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I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home: A novel
Lorrie Moore’s first novel since A Gate at the Stairs —a daring, meditative exploration of love and death, passion and grief, and what it means to be haunted by the past, both by history and the human heartFrom “one of the most acute and lasting writers of her generation� (Caryn James; The New York Times )—a ghost story set in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, an elegiac consideration of grief, devotion (filial and romantic), and the vanishing and persistence of all things—seen and unseen.A teacher visiting his dying brother in the Bronx. A mysterious journal from the nineteenth century stolen from a boarding house. A therapy clown and an assassin, both presumed dead, but perhaps not dead at all...With her distinctive, irresistible wordplay and singular wry humor and wisdom, Lorrie Moore has given us amagic box of longing and surprise as shewrites about love and rebirth and the pull towards life. Bold, meditative, theatrical, this new novel is an inventive, poetic portrait oflovers and siblingsas it questionsthe stories we have been told which may or may not betrue.I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home takes usthrough a trap door, into a windswept, imagined journey to the tragic-comic landscape that is, unmistakably, the world of Lorrie Moore.
208 pages, Paperback
First published June 18, 2023
1,014 people are currently reading
21.2k people want to read
About the author
Lorrie Moore
68books2,499followersLORRIE 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,220 reviews
November 3, 2023
Before Bill, there was Mel. Melville. When I adopted him at the animal shelter, he looked right at me and called out. We were inseparable ever since.
Mel grounded me, gave me unconditional love, and would get so excited to see me when I came home from work that he would run to the door and start meowing as soon as he heard the doorknob turn.
He had his own personality in that he really loved being close to me, but he didn’t want to sit on me. He also hated being picked up. When it was finally time for bed at the end of the day, I would call him, and he would faithfully follow, giving little meows of acknowledgement as his little paws went pattering next to mine.
We had ten amazing years together.
After a lengthy illness, he died.
And his death destroyed me. Every single day, I would cry, pretty much nonstop from the time I awoke until bedtime. Once I saw a flash of a little grey cat tail outside, and I ran outside so fast, never able to locate this mysterious cat.
The world was going on, but my life was stuck. The world was forever changed, but everyone was carrying on as business as usual. Eventually, I ended up going to grief counseling, and I had a great Death Guide.
Outside my house, I have a memorial tree. Right around the anniversary of Mel’s death, the cherry tree blooms in a spectacular fashion.
There can be beauty, mystery, and magic in death.
However, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home failed to capture that.
The book centers on Finn who is going through a rough time: his brother is in hospice, and his ex-partner, Lily, is battling with severe depression.
The beginning of the book is quite promising. The author has a great vocabulary, and the story felt built up around some really strong quotes.
The downfall of this book is the characters and some of the author’s choices. Personally, I didn’t connect with Lily. The relationship was too fraught and depressing. The author needed to give us a little bit of hope and light.
When Lily and Finn embark on a journey together, I was wondering, “Where is the suspense? Is Finn trying to beat a clock? What are his thoughts? Could Finn fix everything?�
The story that I connected to more strongly was the relationship with the brother, but I was displeased with the off-page resolution.
The potential for an amazing story is there, and the author clearly has a strong command of the English language, but this feels more like a rough draft. It hasn’t fully morphed into a magical moving piece.
There is more beauty in my cherry tree. Love you, Mel.
*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and honest opinion.
Connect With Me!
Mel grounded me, gave me unconditional love, and would get so excited to see me when I came home from work that he would run to the door and start meowing as soon as he heard the doorknob turn.
He had his own personality in that he really loved being close to me, but he didn’t want to sit on me. He also hated being picked up. When it was finally time for bed at the end of the day, I would call him, and he would faithfully follow, giving little meows of acknowledgement as his little paws went pattering next to mine.
We had ten amazing years together.
After a lengthy illness, he died.
And his death destroyed me. Every single day, I would cry, pretty much nonstop from the time I awoke until bedtime. Once I saw a flash of a little grey cat tail outside, and I ran outside so fast, never able to locate this mysterious cat.
The world was going on, but my life was stuck. The world was forever changed, but everyone was carrying on as business as usual. Eventually, I ended up going to grief counseling, and I had a great Death Guide.
Outside my house, I have a memorial tree. Right around the anniversary of Mel’s death, the cherry tree blooms in a spectacular fashion.
There can be beauty, mystery, and magic in death.
However, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home failed to capture that.
The book centers on Finn who is going through a rough time: his brother is in hospice, and his ex-partner, Lily, is battling with severe depression.
The beginning of the book is quite promising. The author has a great vocabulary, and the story felt built up around some really strong quotes.
The downfall of this book is the characters and some of the author’s choices. Personally, I didn’t connect with Lily. The relationship was too fraught and depressing. The author needed to give us a little bit of hope and light.
When Lily and Finn embark on a journey together, I was wondering, “Where is the suspense? Is Finn trying to beat a clock? What are his thoughts? Could Finn fix everything?�
The story that I connected to more strongly was the relationship with the brother, but I was displeased with the off-page resolution.
The potential for an amazing story is there, and the author clearly has a strong command of the English language, but this feels more like a rough draft. It hasn’t fully morphed into a magical moving piece.
There is more beauty in my cherry tree. Love you, Mel.
*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and honest opinion.
Connect With Me!
June 26, 2023
Manic pixie dream corpse
June 20, 2023
“Each of these stars is a star that died. Or could be. Are they in conversation? Part of a design? They each seem unaware of the others. And since you don’t know whether they’re dead or alive� their lives are many years further back than their look of life� their shine for us on earth is all the same whether we’re looking at dead shine or live shine. Starlight is simply performative.�
Finn, a high school teacher fond of conspiracy theories, visits his terminally ill older brother Max in hospice in the Bronx. They reminisce and Finn ponders over the impending loss of his brother and how they had drifted apart in their adult years. In the course of his visit, he receives disturbing news concerning his ex Lily, a therapy clown by profession who had been struggling with mental issues and whom he still loves. Finn leaves his brother watching the World Series confident that his brother will be alive the next time he visits and returns to Chicago fearing the worst. What follows is a most unusual cross-country road trip that has Finn reflecting on the ups and downs of his relationship with Lily and how they treated one another and themselves while they were together. Lily and Max are the most important people in his life and Finn’s journey as he grapples with his reality is one of love, loss, acceptance and learning to move on.
