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The State We're In: Maine Stories Audiobook
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From a multiple prize–winning master of the short form: a stunning collection of brand-new, linked stories that perfectly capture the zeitgeist through the voices of vivid and engaging women from adolescence to old age.
“We build worlds for ourselves wherever we go,” writes Ann Beattie. The State We’re In, her magnificent new collection of linked stories, is about how we live in the places we have chosen—or been chosen by. It’s about the stories we tell our families, our friends, and ourselves, the truths we may or may not see, how our affinities unite or repel us, and where we look for love.
Many of these stories are set in Maine, but The State We’re In is about more than geographical location, and certainly is not a picture postcard of the coastal state. Some characters have arrived by accident, others are trying to get out. The collection opens, closes, and is interlaced with stories that focus on Jocelyn, a wryly disaffected teenager living with her aunt and uncle while attending summer school. As in life, the narratives of other characters interrupt Jocelyn’s, sometimes challenging, sometimes embellishing her view.
Riveting, witty, sly, idiosyncratic, and bold, these stories describe a state of mind, a manner of being—now. A Beattie story, says Margaret Atwood, is “like a fresh bulletin from the front: we snatch it up, eager to know what’s happening out there on the edge of that shifting and dubious no-man’s-land known as interpersonal relations.” The State We’re In is a fearless exploration of contemporary life by a brilliant writer whose fiction startles as it illuminates.
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“Beattie is a master at depicting the peculiarly painful valor necessary for contending with troubled family members,spouses, lovers, neighbors, even pets. She is also that rarest of beings, a brilliantly comic literary writer.”
— Booklist (starred review)
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“Interconnected stories from a master of the form.”
— Elle -
“These tales explore the range of emotional states the author is famous for: longing, disaffection, ambivalence, love, regret.”
— People -
“Ann Beattie slips into a short story as flawlessly as Audrey Hepburn wore a Givenchy gown: an iconic presentation, each line and fold falling into place but allowing room for surprise.”
— O, The Oprah Magazine -
“Beattie gives readers a peerless, contemplative page-turner.”
— Vanity Fair -
“A real keeper…[these stories] give voice to teens in turmoil, bad parents… and so much more.”
— Marie Claire -
“Splendid…Every page is fitted out with the blessed finery of hypnotic storytelling.”
— Washington Post -
“Demonstrates Beattie’s craftsmanship, precise language, and her knack for revealing psychological truths.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“What unifies these stories outside of their setting is Beattie’s nuanced understanding of relationships.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“Cassandra Campbell’s narration savors the slow exploration of character and place in each narrative…Her performance suits Beattie’s gentle exploration of ‘Vacationland.’ The listener will want to savor each tale.”
— AudioFile
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About Ann Beattie
Ann Beattie has published twenty-one books and is a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story, the Rea Award for the Short Story. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
About the Narrators
Cassandra Campbell has won multiple Audie Awards, Earphones Awards, and the prestigious Odyssey Award for narration. She was been named a “Best Voice” by AudioFile magazine and in 2018 was inducted in Audible’s inaugural Narrator Hall of Fame.
Cassandra King is the author of The Sunday Wife, The Same Sweet Girls, Making Waves, and Queen of Broken Hearts. A native of Lower Alabama, she now lives in the low country of South Carolina with her husband, novelist Pat Conroy.