"Onlookers" is a loosely interconnected collection of short stories primarily concerned with life in Charlottesville, VA in the immediate aftermath of the infamous 2017 white nationalist rally. As residents grapple with the question of how such violence could happen in their seemingly progressive town, they look with fresh eyes on the statues that surround them and consider what those statues say about the past, the present, and a community that is more invested in them than they may want to admit. I found all the stories to be well-written and engrossing, and it was fun to decipher the connections between them, but I sometimes felt at the end of a story that I was missing something. Perhaps this is solely my failing--or maybe Beattie wants her readers to feel the same sense of uncertainty and unease that besets her characters in their troubled times. Definitely thought provoking in any case.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Simon & Schuster for providing me with an ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

My reviews are seen at Boston's The Arts Fuse - arts fuse.org

https://artsfuse.org/278349/book-review-ann-beatties-onlookers-from-a-bemused-distance/

I do not award stars.

Ok, a few admissions first. I didn't read anything about this before requesting it on NetGalley; I wanted it because it was a new book by Ann Beattie. Of course, as you should. Second, I have been reading a lot of short stories lately, and analyzing them with George Saunders in his Story Club, which I cannot recommend enough. So, I thought I was becoming a pretty careful reader. But then I started reading, and I'm almost embarrassed to admit how far along I was into these stories—about the pandemic, the monuments, and the protests they inspired —before I realized they were linked. Wait, wasn't he in that other story? In my defense, I was fully absorbed. And even though I am not typically a re-reader of books, I may take another read through this one at some point. Something in me tells me that it is destined to be an Olive Kitteridge-like classic.

Beattie, who has long been a master of the short story, returns with Onlookers, a contemporary collection of tales centered around Charlottesville, Virginia. Beattie's prose are elegant, and often humorous, and the stories are consistently engaging.

Thank you to the author Ann Beatty, publishers Scribner, and as always NetGalley, for an advance audio copy of ONLOOKERS.




I find sets of stories are hard to review as collections and do better when reviewed at the story level. In this case, it is easy to review the stories altogether since a common theme unites them. More like a common setting, pregnant with the obviousness of a theme. The setting is a small New England town of mixed political makeup, during an event of political unrest (theme) that mirrors some we might recognize from our own news. Most of these stories aren't political, or rather their plots aren't, their characters aren't any more than they need to be to serve the stories. But the world around them is very, very political and it bears geratly on the characters and plots of each story.

Mini reviews of the contained stories:

1. "Pegasus"
Named for the city hospital's life flight helicopter, this long short story attempts to capture the despair and enui suffered by a whole world at once in the grip of Covid. One of the things that makes Ann Beaty a great fiction writer is her mastery of the tiny details, how she manages to show us all the most important messages in her stories in images and not mere expressions. This isn't always ideal though; in dealing with Covid, this so-close-to-home subject, being drawn in this close makes the piece feel stagnant in places. It needs motion, needs air. Ann Beatty's prose is stunning, but humid.
She hung up his jacket. His jackets never wrinkled. Some, made of linen, he usually handed over to someone else at a restaurant, though he still never loosened his tie. p51

2. "In the Great Southern Tradition"
A brilliant story about being queer in a traditional yet irrational family, using a bee sting and an onsetting allergy as a balancing image. The character would literallly rather wait patiently for death to come, or not, than to live out of the closet among his own. Such poignant, heart-breaking character work here.

3. "Nearby"
This one is a little convoluted, I think, but I love that so much emphasis is placed on point of view of the different characters, speaking and nonspeaking alike. The main character notices several times where her perspective deviates from that of the person controlling the action in the scene, but she never has a voice. She feels frustrated and unfulfilled throughout the whole piece. This leads her to a rush of potential. I wanted so badly for her to make the most of this momentum!

4. "Alice Ott"
This story is the particualrly savory story-stuff amalgamation of big families, small-town life, and the paranoia-inducing conditions brought about by Covid. More than the previous three stories, this one is clearly political, with left-leaning characters clearly vocalizing their discontent. Because the character voices are well-developed, the fiction doesn't feel didactic or divisive to me, but your experience may differ.

5. "Monica, Head Home"
Besides Covid, the thing that connects the six stories in this collection is shared characters. In the opening story, "Pegasus," an old woman inherets a very vauable house from the elderly mad she cares for when he dies, and sets this small town and cast of characters on the trajectory explored in the stories in Onlookers. In this story, the primary protagonist, Monica, is the daughter of the same woman, now dead also. This piece reads like the chaos a life might feel like after the loss of one's only parent, without the stabilizing elements of a regular employer, a spouse, or even a single residence:
Looking in the rearview mirror, she almost jumped out of her seat when a masked face loomed up at the car window. She had to remind herself— the damn cell phone was ringing, in the depths of her handbag— where she was, only to realize that she was parked outside the wrong store. Taking away the Ritalin had not been a good idea. It had not.

