ann beattie: chronicler of the clinically depressed

Ann Beattie lires on the top floor of a Chesca townhouse. which is an historical ste built in the 1805 and ow cOsting her an out rags rnt to lire in Out front s a rrcty ofmaple tre that sup posdy cant grow in N.IC Ie hortiuluristscome ty oxe a year and take a photograph of it.

The fligts of sais up. from bond aT door. a dogscratches and yipesas her k fts üntothe kck. "Will" s ina frenz overher absence. though se's anby ben gone ten miutes Wily is not Ann's but the dog of an etiorfnernd who has keft hin with her while he's in Calijomia Willg kooks like the RCANctOr dog. He scuries around hi front paws baret touching the floor boards as if dancing a ballkt.

Ann is a collector of photographs of friends (the enomous Mr. B. haT nolongrhusband David swüning in he water. sharing a stick with hT nokongriring dog Rus) and wrilers (Don Delilo. her hro. ad an old photo of Sanud Bckett),Thereare ako plnts by the windos:. borks of wine and tos (the larg wolf mask. scary nubby monsers windp mahanisms and a tiy baty dol.

Sthehas just boughr a ner typernier. an Obynpia that does pra ticalj ereryhing isetf, It sits on the dining table besideher old ypx uriCT. The dy bgjore she had lugged the now one home fourbloxcks and up thre flighıs of sais and she s stil delighued mystified at how ü woks (l just psh this andit erasseverythingandyoucan't even se it "2

She wears pirstripe jeans, a whie shün that looks like it's been splashed with blue paint, and moxCOsİs. AI thirty six. she weas the sane cxpression she had at nine and at nreniy when she studied at AU: skepy ges sķ grin-onby her firgemails are a lot longer (usu ally talon lergth she has filked them down as she prepares lo go Ny to Venont for nvo months and wrie her next novel on dadline)

In 68 at A.U. she wTOte for the Eagle and was the editor of the Ameican magazine. She was devotcd to the magazine. She was Dean Frark Turaj's star pupil and friend She spent very little tine with campus activities, though She had her own car and spent most of her tine driving around too fast and geting tickets "all the tine" (she still speds still getstickets, but "s worth i." shesays).

She wrote for the magazine, but she did not start submitting her SRoris until her grad school days Since then she has published three collections of short stories, Distortions. Secrets and Surprises. The Buming House (most appearing originaly in the New Yorker) and vO nores, Chilly Scenes of Winter and Falling in Place. She writes about chaos. Her storis are wity. beautiful. but as serious as they are sad You can't walk awag from an Ann Beattie story without the fecling that somethirg vital has just gone on. though it's hard to pu gour firger on jst what.

She sits baxk. drinkinga sugarfree Canada Dry. She is still just recovering from the rigors of her New York State driver's license test. She wams that you should never take the test in New Pork ("the manual is this thick." she says. spreadirg her fingers tvo inches) But she did get her license and she looks relieved

What was your childhood like in D.C.?

It was a very nice chilhood. extremely nice in a lot of ways. read a lot. particulariy when I was young. I stopped reading when I was in junior high scheol and high school just because it wasn't cool. And lso because l'd become a zombie and I forgot vehat to do. I forgot there were books. I wTote some. but I don't think it probably was clear to angone that I was a little budding writer. If it was. l'd be surprised.

Is it true that in junior high school, you were thought to be retarded? 90 6 vlil vWhIntottthAknțthlbirhyflass-+really is arexagyera tion to saş underachiever: the word achievement stopS pertaining in those circumstances. I ahwags found it dificult to work with a lot of people around me. and there is simply nothing you can do when gou're in school and gou have gour reading group and there are wenty people in it. I never performed my best. It wasn't easy for me to associate with other people. And for whatever pspchological reason. I didn't. I was extremely unhappy. I was extremel lost in ahe shufle. And I just gave up. I mean it was like beingsent to-prise-

When did gou start writing?

I guess I wrote bad poetry when I was thirteen years old. the way everybody wrote bad poetry. I've alwags been quite a correspondent. and I'm really surprised when I read the statistics that the averaçe humanoid in the United States receives an average of three personal letters a gear. I mean. I et three personal letters a day. I quess that's a little unusual., but that is a form of writing. and I get very good letters from friends and I think that I werite them amusing letters: so on that level, ike in a lot of wags that I don't often think of. I awvags have trusted the written word and enjoged the written word.