Interspersed throughout the novel are a few letters written by a woman named Elizabeth who ran a boarding house, to her sister in the post-Civil War years. The contents of the letters comprise a story in epistolary format, revolving around a guest in the boarding house who sparks Elizabeth’s interests. But when she begins to suspect his true identity, she is compelled to take matters into her own hands.
Imaginative and unique, with elegant prose in a dream-like narrative, I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore is an absorbing read touching upon themes of family, life, death, loss, mental health and grief. In turn absurdist and bizarre laced with dark humor yet insightful and heartbreaking, this is an unusual novel, but I mean that in a good way. The two narratives are somewhat disjointed, intersecting briefly and though I can’t say that I felt they were much impacted by one another, I did enjoy the boardinghouse story for its humor and intrigue and ultimately its message. I would have liked it if the segment on Max and Finn had been explored in more depth, but overall I found this short novel to be an impactful read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are own.
“Did anyone really know what the story of a human life ever was? There were so many competing and intersecting and sometimes parallel and obliterating narratives. He sat there as remarks about life and death swirled around him. In life’s wrestle with death there was much suffering, and in death a diabolical vanishing. Suffering then vanishing. Suffering then vanishing. Did everyone understand that’s what they had signed up for, or really just not signed up at all but been drafted? Life was soldiering. Death was disappearance. Death sure had the power move. It had the black cape, the fine print, and the magic tricks.�
Finn, a high school teacher fond of conspiracy theories, visits his terminally ill older brother Max in hospice in the Bronx. They reminisce and Finn ponders over the impending loss of his brother and how they had drifted apart in their adult years. In the course of his visit, he receives disturbing news concerning his ex Lily, a therapy clown by profession who had been struggling with mental issues and whom he still loves. Finn leaves his brother watching the World Series confident that his brother will be alive the next time he visits and returns to Chicago fearing the worst. What follows is a most unusual cross-country road trip that has Finn reflecting on the ups and downs of his relationship with Lily and how they treated one another and themselves while they were together. Lily and Max are the most important people in his life and Finn’s journey as he grapples with his reality is one of love, loss, acceptance and learning to move on.
Interspersed throughout the novel are a few letters written by a woman named Elizabeth who ran a boarding house, to her sister in the post-Civil War years. The contents of the letters comprise a story in epistolary format, revolving around a guest in the boarding house who sparks Elizabeth’s interests. But when she begins to suspect his true identity, she is compelled to take matters into her own hands.
Imaginative and unique, with elegant prose in a dream-like narrative, I Am Homeless if This is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore is an absorbing read touching upon themes of family, life, death, loss, mental health and grief. In turn absurdist and bizarre laced with dark humor yet insightful and heartbreaking, this is an unusual novel, but I mean that in a good way. The two narratives are somewhat disjointed, intersecting briefly and though I can’t say that I felt they were much impacted by one another, I did enjoy the boardinghouse story for its humor and intrigue and ultimately its message. I would have liked it if the segment on Max and Finn had been explored in more depth, but overall I found this short novel to be an impactful read.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed in this review are own.
“Did anyone really know what the story of a human life ever was? There were so many competing and intersecting and sometimes parallel and obliterating narratives. He sat there as remarks about life and death swirled around him. In life’s wrestle with death there was much suffering, and in death a diabolical vanishing. Suffering then vanishing. Suffering then vanishing. Did everyone understand that’s what they had signed up for, or really just not signed up at all but been drafted? Life was soldiering. Death was disappearance. Death sure had the power move. It had the black cape, the fine print, and the magic tricks.�
July 1, 2023
I can assure you that you are highly unlikely to read another book remotely like I Am Homeless If This is My Home. It is sui genesis. It’s a poignant meditation on loss, an absurdist zombie story, an inventive twist on the traditional road trip journey, a philosophical deep dive into the story of human life, and a comedic look at what communication is like between the living and the dying (or the already dead).
Leave it to Lorrie Moore to accomplish all this in less than 200 pages.
The opening plunges the reader into the 1870s as a boarding house owner writes to her sister about a handsome Confederate Shakespearian actor � who comes from a family of actors � who tells her he desires “that we be better strangers.� Hmmmm�
The novel shift suddenly to a Bronx hospice, where a history teacher, Finn, with a penchant for conspiracy theories is at the bedside of his much-loved brother, Max. Max is about to die, and Finn’s grief is palpable. It turns out this scene is prologue to the thrust of the novel: the road trip with Finn’s ex-girlfriend Lily, a depressive therapy clown, who deliberately drowned herself in the shower.
Through this journey, Lorrie Moore showcases the word play for which she is well known: dark humor combined with farcical one-liners and witticisms . As Lily decomposes, so does the blurry lines between the real and the unreal and even the living and the dead.
By the end of the book I faced my own question: did I love it or did I admire it? At first, I thought I was coming down on the side of "admiration", but the mediations on loss and grief (Death...had the black cape, he fine print, and the magic tricks. Life was stuck with sundries from the corner PX) made me realize that this is a book I won't soon forget. Whatever readers decide, Lorrie Moore’s dazzling prose is a reason to celebrate. Big thanks to Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
Leave it to Lorrie Moore to accomplish all this in less than 200 pages.
The opening plunges the reader into the 1870s as a boarding house owner writes to her sister about a handsome Confederate Shakespearian actor � who comes from a family of actors � who tells her he desires “that we be better strangers.� Hmmmm�
The novel shift suddenly to a Bronx hospice, where a history teacher, Finn, with a penchant for conspiracy theories is at the bedside of his much-loved brother, Max. Max is about to die, and Finn’s grief is palpable. It turns out this scene is prologue to the thrust of the novel: the road trip with Finn’s ex-girlfriend Lily, a depressive therapy clown, who deliberately drowned herself in the shower.
Through this journey, Lorrie Moore showcases the word play for which she is well known: dark humor combined with farcical one-liners and witticisms . As Lily decomposes, so does the blurry lines between the real and the unreal and even the living and the dead.
