Description:

From the national bestselling author of A Gate at the Stairs—and a master of contemporary American fiction—comes “a funny, cohesive, and moving collection of stories" (The New York Times Book Review).

In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her exit. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer.

Review

"A wry, crackly voice. . . . Fine, funny, and very moving pictures of contemporary life [from] a writer of enormous talent." —The New York Times

"Brisk, ironic . . . scalpel-sharp. . . . A funny, cohesive, and moving collection of stories." —The New York Times Book Review

"Astonishing. . . . Moore is so good at trapping each moment in perfect, precise detail, so masterful at cynicism and wryness that her moments of poignancy and sweetness catch us completely off guard." —San Francisco Chronicle

“Sharp, flicking, on-target . . . the work of a sorcerer’s apprentice. Moore casts a cruel, mischievous spell.” —Vanity Fair

“Trenchant, funny tales. . . . Moore is much more than another chronicler of the chronically out-of-sync relations between American men and women. She writes with urgency and pace.” —People

About the Author

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.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

HOW TO BEAN OTHER WOMANMeet in expensive beige raincoats, on a pea-soupy night. Like a detective movie. First, stand in front of Florsheim's Fifty-seventh Street window, press your face close to the glass, watch the fake velvet Hummels inside revolving around the wing tips; some white shoes, like your father wears, are propped up with garlands on a small mound of chemical snow. All the stores have closed. You can see your breath on the glass. Draw a peace sign. You are waiting for a bus.He emerges from nowhere, looks like Robert Culp, the fog rolling, then parting, then sort of closing up again behind him. He asks you for a light and you jump a bit, startled, but you give him your "Lucky's Lounge--Where Leisure Is a Suit" matches. He has a nice chuckle, nice fingernails. He lights the cigarette, cupping his hands around the end, and drags deeply, like a starving man. He smiles as he exhales, returns you the matches, looks at your face, says: "Thanks."He then stands not far from you, waiting. Perhaps for the same bus. The two of you glance furtively at each other, shifting feet. Pretend to contemplate the chemical snow. You are two spies glancing quickly at watches, necks disappearing in the hunch of your shoulders, collars upturned and slowly razoring the cab and store-lit fog like sharkfins. You begin to circle, gauging each other in primordial sniffs, eyeing, sidling, keen as Basil Rathbone.A bus arrives. It is crowded, everyone looking laughlessly into one another's underarms. A blonde woman in barrettes steps off, holding her shoes in one hand.You climb on together, grab adjacent chrome posts, and when the bus hisses and rumbles forward, you take out a book. A minute goes by and he asks what you're reading. It is Madame Bovary in a Doris Day biography jacket. Try to explain about binding warpage. He smiles, interested.Return to your book. Emma is opening her window, thinking of Rouen."What weather," you hear him sigh, faintly British or uppercrust Delaware.Glance up. Say: "It is fit for neither beast nor vegetable."It sounds dumb. It makes no sense.But it is how you meet.At the movies he is tender, caressing your hand beneath the seat.At concerts he is sweet and attentive, buying cocktails, locating the ladies' lounge when you can't find it.At museums he is wise and loving, leading you slowly through the Etruscan cinerary urns with affectionate gestures and an art history minor from Columbia. He is kind; he laughs at your jokes.After four movies, three concerts, and two-and-a-half museums, you sleep with him. It seems the right number of cultural events. On the stereo you play your favorite harp and oboe music. He tells you his wife's name. It is Patricia. She is an intellectual property lawyer. He tells you he likes you a lot. You lie on your stomach, naked and still too warm. When he says, "How do you feel about that?" don't say "Ridiculous" or "Get the hell out of my apartment." Prop your head up with one hand and say: "It depends. What is intellectual property law?"He grins. "Oh, you know. Where leisure is a suit."Give him a tight, wiry little smile."I just don't want you to feel uncomfortable about this," he says.Say: "Hey. I am a very cool person. I am tough." Show him your bicep.When you were six you thought mistress meant to put your shoes on the wrong feet. Now you are older and know it can mean many things, but essentially it means to put your shoes on the wrong feet.You walk differently. In store windows you don't recognize yourself; you are another woman, some crazy interior display lady in glasses stumbling frantic and preoccupied through the mannequins. In public restrooms you sit dangerously flat against the toilet seat, a strange flesh sundae of despair and exhilaration, murmuring into your bluing thighs: "Hello, I'm Charlene. I'm a mistress."It is like having a book out from the library.It is like constantly having a book out from the