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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Moore, L. | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
A long-awaited collection of stories--twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author ofWho Will Run the Frog Hospital'andSelf-Help.Stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language. From the opening story, "Willing"--about a second-rate movie actress in her thirties who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being--Birds of Americaunfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America. In the story "Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People" ("There is nothing as complex in the world--no flower or stone--as a single hello from a human being"), a woman newly separated from her husband is on a long-planned trip through Ireland with her mother. When they set out on an expedition to kiss the Blarney Stone, the image of wisdom and success that her mother has always put forth slips away to reveal the panicky woman she really is. In "Charades," a family game at Christmas is transformed into a hilarious and insightful (and fundamentally upsetting) revelation of crumbling family ties. In "Community Life,"a shy, almost reclusive, librarian, Transylvania-born and Vermont-bred, moves in with her boyfriend, the local anarchist in a small university town, and all hell breaks loose. And in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," a woman who goes through the stages of grief as she mourns the death of her cat (Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Häagen Dazs, Rage) is seen by her friends as really mourning other issues: the impending death of her parents, the son she never had, Bosnia. In what may be her most stunning book yet, Lorrie Moore explores the personal and the universal, the idiosyncratic and the mundane, with all the wit, brio, and verve that have made her one of the best storytellers of our time.
Summary
A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist A N ew York Times Editors' Choice A Pulishers Weekly Best Book of the Year Birds of America is a stunning collection of twelve stories by Lorrie Moore, one of our finest authors at work today. With her characteristic wit and piercing intelligence she unfolds a series of portraits of the lost and unsettled of America, and with a trademark humor that fuels each story with pathos and understanding.
Author Notes
Lorrie Moore was born Marie Lorena Moore on January 13, 1957 in Glen Falls, New York. She was nicknamed Lorrie by her parents. She attended St. Lawrence University and won Seventeen magazine's fiction contest. After graduation, she moved to Manhattan and worked as a paralegal for two years. In 1980 she enrolled in Cornell University's M.F.A. program. After graduation from Cornell she was encouraged by a teacher to contact an agent who sold her collection, Self-Help, which was composed of stories from her master's thesis. Lorrie Moore writes about failing relationships and terminal illness. She is the Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she teaches creative writing. She has also taught at Cornell University. She has written a children's book entitled The Forgotten Helper. She won the 1998 O. Henry Award for her short story People Like That They Are the Only People Here. In 1999 she was given the Irish Times International Fiction Prize for Birds of America. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006 and in 2010 her novel A Gate at the stairs was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for fiction.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Lorrie Moore was born Marie Lorena Moore on January 13, 1957 in Glen Falls, New York. She was nicknamed Lorrie by her parents. She attended St. Lawrence University and won Seventeen magazine's fiction contest. After graduation, she moved to Manhattan and worked as a paralegal for two years. In 1980 she enrolled in Cornell University's M.F.A. program. After graduation from Cornell she was encouraged by a teacher to contact an agent who sold her collection, Self-Help, which was composed of stories from her master's thesis. Lorrie Moore writes about failing relationships and terminal illness. She is the Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she teaches creative writing. She has also taught at Cornell University. She has written a children's book entitled The Forgotten Helper. She won the 1998 O. Henry Award for her short story People Like That They Are the Only People Here. In 1999 she was given the Irish Times International Fiction Prize for Birds of America. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006 and in 2010 her novel A Gate at the stairs was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award for fiction.