By the end of the book I faced my own question: did I love it or did I admire it? At first, I thought I was coming down on the side of "admiration", but the mediations on loss and grief (Death...had the black cape, he fine print, and the magic tricks. Life was stuck with sundries from the corner PX) made me realize that this is a book I won't soon forget. Whatever readers decide, Lorrie Moore’s dazzling prose is a reason to celebrate. Big thanks to Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
February 28, 2023
The white schizophrenics were allowed to ride bikes here. The black schizophrenics huddled under blankets and cardboard on sidewalks against the facades of the skyscrapers. Pieces of paper rolled into jars with scrawled writing facing outward: I am not homeless. This is my home.
has an absurdist, ironic tone, and although it appears to deal with all the big questions about life and death and love and loss, it ultimately stresses the unknowability of it all: there is nothing knowable about reality, certainly nothing knowable about history, and as we all stumble towards death, life itself might be a bigger mystery than what comes after. Lorrie Moore’s sentences are delightful, her plot is strange and compelling � much like life itself � and I loved every bit of this short novel. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Good this. Good that. After years of teaching, Finn did not believe in good anything. He believed in Interesting, Serviceable, Dangerous, Providential, Unlucky, Cruel, Mercurial, Funny, Unreal. He believed time was a strange ocean through which we imagined we were swimming rather than understanding we were being randomly tossed.
Recently suspended from his job as a high school history teacher and suffering an estrangement from the love of his life � a suicidal therapy clown � Finn drives to NYC to be with his dying brother. At first, Finn seems to be the only rational person in a mad, mad world: despite being an admitted conspiracy theorist (in the sense that history is filled with covered up conspiracies), when Finn explains to his brother why he thinks the first moon landing was probably faked or why it is that mystery surrounds various historical assassins, his arguments are sound. But when he embarks on a cross-country roadtrip involving impossible circumstances, it’s unclear whether he might be suffering from wishful thinking, mentally unstable, or moving through the thin places where time and reality aren’t truly fixed. Intermittently, we are shown excerpts from letters (or is it a diary?) written shortly after the Civil War:
I find people’s ideas are like their perfume � full of fading then dabbing on again � with no small hint of cidered urine. A good scalawag sticks to the late night cipher of her diary.
These letters/diary were penned in the past by the proprietress of a “high cotton boarding house� poised “on the zig and zig of the Mason-Dixon Line�, and in the modern day, Finn comes upon the same crumbling Queen Anne manse and rents a room for the night. If this is a ghost story, this is where the ghosts come in; if this is a history lesson, this is what the textbooks left out; nothing is as it seems and I won’t spoil anything by talking about it.
Lorrie Moore is eminently quotable, and I culled my highlighting to a few tidbits:
� The hospice gave everyone their own room. Dying was private. But perhaps the mortally ill needed company and should all be together sleeping in the same room. When one person died it was a tragedy. But when two or three people were dying together, it had a chance of becoming comedy. Not a big chance, but some. Half. Less than half probably.
� Sickness detached a person from the world and at the end shrank that world down to the size of a room, the walls of which vibrated and stepped slowly, slowly forward.
� He was like a dog, not seeing colors, chasing his own sepia-colored tail, sepia because it was all in the past, one’s own tail when chasing it, was in the past, but hey that’s where everything he wanted was.
� When he looked at other couples, he did not know how they tolerated each other. They had just grown accustomed, he guessed. They had cooked each other. Each was the frog and each was the heated water. Still, he envied them a tiny bit. Their love in pots.
I have a taste for irony and the absurd and I found I Am Homeless If This Is not My Home to be funny and tragic and touching and true. Sometimes, life is just like that.
May 9, 2023
2.5⭐️ Nothing saddens me more than to report I did not get along with this book…at all. It actually took everything in me not to DNF.
I was not intrigued or interested at any point in the book. There were small moments of writing where I could see the Moore I’ve come to love in her short stories but I was so confused by much of the dialogue and characterization. The characters in the present were strange and I could not get a grip on them or view them as real people. And then there’s an 18th century character using words like “stranger-splain� 🤔
This book is about grief, the act of living, desire, and what-ifs. But all I feel is indifference.
I’m sad, but it’s a flop.
I was not intrigued or interested at any point in the book. There were small moments of writing where I could see the Moore I’ve come to love in her short stories but I was so confused by much of the dialogue and characterization. The characters in the present were strange and I could not get a grip on them or view them as real people. And then there’s an 18th century character using words like “stranger-splain� 🤔
This book is about grief, the act of living, desire, and what-ifs. But all I feel is indifference.
I’m sad, but it’s a flop.
March 3, 2024
Lorrie Moore is a virtuoso writer, which is why I'm disappointed not to like this more.
She explores death in this short novel, through the dying, the dead and those who cause death.
I felt the writer, the virtuoso, in every sentence, though. I felt Lorrie Moore, not characters. I felt cleverness and craftsmanship and ideas. So, it wasn't really my thing, although it was not without its pleasure, because Lorrie Moore is a spectacular wordsmith.
It's because of her skill that I was not completely irritated by the fact that the two duelling storylines -- one set in what sounds like Victorian times, and one set now-ish -- really didn't connect for me. Particularly the Victorian one. I could have completely done without it.
It's because of her skill that I was only medium-annoyed at the fact that we leave the real world after half the book being in a hospice, by a beloved brother's deathbed, and shot into an absurd, never ending scene with a ghost woman in clown shoes. Not only did this abrupt shift feel bait-and-switch, this scene is heavy with gallows humour, which became a bit much. At one point, the protagonist yells "You're dead to me!" to the ghost. That was the 73rd death gag. We get it.
I fell for Lorrie Moore's writing in her iconic collection Self-Help, a few years ago. Perhaps her crafty cleverness works better in the short story form than in a novel. Who knows. Do pick that up, if you haven't already. It's brilliant.
I expect this novel may completely charm some erudite readers, but in the end was, for me, dead in the water. (yuk, yuk, yuk)
She explores death in this short novel, through the dying, the dead and those who cause death.
I felt the writer, the virtuoso, in every sentence, though. I felt Lorrie Moore, not characters. I felt cleverness and craftsmanship and ideas. So, it wasn't really my thing, although it was not without its pleasure, because Lorrie Moore is a spectacular wordsmith.
It's because of her skill that I was not completely irritated by the fact that the two duelling storylines -- one set in what sounds like Victorian times, and one set now-ish -- really didn't connect for me. Particularly the Victorian one. I could have completely done without it.
It's because of her skill that I was only medium-annoyed at the fact that we leave the real world after half the book being in a hospice, by a beloved brother's deathbed, and shot into an absurd, never ending scene with a ghost woman in clown shoes. Not only did this abrupt shift feel bait-and-switch, this scene is heavy with gallows humour, which became a bit much. At one point, the protagonist yells "You're dead to me!" to the ghost. That was the 73rd death gag. We get it.
