40-odd metaphors from Lorrie Moore

Last month I posted 30-odd metaphors from Ross Macdonald. Now it’s Lorrie Moore’s turn. I just read her most recent novel, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home, described accurately by one critic as “strange, tender, and gross”. I’m a horror fan; I don’t mind gross. It’s also beguiling and beautiful. Moore’s metaphors have a different quality to Macdonald’s. His are generally self-contained, like quips, with a physical immediacy. Hers are more surprising, more philosophical, and often more context-bound, accreting creatively on the story and on themselves. So the excerpts below are longer, on average. As a taster of Moorean metaphor, try this gem from an earlier post about her use of language: 1. Her features had fallen but I saw her lift them again, one by one, the way one lifts light porch furniture after a wind. Or these two from her debut short-story collection, Self-Help: 2. Apartments can shrink inward like drying ponds. You will gasp. 3. The late spring sky has strangely…

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