Bark

"The glory of Moore's writing isn't simply that it toys with our expectations; it is that—like life itself—it turns them on their heads and gives them a good hard shake. . . . A long time in coming, Bark is a reminder—if one was needed—that when it comes to writing stories, Moore is still ahead of the pack." —Toronto Star

In these eight masterful stories, Lorrie Moore, in a perfect blend of craft and bewitched spirit, explores the passage of time, and summons up its inevitable sorrows and hilarious pitfalls to reveal her own exquisite, singular wisdom.

In "Debarking," a newly divorced man tries to keep his wits about him as the United States prepares to invade Iraq, and against this ominous moment, we see—in all its irresistible hilarity and darkness—the perils of divorce and what can follow in its wake. . . . In "Foes," a political argument goes grotesquely awry as the events of 9/11 unexpectedly manifest at a fund-raising dinner in Georgetown. . . . In "The Juniper Tree," a teacher, visited by the ghost of her recently deceased friend, is forced to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in a kind of nightmare reunion. . . . And in "Wings," we watch the unraveling of two once-hopeful musicians who neither held fast to their dreams nor struck out along other paths as Moore deftly depicts the intricacies of dead ends and the workings of regret.

Gimlet-eyed social observation, the public and private absurdities of life, dramatic irony, and enduring half-cracked love wend their way through each of these narratives in a heartrending mash-up of the tragic and the laugh-out-loud—the hallmark of Lorrie Moore-land.