I fell for Lorrie Moore's writing in her iconic collection Self-Help, a few years ago. Perhaps her crafty cleverness works better in the short story form than in a novel. Who knows. Do pick that up, if you haven't already. It's brilliant.
I expect this novel may completely charm some erudite readers, but in the end was, for me, dead in the water. (yuk, yuk, yuk)
June 13, 2023
The dead hover so closely around Lorrie Moore’s mournful new book that it feels more like a séance than a novel. Even the long title � “I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home� � seems determined to linger.
But readers among the living may be reluctant to take on such a necrotic tale. Suspended somewhere between Moore’s celebrated short stories and the novels she publishes every decade or so, this slender book is equally haunting and cursed.
If you read “A Gate at the Stairs,� one of my favorite books of 2009, you’ll never forget that grotesque moment when the narrator climbs into a loved one’s coffin to say goodbye. Beware: Moore’s new novel shows the bereaved settling in the grave for a much longer embrace.
The story opens in 2016, just a month after homemade bombs placed around New York have reignited memories of 9/11. While the traumatized city tries once again to find its equilibrium, a high school teacher named Finn arrives from Illinois with his own conspiratorial fears and a litter box that once belonged to his landlady’s cat. Single and recently suspended from his job, Finn has driven across the country to see his older, more successful brother, Max. But he hasn’t come for advice. Max is lying in a hospice dying of....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
But readers among the living may be reluctant to take on such a necrotic tale. Suspended somewhere between Moore’s celebrated short stories and the novels she publishes every decade or so, this slender book is equally haunting and cursed.
If you read “A Gate at the Stairs,� one of my favorite books of 2009, you’ll never forget that grotesque moment when the narrator climbs into a loved one’s coffin to say goodbye. Beware: Moore’s new novel shows the bereaved settling in the grave for a much longer embrace.
The story opens in 2016, just a month after homemade bombs placed around New York have reignited memories of 9/11. While the traumatized city tries once again to find its equilibrium, a high school teacher named Finn arrives from Illinois with his own conspiratorial fears and a litter box that once belonged to his landlady’s cat. Single and recently suspended from his job, Finn has driven across the country to see his older, more successful brother, Max. But he hasn’t come for advice. Max is lying in a hospice dying of....
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
July 14, 2023
Another gem from Lorrie Moore, with so many funny, surprising, and unexpected observations. The “talking corpse� in this novel should have a Netflix standup comedy special. Moore is as insightful and moving as ever…and she writes great material for the dead.
July 3, 2023
I was not prepared for crying my eyes out like this but I guess the title kind of gave it away
June 29, 2023
3.5, rounded up. Like her American pantheon-mate George Saunders, Lorrie Moore's real strength is as a short-story writer. I Am Homeless is the strongest novel she's written, especially when compared to her last effort, 2009's overstuffed and overwrought . I'm a huge, lifelong fan of her short stories, some of which (like the unbearably bleak "People Like That Are the Only People Here") are perfect specimens of structure and tone.
The comparisons between I Am Homeless and Saunders' only novel, , were inescapable for me: Moore is plumbing the depths of grief as both theme and subject matter, but with the darkest of gallows humor and the bleakest of farce. She interleaves two narrative threads, and the novel's first half had unstoppable momentum, immersing me in emotional discomfort and off-kilter-ness.
Thread One: In fall 2016, failed and broke Midwestern high-school history teacher Finn is visiting his beloved brother Max for the last time in a Bronx hospice, where he is dying of late-stage cancer with some measure of dignity. A sudden call from home pulls Finn back to Illinois, to embark upon an absurd road trip with the zombie of his recently-deceased ex-girlfriend Lily, a depressive therapy clown (yes, she wears enormous shoes) who took her own life. As he transports her vividly decomposing body to a "body farm" in Kentucky, the narrative blurs the line between the living and the dead (is Finn just as dead as Lily, in a Sixth Sense-style plot twist? who knows), and between reality and delirium, as Moore leavens the utter darkness with hilarious jokes, memorable one-liners, and clever puns.
Thread Two: In the 1870s, the proprietress of a boarding-house somewhere in the borderlands of Kentucky or Tennessee is writing a series of letters to her sister, using stiltedly archaic language to describe her relationship with her lodger Jack, a plummy Shakespearean actor who is trying to court and woo her. Let's just say that matters take a shockingly horrific turn, and her tragic and wordy tale eventually intersects with Finn's.
This very short novel might not appeal to everyone (and reviews have been decisively mixed), but as a lifetime member of the Lorrie Moore cult, the sheer audacity and weirdness of this narrative trajectory, and the bravura wit and verve of her comic prose, pulled me all the way through.
Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
The comparisons between I Am Homeless and Saunders' only novel, , were inescapable for me: Moore is plumbing the depths of grief as both theme and subject matter, but with the darkest of gallows humor and the bleakest of farce. She interleaves two narrative threads, and the novel's first half had unstoppable momentum, immersing me in emotional discomfort and off-kilter-ness.
Thread One: In fall 2016, failed and broke Midwestern high-school history teacher Finn is visiting his beloved brother Max for the last time in a Bronx hospice, where he is dying of late-stage cancer with some measure of dignity. A sudden call from home pulls Finn back to Illinois, to embark upon an absurd road trip with the zombie of his recently-deceased ex-girlfriend Lily, a depressive therapy clown (yes, she wears enormous shoes) who took her own life. As he transports her vividly decomposing body to a "body farm" in Kentucky, the narrative blurs the line between the living and the dead (is Finn just as dead as Lily, in a Sixth Sense-style plot twist? who knows), and between reality and delirium, as Moore leavens the utter darkness with hilarious jokes, memorable one-liners, and clever puns.
Thread Two: In the 1870s, the proprietress of a boarding-house somewhere in the borderlands of Kentucky or Tennessee is writing a series of letters to her sister, using stiltedly archaic language to describe her relationship with her lodger Jack, a plummy Shakespearean actor who is trying to court and woo her. Let's just say that matters take a shockingly horrific turn, and her tragic and wordy tale eventually intersects with Finn's.
This very short novel might not appeal to everyone (and reviews have been decisively mixed), but as a lifetime member of the Lorrie Moore cult, the sheer audacity and weirdness of this narrative trajectory, and the bravura wit and verve of her comic prose, pulled me all the way through.
Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
September 9, 2023
About halfway through this amazing book, I almost stopped. I felt overwhelmed: by the gorgeous language, and by the pain (as well as odd humor). This teacher sitting in the Bronx with his dying brother, learning of the death of his beloved ex (but ex what? partner? lover?). An aging spinster's with an inn right after the Civil War's end letters to her sister.
Strange, intoxicating. Sometimes, for me, unbearably painful. But that might be just me. I rarely cry when reading but this one got to me. Of course, there are personal triggers that might not be there for other readers but still, an emotionally and intellectually powerful work.
Strange, intoxicating. Sometimes, for me, unbearably painful. But that might be just me. I rarely cry when reading but this one got to me. Of course, there are personal triggers that might not be there for other readers but still, an emotionally and intellectually powerful work.
May 21, 2023
With the exception of the occasional short story and perceptive book review, it's been ten years since Lorrie Moore has presented us with her gifts. Her eye is so acute that when meeting her in person, you tend to hide, sure that she'll recognize in you some glaring quality she can incorporate into future work. So, with great joy, I devour this book, knowing I'm in the hands of a master. So many evocative turns of phrase, especially "Celestial jokes" during a nightdrive across Ohio: ("He suspected he was in Ohio. When not paying attention in life he assumed you could end up in Ohio." ) ("Somewhere ahead and above him in the terrible spitfire of the stars was Orion or Perseus or the Chicago Bears. Who knew.") Who else could call Knoxville a "crickety town with sad spaghetti."
Finn, the central character, is faced with dealing with the deaths of the two most important people to him. His visits to Max, his older brother, in a Bronx hospice, were to me more involving than the road trip he takes with the ghost of Lily, his suicidal lover. As I am not a fan of otherworldly elements in fiction, I choose to believe she was in his head, not riding shotgun. All that being said, this book is evidence of Lorrie Moore's highly original work and facile mind.
Finn, the central character, is faced with dealing with the deaths of the two most important people to him. His visits to Max, his older brother, in a Bronx hospice, were to me more involving than the road trip he takes with the ghost of Lily, his suicidal lover. As I am not a fan of otherworldly elements in fiction, I choose to believe she was in his head, not riding shotgun. All that being said, this book is evidence of Lorrie Moore's highly original work and facile mind.
July 2, 2023
Not my cup of tea. Less than 200 pages but it felt like it would never end.
December 6, 2023
I struggled to about page 53. Here's a sample that illustrates how bad the writing is:
"Lily...was beautiful as one of those giant apple trees in Russia. Until she started throwing her apples at you, hard hurtful pitches, like the trees in The Wizard of Oz. ...She seemed to be in a condition of reverse metamorphosis, turning from tree into woman. Though sometimes she went back again the other way, woman into tree. Often Finn felt himself having to bite through the thick fuzzy skin of a peach to get to the apple."
Biting through a peach to get to an apple? Turning back and forth from woman to tree? Tha fuck?
Skimmed the rest of the book and was glad I did. Zombie/ghost lover was ludicrous and I never saw the point of the side chapters set in what I assume to be the late 19th century. One star for sure!
"Lily...was beautiful as one of those giant apple trees in Russia. Until she started throwing her apples at you, hard hurtful pitches, like the trees in The Wizard of Oz. ...She seemed to be in a condition of reverse metamorphosis, turning from tree into woman. Though sometimes she went back again the other way, woman into tree. Often Finn felt himself having to bite through the thick fuzzy skin of a peach to get to the apple."
Biting through a peach to get to an apple? Turning back and forth from woman to tree? Tha fuck?
Skimmed the rest of the book and was glad I did. Zombie/ghost lover was ludicrous and I never saw the point of the side chapters set in what I assume to be the late 19th century. One star for sure!
August 3, 2024
This is definitely a book.
Not one that I particularly understood or enjoyed.
But curious to discuss at book club.
Maybe I’ll come back and update my review with actual thoughts once we chat.
Not one that I particularly understood or enjoyed.
But curious to discuss at book club.
Maybe I’ll come back and update my review with actual thoughts once we chat.
July 7, 2023
2.5
High-concept John Green
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At the beggining I was loving this book. Well, things took a turn. If you ripped a random page out of this book and showed me, first I would think you were mad and second would love what was reading. The writing is gorgeous. But I guess there's too much of a good thing here because almost 200 pages of it began to wear on me. I wanted people to stop being witty and actually have a real conversation. I wanted more of the brother in the hospital. wanted the letters to somehow mesh with the main story. I wanted it all tomean more.
High-concept John Green
--------------
At the beggining I was loving this book. Well, things took a turn. If you ripped a random page out of this book and showed me, first I would think you were mad and second would love what was reading. The writing is gorgeous. But I guess there's too much of a good thing here because almost 200 pages of it began to wear on me. I wanted people to stop being witty and actually have a real conversation. I wanted more of the brother in the hospital. wanted the letters to somehow mesh with the main story. I wanted it all tomean more.
July 4, 2023
This was a very hard book to rate, because most of it is brilliant, but there is a large section which falls short, in my subjective opinion. I would really like to hear from others to see what they experienced, reading this book.
This is a novel in stories: two parallel tracks, in fact. One major theme which ties them together is one of belonging. The main character from the past seeks belonging in a place, but not its people. The main character in the contemporary story seeks home in a person, but not a place.
Both main characters, pragmatic, decisive Elizabeth from the past, and grief-stricken indecisive Finn of the present, intersect in their interrogation of life and death, what it all means, and in the need to have long conversations with ghosts. (You'll see.)
Moore polishes up the ordinary and mundane events of life until they're bright and shiny as a penny. The very first section features the delightful musings of a possibly eccentric, and certainly curmudgeonly, female proprietor of a post-Civil War boarding house. Moore writes the story in epistolary form, imbues this structure with new energy, and then has it run away to join the circus, so to speak. This introduction is a hit.
The second section, set in our modern day, is a very long short story or a novella within a novel, and a rare miss. There are a few good lines, but overall, it's much more maudlin than I expected, and a bit of a slog, to be frank.
The rest of the novel unfolds beautifully, with Finn and his Ex, Lily, embarking on a witty, wry, and surreal tête-à-tête, and of course, there's more great revelatory epistolary content from Elizabeth.
