The Books: “Self-Help” – ‘How to Be An Other Woman’ (Lorrie Moore)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Next book on the shelf: Self-Help by Lorrie Moore – a short story collection (her first, I believe). I’ll be excerpting from many of her stories – she’s so damn good. One of my favorite writers writing today. I’ve written a bit about her before (a post here) – and I’m bummed – I know that Jon and I had an enormous conversation about Lorrie Moore in the comments section of one of my posts, but I can’t find it. Granted, I haven’t looked TOO hard because life is long and I have stuff to do tonight … but the reason I read Lorrie Moore at all is because of Jon and Kate, telling me I HAD to read her. This was around the time when her collection Birds of America was pretty much everywhere you looked. It took me a while to get to her – but once I read, oh, about one page of one story of Birds of America, I was like: Put a fork in Sheila. She’s done. She’s the kind of short story writer – like Hemingway, or Joyce, or Mary Gaitskill – who make you realize, in one or two words, just how terrible most short stories are. I mean, honestly. I’d put Annie Proulx on that list, too. But Lorrie Moore! She has a couple novels out, too – but I haven’t read them, although i do own them. I’ll get to them! But if you want to encounter a truly awesome writer – I would beg you to pick up Lorrie Moore. She’s not ponderous, or serious (although she touches on serious themes) – she’s actually kind of wacky, in her style and in her outlook. There are times when you don’t know whether to laugh or to cry. I love it how funny she is (so many short stories are humorless) – and I love how she describes things, the words she chooses – just perfection. I read it and wonder: could I write that way? Not only that, but could I SEE that way? Lorrie Moore seems to see things that others do not – and I cherish her for that reason. I read her stuff and small perfect weird little universes blossom right in front of my face – and I see things, details, silences, jokey awkwardness, the way the wind is on the grass – I see it all. She is an exquisite writer. I truly hope I have some Lorrie Moore fans among the folks who read me – I’d love to share thoughts about her. My only complaint about her is that she doesn’t publish enough.

51P7tPu16XL.jpgSelf-Help was published in the mid 80s – about a decade before the magnificent Birds of America. The stories have serious themes (as you can tell by the title of the story I will be excerpting today) – but, as you can also tell by its sort of “How To” tone, that Moore will not be overly serious about it. It will not be an exquisite keen of grief and sadness. Self-deprecating perhaps. Nobody does self-deprecating like Lorrie Moore. And nobody describes acute loneliness in a way that makes me ache with recognition and also guffaw with laughter – like Lorrie Moore. She’s just so good! In Self-Help, Moore has lots of experimental pieces – along the lines of this one – not too many straight narratives yet. There are lists, how-tos, fragments, To Do lists (that are hysterical) … Birds of America is more of a classic short-story collection, along classic lines. But here we have goofy instructions with a sharp edge – (“How To Become A Writer” is one of my favorites in the collection) – and stories like this one, which reads like a How To pamphlet – but is really about the loneliness of being someone’s mistress.

But even here – in her younger self- there are glimpses of the writer she will soon become, the writer she was already on her way to being. She is an acknowledged master of the short story form, her name is always at the top of the list of greatest American short story writers – and even here, you can start to see why. She is not afraid of writing about people making mistakes, or being jerks, or behaving incomprehensibly. Life is a great mystery. Often we do not know why we do what we do.

I love the bit about the New Year’s party here – and how her lover doesn’t really get it. But it’s quite an image. And yet Lorrie Moore – NEVER turns on the maudlin stuff, she never goes for the tragedy – she skips around it, mentions it obliquely – her characters become eccentric, or flighty – rather than deal directly with tragedy. It’s a total “style” – I”d recognize her stuff anywhere.

Can you tell I love her? Write more, Lorrie Moore, write more!


EXCERPT FROM Self-Help by Lorrie Moore – ‘How To Be An Other Woman’

“Who is he?” says your mom, later, in the kitchen after you’ve washed the dishes.

“He’s a systems analyst.”

“What do they do?”

“Oh … they get married a lot. They’re usually always married.”

“Charlene, are you having an affair with a married man?”

“Ma, do you have to put it that way?”

“You are asking for big trouble,” she says, slowly, and resumes polishing silver with a vehement energy.

Wonder why she always polishes the silver after meals.

Lean against the refrigerator and play with the magnets.

Say, softly, carefully: “I know, Mother, it’s not something you would do.”

She looks up at you, her mouth trembling, pieces of her brown-gray hair dangling in her salty eyes, pink silverware cream caking onto her hands, onto her wedding ring. She stops, puts a spoon down, looks away and then hopelessly back at you, like a very young girl, and, shaking her head, bursts into tears.

“I missed you,” he practically shouts, ebullient and adolescent, pacing about the living room with a sort of bounce, like a child who is up way past his bedtime and wants to ask a question. “What did you do at home?” He rubs your neck.

“Oh, the usual holiday stuff with my parents. On New Year’s Eve I went to a disco in Morristown with my cousin Denise, but I dressed wrong. I wore the turtleneck and plaid skirt my mother gave me, because I wanted her to feel good, and my slip kept showing.”

He grins and kisses your cheek, thinking this sweet.

Continue: “There were three guys, all in purple shirts and paper hats, who kept coming over and asking me to dance. I don’t think they were together or brothers or anything. But I danced and on ‘New York City Girl’, that song about how jaded and competent urban women are, I went crazy dancing and my slip dropped to the floor. I tried to pick it up, but finally just had to step out of it and jam it in my purse. At the stroke of midnight, I cried.”

“I’ll bet you suffered terribly,” he says, clasping you around the small of your back.

Say: “Yes, I did.”

______________

“I’m thinking of telling Patricia about us.”

