Any time award-winning author Ann Beattie delivers a new story collection is cause for readers to celebrate. Her latest parcel, “The State We’re In: Maine Stories,” arrives a decade after the last, with 15 new pieces written during the summer of 2014.

With references to iPads, Louie C.K., Zappos and Skype, these stories let us know that we’re dealing in the current moment.

The author, now in her late 60s, no longer fixates on the discontents of the well-to-do. A wider range of humanity now falls under her purview and she has gained ground on that tetchiest of populations, teenagers.

Beattie may not have cracked the code of adolescence, but she proves to be a worthy translator of teen angst.

Notably, she gives us 17-year-old Jocelyn, a mutinous, ironic teen with a pink streak in her hair, who is the star of this collection.

Jocelyn is visiting Maine for the summer, attending summer school, while her mother recovers from surgery.

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She’s staying with her Uncle Raleigh, who’s pitiable though nice, and her dim Aunt Bettina – or, as Jocelyn describes her, “Aunt Bettina Louise Tompkins, whose initials were BLT. Hold the mayo.”

In the first story, Jocelyn rants about a writing assignment on magical realism, in which “your paper was supposed to go on forever, then have the clouds howl, or something.” Uncle Raleigh lightly critiques the paper then lends her the car.

“Some kids from the summer program are getting together down at the beach at low tide,” she says. “There’s no drugs, alcohol, or sex. We’re all too depressed to bother.”

The “Jocelyn stories,” if they may be called that, serve both as anchor and tease. Surrounding them are tales of other characters and places, stand-alone pieces with different scenarios altogether.

A few of these stories portray couples who startle us in various ways. In “The Stroke,” a long-married couple reflect candidly on their ambivalence toward their own kids. At her worst, when their children were young, the wife had wished to excise them, just as “you’d cut out the unbrushable part of a dog’s matted ruff.”

In “Road Movie,” an uneasy couple is vacationing at a motel, which morphs into a movie set.

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Other storylines pose yet more surprises. In “Yancey,” we meet a 77-year-old poet whose worrisome life centers around her dog. When an IRS agent pays a visit to confirm the presence of a poetry-writing room, the woman invites him to move in – less a romantic gesture than a show of solidarity. The agent is at once delighted and taken aback. This is one of several stories in which a pet is the equal of any character, vying for our attention.

“The State We’re In” is a title for the ages – literally about Maine and metaphorically about our state of being right now.

The stories reflect a range of betrayals, oddities and half-truths. In this uneven collection, readers may find themselves wishing for more of Jocelyn’s edgy, unfiltered point-of-view.

Still, Beattie seeds these stories with enough sly, pointed commentary to keep things lively.

Joan Silverman of Kennebunk writes op-eds, essays and book reviews. Her work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune and Dallas Morning News.


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