Self-Help - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Lorrie Moore (Paperback)

About the Book

In nine captivating stories, the author of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? probes the pleasures and pains of modern relationships, offering poignant yet wickedly funny advice on "How to Be an Other Woman", "How to Talk to Your Mother (Notes)", and for surviving other modern crises of loss and love.

Book Synopsis

From the national bestselling author of A Gate at the Stairs--and a master of contemporary American fiction--comes "a funny, cohesive, and moving collection of stories" (The New York Times Book Review).

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.

Review Quotes

"A wry, crackly voice. . . . Fine, funny, and very moving pictures of contemporary life [from] a writer of enormous talent." --The New York Times

"Brisk, ironic . . . scalpel-sharp. . . . A funny, cohesive, and moving collection of stories." --The New York Times Book Review

"Astonishing. . . . Moore is so good at trapping each moment in perfect, precise detail, so masterful at cynicism and wryness that her moments of poignancy and sweetness catch us completely off guard." --San Francisco Chronicle

"Sharp, flicking, on-target . . . the work of a sorcerer's apprentice. Moore casts a cruel, mischievous spell." --Vanity Fair

"Trenchant, funny tales. . . . Moore is much more than another chronicler of the chronically out-of-sync relations between American men and women. She writes with urgency and pace." --People

About the Author

LORRIE MOORE is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, as well as the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for her achievement in the short story. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.