Be skeptical. Ask: “What will you say?”

He proceeds confidently: “I’ll go, ‘Dear, there’s something I have to tell you.'”

“And she’ll look over at you from her briefcase full of memoranda and say: ‘Hmmmmmm?'”

“And I’ll say, ‘Dear, I think I’m falling in love with another woman, and I know I’m having sex with her.”

“And she’ll say, ‘Oh my god, what did you say?'”

“And I’ll say: ‘Sex.'”

“And she’ll start weeping inconsolably and then what will you do?”

There is a silence, still as the moon. He shifts his legs, seems confused. “I’ll … tell her I was just kidding.” He squeezes your hand.

Shave your legs in the bathroom sink. Philosophize: you are a mistress, part of a great hysterical you mean historical tradition. Wives are like cockroaches. Also part of a great historical tradition. They will survive you after a nuclear attack – they are tough and hardy and travel in packs – but right now they’re not having any fun. And when you look in the bathroom mirror, you spot them scurrying, up out of reach behind you.

An hour of gimlets after work, a quick browse through Barnes and Noble, and he looks at his watch, gives you a peck, and says: “Good night. I’ll call you soon.”

Walk out with him. Stand there, shivering, but do not pout. Say: “Call you ‘later’ would sound better than ‘soon’. ‘Soon’ always means just the opposite.”

He smiles feebly. “I’ll phone you in a few days.”

And when he is off, hurrying up Third Avenue, look down at your feet, kick at a dirty cigarette butt, and in your best juvenile mumble, say: “Fuck you, jack.”

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19 Responses to The Books: “Self-Help” – ‘How to Be An Other Woman’ (Lorrie Moore)

  1. siobhan says:

    this is so weird. i am reading this book right now!

  2. siobhan says:

    i’ve been on a lorrie moore tear. i read one of her stories in an anthology and now this is the third book by her i’ve read in a row. she is AMAZING. ‘birds in america’ blew me away–are you doign that one tomorrow?? i can’t wait to read what you have to say about it. the characters stick in your head.

  3. red says:

    That is so weird, Siobhany!! I’m so psyched to hear you’ve been on a Lorrie Moore tear – yes, Birds of America just blew me away, too!! I’ll probably get to that next week – I’m doing a couple more stories from Self-Help and then I’ll get to that one.

    My favorite story from Birds of America is the one where the woman – who had that tragedy occur in her life (her own fault) goes to some literary conference in Italy – with her boyfriend – and it’s all about her experiences, and the massage therapist she meets in the town – have you gotten to that one yet? I don’t know why, but that story just really stayed with me.

  4. siobhan says:

    yes and he is going to the massage therapist, too. that is a great one. they’re all great, really. i am on the second to last one in ‘self help’ right now…

  5. red says:

    I haven’t read any of her novels yet – I think she has two out. Have you read them?

    I just love her. There’s another one in Birds of America about, if I recall correctly, a middle-aged playwright – who is holed up in a motel room – having a sort of nervous breakdown? I can’t remember the details – but I just remember laughing out loud at certain parts of the story, but then also aching for this woman.

  6. Diana says:

    I have Birds of America, have had it for quite some time. I’m putting off reading it. I’ve heard so many wonderful things about it and about her that before I even start the book, I’m mourning its end. I’m afraid to get involved with her! (She’ll just break my heart and all that…)

  7. red says:

    Diana – Spoken like a true kindred spirit!

    I find Mary Gaitskill’s stuff sometimes unbelievably bleak (I love her – but still, I have to be in “the mood” and feeling strong enough to handle her) – but Lorrie Moore isn’t really like that, although sometimes her characters are in bleak situations.

    I just love her writing – I’ll be eager to hear what you think about it (when you decide to read her, I mean!!)

  8. siobhan says:

    yes that’s the first story in ‘birds in america’. she moves to a motel in chicago and her gay friend is like, “You live on a state that borders IOWA.” b/c she just moved from california. my favorite was ‘agnes of iowa’. she was so funny–so awkward–but so sad, too.

  9. red says:

    I forget Agnes of Iowa – I have to go back and re-read it.

  10. Sal says:

    Synchronicity reminds me that I’ve got an author for you, if you have not read him: Robertson Davies. Canadian, a novelist, journalist, actor and playwright. A number of his novels involve the performing arts.

    I’ve read more things in Davies’s novels that pop up again in another venue in the next few days than any other author. Synchronicity. Intriguing, but eerie.

  11. Nina says:

    I love Lorrie Moore… first read her in college and I have read everything of hers since.

  12. Nina says:

    I love Lorrie Moore… first read her in college and I have read everything of hers since.

  13. yvonne says:

    “When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things, but essentially it means to put your shoes on the wrong feet.”

    I love this. Thanks for writing about Moore — I never would have discovered her without your blog.

  14. Rizki Gustian says:

    I want to read whole story, but I don’t know how
    I don’t even have much money to buy the book
    Only need How to be An other woman
    mind if you send me the story ? I hope you can email me at jackrizki@yahoo.com
    I really need it :)

    thanks before sheila :)

  15. justine says:

    does anyone know,where can i find free short story how to be an other woman-lorrie moore in a website?because i have a quiz about that story but i cant find it in google..

    • sheila says:

      For real? You want her story for free? You realize that that would violate her copyright. Pay 9 bucks, 10 bucks, and buy her book.

      Or – amazing thought – how about you go to the library and see if they have it there?

      Of course you can’t find her short story for free in Google. NOTHING in this life is free.

  16. bybee says:

    Anagrams! Anagrams! That is all…

    • sheila says:

      Yeah, but this person doesn’t want to PAY for books. She expects them to be online for free.

      I cannot tell you how often I get such comments/requests. It’s so disheartening.

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