“You put all the [decoy] mallards out there, but if you’re going hunting you need something like this egret, for a confidence decoy.”

A review of “The New Yorker Stories” in 100 words by Catherine Stover

How did she do that? Readers often ask this after reading an Ann Beattie story. Just when it seems as though not much is happening, boom! The story explodes. For example, in the final long paragraph … Read More

“No one was coming toward the house yet, but things wouldn’t stay the way they were much longer.”

Beattie croppedWhen Ann Beattie met John Updike, he said “You figured out how to write an entirely different kind of story.” Her stories were “the” stories my English department discussed in the 1980s because they were so  revolutionary.  T. Coraghessan Boyle wrote in the New York Times, “Her stories are … Read More