Lorrie Moore may be the best short-story writer around

 Lorrie Moore has been one of my favorite short-story writers, maybe (along w/ Saunders) the best around w/ the death or retirement of so many greats in the past few years (Munro, Trevor, Roth, Updike et al.), especially noted for her mordant sense of humor and her ingenious admixtures of comedy and tragedy. She seems to have been on something of a hiatus, however, over the past decade - or maybe it's just me not paying attention? - but with the recent publication of her Collected Stories, an act of anointment if ever there was one, she has emerged w/ a few appearances in the NYer and elsewhere. Great! Her story in the current NYer, Face Time, if frighteningly au courant and it touches on an experience that almost all of us have faced, are facing, or will face: an elderly relative (father, in this case) in hospital care in final stages of succumbing to Covid19. Moore with great sensitivity builds a witty and caring relationship between father and daughter (the daughter seeming somewhat like Moore, though this is clearly not a piece of autofiction or memoir) and she also sketches in relationships w/ care-givers (strained) and with siblings (more so), and all done through the medium of FaceTime - all told, quite an accomplishment, Yes, it's a little scary to read this - though much less than with what's probably LM's most famous story, People Like Us ... (about a young couple whose infant daughter is diagnosed w/ kidney cancer) - though both stories have that sense of wit and dedication guiding us, or the protagonists I should say, through medical trauma. FaceTime isn't as "funny" as some of Moore's earlier work, but it's more mature, complex, and wise -whereas her earlier works focused on a  protagonist who was insecure, at loose ends, and at times acerbic. Worth reading this one - and it may drive me toward buying a copy of her Collected Stories (is reading through that collection something like reading an autobiography in installments?, just wondering).