Bark, by Lorrie Moore

I've been waiting for Lorrie Moore's newest collection to come out (let's be real, I've been waiting to be able to check it out from the library--I didn't buy it), and then yesterday, in between doctors appointments, I found it at the li-berry. If you haven't heard of it, the title is Bark, and it contains eight short stories, the first of which is pretty long and could almost be a novella.

Padhraig read it too, and he finds her verbal cleverness and word play to be distracting sometimes; I don't usually have that problem with her stories, but I know she's prone to writing characters who are academics and say nerdy, funny things. This collection is...maybe not as interesting as others? Maybe less shiny? It's not like she's trying to hard, it's like she's not trying much at all. Like her agent said, Snap, snap! We need a book. And she coughed up these stories while also maintaining frequent status updates on Facebook (I could be projecting).

I've only been able to resist reading what others think of it for about twenty five seconds. The New York Times doesn't love it or hate it. I will finish the collection and possibly let you know what I think after I've read them all.