Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anagrams | 1986 | Lorrie Moore | Buy |
| 2 | A Gate at the Stairs | 2009 | Lorrie Moore | Buy |
| 3 | I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home | 2023 | Lorrie Moore | Buy |
Lorrie Moore’s debut novel, Anagrams (1986), is formally unusual — it presents several versions of the same characters in different possible lives, held together by a narrator who may be imagining all of them. It is the work of a writer who had already mastered the short story testing what a novel could do differently.
A Gate at the Stairs (2009) is more conventional in structure but no less precise in its emotional observation. It received wide critical praise on publication and is the novel most likely to convert readers who have not yet discovered Moore’s work. I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home (2023) is stranger and more experimental, following dual narratives including a man caring for a dying friend and a dead woman retracing her own history. It confirmed Moore’s willingness, at this late stage in her career, to take risks that younger writers might not dare.