Bark: Stories

"Lorrie Moore wields her trademark sardonic wordplay and offbeat apercus to capture the bitter disappointments of romantic relationships in her first story collection in 15 years. Seesawing between facetiousness and earnestness, her bite is right up there with her bark in these eight tales, which include clever, modern twists on two classics by Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov and a caustically funny but ultimately plangent portrait of a lonely, cynical single mom at a wedding."