I read this around the time it came out, I was in my 20's and I liked it quite a bit. I realize now that I was not at a point in my life where I was really ready for this. I hadn't seen the end of enough things to be ready for this book, which is very much a book about endings (or at least monumental transitions.) I am not a fan of the self-help genre, so I love what Moore does here in approaching many of the types of relationships and skills/abilities gaps covered in those books and showing us that things can't be fixed, that the very idea of a one-size-fits-all solution requires that we strip away everything but the problem, ignore everything the people have the problem cam in with and ignore all the non-problematic elements at play. In self-help there are no intersectional issues or psychological comorbidities, just people those books tell you should behave in a certain way and then you will get the desired result. But in life everyone comes in with a pile of preexisting experiences that make it implausible to expect they will act in one specific way to a situation. Self-help guides work if everyone involved is a replicant. These stories are so rich and complicated and heartbreaking and funny and very very human. They are so good!

I started reading this a few months back at the urging of my wise and well-read GR friend Robin. I was reading a story here and there, but after the book came up in conversation a few days ago I read the last three stories in rapid succession, and that totally worked for me. Just this past Saturday I told a friend of mine that I generally had no interest in reading about characters' whining about their relationships with their mothers, and I stand by that, but the issue is the whining, not the relationships with mothers angle. Moore gets this right all the way through. This was a necessary and treasured reread for me. ( )

[Being] a mistress.
It is like having a book out from the library.
It is like constantly having a book out from the library

Limits of the pun.

As though all juvenilia from the 1980's is trying at not trying at being Raymond Carver, a response to his presence or absence as if one were to contemplate America without Reagan. Though written with skill such that it remains amusing even at its most obnoxious.

[What does a systems analyst do.] Oh … they get married a lot. They’re usually always married.

He seems to be investing something in all of this (bankers)

and suddenly I woke up with a jerk

parasites, pair of sights, parricides ( )

Short stories by a young Lorrie Moore. Funny in parts, wonderful puns and wordplay, but some very serious topics explored.

1985 NYT review by Jay McInerny of all people:

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/moore-help.h... ( )

DNF @~50%
None of the stories I read would I have rated more than two stars.

"What is beautiful is seized."
A line from one of the stories; it's true. Seized, and ruined. ( )

Some stories were great, but I've forgotten what they were about. I just remember feeling the pointed hopelessness of these characters, how powerless the women were to help themselves. The writing was annoying after a while -- the jokes contrived, the dialogue stilted. I couldn't finish the last story. ( )