A New York Times bestseller, this book brings together the best short stories by award-winning American author Lorrie Moore.
Lorrie Moore's fifth book of fiction—acclaimed by critics and the public as one of the greatest American writers—and her most powerful work, Birds of America brings together twelve short stories originally published in major newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times , Elle , The Paris Review , and The New Yorker . The book was on The New York Times bestseller list for weeks. Particularly delicate and poignant, the narratives feature characters consumed by boredom, anguish, and aimlessness: by human vulnerability itself.
And instead of setting elaborate plots toward a clear, or even provisional, resolution, Moore outlines the difficulties his frustrated, unambitious protagonists face and cannot overcome. They haven't reached their destination, but despite this, they continue to live.
Even though they joke constantly—to dispel pain and disappointment—there's something sad about these characters. They exemplify Moore's ability to map the emotional landscape of lost and lonely people, those who have encountered extreme situations, who feel left out. In each story, Moore empowers his characters, allowing their thoughts and conversations to shine through with wordplay and sarcasm, used with surprising originality. No matter how chaotic life gets, the characters' minds still function sensibly.
The stories' settings are diverse: Chicago, Illinois' most populous city, known for its film appearances, is reduced to the decrepit backdrop of a fading Hollywood actress; a family Christmas, complete with a fun and revealing charade, takes place in a traditional southern Maine home; in Minnesota, a fifty-year-old law professor, disillusioned with his romantic experiences, decides to write the essay "Young People Were Sent to Earth to Amuse Old People. So Why Not Have Fun?", and whether his rhetoric will save his life is a question Moore refuses to answer.
In Birds of America , Lorrie Moore masterfully portrays the lives of these people, their interpersonal relationships, their idiosyncrasies, their dreams, and, above all, the way they deal with themselves. What follows might be difficult to read, but the fiction still makes us laugh in moments of revealed horror. Like Beckett, Moore accepts that nothing is funnier than misfortune; that the most horrific scenario
