This was John Updike's choice from 1990. It is probably one of the nastier Lorrie Moore stories I have read-although nasty in the way many short stories of that time were. Humorous but acid-tongued protagonists. And so often set in academia.
Zoe Hendricks is a young English professor that the reader views as pretty privileged, but she sees herself as put upon-by her ungrateful students, her not up to snuff dates, dull Midwesterners and colleagues that surround her, and her sister who gets to live in New York. It is possible fate will catch up with her--she has just had a scan to investigate a mass, but she still flies to New York to attend her sister's Halloween Party without calling for the results. She meets a man at the party and the two exchange insults and she comes close to taking out her rage on him. Well- written, lots of humor, but not my favorite Lorrie Moore story. It must have been difficult to pick the best books of the century. I mean how many books are there to choose from a year.
13 comments:
This one got my attention right away, Patti. I like the academia background of it, and there is something about that acid tone of the story.
So many stories in literary fiction have that setting. I guess all of them are familiar with it.
I like Lorrie Moore too, but this one is only hazy in my mind.
After finishing the Ed Hoch collection, I've mostly been reading the last Philip K. Dick book of Collected Stories, which, for the most part, seems the weakest of the five collections, with occasional exceptions. I did enjoy the story set in the future and at a 1954 SF convention in San Francisco, "Waterspider," that name-checks many of the famous writers of the time, in particular Poul Anderson, but also Bradbury, Heinlein, Asimov, Van Vogt, Jack Vance, and Dick himself.
I can't remember reading it until now.
I read some stories from Lorrie Moore's Birds of America series, and about half I did not like, and the others I did. I am going to have to look around for my copy, it isn't cataloged and I don't know where I put it. There were two stories in it that I had planned to read at Christmas.
The title of the story reminds me of Christina's most devastating insult from her high school days, "You have no friends and your mother dresses you funny."
I bet no boy ever heard that one.
Actually, yeah, some boys at least have definitely heard that over the decades in less pithy form (at least one comedian used to use that phrase verbatim).
I reviewed that Moore story last year...I suspect Updike mostly worked in some old favorite stories...no way one can't do Some Injustice in a BOTY, much less Of The Century.
https://socialistjazz.blogspot.com/2023/03/short-story-wednesday-james-baldwin.html
Most of the stories I have read were classics up until the last decade or so. Then personal taste no doubt entered into it.
Ms. Kaggsy reads some haiku by Kerouac and two fellow-travelers: https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2024/10/24/in-the-middle-of-an-empty-plain-triptrap-jackkerouac/
Me popping up as Anon above...I think I was in Dark Mode.
Best of the Century is such a silly concept. How many collections like that are the same high school English class stories and reruns from Hemingway?
I am sure I've read Lorrie Moore but cannot recall what. I just searched for a bibliography - something few online places ever post in full - and her bio at Vanderbilt University showed up. I wonder how often she ever teaches a class there? I now want to research that but need to get other things done.
The academia setting always interests me after growing up academic adjacent with my father and mother.
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