Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help" (part 2)

I finally finished Lorrie Moore's "Self-Help." My opinion of it stays the same as the last time I wrote about it--the stories are great individually, but the repetitiousness makes Moore seem a weaker writer than what she is. You often hear people say that writers should write what they know, but if all you know is cancer and adultery and going insane then perhaps you should learn some new things.

In the last story of the collection entitled "To Fill," Moore experiments with a style different from her other stories. She uses no quotation marks and very minimal commas in order to replicate an inner voice of a woman slowly driven to madness. The story is similar to previous stories in the collection; her husband is having an affair, she is unsatisfied with her life, her mother is sick, she is sick, et cetera. As always Moore has the ability to thoroughly explores the mentality of her narrator and convey it beautifully on the page, but after reading several similar stories these insights can be quite boring. How many hysterical women fighting with how many cheating husbands can you stand? (The first story of the collection, "How to Be an Other Woman," is probably the most unique, as it is about the other woman for a change and not a victimized wife.)

I'm not exactly riveted by "To Fill." It is rather long and contains too many issues: depression, amnesia, adultery, theft, et cetera. It's not a good story to end the collection, because it doesn't really offer enough magic. I was more captivated by other stories in the middle and think they would serve better as a closure. However, Moore's ability to entertain and capture attention never disappoints; she keeps me reading even when she has no surprises left. Though each narrator is different, their voices are still similar. As gifted a writer as she is, her range and versatility stand to be better. I would say buy the book, read one story, put it away and go read other things, come back to it after a few months and read the next story. You will appreciate it more that way.