library.You meet frequently for dinner, after work, split whole liters of the house red, then wamble the two blocks east, twenty blocks south to your apartment and lie sprawled on the living room floor with your expensive beige raincoats still on.He is a systems analyst--you have already exhausted this joke--but what he really wants to be, he reveals to you, is an actor."Well, how did you become a systems analyst?" you ask, funny you."The same way anyone becomes anything," he muses. "I took courses and sent out resumes." Pause. "Patricia helped me work up a great resume. Too great.""Oh." Wonder about mistress courses, certification, resumes. Perhaps you are not really qualified."But I'm not good at systems work," he says, staring through and beyond, way beyond, the cracked ceiling. "Figuring out the cost-effectiveness of two hundred people shuffling five hundred pages back and forth across a new four-and-a-half-by-three-foot desk. I'm not an organized person, like Patricia, for instance. She's just incredibly organized. She makes lists for everything. It's pretty impressive."Say flatly, dully: "What?" "That she makes lists.""That she makes lists? You like that?""Well, yes. You know, what she's going to do, what she has to buy, names of clients she has to see, et cetera.""Lists?" you murmur hopelessly, listlessly, your expensive beige raincoat still on. There is a long, tired silence. Lists? You stand up, brush off your coat, ask him what he would like to drink, then stump off to the kitchen without waiting for the answer.At one-thirty, he gets up noiselessly except for the soft rustle of his dressing. He leaves before you have even quite fallen asleep, but before he does, he bends over you in his expensive beige raincoat and kisses the ends of your hair. Ah, he kisses your hair.CLIENTS TO SEEBirthday snapshotsScotch tapeLetters to TD and MomTechnically, you are still a secretary for Karma-Kola, but you wear your Phi Beta Kappa key around your neck on a cheap gold chain, hoping someone will spot you for a promotion. Unfortunately, you have lost the respect of all but one of your co-workers and many of your superiors as well, who are working in order to send their daughters to universities so they won't have to be secretaries, and who, therefore, hold you in contempt for having a degree and being a failure anyway. It is like having a degree in failure. Hilda, however, likes you. You are young and remind her of her sister, the professional skater."But I hate to skate," you say.And Hilda smiles, nodding. "Yup, that's exactly what my sister says sometimes and in that same way."What way?""Oh, I don't know," says Hilda. "Your bangs parted on the side or something."Ask Hilda if she will go to lunch with you. Over Reuben sandwiches ask her if she's ever had an affair with a married man. As she attempts, mid-bite, to complete the choreography of her chomp, Russian dressing spurts out onto her hands."Once," she says. "That was the last lover I had. That was over two years ago.Say: "Oh my god," as if it were horrible and tragic, then try to mitigate that rudeness by clearing your throat and saying, "Well, actually, I guess that's not so bad.""No," she sighs good-naturedly. "His wife had Hodgkin's disease, or so everyone thought. When they came up with the correct diagnosis, something that wasn't nearly so awful, he went back to her. Does that make sense to you?""I suppose," say doubtfully."Yeah, maybe you're right." Hilda is still cleaning Reuben off the backs of her hands with a napkin. "At any rate, who are you involved with?""Someone who has a wife that makes lists. She has Listmaker's disease.""What are you going to do?""I don't know.""Yeah," says Hilda. "That's typical."CLIENTS TO SEETomatoes, cannedHealth food toothpasteHealth food deodorantVit. C on sale, RexallCheck re: other shoemaker, 32nd St."Patricia's really had quite an interesting life," he says, smoking a cigarette."Oh, really?" you say, stabbing one out in the ashtray.Make a list of all the lovers you've ever had.Warren LasherEd "Rubberhead" CatapanoCharles Deats or KeatsAlfonseTuck it in your pocket. Leave it lying around, conspicuously. Somehow you lose it. Make "mislaid" jokes to yourself. Make another list.Whisper, "Don't go yet," as he glides out of your bed before sunrise and you lie there on your back cooling, naked between the sheets and smelling of musky, oniony sweat. Feel gray, like an abandoned locker room towel. Watch him as he again pulls on his pants, his sweater, his socks and shoes. Reach out and hold his thigh as he leans over and kisses you quickly, telling you not to get up, that he'll lock the door when he leaves. In the smoky darkness, you see him smile weakly, guiltily, and attempt a false, jaunty wave from the doorway. Turn on your side, toward the wall, so you don't have to watch the door close. You hear it thud nonetheless, the jangle of keys and snap of the bolt lock, the footsteps loud, then fading down the staircase, the clunk of the street door, then nothing, all his sounds blending with the city, his face passing namelessly uptown in a bus or a badly heated cab, the room, the whole building you live in, shuddering at the windows as a truck roars