by Ann Beattie
First published 1986
Sarah stares at her phone, waiting for a call that won't come. Her marriage ended three months ago, but she still catches herself setting two coffee cups on the counter each morning. Across town, David searches dating apps while his wife sleeps beside him, both of them pretending their twenty-year marriage isn't slowly dissolving. These characters populate Beattie's collection of stories about contemporary domestic life, where love frequently disappoints and relationships crack under everyday pressures. A woman tends to her heartbreak like a wound that won't heal. A husband contemplates an affair that might save or destroy his marriage. Couples fight about money, children, and the growing distance between them. Some leave. Others stay and wonder why. Beattie observes her characters with surgical precision, capturing the small moments that reveal larger truths about how people connect and disconnect. Her stories strip away romantic illusions to show what remains when love becomes complicated by real life.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: realistic, slice-of-life
191 pages · Hardcover · Linden Press/Simon & Schuster