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Anagrams
Gerard sits, fully clothed, in his empty bathtub and pines for Benna. Neighbors in the same apartment building, they share a wall and Gerard listens for the sound of her toilet flushing. Gerard loves Benna. And then Benna loves Gerard. She listens to him play piano, she teaches poetry and sings at nightclubs.
As their relationships ebbs and flows, through reality and imagination, Lorrie Moore paints a captivating, innovative portrait of men and women in love and not in love. The first novel from a master of contemporary American fiction, Anagrams is a revelatory tale of love gained and lost.
225 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
208 people are currently reading
8433 people want to read
About the author
Lorrie Moore
70 books2,587 followersLORRIE MOORE is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. She is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation fellowship, as well as the PEN/Malamud Award and the Rea Award for her achievement in the short story. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 616 reviews
April 22, 2008
This book was devastating – devastatingly funny, devastatingly honest. And its denouement, or the final unraveling of plot complexities, is devastatingly sad.
Let me back up for a minute. "Anagrams" rearranges and frames three characters dynamically against each other, first in a sequence of short scenes, then in a longer sustained story. So the key characters – like letters in an anagrammatic word – function differently, contribute to a separate-though-equally-plausible reality, when located in varying relationships with each other.
The elements consist, primarily, of Benna, Gerard, and Eleanor. The first two are archetypal lovers and their affairs shift “requitedness”. Eleanor, as friend and rival (both imagined and real), perhaps functions hermeneutically, as a way to comment on the story, present a foil, or just add a third tip to the triangle, echoing the question: why is it so hard for two people to just love each other?
Known principally as a short story writer, Moore creates a novel with a vividly cinematic eye (an image of a menstrual stain on a nightgown waving in a tree at a yardsale resonates with loss and loneliness) paired with pithy humor. Her dialogues (and internal monologues) capture our awkwardness and nerdy, punny humor (“endurance is a country in Central America”).
The characters are often pictured as flailing intellectuals, with jobs like hotel lounge pianist, geriatric aerobics teacher, poetry teacher at a community college, representing, yes, characters of a certain age, angry at themselves for not making harder decisions, for not taking harder chances, and angry at the world for making it so damn hard. I’m quick to point out that it’s not an angsty anger. It’s the anger you feel for someone you want to live with forever, but who always leaves an eggy mess on the kitchen burners and really, why do you always have to clean it up? It’s a relatable, and hilarious, despair.
I read this book very slowly, so it wouldn’t be over soon, so I could savor each bite. And it is biting. The description of the book as a love story, and of the characters as angry, does not quite give the novel credit. Its metapoetic touches, and light sense of balance and boundary, enables it to evade those clichéd generalizations (really, even the generalization of it as a novel is not apt). It’s sensitive, sad, and flirty. It’s solid, addicting and silky. It is, as they say, a “good read”.
Let me back up for a minute. "Anagrams" rearranges and frames three characters dynamically against each other, first in a sequence of short scenes, then in a longer sustained story. So the key characters – like letters in an anagrammatic word – function differently, contribute to a separate-though-equally-plausible reality, when located in varying relationships with each other.
The elements consist, primarily, of Benna, Gerard, and Eleanor. The first two are archetypal lovers and their affairs shift “requitedness”. Eleanor, as friend and rival (both imagined and real), perhaps functions hermeneutically, as a way to comment on the story, present a foil, or just add a third tip to the triangle, echoing the question: why is it so hard for two people to just love each other?
Known principally as a short story writer, Moore creates a novel with a vividly cinematic eye (an image of a menstrual stain on a nightgown waving in a tree at a yardsale resonates with loss and loneliness) paired with pithy humor. Her dialogues (and internal monologues) capture our awkwardness and nerdy, punny humor (“endurance is a country in Central America”).
The characters are often pictured as flailing intellectuals, with jobs like hotel lounge pianist, geriatric aerobics teacher, poetry teacher at a community college, representing, yes, characters of a certain age, angry at themselves for not making harder decisions, for not taking harder chances, and angry at the world for making it so damn hard. I’m quick to point out that it’s not an angsty anger. It’s the anger you feel for someone you want to live with forever, but who always leaves an eggy mess on the kitchen burners and really, why do you always have to clean it up? It’s a relatable, and hilarious, despair.
I read this book very slowly, so it wouldn’t be over soon, so I could savor each bite. And it is biting. The description of the book as a love story, and of the characters as angry, does not quite give the novel credit. Its metapoetic touches, and light sense of balance and boundary, enables it to evade those clichéd generalizations (really, even the generalization of it as a novel is not apt). It’s sensitive, sad, and flirty. It’s solid, addicting and silky. It is, as they say, a “good read”.
May 23, 2011
an•a•gram ( n -gr m ) 1. A word or phrase formed by reordering the letters of another word or phrase, such as satin to stain.However, here in her first novel, short story writer Lorrie Moore (born 1957), reordered not letters but the different scenes in order for her reader to choose the one that he or she likes best. I have seen this approached in a couple of movies but my first time for a novel. Moore’s contemporary and humorous prose makes this approach not only crisp in its freshness but also memorable because of her believable characters.
There are only 3 main characters: the 32-y/o Benna Carpenter who is a poet, a teacher, a nightclub singer or an aerobics instructor depending on the version of the story that you are reading and/or prefer to take away as your favorite version of the story. Then there is Benna’s friend 31-y/o Eleanor who is either imaginary or real, again depending on which version you want to choose. Lastly, Benna’s love interest, 30-y/o Gerard Maines who is the single or divorced guy who lives next to Benna’s apartment with only a thin wall separating their rooms. In fact, Gerard could hear Benna’s toilet bowl when she is flushing it. Here in the Philippines, we have a term for this: “dingding lang ang pagitan (separated only by a wall) that actually came from a semi-erotic (ST – sex trip) movie in the 80’s.
But Anagrams is not an erotic story. It is a bittersweet love story about people in love and falling out of love. Reading it is like watching a romance-comedy movie set in an American city with characters in their last chances to find life-long partners. I would have given it five stars if I read this maybe a couple of decades ago. However, I was still mesmerized by Moore’s innovative approach even if at times the frequent shifts from 1st person to 3rd person and vice versa confused me. However, her imagination on the different versions is something that is commendable since all of them are not only plausible but also funny, playful and poignant that makes it hard for you to choose which version you want to remember for the rest of your life.
