A review by keight
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

5.0

classic collection of short stories, I keenly felt while reading this how many stories I’ve read that have emulated the witty absurdity of Lorrie Moore. But while there may be a layer of quirkiness on top of her writing, not far underneath are more complex, melancholy themes: grief, loneliness, anxiety, illness. The last story “Wonderful Mother” is about a woman who is handed a friend’s baby at a barbecue, loses her balance, and drops the baby — a fatal accident. In her resulting pathological guilt, she marries a professor, who she seems at most ambivalent about, and then goes with him on an academic retreat in Italy. It may sound like a beautiful escape, but instead every night she struggles to make conversation with the other academics, who generally lose interest when they realize she is merely a spouse. Her attempts to maintain their interest get zanier as the nights progress. Read more on my booklog