I enjoyed most of the story overwhelmingly. There are so many fantastic sentences in this novel, but quoting them for you would be like telling you what your gift is before you have a chance to unwrap it. Besides, the brilliance in those observations and phrases is held in rhythm and context.You have to be inside of it, to gain the most out of it.
This is a novel in stories: two parallel tracks, in fact. One major theme which ties them together is one of belonging. The main character from the past seeks belonging in a place, but not its people. The main character in the contemporary story seeks home in a person, but not a place.
Both main characters, pragmatic, decisive Elizabeth from the past, and grief-stricken indecisive Finn of the present, intersect in their interrogation of life and death, what it all means, and in the need to have long conversations with ghosts. (You'll see.)
Moore polishes up the ordinary and mundane events of life until they're bright and shiny as a penny. The very first section features the delightful musings of a possibly eccentric, and certainly curmudgeonly, female proprietor of a post-Civil War boarding house. Moore writes the story in epistolary form, imbues this structure with new energy, and then has it run away to join the circus, so to speak. This introduction is a hit.
The second section, set in our modern day, is a very long short story or a novella within a novel, and a rare miss. There are a few good lines, but overall, it's much more maudlin than I expected, and a bit of a slog, to be frank.
The rest of the novel unfolds beautifully, with Finn and his Ex, Lily, embarking on a witty, wry, and surreal tête-à-tête, and of course, there's more great revelatory epistolary content from Elizabeth.
I enjoyed most of the story overwhelmingly. There are so many fantastic sentences in this novel, but quoting them for you would be like telling you what your gift is before you have a chance to unwrap it. Besides, the brilliance in those observations and phrases is held in rhythm and context.You have to be inside of it, to gain the most out of it.
July 15, 2023
Beautiful language, impossible dialogue
August 15, 2023
Look, I like gallows humor and unconventional approaches to storytelling as much as the next aging English major. But what the ever-loving fuck is this failed creative writing course exercise? Depressing, disorienting, bizarre. I bailed at 30%.
January 14, 2024
Ainda que não tivesse grandes expectativas, uma vez que já não tinha achado nada de especial o “Uma porta nas escadas�, conservei alguma esperança em ser surpreendido, depois de tudo o que li acerca deste livro. Não fui.
Este é um livro morno e algo inverosímil ou incompreensível, pelo menos para mim. A tentativa da história de fantasmas (na senda do “Lincoln no bardo�) não resultou tal como não resultaram os temas que se lhe tentou colar - o luto e a devoção(???). Acho que fico por aqui com esta autora, sem conseguir perceber porque é que é uma das “vozes� da literatura americana.
Lê-se, até porque não é muito grande. No entanto, não ficou nada�
Este é um livro morno e algo inverosímil ou incompreensível, pelo menos para mim. A tentativa da história de fantasmas (na senda do “Lincoln no bardo�) não resultou tal como não resultaram os temas que se lhe tentou colar - o luto e a devoção(???). Acho que fico por aqui com esta autora, sem conseguir perceber porque é que é uma das “vozes� da literatura americana.
Lê-se, até porque não é muito grande. No entanto, não ficou nada�
July 1, 2023
I’ll start with: Moore’s one of my all-time fave authors, and I didn’t expect this to be a 3’ish read. That’s a little sad. Of her eight books, I’d put this one in eighth place. Damn. But oh well!
There are three parts here: there’s the scene between the protagonist and his dying brother Max in a hospice, there’s the civil-war era side-story that breaks up Finn’s story in small chapters that take the form of an older woman’s letters to her sister, and there’s the road trip taken by Finn and his ex Lily. This road trip is the main part, and it’s the section that makes the novel partly a “ghost story.� And it was the part I didn’t love. I enjoyed the other supporting sections far more. I won’t say why because it’s a new novel and to go into it would be to give information I’d rather people intending to read it not have.
I enjoyed listening to Moore’s voice though. I missed her easy authority and that funnysad charm of hers, which I think of as a gift. It doesn’t come from being a brilliant artist. You’ve either got it in your bones or don’t, and most people don’t. But Moore does. She’s rich with it, and it’s a comforting voice to read. She writes about death, loss, grief and heartache in a way that’s entirely unsentimental and very humane, and vivid.
Her characters in all her books across the four decades she’s been writing make jokes and use humour to skirt or stave off the pain of failed relationships, loneliness, illness, and the sheer weirdness of being alive on earth. In 2018 when I reread Birds of America I wrote, “They [the characters] grasp at humour like a life-preserver to cope with the absurdity of it all.� And in I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, the character Lily says at one point, “Jokes are flotation devices on the great sea of sorrowful life. They are the exit signs in a very dark room.� She used the same metaphor!!
This is classic Moore. Full of lightness and heaviness, and very playful. The final chapter is beautiful and wonderful.
There are three parts here: there’s the scene between the protagonist and his dying brother Max in a hospice, there’s the civil-war era side-story that breaks up Finn’s story in small chapters that take the form of an older woman’s letters to her sister, and there’s the road trip taken by Finn and his ex Lily. This road trip is the main part, and it’s the section that makes the novel partly a “ghost story.� And it was the part I didn’t love. I enjoyed the other supporting sections far more. I won’t say why because it’s a new novel and to go into it would be to give information I’d rather people intending to read it not have.
I enjoyed listening to Moore’s voice though. I missed her easy authority and that funnysad charm of hers, which I think of as a gift. It doesn’t come from being a brilliant artist. You’ve either got it in your bones or don’t, and most people don’t. But Moore does. She’s rich with it, and it’s a comforting voice to read. She writes about death, loss, grief and heartache in a way that’s entirely unsentimental and very humane, and vivid.
Her characters in all her books across the four decades she’s been writing make jokes and use humour to skirt or stave off the pain of failed relationships, loneliness, illness, and the sheer weirdness of being alive on earth. In 2018 when I reread Birds of America I wrote, “They [the characters] grasp at humour like a life-preserver to cope with the absurdity of it all.� And in I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, the character Lily says at one point, “Jokes are flotation devices on the great sea of sorrowful life. They are the exit signs in a very dark room.� She used the same metaphor!!
This is classic Moore. Full of lightness and heaviness, and very playful. The final chapter is beautiful and wonderful.
April 19, 2023
It has been more than 10 years since we heard from Lorrie Moore and I think all will agree that it is worth the wait.
Like her other work - the prose is beautiful, lyrical, snappy and ironic. Deep, heart pulling ideas such as death, grief, and love.
