Summary: A long-awaited collection of stories--twelve in all--by one of the most exciting writers at work today, the acclaimed author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Self-Help. Stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter, and in the sheer beauty and power of their language.
Booklist Reviews
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. ((Reviewed August 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews
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