Also, unlike some of the novels of Haruki Murakami, who was also first known to be as a short story writer, Anagrams does not give me you that feeling that you are reading short stories merged into a big story just to make up a novel. Regardless of which version you choose or you want to believe in, everything is still coherent and integrated.
If you enjoy stories about single people looking for partners in their late 20's of early 30's, try reading this book. It is a joy to read and you will surely see yourself in one of the versions of the three characters.
I am now looking forward to more Moore books.
August 26, 2021
Lorrie Moore se esta convirtiendo en una de mis escritoras favoritas, de esas que en algún punto voy a perder la objetividad, como si sus textos tuvieran su propio campo de gravedad y yo sea un objeto muy pequeño que se ve atraído a toda velocidad inevitablemente.
January 3, 2023
My first book of 2023 was part of a batch of books I picked up in an excellent second hand bookshop in Brecon while sheltering from the rain awaiting a lift. I chose it on the strength of the title (which would always intrigue a crossword solver) and a memory that my sister recommended Lorrie Moore's short stories to me a few years ago.
The book is clever, entertaining and insightful, but rather difficult to follow, as its central character Benna invents or changes many of its scenes and characters (and even a daughter) to enliven her rather less than fulfilling life. Its chapters are very variable in length, and the final one occupies over half of the book. Each chapter is set at a different stage in Benna's young adulthood, and there is little continuity between them, and although all of the sections involve a man called Gerard and a friend called Eleanor, but their roles in her life shift. There is plenty of wordplay and humour too.
The book is clever, entertaining and insightful, but rather difficult to follow, as its central character Benna invents or changes many of its scenes and characters (and even a daughter) to enliven her rather less than fulfilling life. Its chapters are very variable in length, and the final one occupies over half of the book. Each chapter is set at a different stage in Benna's young adulthood, and there is little continuity between them, and although all of the sections involve a man called Gerard and a friend called Eleanor, but their roles in her life shift. There is plenty of wordplay and humour too.
July 27, 2015
Wanted More from Moore
Lorrie Moore’s short first novel feels more like an amusing, extended exercise – a gimmick – rather than a full novel. Like letters in an anagram, Moore switches characters, professions and relationships.
In the first section, for instance, Benna is a lounge singer and Gerard teaches aerobics to children. In the second, Benna teaches aerobics to seniors, while Gerard is working on a rock version of a Baroque opera. In another, Gerard is a lounge singer who wants to become an opera singer, while Benna teaches at a community college.
Get it?
Their relationship also changes: they’re alternately lovers, FWBs, friends who used to date… A character named Eleanor also pops up in various incarnations, usually as Benna’s friend. And themes like illness and infidelity are thrown into the mix.
In the long, novella-length final section, Moore frequently switches point of view, sometimes Benna’s first person POV, sometimes third. I imagine she’s trying to do something profound with this and all the scrambling of themes and characters, but it’s unclear, and at one point I gave up caring.
The author’s mordant wit and use of wordplay are on full display here. On every page there’s a fun pun or two.
But the result is like eating candy. At first it’s a riot (Yay! Candy for breakfast! Candy for lunch!), but soon the sugar high wears off and you realize you won’t get very far without something substantial in your stomach.
I’ve now read all of Moore’s longer works. She’s a much better short story writer than novelist. I’m going to go back and finish her collections Self-Help and Birds Of America then report back. Some stories from Birds are among my all-time favourites.
In the meantime, no literary candy – at least for a while.
(This is more a 2.5 than a 2, but Moore can do so much better.)
Lorrie Moore’s short first novel feels more like an amusing, extended exercise – a gimmick – rather than a full novel. Like letters in an anagram, Moore switches characters, professions and relationships.
In the first section, for instance, Benna is a lounge singer and Gerard teaches aerobics to children. In the second, Benna teaches aerobics to seniors, while Gerard is working on a rock version of a Baroque opera. In another, Gerard is a lounge singer who wants to become an opera singer, while Benna teaches at a community college.
Get it?
Their relationship also changes: they’re alternately lovers, FWBs, friends who used to date… A character named Eleanor also pops up in various incarnations, usually as Benna’s friend. And themes like illness and infidelity are thrown into the mix.
In the long, novella-length final section, Moore frequently switches point of view, sometimes Benna’s first person POV, sometimes third. I imagine she’s trying to do something profound with this and all the scrambling of themes and characters, but it’s unclear, and at one point I gave up caring.
The author’s mordant wit and use of wordplay are on full display here. On every page there’s a fun pun or two.
But the result is like eating candy. At first it’s a riot (Yay! Candy for breakfast! Candy for lunch!), but soon the sugar high wears off and you realize you won’t get very far without something substantial in your stomach.
I’ve now read all of Moore’s longer works. She’s a much better short story writer than novelist. I’m going to go back and finish her collections Self-Help and Birds Of America then report back. Some stories from Birds are among my all-time favourites.
In the meantime, no literary candy – at least for a while.
(This is more a 2.5 than a 2, but Moore can do so much better.)
August 18, 2011
Margaret Atwood has a great short story called "Happy Endings" that I kept thinking about as I read this book. Read it here and then continue with the review.
Did you read it? Seriously guys, it'll take you like two minutes. I'll wait.
Okay, good. So I don't know which came first, "Happy Endings" or Anagrams, but I feel almost sure that one of them had to influence the other. Anagrams is about two people, Benna and Gerard, who are in love - sort of. When we first meet them, they are living in adjacent apartments which they essentially share. Benna is a nightclub singer, Gerard works with preschoolers. We see them interact, talking about their lives and generally being messed-up people, and then a new chapter starts. In this one, Gerard is a singer and Benna teaches dance to senior citizens. They talk about their lives and are generally messed-up people, and then a new chapter starts. The details of Benna and Gerard's lives change, but the central story stays the same: two lonely, unhappy people are trying to figure out their lives and each other, and not doing a very good job at it.
I make it sound depressing, but it's surprisingly not. Lorrie Moore's characters are smart and witty and sprinkle their conversation with literary puns and play-on-words that are actually entertaining, unlike the work of some pun-loving authors I could name but won't (Did you guess Jasper Fforde? Jasper Fforde was the author I was talking about. It's Jasper FForde.) and she writes with that delightfully bitter, dry, funny voice I'm so fond of:
"One in Modern Dance class in college one sunny September afternoon we had been requested to be leaves tumbling ourselves across the arts quad. I knew how to perform it in a way that prevented embarrassment and indignity: One became a dead leaf, a cement leaf. One lay down on the dying grass and refused to blow and float and tumble. One merely crumpled. One was no fool. One did not listen to the teacher. One did not want to be spotted fluttering around on campus, like the others who were clearly psychotics. One did not like this college. One wanted only to fall in love and get a Marriage Equivalent. One just lay there."
Sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what's going on in the book (especially in the beginning, when I didn't know about the shifting-details thing) and sometimes it's depressing and sometimes it's sort of hard to keep going, but I didn't care because the whole book is full of little spots of brilliance like this:
"I've found that you can best entrap ants with the corpse of another ant. A squashed one of their own in the middle of the floor, and boom, like stubborn Antigones, they rush out to bury their dead brother and get nabbed."
and that made it all worth it.
Did you read it? Seriously guys, it'll take you like two minutes. I'll wait.
Okay, good. So I don't know which came first, "Happy Endings" or Anagrams, but I feel almost sure that one of them had to influence the other. Anagrams is about two people, Benna and Gerard, who are in love - sort of. When we first meet them, they are living in adjacent apartments which they essentially share. Benna is a nightclub singer, Gerard works with preschoolers. We see them interact, talking about their lives and generally being messed-up people, and then a new chapter starts. In this one, Gerard is a singer and Benna teaches dance to senior citizens. They talk about their lives and are generally messed-up people, and then a new chapter starts. The details of Benna and Gerard's lives change, but the central story stays the same: two lonely, unhappy people are trying to figure out their lives and each other, and not doing a very good job at it.
I make it sound depressing, but it's surprisingly not. Lorrie Moore's characters are smart and witty and sprinkle their conversation with literary puns and play-on-words that are actually entertaining, unlike the work of some pun-loving authors I could name but won't (Did you guess Jasper Fforde? Jasper Fforde was the author I was talking about. It's Jasper FForde.) and she writes with that delightfully bitter, dry, funny voice I'm so fond of:
"One in Modern Dance class in college one sunny September afternoon we had been requested to be leaves tumbling ourselves across the arts quad. I knew how to perform it in a way that prevented embarrassment and indignity: One became a dead leaf, a cement leaf. One lay down on the dying grass and refused to blow and float and tumble. One merely crumpled. One was no fool. One did not listen to the teacher. One did not want to be spotted fluttering around on campus, like the others who were clearly psychotics. One did not like this college. One wanted only to fall in love and get a Marriage Equivalent. One just lay there."
Sometimes it's hard to figure out exactly what's going on in the book (especially in the beginning, when I didn't know about the shifting-details thing) and sometimes it's depressing and sometimes it's sort of hard to keep going, but I didn't care because the whole book is full of little spots of brilliance like this:
"I've found that you can best entrap ants with the corpse of another ant. A squashed one of their own in the middle of the floor, and boom, like stubborn Antigones, they rush out to bury their dead brother and get nabbed."
and that made it all worth it.
January 24, 2014
Today I thought I'd lost my copy of Anagrams and a little voice asked me if that would be so bad a thing to happen. As I said in my update, I was getting the idea that Moore is less. (Er, is that still funny?)
Sorry Lorrie. I am the swine before which you cast your pearl. Oink.
Anagram : List your novel really though quite Christmas and smirky monotonously please so aggravating make mine a Harvey Wallbanger
is an anagram of
I thought your novel was monotonously smirky and quite aggravating but I love some of your stories so please don't cross me off your Christmas card list.
Sorry Lorrie. I am the swine before which you cast your pearl. Oink.
Anagram : List your novel really though quite Christmas and smirky monotonously please so aggravating make mine a Harvey Wallbanger
is an anagram of
I thought your novel was monotonously smirky and quite aggravating but I love some of your stories so please don't cross me off your Christmas card list.
March 21, 2020
Quiero ser amigo de Lorrie Moore.
October 2, 2023
"Anagrams" has a very unusual plot: in the course of five chapters - four of which take up only a few pages, while the last takes up over 150 - the fates of the protagonists are rearranged, modified and balanced between hypothetical and factual.
The main character is Benna, who lives in America around 1980, who is sometimes childless, sometimes lives together with an imaginary daughter, sometimes is with Gerard and sometimes has only a platonic relationship with him, sometimes is a nightclub singer and sometimes a teacher of poetry. Just as her and the other characters' fates shift - according to an anagram - the narrator jumps between the first-person and the third-person narrator, there are divergences regarding the personalities, who are dissected and reassembled.
All in all, it is an interesting structure that often portrays the fragile web of life with its (missed) possibilities, desires, fears and our human fallibilities very authentically. In doing so, Moore repeatedly makes use of black humour, sometimes somewhat exaggerated wordplay and creative, apt metaphors and comparisons. Sometimes it is also deeply sad.
The book has something of a fish about it. It shimmers in different colours and when you try to grab it, it slips away. Once you have it on your plate and want to eat it too quickly, the bones get in the way; but in the right ambience it tastes delicious.
The main character is Benna, who lives in America around 1980, who is sometimes childless, sometimes lives together with an imaginary daughter, sometimes is with Gerard and sometimes has only a platonic relationship with him, sometimes is a nightclub singer and sometimes a teacher of poetry. Just as her and the other characters' fates shift - according to an anagram - the narrator jumps between the first-person and the third-person narrator, there are divergences regarding the personalities, who are dissected and reassembled.
All in all, it is an interesting structure that often portrays the fragile web of life with its (missed) possibilities, desires, fears and our human fallibilities very authentically. In doing so, Moore repeatedly makes use of black humour, sometimes somewhat exaggerated wordplay and creative, apt metaphors and comparisons. Sometimes it is also deeply sad.
The book has something of a fish about it. It shimmers in different colours and when you try to grab it, it slips away. Once you have it on your plate and want to eat it too quickly, the bones get in the way; but in the right ambience it tastes delicious.
February 5, 2023
Me gusta cómo piensa Lorrie Moore. Tiene ocurrencias muy simpáticas. Creo que la idea de los Anagramas en la novela es una excusa para contar cinco historias con una temática similar. Son los mismos personajes en todas pero podrían ser otros.
Los primeros relatos están buenos pero el último, el más largo, es el que más me gustó. Tardé en meterme, me aburrió al principio pero cuando logré entender a la protagonista todo cambió.
No solo son historias divertidas, también hay profundidad en sus personajes y hacen una muy buena combinación.
Los primeros relatos están buenos pero el último, el más largo, es el que más me gustó. Tardé en meterme, me aburrió al principio pero cuando logré entender a la protagonista todo cambió.