In I am Homeless we meet Finn, a teacher who is prone to conspiracy theories., so much so, he is on leave from his job. When visiting his dying brother in hospice, Finn continues to state things wildly untrue but backs them with logical defenses. He is still in love with his ex, a suicidal woman who performs therapy as a clown. When Lily dies, Finn embarks on a cross the country trip. All the while he espoused theories and stories that seem to point more and more to issues of the mind. There is however a journal from the 1800's that is interspersed into the chapters that may prove that he is actually on the right track.
If you love a snappy ironic sentence, deep thinking and a book that you will start re-reading as soon as you finish, I am Homeless If THis Is Not My Home is for you!
#Knopf #pantheon #vintagebooks #anchor #IamHomelessIfTHisIsNotMyHome
Like her other work - the prose is beautiful, lyrical, snappy and ironic. Deep, heart pulling ideas such as death, grief, and love.
In I am Homeless we meet Finn, a teacher who is prone to conspiracy theories., so much so, he is on leave from his job. When visiting his dying brother in hospice, Finn continues to state things wildly untrue but backs them with logical defenses. He is still in love with his ex, a suicidal woman who performs therapy as a clown. When Lily dies, Finn embarks on a cross the country trip. All the while he espoused theories and stories that seem to point more and more to issues of the mind. There is however a journal from the 1800's that is interspersed into the chapters that may prove that he is actually on the right track.
If you love a snappy ironic sentence, deep thinking and a book that you will start re-reading as soon as you finish, I am Homeless If THis Is Not My Home is for you!
#Knopf #pantheon #vintagebooks #anchor #IamHomelessIfTHisIsNotMyHome
June 1, 2023
This was not for me. I've read other work by Lorrie Moore and have enjoyed the work she does with words and meanings and connections, but this felt too manic for me, a constant swirl of guilt and memory mixed in with too much inanity to make it interesting or enlightening. It does capture some of the emotion of feeling hopeless and useless in the face of death, and the desire to push past that into a realm of irrationality and non-acceptance well, but to an introspective and repetitive point that felt meaningless to read.
January 7, 2024
ömrümde ilk kez bu iki kelimeyi yan yana kullanacağım: yas karnavalı. kulaklığımda mogwai, gözlerimde yaşla bıraktı beni. içim katartik kahkahalar atılan bir cenaze evi şu an. ve ruhsar izleyesim var.
ps: bir noktada editlerim bunu.
ps: bir noktada editlerim bunu.
July 21, 2023
I really, really enjoyed this book. Immersive and weird and contemplative... As much as I love it, I also understand why it also has a lot of low ratings. It's a book that either grabs/strikes you or leaves you completely cold, and there's no real fault to the author ("didn't do what she aimed to do") or the reader ("You just don't UNDERSTAND IT like I did!!"). It just depends on the person and probably the mindset you're in when you start reading. For me, it hit just right.
May 14, 2024
Como meter un montón de palabras en un saco y llamarlas libro. Y a mi quién me devuelve el tiempo perdido leyendo este tostón?
September 9, 2023
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is strange � and lovely and wonderful. It is probably not for everyone, maybe/maybe not for those grieving, maybe/maybe not for those in relationships with chronically suicidal people.
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home takes place in three settings, has four major speaking parts (one historical, appearing only in letters, as well as one who is alive, another dying, and a third dead), and looks at life, death, mental illness, suicide, and relationships with, surprisingly, considerable insight and wit.
I teared up near the end, but this was not a grim book despite the content. It is a journey, a Coming of Age book (of an adult male), fitting for a book largely taking place on the road. Historical places, people, and objects reappear more than once in the present.
As I said, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is strange, but it is a book that centers the love between two brothers and, especially, between two lovers who often didn't quite connect. It is full of the kind of witty repartee and in-jokes that one often finds in long-term relationships:
"“You’ve been living in your car?� she asked. // For someone who’d been living in the dirt, it seemed high-handed and insensitive" (p. 104).
""He claims I have inner beauty. // “I wish it would strike outward,� I replied. “It’s best to have things come to the surface"" (p. 6).
"He knew Lily like the backs of [his hands]—that is, he never looked closely, too busy reading his own palm. But he had loved her always in that necessary, twisted, hurting way" (pp. 67-68).
Or,
“You feel the same,� she said.
“Fatter,� he said.
“N.�
“No? You think I’ve always been this fat?� (p. 119)
Lorrie Moore talks movingly, thoughtfully, empathically about mental illness:
“How can I put this: Lily says she wants to die. It’s what she always says. I just never told you. This has been her other self. Her secret and mine. But the wishing to die isn’t really her. The wish is made into actions and words by her illness. It’s an extra room in the house of her head. It’s like a spider inside of her telling her from its corner to burn down the whole thing.� (p. 28)
And despite Lily (or that spider) being difficult,
Finn thought of her every pathetic day. The prickle and tingle of her was a phantom limb: his mind was independent and self-starting and did not give up in its attempt to enliven the phantom. And even if the limb remained phantom, he knew it was on permanent standby, waiting for a signal. Suspended sensation encircled his head like cartoon stars after a punch. (p. 30)
Lily was buried when we first met her, then decomposing in their cross-country journey. Finn admitted to her decomposition, just as we might talk about the mole that we love on our lover's face: "She rubbed the roots of her hair until they had the nice grassy smell of a freshly killed stinkbug" (p. 123). It smells but is still "nice."
I want to continue quoting and basking in their loving connections, but I also want those of you brave enough to pick up and enjoy a really weirdly wonderful book to have something to look forward to. Enjoy!
I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home takes place in three settings, has four major speaking parts (one historical, appearing only in letters, as well as one who is alive, another dying, and a third dead), and looks at life, death, mental illness, suicide, and relationships with, surprisingly, considerable insight and wit.
I teared up near the end, but this was not a grim book despite the content. It is a journey, a Coming of Age book (of an adult male), fitting for a book largely taking place on the road. Historical places, people, and objects reappear more than once in the present.
As I said, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home is strange, but it is a book that centers the love between two brothers and, especially, between two lovers who often didn't quite connect. It is full of the kind of witty repartee and in-jokes that one often finds in long-term relationships:
"“You’ve been living in your car?� she asked. // For someone who’d been living in the dirt, it seemed high-handed and insensitive" (p. 104).
