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The state we're in : Maine stories / Ann Beattie.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Scribner, 2015Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: x, 206 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 150110781X
  • 9781501107818
Other title:
  • State we are in
  • Maine stories
Uniform titles:
  • Short stories. Selections
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
What magical realism would be -- The fledgling -- Aunt Sophie Renaldo Brown -- Adirondack chairs -- Yancey -- Silent prayer -- Endless rain into a paper cup -- Duff's done enough -- Elvis is ahead of us -- Major maybe -- Road movie -- The little Hutchinson's -- The stroke -- Missed calls -- The repurposed barn.
Summary: This is about more than geographical location of Maine, and certainly is not a picture postcard of the coastal state. Some characters have arrived by accident, others are trying to get out. The collection opens, closes, and is interlaced with stories that focus on Jocelyn, a wryly disaffected teenager living with her aunt and uncle while attending summer school. As in life, the narratives of other characters interrupt Jocelyn's, sometimes challenging, sometimes embellishing her view.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction Beattie Ann Available 33111008043107
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

What magical realism would be -- The fledgling -- Aunt Sophie Renaldo Brown -- Adirondack chairs -- Yancey -- Silent prayer -- Endless rain into a paper cup -- Duff's done enough -- Elvis is ahead of us -- Major maybe -- Road movie -- The little Hutchinson's -- The stroke -- Missed calls -- The repurposed barn.

This is about more than geographical location of Maine, and certainly is not a picture postcard of the coastal state. Some characters have arrived by accident, others are trying to get out. The collection opens, closes, and is interlaced with stories that focus on Jocelyn, a wryly disaffected teenager living with her aunt and uncle while attending summer school. As in life, the narratives of other characters interrupt Jocelyn's, sometimes challenging, sometimes embellishing her view.

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