Birds of America

author
Lorrie Moore

surgeon general's warning
Yes, people, gird your loins, this book is a collection of short stories. In my experience as both a professional and recreational book-pusher, I have noticed that people are often very resistant to reading short stories. Well, kids, it's time to grow up. You're old enough to be able to "start over" with a plot/cast of characters twelve times in the course of one book, if need be. At the end of the day, if you refuse to read short stories, you are turning your back on the strongest and most successful writing out there. The thing with short stories is that they're concentrated and highly intense; so when they fail, they really bomb. But when they succeed, there's nothing better. They are the best of the best, and the worst of the worst, but that's why you have me--I weed out the crap. So go balls-out, just this one time, for me. By next week you'll be singing a different tune.

P.S. Once upon a time, I too was short story phobic--then I saw the light.

what the back of the book says
"Birds of America is the stunning new 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; each story shines with humor, heartbreaking pathos, and warm understanding."

how much of it is true
Pretty much all of it. Lorrie Moore is a brilliant, in the truest sense of the word, writer. Just about anything that comes out of her pen is mind-numbingly fantastic, but the creme de la creme with her are short stories. I would and do argue that she is the best short story writer of our time, and that no one portrays a wider and more accurate picture of American life than her. She has a command of language like no other author I've ever read. As a result her humor, pathos, and empathy are able to run deeper and truer--flushing out her characters to the point of perfection. Her voice is contemporary and fresh, and is a true reminder of why we read.

The only turn of phrase I take issue with from the blurb is "portraits of the lost and unsettled." It lacks the subtlety that is vital in Moore's work, and ostracizes her characters in a way that she is careful never to do in her writing.

Nobody can walk the toughness/vulnerability line like Moore can. Her writing is totally unsettling and entirely reaffirming. Birds of America is so smart, and so funny. Please-god, read it! This could be the closest to a perfect book that I have ever read.

who else loved this book (or at least, say they did)
Emily Perkins, Literary Review ("Lorrie Moore is writing in top form. She is up there with Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver--and, within this substantial and generous collection, she gives us the strange and terrible sweep of America as fully as any of the major novelists."); Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times ("At once sad and funny, lyrical and prickly, Birds of America not only reaffirms Ms. Moore's virtuosic skills as a writer, but also attests to the deepening emotional chiaroscuro of her wise and beguiling work."); Gail Caldwell, The Boston Globe ("A marvelous collection, deeper than anything Moore has written and yet underscored by that trademark humor in the face of familiar awfulness. Her stories are tough, lean, funny, and metaphysical....Birds of America has about it a wild beauty that simply makes one feel more connected to life."); James McManus, The New York Times Book Review ("Birds of America, especially its three final stories, will stand by itself as one of our funniest, most telling anatomies of human love and vulnerability")

other things this author has written (all of which are fantastic)
Anagrams
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Self-Helf
Like Life