Lorrie Moore

"Recently I received a letter from an acquaintance in which he said, 'By the way, I've been following and enjoying your work. It's getting better: deeper and sicker.'
Because the letter was handwritten, I convinced myself, for a portion of the day, that perhaps the last word was richer. But then I picked up the letter and looked at the word again: there was the s, there was the k. There was no denying it. Even though denial has been my tendency of late. I had recently convinced myself that a note I'd received from an ex-beau (in what was a response to my announcement that I'd gotten married) had read 'Best Wishes for Oz'. I considered this an expression of bitterness on my ex-beau's part, a snide lapse, a doomed man's view of marriage, and it gave me great satisfaction. Best Wishes for Oz. Eat your heart out, I thought. You had your chance. Cry me a river. Later a friend, looking at the note, pointed out that, Look: this isn't an O. This is a nine - see the tail? And this isn't a Z. This is a 2. This says 92. 'Best Wishes for 92.' It hadn't been cryptic bitterness at all - only an indifferent little New Year's greeting. How unsatisfying!"

She's published one or two new stories so far, but that's it. It's such a mystery -- most of the BoA stories appeared around a decade or so ago -- I remember my own excitment when each new one appeared in the New Yorker, with excitement of a writer hitting her stride -- but not much since.

Easy, what a story, though, that you have to tell.

I agree with Scott Seward.

OK, I dare say that she has published with UWP before.

Here is proof of the book:

http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/Presskits/Barnstorm.html

Scott Seward was entirely on the dollars.

He was. I want to read the 3 new stories in the 'Collected Stories' without having to spend $50 on all the stories I already own. Does anyone know what they're called/where to find them online?

hated the lorrie moore review in the observer the other week - did anyone else read it?? so missed the point

Some of the uncollected stories are linked to on this ILB thread, James:

Lorrie Moore

Or just go straight to the New Yorker:

http://www.newyorker.com/search/query?query=%22lorrie+moore%22&queryType=nonparsed&submitbtn.x=0&submitbtn.y=0&submitbtn=Submit

Ah, you are a magic person! Thanks.

Yes! All three are there in full! The first three results to come up are the three new stories.

The Pinefox biggied Lorrie Moore up to me once, so I have fingered and thumbed her books, but never read one all the way through.

That was me, six years ago.

I have now read about 100 pages of The Collected Stories and I am a bit worried because I think it might be hogwash. What would be good stories to dispel my fears? Or should I just plough on? I think the collection runs backwards, so perhaps I would enjoy the earlier funnier ones.

I mean this one about the Blarney Stone was really rubbish, wasn't it?

havent read her collected stories, but her most famous one is 'people like that are the only people here' so maybe try that??

that's not her best, PJM, but even that one is not hogwash to my ears. I wonder what it is that you don't like about it. maybe the lack of 70S WHO?

ps / I don't think her earliest stories are her best: probably the Birds of America stuff + Anagrams is (+ her Frog Hospital novel which is not in that book) - so I'm not sure that getting back to the earliest work would make you keener.

Thank you, both of you.

"Hogwash" is a bit strong.

What I don't like, I think, is the pseudo-depth. I will look for an example.

Here we are, handily collected by Wikiquote:

Abby began to think that all the beauty and ugliness and turbulence one found scattered through nature, one could also find in people themselves, all collected there, all together in a single place. No matter what terror or loveliness the earth could produce- wind, seas- a person could produce the same, lived with the same, lived with all that mixed-up nature swirling inside, every bit. There was nothing as complex in the world- no flower or stone- as a single hello from a human being.

I made one of the biggest about-faces in opinion with Lorrie Moore. Didn't like the early stories, thought they were written to fit in the New Yorker style, and then loved most of the stories that turned up in Birds of America as they begun to get printed in the mid-90s. "Beautiful Grade" and "People Like That Are..." are some of her best -- the kind of complexity of character, dialogue, jokes, everything, in such a dense way that it reads like the last of 100 drafts.

Recognizing her from her bookjacket photo, I asked her to dance once at a zydeco show in Madison, when I was 21 or so; no luck.

I wish I could find an example of the one prose habit of hers that seems to have infected loads of other writers -- it's this thing where a certain word or phrase will appear in the text and then the main character will start whimsically disassembling or punning on it in her head. (I think it's a great and charming habit of Moore's, but when anyone else does it it tends to reveal the artificiality of a character suddenly mulling over the wording of a third-person narrator or whatever.)

(This thread makes me feel accomplished, btw, because my "favorite joke I've ever made" from upthread has since been replaced by one that's actually funny)

terrible borscht belt shtick of a writer. hideously overrated

Chekhov did the same thing, though.

every lorrie moore story sounds like it's narrated by the old lady from the shoebox greetings cards:

https://www.sewforless.com/products/MX0025.jpg

is your real name Dale Peck?

no?

