You're Ugly, Too - Lorrie Moore

This is a great story to help pull me back into this project.

This is the first story of Moore’s to appear in BASS and we will see her again in ’91, ‘92, ‘93,’98 and 99. 

This story was selected for inclusion in the BASS after appearing in the July 3, 1989 New Yorker. The story had that New Yorker vibe…one that people sometimes turn their nose up at – but it rekindled my interest in the magazine. The story took me back to the days when I’d pull the magazine from our apartment’s mailbox, flip right to the contents and see what lucky author’s short story was selected for inclusion.

The story also drove me upstairs to pull two books from the stacks – The World through a Monocle  and  Cast of Characters – both about the magazine.

There are elements of the story that I time peg and I can easily see why Updike picked it for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories of the Century.

I also feel that there is a little Joyce Carol Oates in there (more for the characteristics of the female character) – both previous authors gracing the pages of the New Yorker and BASS quite frequently. I feel Updike in dialogue between the main character and the man her sister introduces her to at the Halloween party.

The story doesn’t give me the feeling of having been written in the late 1980s – It has that late 1970s feel to me. I'm still working on developing the ability to put into words this feeling and perhaps that skill will emerge with more reading and writing. 

Moore was in her early 30s and I had just graduated from high school – enjoying a summer of freedom…getting ready to head up to Vermont in August.