love drains from you

A few weeks ago I saw Lorrie Moore at the Drue Heinz Lecture Series in the Carnegie Music Hall. I'd never read any of her renowned short stories, but I had recently read a review of her newest novel A Gate at the Stairs, and figured if it were free, I may as well hear her speak.

At the talk, the woman introducing her relayed a story about how while Moore was getting her MFA at Cornell, the professor told them that using the second person to narrate a story was a cheap crutch. And so Moore decided to write a superb short story called "How to be an Other Woman" that went on to be featured in her collection of stories "Self-Help."

After seeing her talk, I went to the Carnegie Library to check out some of her stories, and saw that the story "How to be an Other Woman" was part of the Jeffrey Eugenides edited collection My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead, which is a book I've been wanting to read for a long time because of my love for Eugendies, and short stories. It's a collection of "great love stories, from Chekhov to Munro" and is chock-full of talented writers' stories. In his introduction Eugenides writes that it is only through reading love stories "that we can simultaneously partake of the ecstasy and agony of being in love without paying a crippling emotional price." Moore's story, written as a sarcastic instruction manual of sorts for how to have an affair, allows the reader to experience the self-loathing humiliation that being the other woman causes, without actually having to participate in an affair.

I'm glad to finally have this collection. And I'm glad to have seen Moore's talk. She reminded me of a text I'd been meaning to get for ages now, and in the process I discovered a new writer. I've added her new novel to my reading list.