Birds of America
By Lorrie Moore

I borrowed this book from my mom years ago, and maybe because of this I always imagine that the women in these stories are my mom, or my mom's sisters or her friends, or sisters' friends. They are certainly real women, with all the skepticism, dry humor, inertia, and paralysis of the women I know. It's easier, I think, to put your faith in a character that doesn't resemble you. And it's easier for me to create characters like this and then burden them with my problems. It would be much riskier to attempt what I think Lorrie Moore does—trust that you and your kind are not so unique, so hideous or amazing that the world cannot relate. The world can. I do, tremendously.