No solo son historias divertidas, también hay profundidad en sus personajes y hacen una muy buena combinación.
September 30, 2008
Firstly, I am biased not only because I love Lorrie Moore but also because my first name is an anagram (I am named after my Grandmother, whose name was Edna).
***
This book is strange without being alienating, and while I was nervous that the "anagramming" of characters would annoy me, I actually got into the rearranging of facts and desires that Moore plays with--it reminded me very much of the process of writing, of those moments when your character can do this or this or this, and you have to make a decision, effectively leaving other fictional lives behind. Here, Moore has given her characters a variety of existences and situations, calling into question the idea of authenticity and truth in fiction writing. I found myself favoring one version of a character over another, and I would have to stop and ask myself why this was. I also loved the rearranging of images throughout--the way, for instance, Moore used "bathmat" as a metaphor in a number of different ways.
With all these ideas strolling through the book, Moore was smart enough to also give us great humor and beautiful prose, making the reading experience a joy. Lorrie Moore is one of my favorite writers because she is so damn funny and her cleverness and ability to turn a phrase feels effortless. I am in love with her puns, her similes, her whimsy, her bitterness.
My complaint with the novel is that the one storyline that got the most pages didn't interest me as much as some of the others, and although this section's shifting third to first person point of view felt meaningful at the end, it was otherwise jarring and overly cutesy for me. Also, because of the nature of the book, if I went too long not reading it, I had a difficult time coming back to the characters and feeling invested in them.
And now I will rewrite one passage that made me laugh out loud in the bathtub. There are other ones, but you will have to read the book the find them:
"The problem with a beautiful woman is that she makes everyone around her feel hopelessly masculine, which if you're already male to begin with poses no particular problem. But if you're anyone else, your whole sexual identity gets dragged into the principal's office: "So what's this I hear about you prancing around, masquerading as a woman?" You are answerless. You are sitting on your hands. You are praying for your breasts to grow, your hair to perk up" (48).
***
This book is strange without being alienating, and while I was nervous that the "anagramming" of characters would annoy me, I actually got into the rearranging of facts and desires that Moore plays with--it reminded me very much of the process of writing, of those moments when your character can do this or this or this, and you have to make a decision, effectively leaving other fictional lives behind. Here, Moore has given her characters a variety of existences and situations, calling into question the idea of authenticity and truth in fiction writing. I found myself favoring one version of a character over another, and I would have to stop and ask myself why this was. I also loved the rearranging of images throughout--the way, for instance, Moore used "bathmat" as a metaphor in a number of different ways.
With all these ideas strolling through the book, Moore was smart enough to also give us great humor and beautiful prose, making the reading experience a joy. Lorrie Moore is one of my favorite writers because she is so damn funny and her cleverness and ability to turn a phrase feels effortless. I am in love with her puns, her similes, her whimsy, her bitterness.
My complaint with the novel is that the one storyline that got the most pages didn't interest me as much as some of the others, and although this section's shifting third to first person point of view felt meaningful at the end, it was otherwise jarring and overly cutesy for me. Also, because of the nature of the book, if I went too long not reading it, I had a difficult time coming back to the characters and feeling invested in them.
And now I will rewrite one passage that made me laugh out loud in the bathtub. There are other ones, but you will have to read the book the find them:
"The problem with a beautiful woman is that she makes everyone around her feel hopelessly masculine, which if you're already male to begin with poses no particular problem. But if you're anyone else, your whole sexual identity gets dragged into the principal's office: "So what's this I hear about you prancing around, masquerading as a woman?" You are answerless. You are sitting on your hands. You are praying for your breasts to grow, your hair to perk up" (48).
December 8, 2010
An extremely well-written, provocative, witty, and thought-provoking novel about the vagaries of modern life. I couldn't write like this even in my dreams. The fact that anyone can is a marvel to me.
I am indebted to Stephanie for her insightful review of this book, without which I would not have known about the magical prose of Lorrie Moore. I will certainly read more of her work in the near future.
Here she paints a complex, layered picture of the real and not-so-real aspects of three lives. In so doing, she takes the reader on a true voyage of the mind that is irresistible, and alternately hilarious and frightening. To read it is to learn while feeling.
I wish I could rate it 4 1/2 stars. I withheld the 5th star only because I found some of the darker passages quite disturbing, and some may wish to avoid a book that puts a little 'too much perspective' on modern life. On the other hand, these reactions were likely just what the author had in mind when she was writing.
Overall, very highly recommended for those who love the great writers, and can handle the bumpy ride.
I am indebted to Stephanie for her insightful review of this book, without which I would not have known about the magical prose of Lorrie Moore. I will certainly read more of her work in the near future.
Here she paints a complex, layered picture of the real and not-so-real aspects of three lives. In so doing, she takes the reader on a true voyage of the mind that is irresistible, and alternately hilarious and frightening. To read it is to learn while feeling.
I wish I could rate it 4 1/2 stars. I withheld the 5th star only because I found some of the darker passages quite disturbing, and some may wish to avoid a book that puts a little 'too much perspective' on modern life. On the other hand, these reactions were likely just what the author had in mind when she was writing.
Overall, very highly recommended for those who love the great writers, and can handle the bumpy ride.
January 25, 2011
I struggled with this book a lot. The beginning was good but then around the middle it got really confusing to me. What was real, what wasn't? I'm still confused, actually, about when Gerard was her teaching assistant? I don't know. But, in the end it really all paid off for me. At first I gave it 3 stars, then it crept up to 4, and now I'm putting it at 5 because it just keeps growing in my mind, even several days later. I do think the beginning and middle parts function more/better as short stories, but the end section is really worth the confusion you feel trying to connect the beginning.
Also, I really love reading things that play with language.
Also, I really love reading things that play with language.
April 29, 2017
Lorrie Moore’s Anagrams is nothing short of a masterpiece––the perfect book to save me from of a recent string of novels that didn’t cut the mustard. A befitting analysis would require a high degree of literary scrutiny, something I am probably too many years removed from my college days to muster. But I will trot out what I can.
As one might expect from the title, Anagrams is a hard book to pin down. In its simplest form, it is a novel about love and loss, and how those things are just as much imaginary as they are real. The story focuses on Benna and Gerard. These sometime-lovers are locked in orbit, like two galaxies colliding, their constituent parts too scattered for intimate contact even as they tear each other apart. Part One offers several scenarios where Benna and Gerard are both present, but with slightly different personal connections, locations, and occupations. Each of these anagramic iterations creates its own insular universe while still bleeding thematically and emotionally into the others. In Part Two, we get a more consistent (although still untraditional) storyline that carries the reader through the remainder of the novel. Such stylistic changeups often prove jarring, but in this case Moore transforms something already great into something undeniably brilliant.
