See What Can Be Done

Zusatztext The kind of book! and the kind of human! you'd want to guide you through the past few decades in letters and culture. . . . Moore is one of our best documentarians of everyday amazement. The New Yorker Excellent. . . . Shining. . . . [This] book flooded my veins with pleasure. Dwight Garner! The New York Times Moore's incisive! often mordant yet exhilarating pieces illuminate the trajectory of a literary artist's aesthetic evolution! and enhance an understanding of her fiction. Claire Messud! The Guardian Impressive. . . . Her wicked wit is demonstrated by the opening sentence. . . . What sustains overall this group of essays and commentary is a continuous critical spirit that stays in touch with life. William H. Pritchard! The Wall Street Journal One of our finest fiction writers considers the work of her fellow artists. . . . [An] agile! funny! and sage take on literature and culture. O! The Oprah Magazine Captivating . . . . Nuanced and polished. . . . I found myself nestling into the book the way one does with the most gripping of novels. Daphne Merkin! The New York Times Book Review Moore's writing sings at the atomic level. . . . One comes to this book not to find out what one should think! or even what Moore thinks! about Don DeLillo or Anais Nin or Alice Munro; the questions one can answer here are! instead! why one might care about them! and how a book or a story or a sentence might offer safety! companionship! sight. The New Republic A testament to the breadth of Moore's intellect. . . . 'One must throw all that one is into language!' she writes! 'like a Christmas tree hurled into a pool.'. . . See What Can Be Done is not only a call to that ideal! but a fulfillment of it. The Christian Science Monitor Whip-smart and thought-provoking. Elle Engrossing enough to read straight through. . . . Moore's interest in fully revealing each work she discusses becomes a kind of guiding spirit. . . . Sublimely generous. . . . Embrace[s] elegance. Commonweal [A] brilliant and piercing collection. . . . She fearlessly tells the truth about hard things. Minneapolis Star Tribune Sharply observed and gorgeously written. . . . Moore isn't afraid to take a stand. . . . Moore places a premium in these pieces on the 'resilience' demonstrated by some of her subjects. Let's hope she continues to exhibit the same! giving us more of the short stories for which she's renownedand the essays for which she should be. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Arresting. . . . Excellent. . . . Incisive! wide-ranging. . . . Marvelously nuanced. The Observer (London) This collection of 60 lucid and erudite cultural essays by the award-winning fiction writer is a treasure. BBC.com Lorrie Moore's essays are brilliantly written! brimming with energy. . . . A generous reader of other writers! Moore is always smart! never snooty! and as in her novels and short stories! there's a bold streak of humour. The Irish Times Informationen zum Autor LORRIE 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. Klappentext A welcome surprise: more than fifty prose pieces, gathered together for the first time, by one of America's most revered and admired novelists and short-story writers, whose articles, essays, and cultural commentary--appearing in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhe...

Autorentext

LORRIE 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.

Klappentext

A welcome surprise: more than fifty prose pieces, gathered together for the first time, by one of America's most revered and admired novelists and short-story writers, whose articles, essays, and cultural commentary--appearing in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere--have been parsing the political, artistic, and media idiom for the last three decades.

From Lorrie Moore's earliest reviews of novels by Margaret Atwood and Nora Ephron, to an essay on Ezra Edelman's 2016 O.J. Simpson documentary, and in between: Moore on the writing of fiction (the work of V. S. Pritchett, Don DeLillo, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, Stanley Elkin, Dawn Powell, Nicholson Baker, et al.) . . . on the continuing unequal state of race in America . . . on the shock of the shocking GOP . . . on the dangers (and cruel truths) of celebrity marriages and love affairs . . . on the wilds of television (The Wire, Friday Night Lights, Into the Abyss, Girls, Homeland, True Detective, Making a Murderer) . . . on the (d)evolving environment . . . on terrorism, the historical imagination, and the world's newest form of novelist . . . on the lesser (and larger) lives of biography and the midwifery between art and life (Anaïs Nin, Marilyn Monroe, John Cheever, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Eudora Welty, Bernard Malamud, among others) . . . and on the high art of being Helen Gurley Brown . . . and much, much more.
"Fifty years from now, it may well turn out that the work of very few American writers has as much to say about what it means to be alive in our time as that of Lorrie Moore" (Harper's Magazine).

Zusammenfassung
A remarkable collection of essays and reviews on everything from Philip Roth to Margaret Atwood, from race in America to the shocking state of the GOP—from the national bestselling author of Birds of America and a master of contemporary American fiction.

“The kind of book, and the kind of human, you’d want to guide you through the past few decades in letters and culture.... Moore is one of our best documentarians of everyday amazement.” —*The New Yorker
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This essential, enlightening, truly delightful collection shows one of our greatest writers parsing the political, artistic, and media landscape of the past three decades. These sixty-six essays and reviews, culled from the pages of The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, among others, find Lorrie Moore turning her discerning eye on everything from celebrity culture to the wilds of television, from Stephen Sondheim to Barack Obama. See What Can Be Done is a perfect blend of craft, brains, and a knowing, singular take on life, liberty, and the pursuit of (some kind of) happiness.