years... These tales explore the range of emotional states the author is famous for: longing, disaffection, ambivalence, love, regret. It's nice to hear her voice again."

03/15/2015
Of course, Beattie works in the long form (Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life was her last novel), but she's justly celebrated for her short-form fiction, having won both the Rea Award and the Short Story and PEN/Malamud Award for her achievement in that area. This collection limns the state of Maine, where Beattie now lives, though she's really more interested in state of mind, e.g., how people end up someplace by accident. Jocelyn, a classically snarky teenager living in Maine with her aunt and uncle while attending summer school, links the pieces.

A collection of short stories loosely related to the state of Maine, this audio presentation put the reviewer in mind of what Sarah Orne Jewett might write were she alive today. Cassandra Campbell’s narration savors the slow exploration of character and place in each narrative, few of which contain any real plot. Wisely, she refrains from attempting any of the state’s distinctive accents. But one would think a professional like Campbell would know better than to commit the dreaded pronunciation errors of “Banger” for Maine’s city of Bangor and “Bow-dwin” for Bowdoin College. But these and other scattered hiccups aside, her performance suits Beattie’s gentle exploration of “Vacationland.” The listener will want to savor each tale. R.L.L. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

2015-05-20
The veteran short story master explores the peculiarities of summer life among well-off and often emotionally unwell Maine denizens. Beattie (Mrs. Nixon, 2011, etc.) helped set the template for minimalist fiction in the 1980s, but she's roamed stylistically since then, and these 15 lightly linked stories are as varied as the moods of their lead characters. A trio of stories centers on Jocelyn, a teenager sent to live with her aunt and uncle while her mother recovers from surgery for Lyme disease; her struggles in a writing class echo her need to develop a mature sense of her world's complexity. Sometimes Beattie imagines that world as light and quirky, as in "Elvis Is Ahead of Us," in which teens discover a room full of Elvis-bust lamps in an unoccupied house. Elsewhere, the milieu is darker and more absurd, a place where one man is killed after accidentally rousing a nest of yellow jackets and another is flung over a cliff by a storm during his wedding. What unifies these stories outside of their settings is Beattie's nuanced understanding of relationships: at her best, in "The Stroke," an aging husband and wife preparing for bed discuss their love-hate feelings toward their children, casually grooming each other while musing about "how lovely it would be to just grab the clump of them and cut them out." Some pieces read like sketches with promising characters but little movement: a 77-year-old writer discusses poetry with an IRS agent, a doctor reminisces about her life in New York before moving north, an author interviews a local for a book about "people who have negative effects on other people's lives." A full novel on Jocelyn might be more fulfilling, but Beattie clearly enjoys wandering around the neighborhood. An engaging collection of varied characters, if varying degrees of substance.