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (8)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Though the characters in these 12 stories are seen in such varied settings as Iowa, Ireland, Maryland, Louisiana and Italy, they are all afflicted with ennui, angst and aimlessness. They can't communicate or connect; they have no inner resources; they can't focus; they can't feel love. The beginning stories deal with women alienated from their own true natures but still living in the quotidian. Aileen in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," is unable to stop grieving over her dog's death, although she has a loving husband and daughter to console her. The collection's two male protagonists, a law professor in "Beautiful Grade" and a housepainter who lives with a blind man in "What You Want to Do Fine," are just as disaffected and lonely in domestic situations. The stories move on, however, to situations in which life itself is askew, where a tumor grows in a baby's body (the detached recitation of "People Like That Are The Only People Here" makes it even more harrowing ). In "Real Estate," a woman with cancerafter having dealt with squirrels, bats, geese, crows and a hippie intruder in her new housekills a thief whose mind has run as amok as the cells in her body. Only a few stories conclude with tentative affirmation. "Terrific Mother," which begins with the tragedy of a child's death, moves to a redemptive ending. In every story, Moore empowers her characters with wit, allowing their thoughts and conversation to sparkle with wordplay, sarcastic banter and idioms used with startling originality. No matter how chaotic their lives, their minds still operate at quip speed; the emotional impact of their inner desolation is expressed in gallows humor. Moore's insights into the springs of human conduct, her ability to catch the moment that flips someone from eccentric to unmoored, endow her work with a heartbreaking resonance. Strange birds, these characters might be, but they are present everywhere. Editor, Victoria Wilson; agent, Melanie Jackson.(Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A fine new collection of 12 stories notable for their verbal wit and range of intellectual referencethe third such from the highly praised author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994) and Like Life (1990). Moore's most typical characters are women in retreat from disappointing relationships or in search of someone or thing to relieve their solitude. One example is the eponymous protagonist of ``Agnes of Iowa,'' an unhappily married night- school teacher whose longing ``to be a citizen of the globe!'' is not assuaged by her brief encounter with a visiting South African poet. Another is the ``minor movie star'' of ``Willing,'' whose involvement with an auto mechanic cant repair the unbridgeable distance she's put between herself and other people. Or, in a practically perfect little story (neatly titled ``Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens''), theres the housewife who mourns her dead cat, is chastened by her husband's understandable exasperation, yet is still gripped by ``the mystery of interspecies love. Moore writes knowingly about family members who tiptoe warily around the edges of loving one another (``Charades''), who discover vulnerability where they had previously seen only dispassionate strength (``Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People''), or who learn to live, say, with the possibility of a baby dying (``People Like That Are the Only People Here''). Though her characters are likeably tough-minded and funny (who wouldn't want to cry ``Fie!'' in a crowded theater where Forrest Gump is playing?), they invariably manifest a feeling that life is passing too quickly and that we haven't made all the necessary arrangements. Accordingly, her hip, jokey mode is less affecting than her wistful, how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-here one. In Moore's skillful hands, a new home owner pestered by squirrels in the attic and a modest woman subjected to a pelvic exam by a roomful of medical students are altogether credible contemporary Cassandras and Medeas. She's an original, and she's getting better with every book.
Booklist Review
Moore's wit works its magic best in her short stories. Her novels, including Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994), are tenderly ironic, but her stories are breathtakingly funny, acutely observant, and unexpectedly poignant. Take "Willing," for instance, a tale about Sidra, a self-described "minor movie star once nominated for a major award," who has left Hollywood to sulk in a Days Inn in Chicago. Very little happens. She visits her boring parents, refuses to let the maids in to clean, and has an affair with a thoroughly inappropriate man, but the Dorothy Parker^-like dialogue, Sidra's caustic self-analysis, and such evocative details as a plant "dried to a brown crunch" all coalesce into a richly empathic tale. Ardor and its absence often occupy Moore, and she is adept at cracking the code of difficult relationships. We're all strange birds, Moore--who reads like Ann Beattie's younger, midwestern sister--seems to be saying in these fresh, quirky, and honest stories, and that's fine, as long as you have a good heart. --Donna Seaman
Library Journal Review
Stories from the very popular Moore. