Beginning to read [Secrets and Surprises] is like going out alone into the night in the country: it's very dark, and the flashlight doesn't seem to illuminate much. Single objects—a car, a dog—loom up with uncanny significance. Familiar things look strange, one-dimensional. There are barely audible rustlings in the undergrowth which could mean anything, or nothing. It is very quiet.

But gradually one becomes accustomed to the faint light and realizes that there is more going on in these spare tales than first meets the eye. Although the men and women Ann Beattie writes about are well endowed with cars and dogs—and histories, and homes, and "relationships"—their most compelling feature is the profound anomie that darkens their lives…. Action is the result of chance; will is discomfiting; passion is terrifying.

The unrelieved passivity of these characters might seem repellent, but Beattie is skillful at...