"Onlookers," by Ann Beattie

How could I forget about Ann Beattie? I have been reading her fiction, especially her stories (for which she is most known) for decades. Perhaps I haven't thought of her recently because I have seen fewer of her stories in The New Yorker, where she used to publish regularly? In any case, when I saw that she had a new story collection, "Onlookers" (Scribner, 2023), I was delighted, and immediately requested a copy at my wonderful local library. I have just finished it, and (mostly) liked it very much. There are six stories, each quite long, and the stories are somewhat interrelated (although mostly peripherally, just enough to establish that many people in the city are acquainted with each other), but each stands on its own. All the stories are set in Charlottesville, Virginia, before, during and after the time of the tragic, shocking white nationalist rally in 2017, in which one woman was killed and other people were injured. Intertwined with this event was and is the controversy over the Confederate monuments in the town, most notably the statue of General Robert E. Lee on his horse, and whether these statues should be removed. (Eventually that statue and others were removed.) The stories in "Onlookers" are, as suggested by the title, not directly about that rally or those statues, but about the lives of people who lived in Charlottesville and how they were affected by the events and issues, directly or, more often, indirectly. Without being didactic, Beattie makes readers confront the continuing presence of racism and the lasting effects of the Civil War, and the way those historical and current elements of American society infect and contradict the reputation of beauty and gentility in a city such as Charlottesville, and by extension in the larger society. As always, Beattie's characters are intriguing, vivid, often anxious, sometimes eccentric, imperfect, but usually understandable and often relatable. One common theme is the decline of many of the characters of old age, illness, incipient dementia, and sometimes just exhaustion; their caregivers are also vividly portrayed. Beattie's writing in this book is as good as that in any of her books. How fortunate we readers are to have had the gift of her 22 books (so far!)