What guided gour decision to go to A.u.?

Mỹ parents told me I had to ço to college. and I didn't want to go to college and I didn't have the courage to fight them vhen it came right down to it. And it was the only school I applied to. so I went to A.U. and I did very well. As a student. I was very diliçent about the things that truly interested me. and I think I was known and noticed in most of my classes. II got faitly good grades.

You used to skip classes while you worked as the American eđitor?

Yes. it's true. It really was a big job. It was like a very serious parttime job. I mean even if I had to do that todas, I would find it hard to get my other commitments done. And I'm really proud of the way all of us did that: I mean I'm proud of all of us skipping classes and doing what ve did. by the way. On the other hand. we devoted a great deal of time to the coursevork in the long run. It got taken care of. I've ahvays been ery bad at proportioning my time. It's nothing I've ever been able to learn. The thing that saves me is that I just do have more energy than a lot of people. I physicallş can type for eighteen hours a day. So if I haven't fiqured out as well as other people might how to do this. that and the other thing. I mean. if I behave particularty stupidly there. the other truth of it is I will not be exhausted and fall over at the typewriter at four a.m. Il just keep typing. So that's pretty much the way my life was handled at A.U.

Did gou submit stories in college?

Not at all.

When were gou first published?

It was either 71 or '72. I don't remember. It was in a small magazine called the Western Humanities Review. I might have çotten a hundred dollars. It was called "A ROse on Judy Garland's Casket. I remember that title because it is so unlike me nov with my oneword titles.

It was about an alienated couple, I'm afraid. the thing that people avags throw in my face. It was juvenilia about the things that I later became clinically depressed about. I don't remember it well.

What about the claim that gour stories are clinicaly depressing?

I keep saying, and of course I don't have ang ability to persuade people to my viewpoint. the reason that I like to give public readings is that when I do. audiences laugh at the appropriate point. do think there is a great deal of humor in the work. or at least I'm trying to put it there. I would certainly define myself as a writer about serious issues who tries to be somewhat amusing.

I don't think that my chaacters are just downbeat, nowhere, hopeless people. I just can't read the stories that way. / think that what I'm doing is writüing about people who perhaps don't have a world of possibilities open to them, but who are coping. So that mabes me look at the stories ith a positive emphasis, almost. Given that hings are dificult. here are people who are. to some extent. coping. I mean. things do get done in the stories: if people are stoned vhen they do them. nevertheless they still get done. It's really not vhat the critics present. which is a bunch of people Iying around in a stupor staring at the ceiling. I keep rereading these stories and. no. they are not about that.

When vwere gou first published in the New Yorker?

"73. Theg had actually written me a dozen rejection letters at that point.

You must've been very productive at the time?

Extremely productive. I mean. that's the truth of it. It was quantity more than quality in those days with me. and that a writer trying to get into the New Yorker might get trenty rejections. but that would be three or four years work. you know. For me. it was a tvelve-month period in which I wTote twenty stories and got tventy rejections. Because I had nothing to do. I was bored to death. I was liing in he woods of New England. I hated it. I was in graduate school. I hated it. I ived with people that. to put it mildly. I was not very simpatico with. And I was just nowhere near a metropolitan city. I was cut off from all of my friends. I was cut off from my family. I made $s.500 a pear for which I was wildly ex ploited. And. gou know. party not to think and partly as a complete lack of what else to do in this world. I started writing.

What are gour writing habits like, if you have any?

Wriúng ficion is terribly unpredictable. Sometimes I get frus trated. you know, and I sas. well. if I had a more reasonable life. ií l just plain had more energs. I might hare more inspiration. And that troubles me. but I don't force myself to write. so I end up writing when inspiration suikes. One of the hardest things for me to learn to have done is to be patient with myself. I realized abso lutely that with fiction I can't force mgself to create if there is no momentum there. And it is just plain very boring if gou ço six months without a thought in your head. and it's very frustrating and it's not the best thing for gour bankbook. but that's liíe. And | really do mean that. It took me years to realize that that was the game I was plaging. and I had to learn to live with the price that had to be paid. And I have learned to Ive with it.

Do gou recognize that inspiration or do you start to write and it comes?

No. I recognize it. Sometimes I recognize it and lI'm driving along the Westside Highway. and by the ime I get home and pick up the laundry. that's that. But thar's more or less the vway it happens.

Do

gou still get

rejections?

