Lorrie Moore est une auteure américaine acclamée, réputée pour son exploration incisive de la vie moderne, en particulier la quête de l'amour et de la compagnie. Ses nouvelles capturent magistralement les indignités souvent absurdes de la vie ordinaire avec une intelligence inébranlable, un humour quasi miraculeux et une profondeur de sentiment remarquable. Moore écrit avec une prose souple et tranchante, son style étant à la fois hilarant et déchirant, créant une voix d'auteure inconfondible. Ses œuvres matures dégagent une qualité généreuse et limpide, montrant une écrivaine qui a maîtrisé son art et offre un pur plaisir à ses lecteurs.
Il suffit parfois d'un rien pour que tout s'écroule. A l'image d'Olena s'apercevant un jour que son prénom est l'anagramme d'atone - seule -, les personnages des douze nouvelles de Déroutes sont soudain confrontés à l'absurdité de leur existence. En spectateurs lucides, ils assistent à leur propre naufrage et tentent de garder la tête hors de l'eau, avec l'humour grinçant du désespoir.
The publication of "Self-Help" introduced readers to Lorrie Moore's refined blend of humor and insight, and made her one of the best-loved writers of her generation. These stories, told in a voice that is at once witty, melancholy, and bravely honest, paint a tableau of lovers and family, of loss and pleasure, desire and memory. From the young secretary who by day hopes someone will notice her Phi Beta Kappa key and by night makes love to a married man she met at a Florsheim shoe store, to the shattering of a marriage by the shores of a tranquil lake, "Self-Help" is a unique, enduring work of short fiction.
These humorous and poignant tales of lovers, loneliness, and never-quite- belonging, delivered in her characteristically knowing, wry voice, confirm Lorrie Moore as a master of the short story form.
In Like Life's eight exquisite stories, Lorrie Moore's characters stumble through their daily existence. These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can't quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily divorced, buries himself in self-help books about healthful food and healthy relationships. One prefers to speak on the phone rather than face his friends, another lets the answering machine do all the talking. But whether rejected, afraid to commit, bored, disillusioned or just misunderstood, even the most hard-bitten are not without some abiding trust in love.
In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales" "marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.
When in 1999 I began writing for The New York Review of Books ... my stance became that of the ingenuous Martian who had just landed on a gorgeous alien planet ... Montaigne's que sais-je . A little light, a little wonder, some skepticism, some awe, some squinting, some je ne sais quoi . Pick a thing up, study it, shake it, skip it across a still surface to see how much felt and lively life got baked into it. Does it sail? Observe. See what can be done. Lorrie Moore has been writing criticism for over thirty years, and her forensically intelligent, witty, and engaging essays are collected together here for the first time. Whether writing on Titanic , Margaret Atwood, or The Wire , her pieces always offer elegant and surprising insights into multiple forms of art. Crucially, Moore is a practitioner who writes criticism; her discussion of other people's work is based on her understanding of what it really takes to make something out of of what it takes to make art. This lends her encounters with books, films, and paintings the uniquely intimate quality which has made them so immensely popular with readers. In sparkling, articulate prose - studded with frequently hilarious insights - Moore's meditations are a rare opportunity to witness a brilliant mind thinking things through and figuring things out on the page.
In this brilliant collection of stories Lorrie Moore addresses herself to a contemporary emotional dilemma - the widening gulf between men and women, and the simultaneous yearning for and fear of closeness.
The Best American series, established in 1915, highlights exceptional short fiction and nonfiction annually. Each volume features a selection process where a series editor reviews numerous periodicals, narrowing down hundreds of works to around twenty outstanding pieces, chosen by a renowned guest editor. This distinctive approach contributes to the series' reputation as the most respected and popular anthology of its kind, showcasing the best literary talent in the country.
Benna Carpenter is an art history professor who wears glass jewelry, sings in local nightclubs, chain-smokes, runs an aerobics class for the elderly, teaches poetry, and has an adorable and devoted six-year-old daughter. Yet Benna is disillusioned, cynical and bitter. With brilliant imagination and wit, this extraordinary novel explores Benna's world of misheard exit lines, love gained and lost truths almost told, and fragile and desperate hope.
This novel follows the lives of two 11-year-olds intent on escaping childhood. As the strength of their friendship is tested repeatedly, they begin to take their first, exhilarating steps towards adulthood.
