Picturing Will

Set in modern-day Charlottesville and New York, American author Ann Beattie’s novel Picturing Will (1989) follows four members of an eclectic family: precocious five-year-old Will; Jody, a mother absorbed in dreams of becoming a celebrity; her secretive, uncannily composed lover, Mel; and Will’s father, a womanizer named Wayne. The novel focuses on the odd situations and moral quandaries created by its starkly different characters and their private motivations, pointing to the relational complexity introduced by the unprecedented freedom of the modern world. The novel has been characterized as postmodern due to its strong themes of social alienation and moral ambiguity.

The first section of Picturing Will, titled “Mother,” begins in Charlottesville, Virginia sometime in the 1960s or 1970s. After some months of rebuilding her life after Wayne walked out on her and Will, Jody is returning to a sense of normalcy. Raising Will as a single mother, she supports them by working as a wedding photographer. Her career starts to take off as word spreads about her unique photographic style. While handling the new demands of being the family’s breadwinner, Jody’s emotional life is sustained by caring for Will. When her new lover, Mel, proposes to her, asking that she and Will move in with him in New York, Jody is faced with a tough choice: either embrace the stable life she has already made or take on additional risk.

Jody’s good friend Mary Vickers, another young mother, advises her to take the offer. Jody ultimately chooses to stay with Mel, recognizing that he is a reliable and loving person and is developing a strong bond with Will. After Mel connects Jody with New York art proprietor D.B. Haverford, she is convinced to move to New York, where she is invited to show her photos. In Haverford, who is businesslike but well connected, Jody sees an opportunity to grow as an artist.



The second part of the novel, “Father,” takes place after Jody’s move to New York, focusing mainly on Wayne. Wayne lives in Florida with Corky, his third wife. He relinquished responsibility for his son, Will, after Jody refused to be pressured into having an abortion. However, he still uses his parental visitation rights to see him. While Jody pursues her photography career in New York, Mel offers to drive Will to see his dad. Haverford accompanies them, along with his friend, Spencer. Will’s main desire for the trip is not to see his father, but to see his friend, Wagoner.

Wayne awaits Will’s arrival nervously. Corky plans to use the visit as an opportunity to act as a mother figure for Will to prove that she will be a great mother to the child she wants to have with Wayne (a plan he resists). When he arrives, both Wayne and Corky fumble their efforts to connect with Will, overwhelming him with shopping trips and other excursions. Wayne has multiple affairs with different women during Will’s short visit. One of these women, Kate, warns him not to stay connected. Shortly after they meet, the police find Kate’s car abandoned, with a large quantity of heroin stashed inside and a pillbox labeled with Corky’s name that Wayne accidentally left behind. The police track the pillbox to Wayne and arrest him. Mel immediately brings Will back to New York, depriving him of his chance to see his friend.

The novel’s short final section, “Child,” takes place twenty years later. Jody is now a famous and self-absorbed photographer. Mel has remained a father figure to Will and the nurturing complement to the distant Jody. Wayne has disappeared without a trace. Will is now married and the father of a son. In the novel’s final scene, he imagines that he is taking a picture of himself and his son playing with a ball. This final image, a composite of the images of family and intimacy that Will has inherited from his own childhood, is ironically both comforting and alienating.