by toward the Queensboro Bridge.Wonder who you are."Hi, this is Attila," he says in a false deep voice when you pick up your office phone.Giggle. Like an idiot. Say: "Oh. Hi, Hun."Hilda turns to look at you with a what's-with-you look on her face. Shrug your shoulders."Can you meet me for lunch?"Say: "Meet? I'm sorry, I don't eat meat."Cute, you're cute," he says, not laughing, and at lunch he gives you his tomatoes.Drink two huge glasses of wine and smile at all his office and mother-in-law stories. It makes his eyes sparkle and crinkle at the corners, his face pleased and shining. When the waitress clears the plates away, there is a silence where the two of you look down then back up again."You get more beautiful every day," he says to you, as you hold your wine glass over your nose, burgundy rushing down your throat. Put your glass down. Redden. Smile. Fiddle with your Phi Beta Kappa key.When you get up to leave, take deep breaths. In front of the restaurant, where you will stride off in different directions, don't give him a kiss in the noontime throng. Patricia's office is nearby and she likes to go to the bank right around now; his back will stiffen and his eyes dart around like a crazy person's. Instead, do a quick shuffle-ball-chain like you saw Barbra Streisand do in a movie once. Wave gigantically and say: "Till we eat again."In your office building the elevator is slow and packed and you forget to get off at the tenth floor and have to ride all the way back down again from the nineteenth. Five minutes after you arrive dizzily back at your desk, the phone rings."Meet me tomorrow at seven," he says, "in front of Florsheim's and I'll carry you off to my castle. Patricia is going to a copyright convention."Wait freezing in front of Florsheim's until seven-twenty. He finally dashes up, gasping apologies (he just now got back from the airport), his coat flying open, and he takes you in tow quickly uptown toward the art museums. He lives near art museums. Ask him what a copyright convention is."Where leisure is a suit and a suite," he drawls, long and smiling, quickening his pace and yours. He kisses your temple, brushes hair off your face.You arrive at his building in twenty minutes."So, this is it?" The castle doorman's fly is undone. Smile politely. In the elevator, say: "The unexamined fly is not worth zipping."The elevator has a peculiar rattle, for all eight floors, like someone obsessively clearing her throat.When he finally gets the apartment door unlocked, he shows you into an L-shaped living room bursting with plants and gold-framed posters announcing exhibitions you are too late for by six years. The kitchen is off to one side--tiny, digital, spare, with a small army of chrome utensils hanging belligerent and clean as blades on the wall. Walk nervously around like a dog sniffing out the place. Peek into the bedroom: in the center, like a giant bloom, is a queen-sized bed with a Pennsylvania Dutch spread. A small photo of a woman in ski garb is propped on a nightstand. It frightens you.Back in the living room, he mixes drinks with Scotch in them. "So, this is it," you say again with a forced grin and an odd heaving in your rib cage. Light up one of his cigarettes."Can I take your coat?"Be strange and awkward. Say: "I like beige. I think it is practical.""What's wrong with you?" he says, handing you your drink.Try to decide what you should do:1. rip open the front of your coat, sending the buttons torpedoing across the room in a series of pops into the asparagus fern;2. go into the bathroom and gargle with hot tap water;3. go downstairs and wave down a cab for home.He puts his mouth on your neck. Put your arms timidly around him. Whisper into his ear: "There's a woman, uh, another woman in your room.When he is fast asleep upon you, in the middle of the night, send your left arm out slowly toward the nightstand like a mechanical limb programmed for a secret intelligence mission, and bring the ski garb picture back close to your face in the dark and try to study the features over his shoulder. She seems to have a pretty smile, short hair, no eyebrows, tough flaring nostrils, body indecipherably ensconced in nylon and down and wool.Slip carefully out, like a shoe horn, from beneath his sleeping body--he grunts groggily--and go to the closet. Open it with a minimum of squeaking and stare at her clothes. A few suits. Looks like beige blouses and a lot of brown things. Turn on the closet light. Look at the shoes. They are all lined up in neat, married pairs on the closet floor. Black pumps, blue sneakers, brown moccasins, brown T-straps. They have been to an expensive college, say, in Massachusetts. Gaze into her shoes. Her feet are much larger than yours. They are like small cruise missiles.Inside the caves of those shoes, eyes form and open their lids, stare up at you, regard you, wink at you from the insoles. They are half-friendly, conspiratorial, amused at this reconnaissance of yours, like little smiling men from the open hatches of a fleet of military submarines. Turn off the light and shut the door quickly, before they start talking or dancing or something. Scurry back to the bed and hide your face in his armpit.

