Secrets & Surprises (Vintage Contemporaries)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent -- as usual
Review: Why doesn't anyone read these books? Every time I'm on Amazon I look up intelligent, literate books and NO ONE has written about them. Can't people read books other than those that win the literary prizes.

Anyhow...this is an excellent collection by Beattie. It was her second collection after DISTORTIONS. Although several stories use the present tense and portray emotionally dead people, none of them are the minimalist, four-paragraph type story that crop up in her next collection, THE BURNING HOUSE. All the Beattie trademarks are here: excellent dialogue, sparse but evocative detail, and surprising humor in unlikely spots. I've recently begun to reread this collection in hopes of writing an essay on Beattie's fiction, and I've discovered how finely crafted and structured these stories are. Clearly, she's more than a distinctive prose style. I look forward to PERFECT RECALL, coming out in early 2001.