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A review by zoemig
I Know Some Things: Stories about Childhood by Contemporary Writers by Lorrie Moore
3.0
"For a long time afterwards I thought of the minister’s statements about suffering. I knew nothing about it except that some people wore it on their sleeves and some kept it inside."
-Max Garland
I Know Some Things is a collection of short stories about childhood by contemporary writers compiled by Lorrie Moore, a successful short story writer herself. Because of Moore's own penchant for beautiful writing, I think I expected slightly more from the collection. I was also definitely disappointed that Moore didn't include one of her own works. There are certainly some stories which are better than others, and to be honest for me the ones I enjoyed the most were those which took a less metaphorical and more literal approach towards childhood. I love reading about how one of many daughters and their strict father, or one boy who helps take drunk ladies homes from parties while they tell him their secrets. These were the stories that captured the essence of childhood in one anecdote, the mystery and the rebellion.
My favourite stories of the collection were "The Point" by Charles D’Ambrosio, “Signs and Wonders” by Max Garland, "Rules of the Game" by Amy Tan and most surprisingly for me "Betty" by Margaret Atwood. Unfortunately three of these four amazing stories occur in the first third of the collection, which meant that I Know Some Things took several weeks for me to finish as I could never get fully engaged in the collection. Perhaps this is slightly my own fault, as lately I've been reading a lot of novels which do not require the focus of a short story in which you only have a limited amount of pages to get to know the characters. Ultimately what I can thank this collection for is introducing me to several new (to me) and talented writers whose other works I will be pursuing. There were times when I Know Some Things brought me back to my own childhood, but those instances were far fewer than I expected and although the collection excelled when it came to diversity of opinions, consistency of quality of writing is what let me down most. ***
-Max Garland
I Know Some Things is a collection of short stories about childhood by contemporary writers compiled by Lorrie Moore, a successful short story writer herself. Because of Moore's own penchant for beautiful writing, I think I expected slightly more from the collection. I was also definitely disappointed that Moore didn't include one of her own works. There are certainly some stories which are better than others, and to be honest for me the ones I enjoyed the most were those which took a less metaphorical and more literal approach towards childhood. I love reading about how one of many daughters and their strict father, or one boy who helps take drunk ladies homes from parties while they tell him their secrets. These were the stories that captured the essence of childhood in one anecdote, the mystery and the rebellion.
My favourite stories of the collection were "The Point" by Charles D’Ambrosio, “Signs and Wonders” by Max Garland, "Rules of the Game" by Amy Tan and most surprisingly for me "Betty" by Margaret Atwood. Unfortunately three of these four amazing stories occur in the first third of the collection, which meant that I Know Some Things took several weeks for me to finish as I could never get fully engaged in the collection. Perhaps this is slightly my own fault, as lately I've been reading a lot of novels which do not require the focus of a short story in which you only have a limited amount of pages to get to know the characters. Ultimately what I can thank this collection for is introducing me to several new (to me) and talented writers whose other works I will be pursuing. There were times when I Know Some Things brought me back to my own childhood, but those instances were far fewer than I expected and although the collection excelled when it came to diversity of opinions, consistency of quality of writing is what let me down most. ***