Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie
Ann Beattieis an American novelist and short story writer. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and the PEN/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 master's degree from the University of Connecticut...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth8 September 1947
CountryUnited States of America
It's not about having things figured out, or about communicating with other people, trying to make them understand what you understand. It's about a chicken dinner at a drive-in. A soft pillow. Things that don't need explaining.
the real killer was when you married the wrong person but had the right children.
Italics provide a wonderful advantage: you see, right away, that the words are in a rush. When something exists at a slant, you can't help but consider irony.
Quite often my narrator or protagonist may be a man, but I'm not sure he's the more interesting character, or if the more complex character isn't the woman.
Much of what happens in Love Always is really from overheard conversations in the Russian Tea Room. It's an improvisation of the way certain Hollywood agents think and talk to each other.
It's interesting, though, that in daily life, I think of myself as being relatively unobservant.
Falling in Place was meant to be very much rooted in a place and time, and music was a part of that.
It's gratifying that it does; I love to give readings.
What will happen can't be stopped. Aim for Grace.
You put a character out there and you're in their power. You're in trouble if they're in yours.
Any life will seem dramatic if you omit mention of most of it.
Women are obviously much more discriminated against than men in many ways.
I am not alone in bearing grudges against reviewers who have doomed a book's chances because they've missed the point, the tone, everything....
When I was teaching at Harvard in the 1970s, I went to Project Incorporated in Cambridge and took photography classes. I didn't even know how to aim the camera in those days.