Donald Barthelme and I were friends, though before we met, I loved—and taught, as a graduate teaching assistant in Connecticut—Come Back, Dr. Calagari. I think about him a lot and miss him (he died too young, in 1989). Though I no longer know where a book of fairy tales is that I had in my … Continue reading Ann Beattie Wonders What Donald Barthelme Would Have Made of the Spy Balloon