See What Can Be Done

Essays, Criticism, and Commentary

Lorrie Moore

• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780571339952
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Literature

Award-winning author Lorrie Moore has been writing criticism for over thirty years - and her forensically intelligent, witty and engaging essays are collected here for the first time. Whether writing on Titanic, Margaret Atwood or The Wire, her pieces always offer surprising insights into contemporary culture.

'Exhilarating . . . I was struck not only by Moore's intelligence and wit, and by the syntactical and verbal satisfactions of her prose, but by the fundamental generosity of her critical spirit.' Guardian

'One of America's most brilliant writers . . . This book is a delight.' Stylist

'Intimate and approachable . . . See What Can Be Done flooded my veins with pleasure.' New York Times

'An incisive, wide-ranging and enjoyable collection . . . Marvellously nuanced.' Observer

'Impressive . . . so witty and well-mannered . . . Has something wise or funny on almost every page.' Financial Times

'The entire book is filled with the sharp, off-the-wall, completely brilliant observations that Moore is famous for.' The Pool

Table of contents

• Cover
• Landing Page
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Publication Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Nora Ephron’s Heartburn (1983)
• Kurt Vonnegut’s Galápagos (1985)
• Malcolm Bradbury’s Cuts (1987)
• Anaïs Nin, Marilyn Monroe (1987)
• John Cheever (1988)
• Bobbie Ann Mason’s Love Life (1989)
• V. S. Pritchett’s A Careless Widow (1989)
• Stanley Elkin’s The MacGuffin (1991)
• Don DeLillo’s Mao II (1991)
• Election Day 1992: Voters in Wonderland (1992)
• Charles Baxter’s Shadow Play (1993)
• Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride (1993)
• On Writing (1994)
• Amos Oz (1996)
• Christmas for Everyone (1997)
• Starr–Clinton–Lewinsky (1998)
• Ann Beattie’s New and Selected Stories (1998)
• JonBenét Ramsey by Lawrence Schiller (1999)
• Joyce Carol Oates’s Broke Heart Blues (1999)
• Dawn Powell (1999)
• Best Love Song of the Millennium (1999)
• Titanic (2000)
• Claudia Roth Pierpont’s Passionate Minds (2000)
• Philip Roth’s The Human Stain (2000)
• Matthew Klam’s Sam the Cat (2000)
• Legal Aide: My First Job (2001)
• Frederic Cassidy (2001)
• Alice Munro’s Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2002)
• Edna St. Vincent Millay (2002)
• Darryl Pinckney and Caryl Phillips (2002)
• Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003)
• John Updike’s The Early Stories (2003)
• Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint (2004)
• Alice Munro’s Runaway (2004)
• Joan Silber (2005)
• Eudora Welty (2006)
• Alice Munro’s The Moons of Jupiter (2006)
• Shakespeare: The Modern Elizabethan (2006)
• One Hot Summer, or a Brief History of Time (2006)
• Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (2007)
• Peter Cameron (2007)
• Donald Barthelme (2009)
• Clarice Lispector (2009)
• Barack Obama (2009)
• The Wire (2010)
• Memoirs (2011)
• Friday Night Lights (2011)
• 9/11/11 (2011)
• GOP Primary Debate (2011)
• Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss (2011)
• Suzzy Roche’s Wayward Saints (2012)
• Lena Dunham (2012)
• Wisconsin Recall (2012)
• Richard Ford’s Canada (2012)
• Ethan Canin’s “The Palace Thief” (2012)
• Homeland (2013)
• Jane Campion’s Top of the Lake (2013)
• Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)
• Bernard Malamud (2014)
• Miranda July (2014)
• True Detective (2015)
• Making a Murderer (2016)
• Helen Gurley Brown (2016)
• Ezra Edelman’s O. J.: Made in America (2016)
• Thoughts on Hillary Clinton, December 2016 (2017)
• Stephen Stills (2017)
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Also by the Author
• Copyright