Sure. I would say that the New Yorker rejects maybe as much as fifty percent of everything I write. I's not pleasing. You do doubı gourself. I think very highly of the New Yorker. I don't think they are ineitably right. but. particularly when I rack up three or four rejections in a row, even though I know perfecily well that they might accept the next No or even three consecutive stories. it shakes my confidence a little.

What would you do if gou weren't a writer?

Bog. I really don't know. I mean as far as I'm concerned there are no jobs in the United Slates. I really can't imagine what I woukd do. I thinkI would be lost somewhere in the shufle. I think would be a secretary. I can type well.

Have gou ever had hard times?

Well. geah. When I first started voriting I did live on $3.500 a gear. for something like four or five straight gears. And that's not geat money and we're talking about 1975. That's not that far ago.

But now gou're incorporated, you're Irong & Pity Inc.-the name borrowed from The Sun Also Rises gour stories no longer gounpublished -it seemspeople would ratherhave a second-rate"Ann Beattie" story than a first-rate irst-time writer's story-so do gou find gourself getting too busy. swept up byeverythingelse?

Yes. I deal with it by just being arbitrary sometimes. Sometimes I just won't pick up the phone because if I don't then nobody can demand one other thing. Sometimes I go through a period of sasing no no no no no to everything. until I çet tired of being so neg ative that I can't stand to hear my own voice. And a lot of the time I capitulate or compromise or whatever

Being a "famous writer," do you get a lot of weird things in the mail?

From time to time. Maybe not so weird as strange. People do nice things. get you can't imagine why they do it. Someone vill send me theit collection of penguin photographs. which I'm sure is meant to be thoughtul and amusing: and get. I can't tell you what it does to my day when I open a manila envelope-Ann Beattie clo New Yorker-and there are 300 Sx 10 glossies oft penguins with very little explanation. Then. as everybody dos who is a writer. I get a fair number of letters telling me to meet some man on the corner of Bleecker St. and here's what he'll do to me. I get letters from prisoners. I get letters from people who think I'm writing about them when I'm not. I get desperate ktters I get funny letters. I also get some very intelligent letters Im amazed by the number of people l've really moved with ny wurk. and people whove understood it. It's great.

Ann Beattie did finish her thid novel. It is about a txurtc1 J kt unemployed soap opera star who vaationS wih aT Alut luay' un Vemmont.Lucy is a latterday Miss Lonhurts CU Ciau. wt writesfor"CountryDaze"magazi: whT' hu n NEM hi tionship with the editor. Random HoN À NuẠ w n ta spring. al

M ythegrandsonbackyard:LeoinJr. a is holeup four to hisfeetneckdeep. in only his head pokes out from the earth.

"Gramma." he sags.COOS.

He has dug the hole with a garden spade. making it wide enough for onty himself to fit in and just barely. He jumped in-hands at his sides-burying himsetf. To scare me. l am tanning I am in mỹ bathing suit. my brand nev bathing suit. It fits poorty over my body of jutting bones and receding flesh. My skin is wrinkled: naked I look like Leo Jr. when he dresses up in his father's ckothes.

My bathing suit-vhich I bought off the rack. reluctant to work mỹ way out of my clothes in the store's thin-walled dressing room-has bright. ild colors, lime green storm clouds in a daşlo pink sky.

My daughter and her husband have an inground swimming pool which I refuse to go in. When he is not in dirt. Leo Jr. is alwags in the pool swimming like a frog. The water looks blue. but only because the lining is blue. I cannot understand how oceans can look so blue.

by russell atwood

my late husband's name. though I never called him by it. Instead vwe had niknames. To him I vas Air (my name is Clair) and he was my Water (his middle name having been Walter). Dead of a heart attack at the açe of forty-tuo. I have a few pictures of him still. but they are no comfort. My mind retains no images of him in motion. only posed. I know he used to work in the gard on hot dayssweat and dirt flying as he tilled our small reçetable garden-but I cannot focus on a thing, It is hard to believe it was so long aço. but I do believe it.

It must be like having no husband at all. no one, magbe. probably. worse. When Water died I lost myself in Becka. my only child: she was my life. The time I didn't spend waitressing. I spent vith her. I made her help me in the çarden. I kept her from her friends. She kept me from doing angthing drastic.

She should lose herselí in Leo Jr. Or take up gardening. There is no garden in Becka's backyard. though there is plenty of empty space. She claims mg having forced her to help me has nothing to do with it. Leo Sr. is leaving the space open for a tennis court he hopes to put in next year. One more thing to worry about.

