Major Issues
Author Links
Essay Questions

Major Issues

"Alternately hilarious and distressing" is one critic’s summation of Lorrie Moore’s fiction. Reviewers and critics have analyzed both the humorous and serious facets of Moore’s writing. Her characters and stories are witty, sarcastic, and satirical. However, pain is revealed to underlie many of the fictional scenarios. Critics have pointed out, for example, that her satire of "How To" books in one collection both ridicules the self-help craze and emphasizes her characters’ isolation through its use of the distant, impersonal "you" pronoun. Moore’s characters are often shown in the process of emotional and physical disintegration. She focuses on women’s relationships: with their lovers, husbands, mothers, and children. Reviewers describe her prose as spare and minimalist, but praise her fully realized characters.

Author Links

About Lorrie Moore
This introductory profile examines Moore’s life and literary career.

Featured Author: Lorrie Moore
Reviews of Moore’s books, plus articles by Moore from the archives of The New York Times.

Moore Better Blues
1998 "Salon" interview in which Moore talks about satirizing academia, literary theory, the burden of being funny, her family, and other topics.

New and Improved Lives
A review of Self-Help, the short story collection in which "How to Become a Writer" was published, which includes Moore’s comments on influential writers.

Bibliography
A list of Moore’s works, interviews, distinctions, and selected criticism.