Wednesday, June 4, 2008

The Collected Stories by Lorrie Moore

Short story writers should check out this review of Moore's collected work written by novelist Jenny Turner. In "Angry Duck," Turner gives a pretty good history of Moore's writing, despite the brevity(?) of the article and the lack of information about Moore (Turner says, "Moore is reticent in interviews and does not write much non-fiction, and has published only 50 pages of fiction over the past decade").

I picked up my copy of Moore's Self Help during my first year at Mason, when I was working in a usedbookstore out in Centreville. The bookstore had its own 'Self Help' section, and in that section I found Moore's collection while I was cleaning out the shelves of old old old merchandise.

More Moore links:

Interview in The Believer

Profile in Ploughshares shortly after the release of Birds of America

"Debarking," "The Juniper Tree," and "Paper Losses" in The New Yorker


(thanks to Cliff)

3 comments:

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  2. dh, i did think the review was a little confusing to follow, at times.

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  3. "I know you called, I know you hung up." -REM

    Ha--OK, it was a good review. Except for the "chicklit" reference. (!) And the quotes. It was like a movie preview that shows the whole movie. Or, er . . . not. Stacking the best bits--for Moore, clever quip on clever quip--makes each piece lose its power. It's like reading line after line of H.L. Menken. They need context, and are better when used sparingly. As Moore does.

    But I think writing a review of a collected stories would be difficult, especially if the author is still living and doesn't give many interviews.

    Anyway I'm going to check out this D.W. Willard-on-Jane Austen essay she referenced, "Regulated Hatred."

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