People Like That Are The Only People Here

I read Lorrie Moore's short story, "People Like That Are The Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk" from her collection Birds of America (originally published in The New Yorker). This is a fantastic short story about a mother's experience in pediatric oncology. The writing style is beautiful and witty ("The Mother knows her own face is a big white dumpling of worry." "Perhaps, she thinks, she is being punished [...] she had [...] on three occasions used the formula bottle as flower vases.") Lorrie Moore captures the range and dynamics of emotion that go through a mother's head when her child is diagnosed with cancer: disbelief, guilt, bargaining (she's willing to take a car crash at age 16 if her baby is miraculously cured). The tone has a lilting quality to it; it is furious, it is pitiful, it is humorous ("All of her nutso pals stop by - the two on Prozac, the one obsessed with the word 'penis' in the word 'happiness,' the one who recently had her hair foiled green."), it is philosophical. I think there's very little good medical fiction out there, and the best comes from writers, not doctors. Lorrie Moore is an enthralling writer, and I highly suggest reading this short story.

Image from amazon.com, shown under fair use.