6. "The Bubble" This story seems to connect all the stories in a subtle way. It opens with a character, George, who thinks in binary. Initially, he applies this split way of thought to gendered behavior, and goes from there. Eventually, this story circles into the subject, which previous stories have introduced, of the local statue of Louis and Clarke, and Sacagawea, and the city's efforts to remove it. This piece is probably the collection's most political story, so I didn't favor it; I don't enjoy political fiction, regardless of how closely I align with the sentiments being expressed; I find politics in fiction often come off as didactic.

Rating: 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 / 5 first queer loves
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: June 28 2023, July 6 2023
Format: Audiobook, Libby
Read this if you like:
🪶 Litfic
📜 Short stories
📿 Cohesive collections
🐘🫏 Politics
👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 Family drama

I loved reading Ann Beattie in the 1990s, but had to stop reading this book at 47 percent in. The premise is interesting - short stories set in Charlottesville around the time of the violent protest surrounding the confederate statutes in town center. The execution was very difficult. There are a lot of characters to keep track of, there is no clear story line of the individual stories and the prose is rambling. Getting through the prose was difficult, and trying to figure out what mattered and what was just the author’s/ characters internal thoughts was a difficult task.

There are lot of great short story she/her writers out there. Think Lydia Davis, Joyce Carol Oates, Carol Shields to name a few but we can also nerver forget the great Ann Beattie, She has an incredible career as a short story writer and is a novelist. Her stories always try to show the human side of each character and never tries to use a stereotype to move a story along. Her latest collection takes place during COVID and take place in the city of Charlottesville. There are six different stand alone stories but some of the characters pop up in other stories. Beattie talks about what happens to us when we are all locked in our homes and in our own minds. What type of people we become and what we believe in and who we choose to believe. Their are discussions about class, religion, politics and all the stuff that came to the forefront of our minds during COVID. It's a beautiful collection for fans of Beattie. This is not a criticism but for new fans I maybe would start at her earlier works. You'll see how she progresses as a short story writer and you will see how she always moves with the times and captures who we are as humans. Would also be a great book for book clubs that like to discuss issues of the day.

Thank you to #Scribner and #netgalley for the ARC.

Confronting Shattered Certainties

I always believed short stories are difficult to write. The author has to introduce the characters, setting, problem or plot and have some resolution at the end.  In a few pages, the short story writer is asked to paint a picture for the reader which may be linked to another short story either before or after the writings.
 
Not an easy task.  Ann Beattie is a pro and she doesn’t make it look easy. The “Onlookers” tells us about Charlottesville, Virginia, a southern city in a swing state that became a symbol of white supremacy, “Unite the Right.” This march, lit by tiki torches, with a “Jews will not replace us” mantra.  President Donald Trump stated there were “very fine people on both sides.” Since the march centered around anti-Semitism and white supremacy, it was difficult for the citizens of the city.  It is the beginning of Covid quarantines.  This takes places as Charlottesville is having a population growth, old and new money and American race relations are at a dangerous pinnacle and there is a plan to remove statutes of Confederate generals. A young woman was purposely killed, iIt was a tragic night for this country, but we seem to have them quite often now.
 
Charlottesville had been a content, liberal city in the South. This book is a compendium of short stories with many characters: writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, rich and poor, brilliant and challenged.  Each story could standalone but there are many encounters depicting the traditions, grief, typical characters. Many surprised me creating more interesting and enlightening chapter. Older liberals thrive but they are careful, sometimes hiding their enjoyment after attaining some prosperity.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for this pre-published book. All opinions expressed are my own.

This is a wonderful collection of six lightly connected short stories set in Charlottesville, Virginia in the early days of COVID, Underlying all of them is a sense of unrest, unrest that start in 2017 when Charlottesville became a nightmare, The Confederate statutes that sparked the unrest appear in each of the stories- not a big thing but as a reference or a mention. Interestingly, there are several elderly characters who are coping with change and the shut down as well as reflecting on their pasts. Some of the characters appear across the stories but each story easily stands on its own. As always, Beattie is a master of language with lean beautiful phrasing that captures a scene or a person in just the right number of words. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Read these one at a time. Fans of Beattie will be pleased as will short story fans.

Interesting collection of short stories. Characters from one story will show up in future stories which at times became a bit confusing.

Onlookers contains six short stories, all set in Charlottesville, Virginia during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the background, you understand that there are ongoing protests and attempts to remove various Confederate statues scattered throughout the historic town. The characters in each of the six stories are different, but there are connections to be gleaned if you're paying close attention. Charlottesville, after all, is a small town at heart.

I wouldn't call myself an avid short story reader, but I love picking up a collection every once in a while as a sort of "break" from longer fiction. Onlookers was a lovely read, though I did like certain stories better than others. My favorites were the first (Robbie and Ginny) and fourth (Aunt Alice) stories, with my least favorite being the second (Jonah and his family). I enjoyed them all to some extent though, and would happily pick up another Ann Beattie collection!

Thank you to Ann Beattie, Scribner, and NetGalley for my advance digital copy.

