Distortions

Haunting and disturbingly powerful, these stories established Ann Beattie as the most celebrated new voice in American fiction and an absolute master of the short-story form. Beattie captures perfectly the profound longings that came to define an entire generation with insight, compassion, and humor.

"Magnificant, a pleasure, a significant literary debut." --The New York Times

"Life as it is lived...One doesn't know whether to cheer or weep, but one goes on reading." --Detroit Free Press

"[Beattie is] a writer's writer." --Boston Evening Globe

"Ann Beattie is both painful and funny. She is a writer for all audiences, combining a remarkable array of skills with mateial of wide popular appeal. Her characters inhabit our contemporary world and brood like us about their loves, families, and lives. They compose a wide-screen panorama of life in these United States." --The New York Times Book Review