A magnificent new collection of linked stories from a
multiple prize-winning master of the short form. The
State We’re In, Ann Beattie’s first collection of new
stories in a decade, is about how we live in the places we
have chosen—or have been chosen by. It is about the stories
we tell our families, our friends, and ourselves; the truths
we may or may not see; how our affinities unite or repel us;
and where we look for love.
Told through the voices of vivid and engaging women of all
ages, The State We’re In explores their doubts and
desires and reveals the unexpected moments and glancing
epiphanies of daily life. Some of Beattie’s idiosyncratic
and compelling characters have arrived in the coastal state
by accident, while others are trying to escape. The
collection is woven around Jocelyn, a wry, disaffected
teenager living with her aunt and uncle for the summer,
forging new friendships, avoiding her mother’s calls, taking
writing classes, and encountering mortality for the first
time. As in life, the narratives of other characters
interrupt Jocelyn’s, sometimes challenging and sometimes
embellishing her view.
Riveting, witty, sly, and bold, these stories describe a
state of mind, a manner of being. A Beattie story, says
Margaret Atwood, is “like a fresh bulletin from the front:
we snatch it up, eager to know what’s happening out there on
the edge of that shifting and dubious no-man’s-land known as
interpersonal relations.” Beattie’s sentences, her insights,
and her inimitable voice are mesmerizing.
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