Donald Barthelme developed the art of transposing cultural artifacts from a fragmented society into ironic commentaries on the contemporary world, and Thomas Pynchon turned surrealist juxtapositions and breakdowns of narrative into fictions which suggest that the world operates according to random mechanisms. Like them, Beattie in Chilly Scenes of Winter suggests that contemporary life is determined by forces beyond the control of her fictional creations. In her case she uses a super-realism or minimalism, an accretion of flat statements and non sequiturs. Unlike traditional determinism, this minimalism implies that these forces are chaotic and random, more the consequence of Madison Avenue and pluralization than of any natural selection or economic law.

In subject matter several commentators see similarities between Beattie and John Cheever, John Updike, and J. D. Salinger. All four of these writers have created characters who inhabit a particular region, the suburban habitats of...