title: The Accomplished Guest: Stories
author:  Ann Beattie 
description: She punctures her characters pretensions and jadedness with an economy and effortless dialogue that writers have been trying to emulate for three decades, though few, if any, have matched her seamless combination of biting wit and mordant humor, precise irony and consummate cool. <i>The New York Times Book Review</i><br /><br />One of Americas finest authorsand arguably best living short-story writer. Heidi Julavits,<i>Interview</i><br /><br />In a Beattie story, perspective is preeminent, and its never one you expect. The unwieldiness of human nature, the strangeness of time and circumstance, inevitably shine through." --Megan O'Grady,<i>Vogue</i><br /><br />Ann Beattie slips into a short story as flawlessly as Audrey Hepburn wore a Givenchy gown.<br /> <br />--Hamilton Cain, <i>O, The Oprah Magazine</i><br /><br />She is brilliant at furnishing the precise level of niggling complexity that is tragicomically real. Joan Frank, <i>The San Francisco Chronicle</i><br /><br />"The John Cheever of her generation, Beattie has long chronicled the emotional foibles of [the]upper-middle-class...with sharply chiseled wit; in these 13 new stories, travel or a visit of some sort is the common thread, mortality the common theme." (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>)<br /><br />"Beatties stories capture the perplexity of people, lost in a world of terrorists and Kindles, as they make their way down what Beattie calls the river of lifes confusion. (<i>Publishers Weekly</i>)<br /><br />"These gorgeously complicated, psychologically astute tales are catalyzed by holiday gatherings, weddings, birthday celebrations, and reunions, joyous occasions wildly derailed by divorce, sibling rivalry, generational clashes, financial disasters, violence, and medical emergencies. The directions in which these encounters veer are beyond unexpected, thanks to Beatties puckish imagination Beatties profoundly intriguing and unsettling stories abound in delectably witty and furious inner monologues, barbed dialogue, ludicrous predicaments, many faceted heartaches, and abrupt upswellings of affection, even love...always on point, funny, and poignant." (Donna Seaman <i>Booklist, STARRED review</i>)
zlib_text: An Unexpected Guest
  Heather Graham
  Slush Pile Players
   
  
  Copyright © 2020 Heather Graham
  An Unexpected Guest Copyright © 2020 by Slush Pile Productions
  Please report the unauthorized distribution of this publication by contacting the author at theoriginalheathergraham.com, via email at
  connie@perryco.biz, or at Heather Graham 103 Estainville Ave., Lafayette, LA 70508.  Please help stop internet piracy by alerting the
  author with the name and web address of any questionable or unauthorized distributor.
  An Unexpected Guest  is a work of fiction.  The people and events in An Unexpected Guest are entirely fictional.  The story is not a
  reflection of historical or current fact, nor is the story an accurate representation of past or current events.  Any resemblance between
  the characters in this novel and any or all persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
  ISBN-13: 9781234567890
  ISBN-10: 1477123456
  Cover design by: Connie Perry
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
  Printed i