"Gramma! Ga Gra-Mal"

His arms at his sides in the tight-fiing hole. Leo Jr. cannot move. He is trapped. His red face is trembling. His frantic coice çets higher and higher until it vanishes into a silent wail. I jump up. barely rising an inch off the chaise lounge and fall back. forçeting like I ahvays do. When I try again. my legs slowiy ease themselves off the side. and I push myself up. hands grasping the armrest. I lean forward and the momentum starts me walk ing. My right bathing suit strap slips off my shoulder. For a second my breast is visible. a dry tea bag. I cover myself. His vision blurred l am here today to look after Leo Jr. while my daughter is off with her lover. someplace. She tels me she goes to Figures & Fitness. but retums sweaty and refreshed vhile her leotards are dry and smell coolly clean. by trickling tears. Leo Jr. sees nothing.

My daughter Rebecca paşs me to babysit Leo Jr. I do not need this hush moneg: at eighty-four I have few expenses and usually never buy new things with the exXception of my new. ugly bathing suit.

"Gramma!"

The hooks pinch me in the back, below my shoulders where the straps crosS. and it itches right betvween mg"-Gramma!" Leo Jr. yels.

He is smiling. His head bobs up and dovm like a coffee pot perking. He wants to give me a jolt. tO Start me gelling. However, it has the opposite effect. I am calm regarding my grandson. the tree.

"Becka's lover's name is Frank. Her husband's name is Leo Sr. I hate the name eo and loathed it being tagged on my grandson. I could not protest because it had also been

Frank is built as Water vwas. Arms and legs of cement. but to both of them as light as bee's wings. Becka met Frank during a grudging visit to my house. where Frank often came to help with the garden. He lives a few blocks away. I used to pay him ten dollars to mow my lawn. prune my bushes. transplant my roses before a heavy chill. He did not have a job or angthing better to do. so he was by nearly everyday. I would lie avake niçhs thinking of things that had to be done and. finally dozing. dream of Frank doing them. Then one day he stopped and 'Becka began asking me to babysit. For this chore I çet ten dollars. I awags check the tendollar bill for traces of dirt, recognizable markings. a glint in Alexander Hamilton's ege. There is never anything concrete. though. Undoubtedly the money comes. not from Frank but from 'Becka's twentyfour hour automatic bank teller. If nothing else. Leo Sr. at least gives her enough money. Leo Sr. is an assistant consulting psychiatrist for a big corporation. He tells his boss. vwho tells the boss. whether or not the workers are becoming irritable., unpredictable. whether their dreams are symbolic of union takeovers: do they see organized worms strangling the early bird. He is so worried about this and making the final payments on the swimming pool that I doubt he has a clue to Becka's affair. On the contrary. when he comes home. his eyes rol and he tells her how good she looks because of her exercise class. He tells her to keep it

My hands around his neck. I pull hard. He doesn't budge. There is a bucket nearby. and for a second I think it might just be easier to conceal him unul his father comes home. Instead I start digging around the edges. carefully. In an instant I see the imaçe of Frank. in motion. gently uprooting my roses. and it thrills me. Bending doesn't hurt. I want him back. I want Frank back in m garden. I will tell Leo Sr. about 'Becka and Frank and it will be stopped. He'll return and I will pay him more. give him all I have saved. and he won't even have to work. He will sit and to gether we will rest in the cool shade of a towering tree.

.hahhh. I don't know what l'm thinking of up.

Leo Jr.'s arm sprouts from the ground and we vrork the rest of him out. He is in his black bathing suit. Unearthed. excacated. his pale freckled body is dirtcovered and as cold as a

I put my arms around him quickły and suddenty we both are shaking. I walk him to the pool. The water is warm. heated. filtered. Together we walk in. He sheds the dirt and begins to dogpaddle around the shallow end. I wade into the deep end up to my neck. Hot tears are making my cheeks we. so I ço in deeper. My mouth. my nose. my ears. I can hear my pulse. faint like an imag ined voice. Eye level with the water. my breath is tight in my lungs. A tippy-4oed step and then another and I am underwater. My feet are flat on the blue bottom.

Water. who ever thought I would go on for this much longer. Oh God. oh. dear. spread out. fill the sky.

Eyes open to the sting of chkorine. I look up to the surface and through crooked rays of sunlight I see a leaf-halí geen. half brovm-íallfrom and land above me. Ripples block of ice.

