Self-Help
Lorrie Moore · 1985
Moore invented the second-person story as a sustained narrative mode in this 1985 debut. "How to Become a Writer" is both funny and devastating in a way that few stories manage. Her language is so precise it hurts.
The case against
Second person is a parlor trick, and Moore performs it through most of these nine stories; by the fourth 'you' the device is doing your feeling for you. The puns arrive even at deathbeds, a verbal flinch she would later learn to govern. Blame this slim debut, too, for the thousand workshop imitations that followed.
Short Stories · the Pro canon
The case for it and the rest of the canon open with Pro.
if this one calls to you, so will these →
