What Was Mine (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Ann Beattie
- First Published: 1991
- Type of Work: Short stories
- Time of Work: The 1980’s
- Setting: Primarily small towns and suburbs in the Eastern United States
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, Self-discovery, Suicide, Alcoholism or alcoholics, Emotions, Substance abuse, Violence, Symbolism, Small-town life, Comedy, Realism
- Locales: East (U.S.)
Although marital strife is perhaps the most common subject of modern American short fiction, Ann Beattie probes beyond the ordinary level of this theme in her new collection by projecting the seemingly inevitable conflicts between married partners outward onto metaphoric objects or mirror-image third parties. Beattie is not interested in something so ordinary and blatant as adultery as the cause of separation; rather she focuses on the elusive emotions and subtle tensions that often underlie breakups. Because of their delicate nature, the conflicts Beattie is concerned with cannot be...
[The entire page is 2077 words long]
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