Self-Help by Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore has long been a favorite writer of mine. Her short fiction, which has appeared regularly in THE NEW YORKER and elsewhere, is unbeatable. Her humor is sharp, her descriptive powers awesome, and her stories (almost) always feel as though they actually go somewhere.

One of the best pieces in “Self-Help” is probably the first Lorrie Moore piece I ever read. “Self-Help” was published the year I graduated from college, and I think a college friend gave me a copy of “How to Become a Writer.” Note the “become” instead of “be.” Moore acknowledges the process involved in writing and lets her readers know that writers are not sprung fully-formed from the head of Zeus or anyone else. Listen to this beautifully assured, resonant, yet hilarious passage from “How to Become a Writer”:

“First, try to be something, anything, else. A movie star/astronaut. A movie star/missionary. A movie star/kindergarten teacher. President of the World. Fail miserably. It is best if you fail at an early age–say, fourteen. Early, critical disillusionment is necessary so that at fifteen you can write long haiku sequences about thwarted desire. It is a pond, a cherry blossom, a wind brushing against sparrow wing leaving for mountain. Count the syllables. Show it to your mom. She is tough and practical. She has a son in Vietnam and a husband who may be having an affair. She believes in wearing brown because it hides spots. She’ll look briefly at your writing, then back up at you with a face blank as a doughnut. She’ll say: ‘How about emptying the dishwasher?’ Look away. Shove the forks in the fork drawer. Acccidentally break one of the freebie gas station glasses. This is the required pain and suffering. This is only for starters.”

Moore likes to do that–throw in references like Vietnam, then spin things around a little so that it comes out funny. One of my favorite Lorrie Moore bits had to do with a woman who said something awful before she could stop herself–Moore described the blurted insult as being “a lizard with a hat on.” Wacko as that sounds, you still know exactly what she means. That is her great gift–she makes life sound wacko and off-kilter, but you completely, utterly GET IT anyway.

Birds of America: Stories by Lorrie Moore

Recently I spent a third long stay at a hospital with my daughter. Living at the hospital, particularly accompanying your child, is a surreal (at best) existence. I found myself thinking constantly of Moore’s incredible rending yet somehow darkly humorous story, “People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk,” wondering if anyone could possibly understand the dazed flurourescent-lit world of a pediatric hospital/cafeteria/series of Lego-like halls without having been forced to live it. The story brought me strange comfort, knowing that someone had glimpsed that life, the one where you’re woken up constantly in the night and wonder whether it’s night or day or if you’ll ever get out of sweatpants, and as I waited to hear news regarding red blood cells, a part of me was falling apart for the mothers and children I saw there whose stay would not be nine or ten days, as ours, but months. If you know anyone who is stuck at the hospital for ridiculous amounts of time, this is the gift to bring them. The other stories are excellent too.

Like Life by Lorrie Moore

Moore received a lot of attention for her latest, “Birds of America” but I prefer this collection. It’s not just that the book is funnier and deals with generally lighter subject matter, but that she is able to apply her poignant observations to more mundane material. Wheras Birds of America deals with children who have cancer and adults who are deep into what have become seriously disappointing lives, Like Life deals with those (mostly women) who are still treading water, not too happy with the way things have turned out so far, but also not so far gone that it all couldn’t turn around tomorrow. The character in one story is grappling with her unsatisfying relationship with her struggling playwright boyfriend, another is just having a lonely winter where she spends her time working in a store in the mall and playing with the cat. Even the nature of her disappointments — she is not allowed in to a community singing group because she misses the first meeting — wonderfully reflect the low gear in which many of her characters, like real life people, are operating. If it sounds pretty dull, this is exactly why this book is such a showcase of Morre at her best. I think it is probably easier to write movingly about cancer than it is to write about daily life. But Moore’s stories really are moving. A must read for anyone who aspires to write but worries he/she has nothing to say. Moore shows that every experience is a story — its all in the telling.

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore

I laughed out loud numerous times, little suspecting that I would put the book down upon completion and sob for about twenty minutes. I’ve never had this intense a reaction to a book, with the possible exception of Catcher in the Rye. Lorrie Moore is not only clever and funny as hell; she also has a spectacular dark side. The reader is at first a bit confused — is this a collection of short stories? If not, why is this character’s back story different in this chapter? What the hell’s going on here? By the last chapter, you think you’ve settled into an acceptable reality, only to have the rug pulled out from under you again. For readers who take a perverse pleasure in this kind of experience, I highly recommend “Anagrams”.

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? by Lorrie Moore

This book deals with 2 major issues pertaining to teenagers: teen pregnancy and the friendship that sort of withers away as the two close friends become mature individuals and start to value different things. Though the author describes these issues quite casually without overly burdening the readers or pressuring them, I really think that these issues are not something we should feel lightly about. The writer touches upon two crucial issues that all teenagers are so susceptible to and that’s why I credit the author so highly.
The most apparent issue discussed in the book is teen pregnancy: Sils, the main character’s closest friend gets pregnant after dating an older man. Judging that the boyfriend, Mike, would not be responsible for the baby, Sils decides to get an abortion. At the time, because Sils and Berie, the main character, are only sixteen years old, they don’t have time to think much about morality of their decision. The decisions are hasty, largely concerned with their budget and how to get the abortion without causing much trouble. The scene when she goes through the surgery brings forth a lot of emotion from the reader because Sils lies alone in the operation room, in a shabby facility.
Going through these unbearable crisis as teenagers, Berie and Sils confirm their long friendship and bond. Because Sils was more developed and began dating boys at earlier age, Berie sometimes felt distant from Sils. When they sneaked out to dance parties, boys chased after Sils and Berie was left untouched until Sils rejected them. The devision that Berie and Sils went through because of popularity and appearances disappear as Sils learn that Berie is her true friend who can stay by her side when such difficulties surround her.
This book is highly recommended to teenagers as well as adults. The value of friendship and also the danger of unsafe sex is critically described in this novel. The writer posses the magic of getting her messages across without physically shocking us with explicit scenes and language.

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