""He claims I have inner beauty. // “I wish it would strike outward,� I replied. “It’s best to have things come to the surface"" (p. 6).
"He knew Lily like the backs of [his hands]—that is, he never looked closely, too busy reading his own palm. But he had loved her always in that necessary, twisted, hurting way" (pp. 67-68).
Or,
“You feel the same,� she said.
“Fatter,� he said.
“N.�
“No? You think I’ve always been this fat?� (p. 119)
Lorrie Moore talks movingly, thoughtfully, empathically about mental illness:
“How can I put this: Lily says she wants to die. It’s what she always says. I just never told you. This has been her other self. Her secret and mine. But the wishing to die isn’t really her. The wish is made into actions and words by her illness. It’s an extra room in the house of her head. It’s like a spider inside of her telling her from its corner to burn down the whole thing.� (p. 28)
And despite Lily (or that spider) being difficult,
Finn thought of her every pathetic day. The prickle and tingle of her was a phantom limb: his mind was independent and self-starting and did not give up in its attempt to enliven the phantom. And even if the limb remained phantom, he knew it was on permanent standby, waiting for a signal. Suspended sensation encircled his head like cartoon stars after a punch. (p. 30)
Lily was buried when we first met her, then decomposing in their cross-country journey. Finn admitted to her decomposition, just as we might talk about the mole that we love on our lover's face: "She rubbed the roots of her hair until they had the nice grassy smell of a freshly killed stinkbug" (p. 123). It smells but is still "nice."
I want to continue quoting and basking in their loving connections, but I also want those of you brave enough to pick up and enjoy a really weirdly wonderful book to have something to look forward to. Enjoy!
June 6, 2023
I was initially drawn to this book in a large box of proofs because of its intriguing title and the language I skimmed on the first page.
Unfortunately, my interest was not held and I found myself struggling to engage with the story for a few reasons. Firstly, I was patiently waiting for the two plot lines to connect in some way, however, the ending revealed no clear connection and I found the plot line of the eighteenth century innkeeper to be very underdeveloped compared to Finn’s twenty-first century timeline. I also found the characterisation in this novel to be poorly planned and inconsistent; specifically the motivations of Finn’s character confused me regarding the balance between his love for his brother and for Lily. On a similar note, the language of the innkeeper’s letters sometimes felt disjointed from the time period her narration is situated within- it felt too modern and pulled me out of the story.
I also had a few issues with a handful of scenes in the book. Finn’s comments about women not keeping “their mouths shut� (when arguing his point about a staged moon landing) does not sit right with me given that Finn is not presented as an inherently ‘bad� character. There is also another very casual moment where Finn offers to tape photos of nude women onto the ceiling above his brother’s hospital bed. This casual sexualisation of women that goes unacknowledged as negative behaviour also had to lower my rating of this book. Finally, Lily’s dialogue that describes too much sexual consent being a “buzzkill� is not something I personally appreciate as a message in a novel.
A positive of this book is the writing. The writing is generally very beautiful to read and there were a handful of sentences that made me stop and read them over again. Moore writes about grief very profoundly and sensitively. However, the writing fell down for me on particularly word choices, as I said above, that lets down the characterisation.
Overall, I would rate this novel between two and three stars. I found the plot to be lacking and underdeveloped and some of the themes and scenes to be problematic and unacknowledged. The rating brings itself up to a three for Moore’s writing style, however, based on what I have read here, I do not think I will be rushing to read more of her novels. The title is still the most engaging part of the book, for me.
Unfortunately, my interest was not held and I found myself struggling to engage with the story for a few reasons. Firstly, I was patiently waiting for the two plot lines to connect in some way, however, the ending revealed no clear connection and I found the plot line of the eighteenth century innkeeper to be very underdeveloped compared to Finn’s twenty-first century timeline. I also found the characterisation in this novel to be poorly planned and inconsistent; specifically the motivations of Finn’s character confused me regarding the balance between his love for his brother and for Lily. On a similar note, the language of the innkeeper’s letters sometimes felt disjointed from the time period her narration is situated within- it felt too modern and pulled me out of the story.
I also had a few issues with a handful of scenes in the book. Finn’s comments about women not keeping “their mouths shut� (when arguing his point about a staged moon landing) does not sit right with me given that Finn is not presented as an inherently ‘bad� character. There is also another very casual moment where Finn offers to tape photos of nude women onto the ceiling above his brother’s hospital bed. This casual sexualisation of women that goes unacknowledged as negative behaviour also had to lower my rating of this book. Finally, Lily’s dialogue that describes too much sexual consent being a “buzzkill� is not something I personally appreciate as a message in a novel.
A positive of this book is the writing. The writing is generally very beautiful to read and there were a handful of sentences that made me stop and read them over again. Moore writes about grief very profoundly and sensitively. However, the writing fell down for me on particularly word choices, as I said above, that lets down the characterisation.
Overall, I would rate this novel between two and three stars. I found the plot to be lacking and underdeveloped and some of the themes and scenes to be problematic and unacknowledged. The rating brings itself up to a three for Moore’s writing style, however, based on what I have read here, I do not think I will be rushing to read more of her novels. The title is still the most engaging part of the book, for me.
January 31, 2024
Years ago I became peripherally involved in a grief management group and didn’t learn much except that there are as many kinds (and timelines) of grief and mourning as there are humans. Mine’s unique, and yours is too. This book’s about several different kinds of grief, and how one person can experience a number of them all at once. Finn’s experiences with his brother’s terminal illness are pretty much the opposite of his grief for his ex-girlfriend Lily, but they’re written for us to enjoy and experience and have some subversive - and very quotable - little laughs about. Lorrie Moore is wonderful and I totally appreciate her sense of humour. My favourite sections though are Confederate-era Elizabeth’s letters to her deceased sister - known only as “Sister� as far as I can see - and I could have read an entire book about the bizarre events of Elizabeth’s life. I’m giving this 3 1/2 stars but I think if I’d read this in the summer I’d have thought more of it and given it a higher rating. ** After some thought I wanted to add that Canadians are stymied by the worshipful attitude some Americans have toward their politicians, both historical and present day. Finn venerates Lincoln - which I do understand from a historical perspective - but is brought to tears speaking about him. That shows yet another side of Finn's grief which most people I know just don't have. In Canada, we like and support our politicians until they're elected, then we despise them with every maple-scented bone in our collective bodies. On the other hand, we do venerate our hockey players...
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