Perfect Recall: New Stories

Ann Beattie

Scribner, 2001 - Fiction - 347 pages

Ann Beattie published her first short story in "The New Yorker" in 1972. Twenty-eight years later, she received the 2000 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She is, as the "Washington Post Book World" said, "one of our era's most vital masters of the short form."

The eleven stories in her new work are peopled by characters coming to terms with the legacies of long-held family myths or confronting altered circumstances -- new frailty or sudden, unlikely success. Beattie's ear for language, her complex and subtle wit, and her profound compassion are unparalleled.

From the elegiac story "The Famous Poet, Amid Bougainvillea," in which two men trade ruminations on illness, art, and servitude, to "The Big-Breasted Pilgrim," wherein a famous chef gets a series of bewildering phone calls from George Stephanopoulos, "Perfect Recall" comprises Beattie's strongest work in years. It is a riveting commentary on the way we live now by a spectacular prose artist.

About the author

Ann Beattie was born in Washington, D.C. on September 8, 1947. She received a B.A. from American University in 1969 and an M.A. from the University of Connecticut in 1970. She began her writing career when she was just twenty-five, with the short story A Platonic Relationship, published in The New Yorker. Regular contributions to the magazine resulted in her first collection of short stories, Distortions, published in 1976. Her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter, was also published that year. Later works include Park City, Another You, Where You'll Find Me, and Walks with Men. Her work was honored with a Guggenheim fellowship in 1978, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1980, and the Rea Award for the Short Story in 2005. She has taught at Harvard College, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Virginia.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Perfect Recall: New Stories
• Author: Ann Beattie
• Publisher: Scribner, 2001
• Original from: the University of Michigan
• Digitized: Mar 5, 2008
• ISBN: 0743211693, 9780743211697
• Length: 347 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General; Fiction / Literary; Fiction / Short Stories (single author)