Moore’s prose is impeccable, displaying deft pacing and emotional punch that many modern authors imitate but few perfect. It is not an exaggeration to say this is one of the most exquisitely-written novels I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"Where does love go? When something you have taped on the wall falls off, what has happened to the stickum? It has relaxed. It has accumulated an assortment of hairs and fuzzies. It has said Fuck it and given up. It doesn’t go anywhere special, it’s just gone. Energy is created, and then it is destroyed. So much for the laws of physics. So much for chemistry. So much for not so much." (75, emphasis hers)
"Sometimes as I’m drifting toward sleep, in the beginnings of that dissolution, I wonder where I am, when this is, and realize that at these moments I could be anywhere, anytime, for all I know: eight and napping in the trailer, my broken arm in a cast, or thirteen at night clutching a pillow to my neck, or twenty in the arms of my boyfriend, or twenty-seven in the arms of my husband, or thirty-three next to my imaginary daughter; at every place in the whole spinning shape that is my life, when I am falling asleep, I am the same person, an identical awareness, the same fuzzball of mind, the same muck of nerves, all along the line. I forage through my life and everywhere––there, there, and there––it is only me in it, the very same me, the same harmless lump, the same soggy weirdo, the same sleeping, breathing bun." (104)
"At night it’s cold and I sit out on the steps of my front porch, listen to the leaves drop, like the beginning of rain. I suck on my cigarette, its false restorative, the dry papery sponge, the sucking finger of love. I exhale in the direction of the streetlight and what I see, what is formed, is a sort of halo, a luminous flower, splayed ghostly starfish! for a moment and then it floats off into the hydrangea. I repeat this, breathing on my cigarette, blowing upward into the light: At night all ghosts, all angels, haloes, luminous flowers are this nicotined dust against the streetlamp." (113)
"A line [of poetry] is like a lifeboat––only a limited number of words get to go in it and you have to decide which word-lives are most valuable; the rest die." (116)
"All of life seems to me a strange dream about losing things you never had to begin with. About trying to find your glasses when you can’t see because you don’t have your glasses on. That is what it seems." (206)
"I think, This is why a woman makes things up: Because when she dies, those lives she never got to are all going down with her. All those possibilities will just sit there like a bunch of schoolkids with their hands raised and uncalled on––each knowing, really knowing, the answer." (225, emphasis hers)
As you might have gathered, Anagrams is a very sad book. But it is also hilarious––laugh out loud, tummy-rippling funny. Some of the wordplay is as good as anything in Shakespeare, and not a page goes by without something to tickle, tantalize, or terrify the reader’s psyche. Stunning insights about the nature of feminism, sex, Marxism, racism, war, identity, education, poetry, and many other subjects abound.
Anagrams rearranged and returned me to myself in the way that only a perfect novel can. Moore’s passion and confusion saturate the text. It is one of those rarefied works that makes love to the absurdity of consciousness and the universe that blindly birthed it, wrenching meaning from every atom in defiance of the futility that dominates the cold darkness of real life.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.
As one might expect from the title, Anagrams is a hard book to pin down. In its simplest form, it is a novel about love and loss, and how those things are just as much imaginary as they are real. The story focuses on Benna and Gerard. These sometime-lovers are locked in orbit, like two galaxies colliding, their constituent parts too scattered for intimate contact even as they tear each other apart. Part One offers several scenarios where Benna and Gerard are both present, but with slightly different personal connections, locations, and occupations. Each of these anagramic iterations creates its own insular universe while still bleeding thematically and emotionally into the others. In Part Two, we get a more consistent (although still untraditional) storyline that carries the reader through the remainder of the novel. Such stylistic changeups often prove jarring, but in this case Moore transforms something already great into something undeniably brilliant.
Moore’s prose is impeccable, displaying deft pacing and emotional punch that many modern authors imitate but few perfect. It is not an exaggeration to say this is one of the most exquisitely-written novels I have ever had the pleasure to encounter. Here are some of my favorite passages:
"Where does love go? When something you have taped on the wall falls off, what has happened to the stickum? It has relaxed. It has accumulated an assortment of hairs and fuzzies. It has said Fuck it and given up. It doesn’t go anywhere special, it’s just gone. Energy is created, and then it is destroyed. So much for the laws of physics. So much for chemistry. So much for not so much." (75, emphasis hers)
"Sometimes as I’m drifting toward sleep, in the beginnings of that dissolution, I wonder where I am, when this is, and realize that at these moments I could be anywhere, anytime, for all I know: eight and napping in the trailer, my broken arm in a cast, or thirteen at night clutching a pillow to my neck, or twenty in the arms of my boyfriend, or twenty-seven in the arms of my husband, or thirty-three next to my imaginary daughter; at every place in the whole spinning shape that is my life, when I am falling asleep, I am the same person, an identical awareness, the same fuzzball of mind, the same muck of nerves, all along the line. I forage through my life and everywhere––there, there, and there––it is only me in it, the very same me, the same harmless lump, the same soggy weirdo, the same sleeping, breathing bun." (104)
"At night it’s cold and I sit out on the steps of my front porch, listen to the leaves drop, like the beginning of rain. I suck on my cigarette, its false restorative, the dry papery sponge, the sucking finger of love. I exhale in the direction of the streetlight and what I see, what is formed, is a sort of halo, a luminous flower, splayed ghostly starfish! for a moment and then it floats off into the hydrangea. I repeat this, breathing on my cigarette, blowing upward into the light: At night all ghosts, all angels, haloes, luminous flowers are this nicotined dust against the streetlamp." (113)
"A line [of poetry] is like a lifeboat––only a limited number of words get to go in it and you have to decide which word-lives are most valuable; the rest die." (116)
"All of life seems to me a strange dream about losing things you never had to begin with. About trying to find your glasses when you can’t see because you don’t have your glasses on. That is what it seems." (206)
"I think, This is why a woman makes things up: Because when she dies, those lives she never got to are all going down with her. All those possibilities will just sit there like a bunch of schoolkids with their hands raised and uncalled on––each knowing, really knowing, the answer." (225, emphasis hers)
As you might have gathered, Anagrams is a very sad book. But it is also hilarious––laugh out loud, tummy-rippling funny. Some of the wordplay is as good as anything in Shakespeare, and not a page goes by without something to tickle, tantalize, or terrify the reader’s psyche. Stunning insights about the nature of feminism, sex, Marxism, racism, war, identity, education, poetry, and many other subjects abound.
