Join us as we celebrate the release of Ann Beattie’s new essay collection, More to Say: Essays and Appreciations. This in-person event will be free and open to the public. We recommend arriving early for the best seating.
About the Book: Ann Beattie, a master storyteller, has been delighting readers since the publication of her short stories in the 1970s and her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter. But as her literary acclaim grew and she was hailed “the voice of her generation,” Ms. Beattie was also moonlighting as a nonfiction writer. As she writes in her introduction to this collection, “Nonfiction always gave me a thrill, even if it provided only an illusion of freedom. Freedom and flexibility—for me, those are the conditions under which imagination sparks.”
These penetrating essays are stories unto themselves, closely observed appreciations of life and art. The reader travels with Ms. Beattie to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to learn about the legacy of the painter Grant Wood and his iconic painting American Gothic; to the famed University of Virginia campus with her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry; to Key West, Florida, for New Year’s with writer and translator Harry Mathews; and to a roadside near Boston in a broken-down car with the wheelchair-bound writer Andre Dubus.
There are explorations of novels, short stories, paintings, and photographs by artists ranging from Alice Munro to Elmore Leonard, from Sally Mann to John Loengard. Whatever the subject, Ms. Beattie brings penetrating insight into literature and art that’s both familiar and unfamiliar—as she writes, “This, I think, is what artists want to do: Find a way to lure the reader or viewer into an alternate realm, to overcome the audience’s resistance to being taken away from their own lives and interests and priorities.”
Ann Beattie’s nonfiction (originally published in Life, The New Yorker, The New York Times, The American Scholar, and 21st Editions: The Journal of Contemporary Photography, among others) is a new way to enjoy one of the great writers of her generation. Readers will find much to love in this journey with a curious and fascinating mind.
About the Author: Ann Beattie has published twenty-one books and lives with her husband, the painter Lincoln Perry, in Maine. She is a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story and the Rea Award for the Short Story. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
More to Say will be released on February 14. To order the book, please see below for the New Dominion Bookshop book order form or call the shop at 434-295-2552.
"Shimmering prose and critical acumen on display in an eclectic collection. Beattie is an accomplished essayist with an elegant, precise writing style."
—Kirkus Reviews
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Ann Beattie Photo Credit: Ulf Andersen