Ms. Hen reviews Self-Help

Self-Help

Lorrie Moore

Plume

1985

Ms. Hen has read a few Lorrie Moore books previously, and she has enjoyed them, so when she was at her favorite library branch, and she saw this for sale for 50 cents, she scooped it up. She has bought books before at the library, which might seem counterintuitive, but she likes to have books around her, and she also can’t pass up a bargain.

Ms. Hen likes Lorrie Moore’s short stories because she usually says things in a way that nobody else does, but Ms. Hen thought this collection stung in places. She felt this way because all the stories show people and their shortcomings, and how they deal with them. She shows how people make mistakes, and have negative stuff thrust into their lives.

One of Ms. Hen’s favorite stories in this book is “Go Like This,” which is about a woman dealing with cancer and her impending death. Ms. Hen liked this because she thinks it’s realistic, but funny at the same time. The character invites her friends over to tell them she is going to kill herself, and she gets different, quirky reactions from everyone in the room. She thinks one woman is after her husband, and can’t wait for her to die. Ms. Hen understands why the character would want to take her own life, and die a dignified death, but she thinks it could be bad karma. The idea of withering away to some people is unbearable, but there is a chance that a person might not die of cancer if they have it. It’s difficult to make a story about cancer and suicide funny, but Ms. Moore succeeds in doing that.

Ms. Hen wondered why this collection is entitled SELF-HELP, and she thinks it might be because all the stories are supposed to teach the readers a life lesson that they might not learn elsewhere. A lot of people don’t like to read self-help books, because they are preachy and condescending, and Ms. Hen thinks that, too, but reading a collection of stories to learn lessons on how not to live can help us as well. We can learn from our own mistakes and also other’s, and we can absorb from reading fiction how people can have messed up lives, too.

Ms. Hen liked this book, but she didn’t think it’s Moore’s best. She has read other collections by her that made her think more, and say hmm more. She likes it when an author makes her say hmm, because it makes her think that yes, this is true, why didn’t I think of it myself? This collection is mostly sad, which is fine with Ms. Hen because she likes sad books, but it’s an ordinary sad, not extraordinary.