Anagrams rearranged and returned me to myself in the way that only a perfect novel can. Moore’s passion and confusion saturate the text. It is one of those rarefied works that makes love to the absurdity of consciousness and the universe that blindly birthed it, wrenching meaning from every atom in defiance of the futility that dominates the cold darkness of real life.
This review was originally published on my blog, words&dirt.
December 22, 2023
faced with the large questions of life and not finding large answers one must settle for makeshift, little answers, just as on any given day a person must at least eat Something, even if it was not marvelous or huge. p4
Things, however, rarely happened the way you understood them. p33
Meaning, if it existed at all, was unstable, could not survive the slightest reshifting of letters. p130
Samganar! Will the real Benna please come forward?
Never mind; reality is over-rated and by rearranging a few details, voila! A whole new life.
The difference between a poet and a non poet is that a non-poet believes he will remember everything the next day without getting up, switching on the light, and writing it down. p105
A raucous debut for a wild imagination, this book worked better for me when I stood back a bit from trying to figure it all out.
It's important not to be afraid of looking like an idiot. p24
All the world is a stage we are going through. p178
Things, however, rarely happened the way you understood them. p33
Meaning, if it existed at all, was unstable, could not survive the slightest reshifting of letters. p130
Samganar! Will the real Benna please come forward?
Never mind; reality is over-rated and by rearranging a few details, voila! A whole new life.
The difference between a poet and a non poet is that a non-poet believes he will remember everything the next day without getting up, switching on the light, and writing it down. p105
A raucous debut for a wild imagination, this book worked better for me when I stood back a bit from trying to figure it all out.
It's important not to be afraid of looking like an idiot. p24
All the world is a stage we are going through. p178
December 12, 2007
"life is sad. here is someone."
Don't let this book fool you. You might pick it up and be humored by intellectual puns and clever turns of phrase before you realize you are reading what appears to be the highly conventional story of a woman in an unfortunate relationship. Like Todd Solondz's film Storytelling this novel plays with notions of fact and fiction. It isn't as simple as having a reliable or unreliable narrator, it's that everything said can mean something else, and perhaps even people are imperfectly rearranged anagrams of each other, leaving a letter out here and there, a fact twisted this way or that. Lorrie Moore is not only a brilliant writer but also someone with great insight to the psychological tricks and and mishaps that make us crazy, lonely and ill-informed as to what ever really happened. life is sad. here is something to make the sadness pretty.
Don't let this book fool you. You might pick it up and be humored by intellectual puns and clever turns of phrase before you realize you are reading what appears to be the highly conventional story of a woman in an unfortunate relationship. Like Todd Solondz's film Storytelling this novel plays with notions of fact and fiction. It isn't as simple as having a reliable or unreliable narrator, it's that everything said can mean something else, and perhaps even people are imperfectly rearranged anagrams of each other, leaving a letter out here and there, a fact twisted this way or that. Lorrie Moore is not only a brilliant writer but also someone with great insight to the psychological tricks and and mishaps that make us crazy, lonely and ill-informed as to what ever really happened. life is sad. here is something to make the sadness pretty.
June 14, 2021
Que maravillosa que es Lorrie Moore, crea unos personajes que una los siente tan cercanos. Benna en este caso es una mina que constantemente se replantea pequeños grandes detalles de la vida cotidiana, un monologo interior lleno de chispa, hilarante, al mismo tiempo es un toca bastante los estigmas socialmente construidos de lo que debe ser una mujer cuando tiene 36 años.
Ame profundamente esta novela y espero que haya mas Lorrie en mi futuro.
Ame profundamente esta novela y espero que haya mas Lorrie en mi futuro.
June 21, 2020
Mientras leía este libro emparentaba a Lorrie Moore con Lucía Berlin. Moore no salía favorecida en la comparación, debo decir. Como si la idea detrás de Anagramas me pareciera brillante, pero su ejecución me aburriera un poco. Calculo que hacer una comparativa es una tremenda estupidez, pero así me salió.
Tiene momentos muy buenos este libro. De hecho, aquí hay uno de mis favoritos:
"La gente no se casaba porque hubieran encontrado a alguien. No era una búsqueda del tesoro. Era más bien como el juego de las sillas: donde fuera que estuvieras cuando la música de estar soltero paraba, allí tenías que sentarte."
Pero en muchos otros momentos me aburrí y leí por encima.
¿Cómo llega este libro entonces a las cuatro estrellas? Llega construyendo algo en sus entrañas. Algo que se esboza, incluso se dice, pero que yo no comprendí del todo hasta el final.
Y ahí es cuando lo que parecía haberse construido se me reveló como un anagrama de algo sencillamente demoledor.
Me gustan los libros demoledores. Creo que éste es uno de ellos.
Tiene momentos muy buenos este libro. De hecho, aquí hay uno de mis favoritos:
"La gente no se casaba porque hubieran encontrado a alguien. No era una búsqueda del tesoro. Era más bien como el juego de las sillas: donde fuera que estuvieras cuando la música de estar soltero paraba, allí tenías que sentarte."
Pero en muchos otros momentos me aburrí y leí por encima.
¿Cómo llega este libro entonces a las cuatro estrellas? Llega construyendo algo en sus entrañas. Algo que se esboza, incluso se dice, pero que yo no comprendí del todo hasta el final.
Y ahí es cuando lo que parecía haberse construido se me reveló como un anagrama de algo sencillamente demoledor.
Me gustan los libros demoledores. Creo que éste es uno de ellos.
August 26, 2008
I seriously think if I could choose to write like *anyone*, it would be Lorrie Moore.
Moore does something amazing in the beginning of this book; she rearranges the characters' lives over and over in various short stories--hence the name Anagrams. Then, the last piece in the book is a novella using the same characters. Like all of Moore, it is by turns laugh out loud funny and heartbreaking.
My only fear in recommending this book to students is that they will think I'm the main character in the novella. I swear--that is NOT me!
Moore does something amazing in the beginning of this book; she rearranges the characters' lives over and over in various short stories--hence the name Anagrams. Then, the last piece in the book is a novella using the same characters. Like all of Moore, it is by turns laugh out loud funny and heartbreaking.
My only fear in recommending this book to students is that they will think I'm the main character in the novella. I swear--that is NOT me!
