Award-winning short story writer Ann Beattie returns with a brilliant
collection of linked stories set in Charlottesville, Virginia, in a
moment of unrest.
Onlookers is an astute new story collection about people living in the
same Southern town whose lives intersect in surprising ways. Peaceful
Charlottesville, Virginia, drew national attention when white
nationalists held a rally there in 2017, a horrific event whose
repercussions are still felt today. Confederate monuments such as
General Robert E. Lee atop his horse were then still standing. The
statues are a constant presence and a metaphoric refrain throughout this
collection, though they represent different things to different
characters. Some landmarks may have faded from consciousness but provoke
fresh outrage when viewed through newly opened eyes.
In "Nearby," an elderly man and his younger wife watch from their
penthouse as protestors gather to oppose the once "heroic" explorers
Lewis and Clark depicted towering over their native guide, Sacagawea. A
lawyer in "In the Great Southern Tradition" deals with a crisis on
Richmond's Monument Avenue, while his sister and nephew plant tulip
bulbs at her stately home.
These are stories of unexpected relationships and affiliations that
affirm the value of friendship, even when it requires difficult
compromises or unexpected risks. Beattie involves the reader in
questions about the nature of community, as the characters grapple with
complicated inheritances that are both historical and personal and the
realities of their lives interact uneasily with the past.
