9780307277282
Anagrams share button
Lorrie Moore
Format Paperback
Dimensions 7.94 (w) x 5.26 (h) x 0.56 (d)
Pages 240
Publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication Date March 2007
ISBN 9780307277282
Book ISBN 10 0307277283
About Book

Gerard sits, fully clothed, in his empty bathtub and pines for Benna. Neighbors in the same apartment building, they share a wall and Gerard listens for the sound of her toilet flushing. Gerard loves Benna. And then Benna loves Gerard. She listens to him play piano, she teaches poetry and sings at nightclubs. As their relationships ebbs and flows, through reality and imagination, Lorrie Moore paints a captivating, innovative portrait of men and women in love and not in love. The first novel from a master of contemporary American fiction, Anagrams is a revelatory tale of love gained and lost.

Reviews

Library Journal

Who exactly is Benna, the 33-year-old poetry teacher (or singer? or aerobics instructor?) we meet in this inventive novel? It is hard to say. She hidesfrom us, from herselfbehind imaginary identities, relationships, and scenarios in which elements of character and action are transposed like the letters of those anagrams she scribbles on napkins. Her fantasies are offered as straight narrative along with a stream of wisecracks (``All the world's a stage we're going through''). For deep down, Benna is terrified of the contingencies of reality (``One gust of wind and Santa became Satan''), longs for the very continuity she mocks. This won't be everyone's cup of tea. Still, the virtuosity of Moore's widely praised Self-Help ( LJ 3/15/85) is once again evident, and when she fleetingly reveals the vulnerability beneath the sleight of hand, it is very affecting. Elise Chase, Forbes Lib., Northampton, Mass.

Alison Lurie

An original, gifted writer...her wry stories make me want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Michiko Kakutani

From the very start, Lorrie Moore's generous gifts as a writer have been very clear: a wry, distinctive voice, a gift for the telling detail. -- The New York Times