January 11, 2024
Habiendo terminado de leerlo, sigo preguntándome cómo es que hace tan poco tiempo escuché hablar de esta autora. ¿Por qué no está mucho más al alcance de la mano en las librerías? Me encantó Anagramas y no veo la hora de ir por todo lo demás. Destaco especialmente el humor de Lorrie Moore, es como si hubiera encontrado un alma gemela que entiende las cosas que me dan risa mejor que nadie. Y las comparaciones que mete, uff. Es justo el libro que quería leer y no lo sabía. También es uno de esos libros con los que una aprende a escribir.
April 27, 2020
Pues para ser su primera novela me ha gustado más
August 24, 2025
Life is sad. Here is someone.
December 21, 2020
Un anagrama es un procedimiento que consiste en crear una palabra a partir de la reordenación de las letras de otra, como por ejemplo, Roma y amor. En este caso, la autora no reordena letras sino que utiliza los mismos personajes principales para crear cinco historias diferentes. El libro es muy original debido a que tiene una estructura muy novedosa ya que se lo puede leer como una novela o como una antología.
¿Cuántas vidas puede vivir una persona? ¿Cuántas combinaciones posibles podemos armar con las personas de nuestro entorno?
En cada una de las versiones, los personajes asumen distintos roles, trabajos, objetivos y se relacionan entre sí de manera diferente y si bien, los personajes se desarman y rearman en cada historia, nunca pierden su esencia común que funciona como un hilo conductor invisible.
Lorrie Moore dice "la vida es triste, aquí hay alguien" y sus personajes ejemplifican esa frase con sus relaciones, no están satisfechos en ellas pero tampoco son tan osados como para dar el paso y salir. Entre la felicidad y la soledad, los personajes deciden sacrificar a la primera en pos de evitar, a toda costa, a la segunda. Es fácil empatizar con ellos porque no son grandes héroes, al contrario, son solitarios y vulnerables, con inquietudes, contradicciones, deseos y frustraciones, como el propio ser humano.
La novela se destaca por la originalidad del tono, un humor irónico, por el excelente manejo del lenguaje y por la mirada certera y perspicaz que tiene la autora estadounidense.
Los jóvenes mantienen las ventanas abiertas para que el mundo pueda entrar y salir volando. Cuando llegas a los treinta, eres menos hospitalario; empiezas a cerrar las ventanas. Has tenido suficiente del mundo; piensas que tienes todo lo que necesitas para el resto de la invernal vida. No puedes dejar entrar ninguna otra cosa pues nunca llegarás a entenderla. Y la pesadilla es, por supuesto, que mientras comienzas a cerrar tu casa, te das vuelta y de repente ves, sin aliento, que tú eres la única cosa allí dentro.
¿Cuántas vidas puede vivir una persona? ¿Cuántas combinaciones posibles podemos armar con las personas de nuestro entorno?
En cada una de las versiones, los personajes asumen distintos roles, trabajos, objetivos y se relacionan entre sí de manera diferente y si bien, los personajes se desarman y rearman en cada historia, nunca pierden su esencia común que funciona como un hilo conductor invisible.
Lorrie Moore dice "la vida es triste, aquí hay alguien" y sus personajes ejemplifican esa frase con sus relaciones, no están satisfechos en ellas pero tampoco son tan osados como para dar el paso y salir. Entre la felicidad y la soledad, los personajes deciden sacrificar a la primera en pos de evitar, a toda costa, a la segunda. Es fácil empatizar con ellos porque no son grandes héroes, al contrario, son solitarios y vulnerables, con inquietudes, contradicciones, deseos y frustraciones, como el propio ser humano.
La novela se destaca por la originalidad del tono, un humor irónico, por el excelente manejo del lenguaje y por la mirada certera y perspicaz que tiene la autora estadounidense.
Los jóvenes mantienen las ventanas abiertas para que el mundo pueda entrar y salir volando. Cuando llegas a los treinta, eres menos hospitalario; empiezas a cerrar las ventanas. Has tenido suficiente del mundo; piensas que tienes todo lo que necesitas para el resto de la invernal vida. No puedes dejar entrar ninguna otra cosa pues nunca llegarás a entenderla. Y la pesadilla es, por supuesto, que mientras comienzas a cerrar tu casa, te das vuelta y de repente ves, sin aliento, que tú eres la única cosa allí dentro.
October 21, 2015
I'm now at a point where I have so much love for Lorrie Moore that I'm not entirely sure that I'm able to review her that incisively now. Anagrams is an early novel/linked short stories and it definitely has a less polished feel to her more recent collections of short stories, which I find hard to fault. This lack of polish and sense of trying things out is perhaps why it has slightly mixed reviews. And I would agree that the concept of Anagrams - looking at roughly the same character, Benna, from different angles, in different anagrammatic combinations if you will - is slightly cleverer than its execution. We encounter Benna in every story but she's ever so slightly different - alternately a singer, lover, teacher, friend, always linked to the characters Gerard and Eleanor (who themselves change from story to story). Overall though, I actually found this worked well and thought that it gave Moore the scope to put her creation in lots of different scenarios and see how she'd react to them. Logically, this wouldn't of course have worked in one straightforward novel, unless it decided to embrace the supernatural. The bulk of Anagrams is the final story, which is around 170 pages long. This gives Benna greater depth and allows Moore to build on the shape-shifting of the shorter stories to create a character who is still a bit of an anagram insofar as she has no idea who she is or wants to be. Rooting this concept in one narrative gives it a great deal of pathos - Benna can't escape from herself or recreate her personality, no matter how much she wants to. Her failure at relationships and her inability to succeed in her career are direct results of this and these difficulties are relayed both humorously and painfully (a particular talent that Moore has - combining the light and the dark of daily life). Perhaps the ending is a little melodramatic but I found it deeply moving and was really reluctant to let go of Benna - every version of her.
May 30, 2020
Leí esta novela y empecé a notar una especie de confusión, un juego entre los personajes, las historias de ambos, la historia que cambia, la historia que se desmorona. Una novela atípica, perfecta, con reflexiones muy profundas.
La soledad que inunda las páginas y las vidas de los personajes. “Mi vida, lo que he vivido hasta ahora, se desmorona desde el mismísimo centro y los pedazos se alejan flotando hasta una mínima distancia y se quedan allí, aserrados, desunidos, muertos”, dice Benna.
Simplemente, hermosa.
