Ann Beattie

Fresh from Harvard's Class of 1980, Jane embarks on a live-in affair with 40-something writer Neil, a man who shares with her his bizarre rules for living life. By the author of Follies.

Fiction

Walks With Men

Trever

I read this a few months ago, and I don't remember much of it. It's about a young female writer in the 80's who gets into a doomed marriage with an older editor. I recall some of the details, like that she had a gay friend somewhere in her apartment building, and I remember the opening line sticking out to me, but other than that, very forgettable.

Ann Beattie arrived in New York young, observant and celebrated (as The New Yorker’s young fiction star) in one of the most compelling and creative eras of recent times. So does the protagonist of her intense new novella, Walks with Men. It is 1980 in New York City, and Jane, a valedictorian fresh out of Harvard, strikes a deal with Neil, an intoxicating writer twenty years her senior. The two quickly become lovers, living together in a Chelsea brownstone, and Neil reveals the rules for a life well lived: If you take food home from a restaurant, don’t say it’s because you want leftovers for "the dog." Say that you want the bones for "a friend who does autopsies." If you can’t stand on your head (which is best), learn to do cartwheels. Have sex in airplane bathrooms. Wear only raincoats made in England. Neil’s certainties, Jane discovers, mask his deceptions. Her true education begins. "One of our era’s most vital masters of the short form" (The Washington Post), Beattie brilliantly captures a time, a place and a style of engagement. Her voice is original and iconic.

Walks With Men Fiction

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