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Though the characters in these 12 stories are seen in such varied settings as Iowa, Ireland, Maryland, Louisiana and Italy, they are all afflicted with ennui, angst and aimlessness. They can't communicate or connect; they have no inner resources; they can't focus; they can't feel love. The beginning stories deal with women alienated from their own true natures but still living in the quotidian. Aileen in "Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens," is unable to stop grieving over her dog's death, although she has a loving husband and daughter to console her. The collection's two male protagonists, a law professor in "Beautiful Grade" and a housepainter who lives with a blind man in "What You Want to Do Fine," are just as disaffected and lonely in domestic situations. The stories move on, however, to situations in which life itself is askew, where a tumor grows in a baby's body (the detached recitation of "People Like That Are The Only People Here" makes it even more harrowing ). In "Real Estate," a woman with cancerafter having dealt with squirrels, bats, geese, crows and a hippie intruder in her new housekills a thief whose mind has run as amok as the cells in her body. Only a few stories conclude with tentative affirmation. "Terrific Mother," which begins with the tragedy of a child's death, moves to a redemptive ending. In every story, Moore empowers her characters with wit, allowing their thoughts and conversation to sparkle with wordplay, sarcastic banter and idioms used with startling originality. No matter how chaotic their lives, their minds still operate at quip speed; the emotional impact of their inner desolation is expressed in gallows humor. Moore's insights into the springs of human conduct, her ability to catch the moment that flips someone from eccentric to unmoored, endow her work with a heartbreaking resonance. Strange birds, these characters might be, but they are present everywhere. Editor, Victoria Wilson; agent, Melanie Jackson.(Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A fine new collection of 12 stories notable for their verbal wit and range of intellectual referencethe third such from the highly praised author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994) and Like Life (1990). Moore's most typical characters are women in retreat from disappointing relationships or in search of someone or thing to relieve their solitude. One example is the eponymous protagonist of ``Agnes of Iowa,'' an unhappily married night- school teacher whose longing ``to be a citizen of the globe!'' is not assuaged by her brief encounter with a visiting South African poet. Another is the ``minor movie star'' of ``Willing,'' whose involvement with an auto mechanic cant repair the unbridgeable distance she's put between herself and other people. Or, in a practically perfect little story (neatly titled ``Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens''), theres the housewife who mourns her dead cat, is chastened by her husband's understandable exasperation, yet is still gripped by ``the mystery of interspecies love. Moore writes knowingly about family members who tiptoe warily around the edges of loving one another (``Charades''), who discover vulnerability where they had previously seen only dispassionate strength (``Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People''), or who learn to live, say, with the possibility of a baby dying (``People Like That Are the Only People Here''). Though her characters are likeably tough-minded and funny (who wouldn't want to cry ``Fie!'' in a crowded theater where Forrest Gump is playing?), they invariably manifest a feeling that life is passing too quickly and that we haven't made all the necessary arrangements. Accordingly, her hip, jokey mode is less affecting than her wistful, how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-here one. In Moore's skillful hands, a new home owner pestered by squirrels in the attic and a modest woman subjected to a pelvic exam by a roomful of medical students are altogether credible contemporary Cassandras and Medeas. She's an original, and she's getting better with every book.
Booklist Review
Moore's wit works its magic best in her short stories. Her novels, including Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994), are tenderly ironic, but her stories are breathtakingly funny, acutely observant, and unexpectedly poignant. Take "Willing," for instance, a tale about Sidra, a self-described "minor movie star once nominated for a major award," who has left Hollywood to sulk in a Days Inn in Chicago. Very little happens. She visits her boring parents, refuses to let the maids in to clean, and has an affair with a thoroughly inappropriate man, but the Dorothy Parker^-like dialogue, Sidra's caustic self-analysis, and such evocative details as a plant "dried to a brown crunch" all coalesce into a richly empathic tale. Ardor and its absence often occupy Moore, and she is adept at cracking the code of difficult relationships. We're all strange birds, Moore--who reads like Ann Beattie's younger, midwestern sister--seems to be saying in these fresh, quirky, and honest stories, and that's fine, as long as you have a good heart. --Donna Seaman
Library Journal Review
Stories from the very popular Moore. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments | p. ix |
Willing | p. 5 |
Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People | p. 26 |
Dance in America | p. 47 |
Community Life | p. 58 |
Agnes of Iowa | p. 78 |
Charades | p. 96 |
Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens | p. 111 |
Beautiful Grade | p. 122 |
What You Want to Do Fine | p. 143 |
Real Estate | p. 177 |
People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk | p. 212 |
Terrific Mother | p. 251 |
Acknowledgments | p. ix |
Willing | p. 5 |
Which Is More Than I Can Say About Some People | p. 26 |
Dance in America | p. 47 |
Community Life | p. 58 |
Agnes of Iowa | p. 78 |
Charades | p. 96 |
Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens | p. 111 |
Beautiful Grade | p. 122 |
What You Want to Do Fine | p. 143 |
Real Estate | p. 177 |
People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk | p. 212 |
Terrific Mother | p. 251 |