Beattie, Ann

(US, 1947– )

Ann Beattie writes of her native New England, and of her own generation—idealists of the 1960s, like the characters in Chilly Scenes of Winter (1976), forced to face a harsher world in middle age. She presents their dilemmas with an unflinching eye, especially in Picturing Will (1990), where the collapse of a marriage is viewed through the eyes of a 5-year-old child. In The Burning House (1982), women are seen as alienated, misguidedly fragile creatures who ‘need to learn how to fall’. Another You (1995) deals with the mid-life crisis of an English professor at a small New Hampshire college, and the attendant problems of those around him. My Life, Starring Dara Falcon (1997) is a study of obsession and its aftermath. Ann Beattie also writes salty, sometimes bleak short stories.

Sue Miller, Richard Ford, Alison Lurie  AT