I am not a big fan of short stories, but when I saw this collection by Ann Beattie, I couldn’t pass it up. Onlookers is a compilation of linked stories that take place in Charlottesville, Virginia during the time of Covid and political distress when “any intelligent person has been driven half mad.” Readers may remember the white nationalist demonstration turned violent that occurred there in 2017. References to Charlottesville’s controversial statues and residents’ views permeate (but do not dominate) the stories. Rather, these are tales of a time, a place, a community, and some of the characters who inhabit it.

I loved Beattie’s wickedly clever and astute observations of life. There were many gems, but one of my favorite was that misinformation on social media has become the modern Paul Revere. It was a pleasure to read such literate pieces.

As you read the stories, try to remember the characters from each story, as relationships to them may appear in later tales.

ONLOOKERS
BY: ANN BEATTIE

I have been a longtime fan of Ann Beattie's fiction for the last two decades. I also love short stories. This collection, called "Onlookers," is in my opinion not her strongest work, but it is still a contender for above average writing by this award winning author. Ann Beattie is among one of the finest writers, and this book of short stories didn't disappoint. I loved most of these interconnecting short stories written with an interesting premise. This author really shines with her ability to pepper throughout with attention to the fine details that she includes that most people who are longtime readers will recognize. My surprise at the first one to be compared with the rest of them, to almost be considered a novella about family, and an older doctor. That first one seemed almost like a novella, on my Kindle with the length of it before coming to an ending I wasn't expecting at 27 percent.

Even though I said that this collection of short stories wasn't in my opinion, my favorite collection by Ann Beattie, I still did enjoy this one. In the third story I appreciated the mentioning of two of my favorite writers brief cameos such as Raymond Carver, and Alice Munro. Alice Munro was mentioned several more times, with if I am recalling correctly Raymond Carver, getting only mentioned once. Raymond Carver's short story collection, called "Where I'm Calling From," happens to be one of my favorite short story collections. I have read all of Ann Beattie's previous work, so I was excited to see this new short story collection becoming available in July of this year. I think that anybody who enjoys reading Literary fiction, especially pertaining to the South. Those controversial monuments having to do with Confederate soldiers, is a timely, relevant trope, and those readers who enjoy Southern literature will be aptly entertained by "Onlookers," written by a masterful, and gifted storyteller.

Publication Date: July 18, 2023

Thank you to Net Galley, Ann Beattie and Scribner for providing me with my ARC, in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

#Onlookers #AnnBeattie #Scribner #NetGalley

I've been a Beattie fan for nearly 4 decades. I liked this collection but didn't LOVE it. Her collection Where You'll Find Me is by far her most superior IMO. Some of the stories here are exquisite and some just meh. But Beattie still retains her sharp skill of honing in on the minutiae of our daily lives and giving us dimensional, interesting characters.
I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

ONLOOKERS is a thoroughly enjoyable short story collection highly recommended for fans of literary fiction.

These particular stories are very "of the moment," especially with reference to a Covid landscape in contemporary Charlottesville. I admire how Beattie grapples with modern day issues with a hefty dose of dramatic irony. Her wit is on full display here, and this collection ranges from darkly humorous to seriously tragic. Her characters are well drawn and relatable, and the stories end in satisfying ways. The narratives are rarely tied up with a pretty bow, but then again, fans of literary fiction know not to expect that. Overall, this is a lovely collection.

A nice mix of stories. Beattie has been published a lot, so she know how to craft a story. Those that like literary fiction short stories will probably like many of these.

I really appreciate the free ARC for review!!

I am a big fan of short stories, so I was quite excited to receive Anne Beattie’s latest collection. It did not disappoint. The stories were woven together seamlessly. It brought me back to the days of Covid, and provided a realistic view of life in a small southern town. Thank you for my advance copy.

A new Ann Beattie title is always an interesting read. Her stories are a mix of comedy, drama, irony, and memorable characters. No matter the setting, it is well-drawn and influences the characters.. Her stories are always a good tool in the classroom to teach these literary traits. Highly recommended!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for a sneak peek and an honest review.

Anne Beattie was a favorite decades ago, and this collection reminds me of why. Set in Charlottesville post 2017, these linked stories portray a city that has experienced a change of perception thanks to the notorious riots of April of that year, and the protests regarding monuments honoring heroes on the Southern side of the Civil War. Each story could stand on its own, but read as a whole presents a comprehensive picture of life under COVID, in a small city, in the American south, as perceived by a member of the liberal faction.

Unfortunately, I did not love this collection of short stories. To be fair, I'm not a big short story fan so possibly not the best reviewer. The stories did do a decent job of presenting "in the moment" descriptions of people's lives in contemporary Charlottesville. I did like the first story, which was more of a novella, about a woman living with her prospective father-in-law during the covid lockdowns while her fiancee was in Japan, but like many short stories it felt like it just ended with no real resolution. Beattie's style is a little too wordy for me as well. Sorry!