by Lorrie Moore
First published 2009
A woman attends a dinner party where every conversation becomes a minefield of unspoken desires. A mother watches her marriage dissolve while her child sleeps upstairs. A teacher grades papers late at night, wondering how her life became so small. Moore's characters navigate the spaces between what they want and what they get, between the people they love and the people who love them back. Her women and men circle each other with hope and suspicion, reaching for connection that always seems just out of reach. These stories capture the particular ache of modern loneliness, the way hearts break not with dramatic gestures but with quiet accumulations of disappointment. Moore writes about ordinary people in ordinary moments that reveal extraordinary depths of longing.
Genres: short-stories, literary-fiction, american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-driven, quiet-drama
Period: 21st-century
672 pages · Paperback · Faber and Faber