La soledad que inunda las páginas y las vidas de los personajes. “Mi vida, lo que he vivido hasta ahora, se desmorona desde el mismísimo centro y los pedazos se alejan flotando hasta una mínima distancia y se quedan allí, aserrados, desunidos, muertos”, dice Benna.
Simplemente, hermosa.
Read
September 19, 2025Few thoughts:
- I don’t like feeling like I was tricked into reading short stories
- Especially because I don’t often go for short stories because I don’t like having to constantly reset my expectations within a single book
- - I get particularly disappointed when a short story is really good, and I feel like it should have been expanded into a full novel
- The fundamental problem with Anagrams (for me) is that several of the early story seeds that were scattered around the metaphorical field of the books potential had more promise than the novella that eventually grew at the back of the book.
- Couple that with a loser protagonist a la 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon but without the jokes constantly firing off and landing, you get a depressing sad-sack book.
- - Anagrams’ cosmology is so Eeyore-like that I felt like the book was trying to infect me with its cynicism and low estimation of life which was draining. I tend to like my media to be aspirational and uplift oriented though so take that with a grain of salt.
- I don’t like feeling like I was tricked into reading short stories
- Especially because I don’t often go for short stories because I don’t like having to constantly reset my expectations within a single book
- - I get particularly disappointed when a short story is really good, and I feel like it should have been expanded into a full novel
- The fundamental problem with Anagrams (for me) is that several of the early story seeds that were scattered around the metaphorical field of the books potential had more promise than the novella that eventually grew at the back of the book.
- Couple that with a loser protagonist a la 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon but without the jokes constantly firing off and landing, you get a depressing sad-sack book.
- - Anagrams’ cosmology is so Eeyore-like that I felt like the book was trying to infect me with its cynicism and low estimation of life which was draining. I tend to like my media to be aspirational and uplift oriented though so take that with a grain of salt.
March 10, 2008
The concept of this book is intriguing and for the most part well executed. The relationship between a woman, Benna, and a man, Gerard, is described in six different "possible lives" or what Moore calls anagrams: jumbled up versions of the same people and ingredients, rearranged into six different plot lines. The last one is the longest -- maybe it is the "true" one, maybe it isn't, but it is unequivocally the saddest. I was just going along with this book for a while, enjoying the humor, and then all at once it sidewinded me in the gut. Be forewarned: it's sad. At best, Moore hits life on the head completely:
"I could not be enough of the world for him. A woman could never be enough of the world, I thought, though that was what man desired of her, though she flap her arms frantically trying."
At worst, I kept getting a mental image of the Carrie Fischer character in When Harry Met Sally (which is a movie I hate) sitting in a diner with her girl friend, making penis jokes that are slightly too clever and refined for real life. Moore's prose is packed to the gills with clever wordplay. It starts out enjoyable but becomes a little nauseating with repetition. A little less Miranda July a little more Ernest Hemingway, I found myself thinking, and felt like an asshole for thinking that. But I think you know what I mean.
Still, I liked this well enough and would like to check out some of her other stuff in the near future. Until then, I am just going to be sitting in that corner over there, actively dreading my 30s.
"I could not be enough of the world for him. A woman could never be enough of the world, I thought, though that was what man desired of her, though she flap her arms frantically trying."
At worst, I kept getting a mental image of the Carrie Fischer character in When Harry Met Sally (which is a movie I hate) sitting in a diner with her girl friend, making penis jokes that are slightly too clever and refined for real life. Moore's prose is packed to the gills with clever wordplay. It starts out enjoyable but becomes a little nauseating with repetition. A little less Miranda July a little more Ernest Hemingway, I found myself thinking, and felt like an asshole for thinking that. But I think you know what I mean.
Still, I liked this well enough and would like to check out some of her other stuff in the near future. Until then, I am just going to be sitting in that corner over there, actively dreading my 30s.
January 5, 2012
This is the Lorrie Moore I love. There is essentially nothing wrong with this book. You couldn't find a flaw if you tried.
Anagrams follows the stories of Benna and Gerard, who, in a strange mash-up of scenarios, are poetry teachers, lounge singers, piano players, neighbors, parents, friends, lovers. In love and not in love. Together and then alone. The book plots the course of their relationship as it might take place if Gerard was in love with Benna, fully-clothed in his bathtub and listening for her to come home to her neighboring apartment; if Benna was in love with Gerard and Gerard left anyway, sold their belongings at a yard sale and then took the dog with him; if Benna was widowed and Gerard just a friend, the two of them meeting every morning for breakfast to discuss their most recent lovers. When Benna has a daughter, Moore tells us up front that the little girl is imaginary, just fiction. But ten pages later we're so wrapped up in the absolute devotion and devastation of the intertwined relationships of the novel that we don't even know what is real, what is love, what is loss.
It's a gorgeous book. The entirety of it can be summed up in six words repeated throughout the novel: "Life is sad. Here is someone."
Anagrams follows the stories of Benna and Gerard, who, in a strange mash-up of scenarios, are poetry teachers, lounge singers, piano players, neighbors, parents, friends, lovers. In love and not in love. Together and then alone. The book plots the course of their relationship as it might take place if Gerard was in love with Benna, fully-clothed in his bathtub and listening for her to come home to her neighboring apartment; if Benna was in love with Gerard and Gerard left anyway, sold their belongings at a yard sale and then took the dog with him; if Benna was widowed and Gerard just a friend, the two of them meeting every morning for breakfast to discuss their most recent lovers. When Benna has a daughter, Moore tells us up front that the little girl is imaginary, just fiction. But ten pages later we're so wrapped up in the absolute devotion and devastation of the intertwined relationships of the novel that we don't even know what is real, what is love, what is loss.
It's a gorgeous book. The entirety of it can be summed up in six words repeated throughout the novel: "Life is sad. Here is someone."
June 17, 2017
Not only does Moore have the rare talent of being able to pull off a long series of puns with panache and grace, but she's pulled off a structural coup that has crushed my heart. This book, a blend of impeccable comic timing and sadness that loops back and references itself repeatedly, and a net of repeated phrases that build on themselves Vonnegut-style, merits a one-sitting read to catch all the nuances.
March 20, 2022
4.5 Lorrie Moore is a master story teller. This is the story of Benna, a community college instructor, and Gerard, a musician. They are neighbors, best friends, and on the cusp of a relationship that never quite makes it. Their story is heartbreaking and hysterical at the same time. Benna is a character that I will not soon forget- smart and extremely funny. I am not sure what took me so long to find this wonderful book.
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