Lorrie Moore

Lorrie Moore is maybe my favorite living writer, and her new book of essays is out in a few days. The Times is in love with it. The reviewer especially likes Moore's description of Patti LuPone--and her "wavy stingray mouth." 

As usual, in her press materials for the book, Moore seems pleasantly deranged. For example, she advises the readers of the Washington Post: "Don't read all of it, and don't read it in the order in which it appears. I made those mistakes." Then she seems to shudder. What on Earth can she be talking about? Also, she tells the Post: "I don't really think about Trump. I've had enough. The person I'm really wondering about is Marla Maples." This isn't someone deliberately working at being funny. I have full confidence that Lorrie Moore really does sit around wondering about Marla Maples. This is what separates her from the rest of us. Lastly, I'm delighted to see that the new book of essays has not one, not two, but three pieces on Alice Munro. You can imagine Ms. Moore giggling to herself. "I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna include THREE!" She is the walking definition of lunacy, and she is my hero.

To celebrate Ms. Moore, I'm going to quote the opening of her most famous story, "People Like That Are the Only People Here." I've written about this before, and surely I will repeat myself, but I'm going to borrow a trick from Moore's playbook and not care. Moore had written a fair amount already about dead and dying children. ("Why?" she said, to a crowd, once, while smiling. "Because I have a sick, sick mind.") "People Like That" is special because, in it, the possibly dying child is *Moore's own child* ...There's some coyness about the boundary between fiction and memoir, but we all know we're really reading about Moore here. Everything in this prose is unhinged. The subtitle is "Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk"--because there really is such a thing as "canonical babbling," a certain sound that a baby makes. And "Peed Onk" is a cutesy abbreviation for "pediatric oncology." Because someone felt that that was necessary! Leave it to Moore to note and comment on that bit of barbarism, even in the depths of her madness. Tears of a sad clown.

A beginning, an end: there seems to be neither. The whole thing is like a cloud that just lands and everywhere inside it is full of rain. A start: the Mother finds a blood clot in the Baby’s diaper. What is the story? Who put this here? It is big and bright, with a broken khaki-colored vein in it. Over the weekend, the Baby had looked listless and spacey, clayey and grim. But today he looks fine—so what is this thing, startling against the white diaper, like a tiny mouse heart packed in snow? Perhaps it belongs to someone else. Perhaps it is something menstrual, something belonging to the Mother or to the Babysitter, something the Baby has found in a wastebasket and for his own demented baby reasons stowed away here. (Babies: they’re crazy! What can you do?) In her mind, the Mother takes this away from his body and attaches it to someone else’s. There. Doesn’t that make more sense?

Still, she phones the clinic at the children’s hospital. “Blood in the diaper,” she says, and, sounding alarmed and perplexed, the woman on the other end says, “Come in now.”

Such pleasingly instant service! Just say “blood.” Just say “diaper.” Look what you get!

In the examination room, pediatrician, nurse, head resident—all seem less alarmed and perplexed than simply perplexed. At first, stupidly, the Mother is calmed by this. But soon, besides peering and saying “Hmmmm,” the pediatrician, nurse, and head resident are all drawing their mouths in, bluish and tight—morning glories sensing noon. They fold their arms across their white-coated chests, unfold them again and jot things down. They order an ultrasound. Bladder and kidneys. “Here’s the card. Go downstairs; turn left.”

This is just like Yuna Kim defying various laws of physics at the Olympics. The blood clot "like a tiny mouse heart packed in snow." The use of irony and dual consciousness; the writer, in the present, knows that the thoughts racing through the mom's mind are crazy, but she presents them just as they are, without judgment. "Who put this here?" And the wacky bit of rationalization: "It is something menstrual, belonging to the Mother, something the Baby has found in a wastebasket and for his own demented baby reasons stowed away here." Gallows humor: "Just say BLOOD. Just say DIAPER. Look what you get!" Strikingly beautiful language to describe what is less-than-beautiful: "A clot, big and bright, with a broken khaki-colored vein in it." A baby looking "listless and spacey, clayey and grim." Grasping at straws, bargaining with a malicious Joker God: "TODAY, the baby looks FINE, so....?" "Look! The head resident doesn't seem ALARMED....He just seems PERPLEXED!!" The Mother, at the mercy of terse commands: "Come in now. Go downstairs. Turn left." The attention to sinister body language: "They draw their mouths in, bluish and tight--morning glories sensing noon."

Moore has reservations about her new title--"See What Can Be Done." She doesn't want it to seem like a boast. This was just the directive her editor would give to her, before the start of each non-fiction piece. I could go on and on. She has a new novel in the works--additional cause for breath-holding. I really hope it happens soon!