Synopses & Reviews
A new collection of stories by one of America’s most beloved and admired short-story writers, her first in fifteen years, since
Birds of America.
These eight masterly stories reveal Lorrie Moore at her most mature and in a perfect configuration of craft, mind, and bewitched spirit, as she explores the passage of time and summons up its inevitable sorrows and hilarious pitfalls to reveal her own exquisite, singular wisdom.
In “Debarking,” a newly divorced man tries to keep his wits about him as the United States prepares to invade Iraq, and against this ominous moment, we see — in all its irresistible wit and darkness — the perils of divorce and what can follow in its wake...
In “Foes,” a political argument goes grotesquely awry as the events of 9/11 unexpectedly manifest themselves at a fund-raising dinner in Georgetown... In “The Juniper Tree,” a teacher visited by the ghost of her recently deceased friend is forced to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in a kind of nightmare reunion... And in “Wings,” we watch the inevitable unraveling of two once-hopeful musicians, neither of whom held fast to their dreams nor struck out along other paths, as Moore deftly depicts the intricacies of dead-ends-ville and the workings of regret...
Here are people beset, burdened, buoyed; protected by raising teenage children; dating after divorce; facing the serious illness of a longtime friend; setting forth on a romantic assignation abroad, having it interrupted mid-trip, and coming to understand the larger ramifications and the impossibility of the connection . . . stories that show people coping with large dislocation in their lives, with risking a new path to answer the desire to be in relation — to someone...
Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of American life, dramatic irony, and enduring half-cracked love wend their way through each of these narratives in a heartrending mash-up of the tragic and the laugh-out-loud — the hallmark of life in Lorrie-Moore-land.
Review
“Heartbreaking....Mordantly funny....Takes us on a rare flight of self-transcendence....Moments of recognition bring jolts like electric shocks.” The New York Review of Books
Review
“Wonderful....Masterful....Profound....Not a single false note.” USA Today
Review
“[Moore] deftly paints with negative space, releasing tremendous poignancy....A vibrant and nimble display of Moore’s signature wit.” San Francisco Chronicle
Review
“One of the finest short story writers in the country.” Los Angeles Review of Books
Review
“Uncanny....Moving....A powerful collection.” The Washington Post
Review
“Here is why one reads Moore: the terse, true polish of her emotional wisdom.” The Boston Globe
Review
“Probably no writer since Nabokov has been as language-obsessed as Moore....[Bark] lets us contemplate and savor just what makes her work unique.” The New York Times Book Review
Review
“The short form is her true forte. Her talent is best exhibited in the collection’s longest stories (each around 40 pages); her comfort with that length is indicated by her careful avoidance of overplotting, which, of course, dulls the effect of an expansive short story, and by not allowing the stories to seem like the outlines of novels that never got developed.” Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
“One of the best short story writers in America resumes her remarkable balancing act, with a collection that is both hilarious and heartbreaking, sometimes in the same paragraph.…In stories both dark and wry, Moore wields a scalpel with surgical precision.” Kirkus (Starred Review)
Review
“These stories are laugh-out-loud funny, as well as full of pithy commentary on contemporary life and politics.” Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
“Moore once again brings her acute intelligence and wit to play.…The language has a fizzy rhythm that will have the reader turning the pages. Smart, funny, and overlaid with surprising metaphor.…Highly recommended.” Library Journal (Starred Review)
Synopsis
A New York Times Notable Book
A Washington Post Notable Book
A Best Book of the Year: San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Financial Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, BookPage
Heartbreaking. . . . Mordantly funny. . . . Takes us on a rare flight of self-transcendence. . . . Moments of recognition bring jolts like electric shocks. The New York Review of Books
Wonderful. . . . Masterful. . . . Profound. . . . Not a single false note. USA Today
Moore] deftly paints with negative space, releasing tremendous poignancy. . . . A vibrant and nimble display of Moore s signature wit. San Francisco Chronicle
Ms Moore s writing glides. She describes the mundane with precision and grace. . . .Bark simultaneously honours and regrets the messiness of human relationships. Ms Moore is like one of her characters: sternness in one eye and gentleness in the other. The Economist
One of the finest short story writers in the country. Los Angeles Review of Books
Moore s] writing contains multitudes, mixed in exacting proportions, which is to say: this potpourri is utterly and totally unique. . . . There really is no one quite like her. The New Republic
Lorrie Moore still dazzles. . . . These powerfully, almost savagely, human stories shine with a spirit of playfulness and the logic of love. O, The Oprah Magazine
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Synopsis
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A collection of stories by one of America's most beloved and admired short-story writers that explores the passage of time and summons up its inevitable sorrows and hilarious pitfalls to reveal an exquisite, singular wisdom. - "Uncanny.... Moving.... A powerful collection." --The Washington Post
Here are people beset, burdened, buoyed; protected by raising teenage children; dating after divorce; facing the serious illness of a longtime friend; setting forth on a romantic assignation abroad, having it interrupted mid-trip, and coming to understand the larger ramifications and the impossibility of the connection ... stories that show people coping with large dislocation in their lives, with risking a new path to answer the desire to be in relation--to someone....
About the Author
Lorrie Moore, after many years as a professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is now Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. Moore has received honors for her work, among them the Irish Times International Prize for Literature and a Lannan Foundation fellowship, as well as the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for her achievement in the short story. Her most recent novel, A Gate at the Stairs, was shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize for Fiction and for the PEN/Faulkner Award.
Reading Group Guide
The questions, discussion topics, and reading list that follow are intended to enhance your reading group’s discussion of
Bark, the first collection in fifteen years from acclaimed short-story writer Lorrie Moore.
1. What is the metaphor of the title? How do the epigraphs help to set it up?
2. The stories share several themes, among them aging and the passage of time, parents and children, divorce and separation. What would you say is the primary theme of the collection?
3. Several of the story titles have multiple meanings. How does Moore’s wordplay keep the reader guessing?
4. The dialogue in Moore’s stories is often funny. Would you call the stories themselves humorous?
5. Real-life current events cast shadows over several of the stories. How does Moore use them to shape a deeper meaning?
6. In “Debarking,” when Zora tells Ira, “Every family is a family of alligators,” (p. 15), how does this foreshadow what’s to come?
7. Ira reads a poem in Bekka’s journal: “Time moving. / Time standing still. / What is the difference? / Time standing still is the difference” (p. 31). He has no idea what it means, but he knows that it’s awesome. What do you think the poem means?
8. Why do you think Moore titled the story following “Debarking” “The Juniper Tree”?
9. This second story has a dreamlike quality. Do you think Moore expects the reader to accept it as realistic?
10. In “Paper Losses,” Kit asserts: “A woman had to choose her own particular unhappiness carefully. That was the only happiness in life: to choose the best unhappiness” (p. 68). What do you think of this notion?
11. What point is Moore making in “Foes”?
12. What is the metaphor of the “rat king” sequence (p. 140) in “Wings”?
13. In “Subject to Search,” Tom says that cruelty comes naturally to everyone (p. 166). Do you agree? Does that assertion prove true in Moore’s stories?
14. “Thank You for Having Me” draws a clear connection between weddings and funerals, marriage and death. What connections have you seen in your own experience?
15. On page 184, Moore writes, “Maria was a narrative girl and the story had to be spellbinding or she lost interest in the main character, who was sometimes herself and sometimes not.” Which other characters in the collection could be described in this way?
16. Which of Moore’s characters would you most like to meet again?