Autumn is nearly here. I am counting the a. seconds

Everyday I set out at noon.

The neighbors wait.

Magbe thes postpone lunch to watch.

As I come running up the cobbled street.

They sa to me.

"I's not warm today. Madame."

"Certainly not." I assure each one in turn.

And so we meet.

They crane patiently as I approach the corner.

Wondering when to ask the question.

Stare as I turm onto the road

That leads to the chateau:

Five kliks everyday

Past the house of Monsieur René.

The maor of twenty five years

Who inherited the post from his uncle:

Past the house of old Madame Marie fait pas chaud aựourdhui

Who only waves, does not even say.

Past the cows, who. neighborly.

Run with me along the fence:

To the chapel of Ste. Anne (Praş for us").

I turn at the Rue du Chateau

By the house of the farmer vwho lost his wife ("Borijour Madame. jait pas chaud aujourd hui")

Through the woods in the drizzle

By raspberry bushes and singweed.

To the iron grill doors guarded by stone lions.

The swans safely behind in their keeping. And back.

I snub the temptation to stop

Where no one can catch me.

But muddle forward with a dutiful escort of swallows

Whose waterlogged cousins drip along the telephone lines.

Almost back in the villaçe.

A tide of rain courses dovn my cheeks.

My face is aflame from the lash of swollen breaths

And I. laved in the pride of selfinflicted hardship.

Sare back at the farmer

Who has contemplated me in the distance.

Who has now stepped forward into the wind

To ask the question:

"Madame, is this a sport gou do?"

I. something novel for awhile.

Join the throng that has trooped this way

With carts. horses. tractors. bikes, motor cars and on foot.

I am enduring here

As the cobbles laid in semicircles

By a man kneeling

A hundred years ago

Upon a Roman road.

What The Watch Said

you are not from here said the old man because i am not from here G gave him the time) and we seem to understand each other

Jameshmitchell

And God Took Spanish For Me

i waz new and reaching out wit hard times and God took spanish for me for me and He got integrated inside and out He placed wit only a 2.9 average but that didn't matter me and God waz doin' fine 'cause God waz all right wit me and God took spanish for me greçory ricardo deJesus and He waz all right wit me

'cept by now i knew english and so God re-registered and took inside me the acvanced course and He placed number one and graduated top of His class all right all right wit me

who is bubbles?

The large grey overcoa in the spider-webbed dowmstairs closet became a home for a family of brown field mice. and so I took it out of the closet.

I never believed gou when you said you were faithful: faith was a word out of religion. of fairy tales: a woman's word. an empty masculine consolation. Cleaning the pockets of mice and debris. I found the lipstick covered tissues. found the matchbook vwith her name. and though I never believed gou when gou said gou were faithful. I watched the wallpaper patterns fade into a blur.

The large grey overcoat that hung in the closet is gone now. you managed to take it with you on the last flight into Seattle. Funny: I onder if pou'l realize that Bubbles and her matchbook cover are no more.

I imagine gour surprise when. reaching. gou find instead a small brown field mouse.

Tara Kelley

so!meyư'pleas otthat!ohplesce there is no man in the moon it is a woman of unknown ae mute and wishing to speak in november a distant star follows the moon to her zenith prefering distance and her dark side in space a compass is useless there are hemispheres in the moon while he washed his hands she lay on the bed rememnbering the darkness seeing the moon over his shoulder framed in the window not quilty smiling acrylic crescents green cheeked cartoon faces pictures of lunar adventure chikdren don't get enough of the moon the remains of an ancient comet rain into the milewide crater dust rises in lazy pillars silence accepts jourmeying ice at its final destination another millenium of timelessness bequn for some time now there has been water on the moon

BUT t strançersawfhe hoe thing. AndheuasSw t anyoÍma) shanger in a pôkadot jome.sut.

Coming From Amsterdam

train vindovs forward images into the moment shutling. shuttering. shuddering light. here we are undering this bridge. Overing this river. where ice is stacked up like scales scraped down the flank of a fish.

time assembles itself here never finishing: somewhere. someone else contributes a wish. a footstep. a voice.

the train seems insistent on oing where it must o. the light persistent in shoving every texture of winter.

i hear the rails receive the train whispering howevers.

but ges but ges...but yes.

and a column of light on the water moves with the ease of a shadow. ight and the absence of light. silent light.

dancing for the eye.

licking up the spaces. wind taking dust to new regions.