Lorrie Moore’s eight short stories bear a resemblance in terms of the overall subject matter about the acrimonies and foibles in human relationships. They are previews into the struggles of making sense of the chaos when love and loyalty change into their other extremes. With middle-aged characters, they follow the disappointments of human relationships that have turned sour or are on the verge of waning. The victims of these realities gradually comprehend the futility or impossibility of resurrecting the failing connections. For instance, the story “Referential” is about a mother with a mentally ill son and her disintegrating relationship with her longtime boyfriend. Accordingly, the common motifs in the stories are alienation, the fragility of human bonds, aging, death, and disappointments.
The backdrop of the stories revolve around post-9/11 and the early stages of the Iraq War thereby highlighting the existential threat in this period. While the characters undergo a domestic crisis, the American climate at the onset of the war on terror defines their judgment and motives. The first story “Debarking” focuses on this sense of grief with the protagonist attempting to cure his desperation by initiating a futile relationship. The story with the most overt political commentary is “Subject to Search” which explores the scandal and ramifications of Abu Ghraib torture and prison abuse. Akin to other stories, it is about the absurdities in the lives of Americans dealing with a disruption in their lives. The narratives work to stress their challenges in the domestic sphere while aging as social changes in the public sphere take hold rapidly.
The short stories manage to balance the tragedy in the lives of the characters with instances of hilarity in this genre-defying collection. As Kirkus Reviews stated, “In stories both dark and wry, Moore wields a scalpel with surgical precision.”
