BARK Stories

Lorrie Moore’s stellar collection of short stories, her first in 16 years, is not a sunny book, and her deeply ironic delivery, almost deadpan at times, announces that from the get-go. This self-read audiobook is the perfect vehicle for her mordant wit, which might be described to newcomers as David Letterman squared. But Moore’s dark, divorce-filled world, populated by “graying human flotsam with scorched internal landscapes mimicking the young,” will wow her devotees but will not appeal to all listeners. Her intended audience is the world-weary: "'Marriage is one long conversation' wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Of course, he died when he was 44, so he had no idea how long the conversation could really get to be.” A.B.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: APRIL 2014]