Walks With Men by Anne Beattie is a focussed portrait of the New York City of the early eighties. New York glowed with a particular optimism then; it was a place of unbounded hope that existed after the economic and social precariousness of the seventies and before the onset of AIDS, widespread gentrification, and junk bonds. And yet as much as it was a place of possibility, the city was a challenge; what is always constant about New York City is that as much as it inspires, it intimidates. Walks with Men is the story of what happens when a beautiful and brilliant college grad needs help facing the intimidations of the city and turns to an older man, sure of himself and of his rules for surviving at the top of the heap.
Based in large part on her own experiences as a brilliant college grad catapulted onto the New York scene, Beattie's narrator Jane is a star of her generation who comes to the Big Apple to find the mirror for her glowing brilliance. She stumbles a bit and grabs for the reaching hand of Neil, older and successful and commanding. His rules of behavior now seem out-dated and even hilarious but to Jane, then, they make sense. A few rules are even poetic and lovely to her, such as placing flashlights in a crystal vase to shine on the ceiling above the bed where she and Neil have sex. But as the lights on the ceiling are mere reflection of the lights below, Jane herself is a surface reflecting back the men who surround her, and not only her Svengali-like lover but all the men she walks with. Poor Jane is flat and empty when she is alone but lively and full when walking with her men. The best parts in the novella are in fact the male parts, whether it be Jane's college boyfriend Benjamin; Neil with his ridiculous rules; her shy neighbor Etch (nicknamed for the toy he uses to express himself); Etch's eventual boyfriend and robe-stealer Kim; and Jane's stepfather Carl and his new roommate, the scatter-brained (or Alzheimer-afflicted) Stanley. Jane is stuck in the role of reflector: alone, she seems dull and plastic but when matched with the men, she spits and crackles with wit and insight. She takes her walks with men because she cannot walk alone.
My sister Anne-Marie sublet Anne Beattie's apartment in Chelsea one summer in the early eighties, the exact time and location of Walks with Men. Reading the novella brought the neighborhood and the apartment back to me: The Empire Diner and the Chinese Laundry, the iron gate leading up to Beattie's brownstone, the stone steps out front, and the long stairway leading up to the top floor. What Beattie leaves out of her description is the window in her apartment that allowed access out onto the asphalt roof of the brownstone. My sister and I crawled out the window one evening when I was visiting. We sat out on the roof, taking Polaroids of the view looking out over Manhattan to the North. It was a beautiful view. Through a ridge of buildings and water towers, the the top of the Empire State building was visible, shining silver against a sky deepening into inky blue. Maybe Beattie left the roof out of her novella because her Jane would just be intimidated by New York's magnificent skyline, and not inspired. Climbing out of windows is against the rules, and we were out there without men.
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