An excellent very short story: Less is (Lorrie) Moore

As one who was disappointed in Lorrie Moore's most recent book, the baggy and meandering Gate on the Stairs, I'm really pleased to see her moving back to the short story - apparently an ideal genre for her, she has written some of the best American short stories of the past 20 years, taut and funny and disconcerting - with her story Referential in the current New Yorker. Though Moore has written some incredibly sad stories, notably her famous All the People Here about a family whose child is diagnosed with kidney cancer, and though even her overtly comical stories inevitably have a note of loneliness and sorrow, often about a young woman who doesn't quite fit in or who's unlucky in love - these are familiar tropes in much short fiction, especially American fiction, her current story may be her darkest one ever. Moore gets you right from the first sentence, in which she talks of her visits to see her deranged son. What a great and shocking word choice that is! Story is very short and describes a middle-aged woman whose teenage son is institutionalized for odd and self-destructive behavior, very briefly, in just a few sentences, describes the horror of watching the boy over time descend into his madness; woman visits son with her current boyfriend, and the status of their relationship is uncertain - he's kind to the son, but it's obvious that the looming presence of the "deranged" on is a dead weight on their relationship. After a visit they go back to woman's house, woman indicates she might want son to move back home temporarily, and the man obviously backs off - and then it becomes clear to woman that he has another, probably much less complicated and demanding, relationship going on - and she faces her sorrow and isolation. Very powerful - and all in just a few pages, one of the shortest stories the New Yorker has run this year, maybe the shortest. Those of us who've read Moore over many years and have "watched" her mature as a writer feel almost a personal fondness for her - she's been so open about the difficulties of life, without being maudlin or confessional, and I find myself always wishing her the best - reading her stories and thinking: I hope this isn't you, I your life is better than this - and I hope this now, reading this very sad story, leavened only slightly - not so much by Moore's typically tart humor but by the sharpness of her language and the aptness of her choice of words and selection of detail.