I really can't imagine Chekhov doing the thing I have in mind -- especially since it really wouldn't work in translation

theres a really nice story of hers in this weeks new yorker

rings a little bit false in places--some of sarah brinks dialog, and a college girl refrencing burt lancaster in what i assume (wrongly?) is 2009 or nearby--but shes so charming and funny that i forgive her

identifying 'everything that made london unique': an interesting task maybe!

but I don't think that people would reach agreement on it!

Incidentally the character does hang out with a lot of unnamed other people near the very end of the book, when she works at Starbucks.

I didn't find her relative solitude unreal at all, because she spends much less time alone than I do. Come to think of it, I think that what you are identifying as a negative - student life as solitary and uneventful - now strikes me as one of the most real things about the book.

But of course it's not really uneventful cos daft and disastrous things happen too! Within the story, the Brazilian bf geezer is surely one reason that she doesn't spend her time with other groups of people.

the big 10 is a consortium not of ten but twelve more or less midwestern american schools -- the universities of wisconsin, illinois, indiana, iowa, michigan, minnesota, and, academically, chicago (which dropped out of all athletic competition decades ago); penn state, ohio state, and michigan state; purdue; and northwestern. the university of nebraska's joining next year to make 10 thirteen

i don't mean to define tassie's solitude as negative, but unrealistic. i am very painfully aware of how campuses can encourage students to seek solitude and even isolate them against their wills. again though something characteristic of madison, the school where lorrie teaches, is that such students are remarkably unusual. to create such a character, with no explanation, and for no apparent narrative gain, sacrifices a lot of what makes madison such an interesting experience for its students. i'm still surprised she'd portray a wisconsin campus as so generic, whether it's madison or not. in fact i put off reading the novel for a while somewhat intimidated by how her perspicuity might slash apart one of my alma maters

an example of an author who did get one of these big 10 campuses right is denis johnson. the stories in jesus' son set in iowa city (university of iowa) nail the midwestern desolation that creeps around the edge of that campus. there's nothing comparable atmospherically in a gate at the stairs, except maybe the snow? and it's much more artistically daring of johnson to try to render iowa city, since it's the home of the iowa writers workshop, the top writing program in the US, than it would have been of lorrie to try to give us a little of madison, not exactly, aside from her residence there, a node of american literary activity. why she didn't really try, i have no idea

I really liked the ridiculous gothic excesses of Gate At The Stairs, in fact I wanted it to be more excessive, the storyline with the parents wasn't as sinister as I'd hoped.

yeah, between the revelations about the boyfriend and the couple tassie works for, and then her brother, she really piled it on. maybe she could have turned tassie into some stem cell experiment frankenstein who lives on cheese and beer and packers games

It does have some spectacular cringe moments though, she's fantastic at making you feel really embarassed for her characters.

Coffin scene and the boyfriend plot were poor though, and kind of unnecessary.

I've only read the latest one and Frog Hospital. Should get Anagrams at some point. Birds of America I've avoided because I have enough half-read short story collections as it is.

i couldn't finish birds of america. the smugness put me off. self-help is pretty good, though. the last story, "to fill," is lorrie being fantastic at making you feel embarrassed for her characters

Only read The Collected Stories...god, what a book. Picked up A Gate at the Stairs for £2 the other day, will have to wait till I finish my degree before I start it really.

£2!

It's definitely worth £2.

But if you want something dark, shit, read People Like That Are the Only People Here.
― the pr00de abides (pr00de), Thursday, October 13, 2005 10:55 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

just got to this in birds of america...fuck it's so good

yeah that storys p much a modern classic now

moore on memoirs:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/12/what-if/?page=1

on friday night lights http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/aug/18/very-deep-america-friday-night-lights/?page=1

Bill believes in free speech. He believes in expensive speech. He doesn't believe in showing "Fire" in a crowded movie theater, but he does believe in shouting "Fie!" and has done it twice himself--both times at Forrest Gump

Certainly 'safe' is what I am now - or am supposed to be. Safety is in me, holds me straight, like a spine. My blood travels no new routes, simply knows its way, lingers, grows drowsy and fond. Though there are times, even recently, in the small city where we live, when I've left my husband for a late walk, the moon out hanging upside down like some garish, show-offy bird, like some fantastical mistake - what life of offices and dull tasks could have a moon in it, flooding the sky and streets, without its seeming preposterous? - and in my walks, toward the silent corners, the cold mulchy smells, the treetops suddenly waving in a wind, I've felt an old wildness again. Revenant and drunken. It isn't sexual, not really. It has more to do with adventure and escape, like a boy's desire to run away, revving thwartedly like a wish, twisting in me like a bolt, some shadow fastened at the feet and gunning for the rest, though, finally, it has always stayed to one side, as if it were some other impossible life and knew it, like a good dog, good dog, good dog. It has always stayed.

knew right away that was from who will run the frog hospital

will be carrying paragraphs of that book with me forever