"Perhaps there are really only a few hundred people in the whole world and they all have secret jobs as other people, rushing to airports, switching outfits, chowing down small, packaged fruit pies in taxi-cabs..." This wryly original theory belongs to Benna Carpenter, the central name for a series of characters in Loorie Moore’s novel Anagrams.
In Anagrams, Moore’s characters switch places from chapter to chapter like rough-edged puzzle pieces looking for the right fit. Benne is a world-weary nightclub singer, an unemployed aerobics instructor, an art history professor. Her friend Gerard is alternately her neighbor, her (ex)lover, her student. This game of chameleon is Benna’s response to the drabness of her life. A writing instructor in a small community college, Benna sees the real world as an okay place to visit, but she doesn’t want to live there.
Moore wrote Anagrams from back to front, beginning with the final section of the book and then adding on several shorter sections as she created new variations on the original characters.
Moore uses word games to offset the more serious aspects of writing about isolation and disappointment. The winner of a national short-story contest at 19, she has continued to receive recognition for her original writing style. Her first book, Self Help, which parodied typical "how to" guides, was well-received by critics and readers alike.
Moore divides her time between Madison, Wisconsin and New York, chronicling ideas in a series of notebooks scattered around her house. These "external brains," as she terms them, are filled with fragments of thoughts that she then combines into longer works. Moore is currently starting her next project; the title and format – as is typical of her style -– are still to be decided.
While she is pleased with the approval her work has received throughout the country, she is hesitant to react to the production pressures of being A Writer. "Growing up, I don’t remember wanting to be a writer," she says, warming up for a typical Lorrie Moore ending. "I feel like I woke up one day and said, ‘Oh, look where I am – this is what happened!’ And I still feel like it’s never too late to become an epidemiologist."