I Want My Lorrie Moore!

I've always enjoyed Lorrie Moore's stories. I'm much prefer short stories to novels (in general) for the precision of the form, and Moore is a contemporary master. So I found sympathy with this article from Esquire:

I Want My Lorrie Moore!

July 8, 2008 at 5:00PM by Anya Yurchyshyn

Lorrie Moore is one of my favorite short story writers—I, like droves of others, love the obsessive self-consciousness of her characters, the preciseness of her language, her off-handed style.

So imagine my delight when I discovered there was a Collected Works of Lorrie Moore, one with previously unanthologized stories, one with an introduction by the woman herself. Then imagine my disgust when I realized the collection was available only in the UK. Hello? I was told this was the greatest place on earth by Nancy Regan AND Bruce Springsteen. Still trying to keep America down, huh England? This is some old colonial bullshit.

I didn’t even know they liked her over there. I would have thought she was too American. But no, they love her, mostly, and they love this book, the first she’s published in a decade. It’s supposed to be great. I love to know from first-hand experience, but it doesn’t look like I’m about to find out anytime soon.

The collection was published by Faber and Faber, and according to them, the collection is “unique to the UK” and is not due for a US release. That’s been confirmed by FSG, who would be a likely candidate for US distribution. In fact, no one seems to know anything about it here.

What a shame. I think the book would do really well. I’m going to have to comfort myself with her other collections. And this weird podcast of her reading Paper Losses, which was published in The New Yorker in 2006.

Tags: I Want My Lorrie Moore!, Esquire, short story, literature, authors, Anya Yurchyshyn