Birds Of America
Dave Eggers reviews 'Birds of America' by Lorrie Moore
Topics: Lorrie Moore, Books, Entertainment News
The dust jacket of the hardcover “Birds of America,” while well-designed, is printed on uncoated paper, without a protective finish to ward off smudges, fingerprints, etc. So just carrying the book around for one day will leave it looking weathered, beaten, defeated, frumpy. Which is apt, given that Lorrie Moore’s characters are exactly that: weathered, beaten, defeated, frumpy.
Moore’s stories are about these things:
- Longing
- Suffering
- People mistakenly dropping babies on their head in such a way that the baby dies
- Depression, or at least life’s way of sort of stalling at middle age
- Depression, or at least life’s way of sort of stalling during that period just before middle age
- Depression, or at least life’s way of stalling at any age at all, really
- Marriages and affairs that are hopeless but serviceable, like a scratchy, Army-issue blanket
- Creature comforts in the face of unfaceable pathos
- Lives that would warrant suicide if the owner could find the inspiration
- Friends who make you laugh
- Easy puns
- At least one person per story with cancer
- Perhaps a child with cancer, too
Still, though, it’s important to remember that Moore, while fascinated almost exclusively with broken people, is among the very funniest writers alive. She is known for this, and other writers are known for this, too, I guess, but there is perhaps no other writer who balances the two so precariously, so perfectly. She is God to her characters’ Job, throwing at them every conceivable calamity or handicap. In exchange, they get the great lines. For instance, the middle-aged gay man (who is also blind) in “What You Want to Do Fine,” burdened by thoughts of war — this is set just before the Gulf War — and mortality, goes on a road trip with his middle-aged, formerly straight-and-married lover, Mack, and nevertheless ends up attending an AIDS memorial and again and again driving through cemeteries. As a reward, at the St. Louis Arch, Moore allows them this exchange:
“Describe the view to me,” says Quilty when they get out at the top. Mack looks out through the windows. “Adequate,” he says.
Dave Eggers is the author of "You Shall Know Our Velocity" and "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius." More Dave Eggers.
More Related Stories
-
"The Unwinding": What's gone wrong with America
-
Michael J. Fox wins: The best and worst of the new fall shows
-
First look: The Coens' marvelous folk-music odyssey
-
New York's most persecuted subway artist?
-
James Franco: "I really felt I was in conversation with Faulkner"
-
"Jodorowsky's Dune": The sci-fi classic that never was
-
First look: A Chinese art-house director goes for blood
-
Pollution as ancient Chinese art
-
Chimp's blurry pictures to fetch six figures at auction
-
Alex Gibney: Julian Assange has become like "those he despises"
-
Can playing Dots on your iPhone make you smarter?
-
Must do's: What we like this week
-
First look: An Iranian director takes on Western morality
-
JJ Grey: I can't watch the news!
-
Stop comparing everything to "Girls"!
-
Beyoncé reportedly pregnant with second baby
-
Krist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction
-
Amy Poehler: I have no idea what makes a great comedy
-
Justin Bieber has less than 12 hours to save his monkey
-
Benedict Cumberbatch: I would marry Spock
-
First look: Sofia Coppola's chilly, brilliant "Bling Ring"
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Netflix's April Fools' Day categories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Slideshow: Nerd Obama
Most Read
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
-
Is Reddit censoring openly racist users?
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
-
The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch
-
My "truly remarkable" cancer breakthrough
-
When the IRS targeted liberals
-
Krist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction
-
Will you marry me -- once you're done peeing?
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com
50 points51 points52 points | 20 comments
-
Creed Bratton: Closing Creed Thoughts - Michael Bialas: Hangout, Day 2: Tom Petty and the Tontons Aren't That Far Apart
-
Band Member Injured By Bottle During Concert - Doug Schulkind: Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 207 -- Great Free Music Online
-
WATCH: 'Workaholics' Star's Highly Accurate Commencement Line
Comments
0 Comments