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Encounters with The Self

D.M.N. · October 26, 2009

I'm rather late coming to the fiction of Lorrie Moore but, definitely better late than never. A recent short story by Moore in The New Yorker (from her newly published novel) finally got me into her tailwind that's been in the atmosphere since her first book of short stories, "Self Help," was published in 1985. In some ways, these idiosyncratic stories of the-self-in-transition may even be more timely now in the 21st century than they were in the 80s. I think we as a culture are more ready to see the The Self as a fragmented, ambiguous entity that has to continuously struggle to keep up the facades of the old traditions that, for example, either hobble women or have simply outlived their old definitions.Moore writes with an intensity and originality about women (and men) grappling with the fallout of postmodernity. It's been said, and sung, that there is a thin line between love and hate and all the relationships in "Self Help" come under the microscope and are found to partake of both. A sense of alienation and melancholy pervades the protagonists of "Self Help" as they are swept along on the vicissitudes of emotions that are never less than complex and laced with the mystery of growing pains and the pains that diminish us as we grow older. Moore writes about mothers, daughters, lovers, husbands, and, ultimately, about women as creative people at the mercy of never-ending stages of transition. If Alice Munro is the great modern classicist of the short story, Moore is the next-generation's candidate for writing of a more experimental nature, mirroring the increasing fragmentation of our world where the biology of women is at right angles to their need for self-expression. These stories do not provide easy closure on the fate of any of the protagonists, but in their courageous free fall and protracted states of inquiry lie their snippets of liberation and moments of epiphany.

4.0 out of 5 stars Crying on lunch break; everyday tragedies

K. · July 29, 2017

Moore has nearly choked me to death almost every day. Her stories of casual sadness and dark hilarity forced me to hold back tears while struggling to swallow my dry sandwich bread during my work day lunch hours. Each short story is thoughtfully detailed, horribly hilarious, and achingly tragic. Great read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Crisp, new, and memorable

S. · August 2, 2011

Moore captures the little moments in life so perfectly that reading one of her stories feels more like recalling a memory. She uses exaggerated, almost abstract descriptions that are so accurate you've got to remind yourself after that they were her stories and not your own. Each story's wording is so shockingly on point that even though the characters are different in each one, they could easily be chapters out of any real person's life. The book is linked through topics that symbolize a defining human experience, and because of that a wide range of readers will be able to relate. Her approach is incredibly refreshing; I found the tone completely unique while still being so fitting that it was impossible not to be drawn instantly into the world she was creates. This is more than worth the short time it takes to read.

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Short Stories

C. · October 20, 2011

Although I did not enjoy it quite as much as Birds of America, Moore is a talented writer, with vivid portrayals of people slightly off of center. Like many people we know... Should be enjoyed by a wide audience.

