In "Downhill", a story published in the New Yorker in 1975 and a part of her New Yorker compilation, Ann Beattie writes about a woman whose paranoia and imagination run away with her. Capturing her downward spiral and self-doubt, the main character's relationship with Jon is paralleled against her relationship with her dog, who despite her worries and fear that Jon has left her, seems to be her truest companion.
Beattie's language is absolutely beautiful and captures her characters emotions and movements in a way that turns something sad and dismal into a beauty that shows the full extent of her spiraling out of control. Her fear that she will cease to exist without Jon is both a gorgeously romantic thought and terrifying representation of her perspective and mental state.
It's this interior monologue of hers that takes us through this loss, and eventually his return, showing exactly how she shrinks back into herself when she's left only with her thoughts, how her imagination runs wild in awful, beautiful ways.
Beattie's language is absolutely beautiful and captures her characters emotions and movements in a way that turns something sad and dismal into a beauty that shows the full extent of her spiraling out of control. Her fear that she will cease to exist without Jon is both a gorgeously romantic thought and terrifying representation of her perspective and mental state.
It's this interior monologue of hers that takes us through this loss, and eventually his return, showing exactly how she shrinks back into herself when she's left only with her thoughts, how her imagination runs wild in awful, beautiful ways.
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