5.0 out of 5 stars Please Help Yourself

J. · August 3, 2015

As a result of the sheer force and poignancy of Moore's prose, the inimitable quirks and striking turns of phrase, every so often when graduate school was devouring my soul, I imagined running away to Wisconsin or Vandy to pick her brain and get my MFA, which is even more impractical than my current life plan. This collection, start to finish, is perfect. There's a story for everyone. My personal favorite is "Amahl and the Night Visiors: A Guide to the Tenor of Love" with a close second to "How to Become A Writer." And the final story, "To Fill" always makes me cry.

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, enthralling, beautiful

A.C. · May 3, 2016

Moore has a way of dragging her readers and plopping them right in the middle of "drama" which builds catharsis for the readers. Her second person approach, in some stories such as How to be Another Woman, has a way of keeping the character's emotions at bay while proving that the protagonist's inner conflict with such beauty and ease. Moore has a way of capturing the reader within each story, creating an enthralling narrative through each and every one of them. I couldn't put it down and am glad I didn't. I've read several of the stories over and over again.

4.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful book

J. · May 31, 2019

Great book with several exceptional stories. Moore is a master writer. Unpretentious, funny, direct. Just a pleasure to read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read

W. · December 21, 2014

So, I read this book slowly through this year, and I must say, it is one of my favorite reads of this year. It's an interesting compilation of short stories that can make you laugh on one page and cry on the next. Well written and well organized. Great book.

laugh til you cry

M.L.P. · May 15, 2009

this really tells it is like it is - a wonderful assortment of short stories that make you grateful for being able to read. Moore's first hand present tense accounts of a variety of different relationships in different states of distress will make you laugh and cry and nod with agreement.

A book everyone should read!!

A.C. · February 10, 2018

It's fun, it's witty and it's somehow like your best friend

Five Stars

F.S. · November 9, 2017

Great read for women living through transitions.

Self help volume.

A.F. · May 21, 2018

OK volume and fast delivery.

Lorrie Moore is sometimes fine

B.T. · August 1, 2023

If you want a performative opinion of this collection, I'm afraid I can't give you one. One or two pieces are fine writing, the rest can be ignored.

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Visit the Vintage Store

Self-Help

Product ID: U0307277291

Condition: New

4.2

Type: Paperback

^AED68⁹⁸

Price includes VAT & Import Duties

Availability: In Stock

Quantity:

Order today to get by 7-14 business days

Delivery fee of AED 20. Free for orders above AED 200.

Returns & Warranty policies

Imported From: United States

At BOLO, we work hard to ensure the products you receive are new, genuine, and sourced from reputable suppliers.

Your trust is our top priority, and we are committed to maintaining transparency and integrity in every transaction.

Unless otherwise stated, all prices displayed on the product page include applicable taxes and import duties.

All items are shipped by air, and any products classified as “Dangerous Goods (DG)” under IATA regulations will be removed from the order and cancelled.

Description:

Review

About the Author

Reviews:

5.0 out of 5 stars Encounters with The Self

D.M.N. · October 26, 2009

4.0 out of 5 stars Crying on lunch break; everyday tragedies

K. · July 29, 2017

5.0 out of 5 stars Crisp, new, and memorable

S. · August 2, 2011

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Short Stories

C. · October 20, 2011

5.0 out of 5 stars Please Help Yourself

J. · August 3, 2015

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating, enthralling, beautiful

A.C. · May 3, 2016

4.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful book

J. · May 31, 2019

Great book with several exceptional stories. Moore is a master writer. Unpretentious, funny, direct. Just a pleasure to read.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read

W. · December 21, 2014

laugh til you cry

M.L.P. · May 15, 2009

A book everyone should read!!

A.C. · February 10, 2018

It's fun, it's witty and it's somehow like your best friend

Five Stars

F.S. · November 9, 2017

Great read for women living through transitions.

Self help volume.

A.F. · May 21, 2018

OK volume and fast delivery.

Lorrie Moore is sometimes fine

B.T. · August 1, 2023

If you want a performative opinion of this collection, I'm afraid I can't give you one. One or two pieces are fine writing, the rest can be ignored.

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