Lorrie Moore is a masterful storyteller who does so much in the short form. Her quirky sense of humor is compelling, and I love how she's able to hit the entertaining line just exactly right. Tight, muscular prose.

I had always wanted to read Lorrie Moore, but never managed to get around to her. When I saw her latest novel, "I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home", was available on NetGalley, I decided this was my moment. A lyrical and haunting sort-of ghost story, those searching for a straightforward narrative will not find it here. Instead, Moore's novel is a meditation on life and death, and rewarding if you give it your time.

At just over 200 pages, this is a slim to be sure, but one that really moved me.

Firstly, I always think it’s brave when a writer tackles dying and grief beyond the surface level, and outside of memoir form. It’s a tricky thing to do in a novel because I think it’s subject matter that’s immediately off-putting. Unluckily, I happen to be someone who’s grown up with grief and death as standard family fare. On the other hand, I think it’s important to accept that death is part of life, and pretending grief isn’t a profound experience does no one any favours.

All this to explain why I was so touched by this one. As readers, we often bring our own stories to the work, and this can impact how we relate to or consume something.

The subject might put some people off. You can guess by now the major themes it tackles!! But the structure is also a little jarring, although it worked for me in the end.

We start with a letter from one sister to another, a letter that dates back to the American civil war, or just after. But then we’re catapulted out of this narrative and into a new, contemporary one - we meet Finn, who’s driving to New York to be with his dying brother in a hospice, although the old letters continue to appear sporadically throughout the book.

We learn that Finn has separated from his partner, Lily - a woman who has struggled with her mental health for many years and has a history of suicide attempts. The third arc of the book is a “road trip” that Finn ends up taking with a ghost. The past and present storylines DO ultimately - briefly - converge.

It’s a lot. It’s a lot for 200-odd pages! And the surrealistic turn it takes may be hard for some to buy. But I was so invested in Moore’s prose - melancholy, tender, yet full of wit and good humour - and in the idea that life continues after death, both in this world and maybe even beyond. But also, that we must accept what we can’t change, and that we can’t prevent an ending when it comes.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

I used to think I was an advanced high-brow literary genius until I read this book. I had to read it twice, but it was worth it both times.

This is a strange novel. There are 2 stories, one from the 1870s and the other from 2016. The earlier story is a series of letters from one sister, Elizabeth, to another. Elizabeth runs a boarding house near the Mason-Dixon Line. She relates the daily happenings of her life. In the contemporary story, a middle-aged teacher, Finn, is visiting his dying brother in the Bronx, when he receives a message that his former girlfriend has committed suicide. He returns home, a drive of 17 hours, digs up her body and proceeds on a road trip with Lily. En route they stay at the old boarding house and Finn finds Elizabeth’s letters. The novel is laced with humour and is a meditation on death. Moore’s work is always interesting to read.

I am a longtime fan of Lorrie Moore's work, both short stories and her longer work, and was so excited to dig into this new novel. It was nothing like I expected, nor like I've read of hers before, but her sure hand and unparalleled storytelling was clear throughout, even if this wasn't quite the best fit for me.

I have mixed feelings about this story. I liked how losses of people with different relations to us were examined. Losses of a sister, a brother, and a lover have different meanings. They have different levels of hurt. Approach Lorrie Moore took to explain all were very touching. But there was still something I was missing that I cannot explain.

I know this was highly anticipated book of Lorrie Moore after a hiatus and I have to admit I haven’t read other ones by her. Unfortunately I was moved as much as I anticipated. I hope people who read her previous books that better experience than I do.

The following is not very reflective of what was going on in the book but I still find it a good quote: “ He thanked the valet with a ten then headed out. He no longer knew his way around what he called No York: all these neighborhoods telling him "No." "NoHo"-a guffawing denial. "NoMad" where he was staying-of course that was where he was staying. "Nolita." Didn't he date her in high school? Or rather junior high? A joke had to be revised, polished, rubbed until the genie got out, ran off, and it just wasn't funny anymore,”

I'm very torn between a 3 and 4 star rating here. There was a lot here to love and enjoy, things such as Moore's vocabulary and ability to turn a phrase. She's very quotable, her prose is on point and beautiful. This book went a lot of unexpected directions and was a really interesting read.

The book's biggest flaw in my opinion is the all consuming bleakness. I prefer my books to have a little bit more levity and positivity. This was fairly heavy & depressing. I would have liked to have had a little more hope, as it is it's starkly depressing & realistic in a fraught, downer type of way.

I personally didn't connect with the characters because of this, I needed a lil bit more light and lightness in order to care about them. I was really excited when I picked this book up tho unfortunately I was disappointed. I will still try some of her other books tho, she is a talented writer.

It's difficult to write about grief in a way that's both honest and funny, but Lorrie Moore pulls it off. This quirky novel is really about how hard it is to let go--of our loved ones, of our own lives, and of our hang-ups and neuroses.

I have read other works by Lorrie Moore and so was interested in reading her latest one. It is a fascinating, weird and difficult to explain story but yet I was intrigued the whole way through. At times the writing reminded me a lot of George Saunders work yet it is distinctively Moore's voice. In a way it is like a zombie tale but not quite. It is about death, dying and afterlife (maybe). The descriptive images stay with me and I liked the banter between characters. Just a cryptic and fascinating read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for an ARC and I left this review voluntarily.

I Am Homeless etc is another great read from Lorrie Moore. It was weird, funny, and complex. I liked the multiple timelines

How lucky we are to live in the time of Lorrie Moore. What a challenge to respond to her work, though! I AM HOMELESS IF THIS IS NOT MY HOME is a tricky, darkly irreverent novel following two primary plot threads: the found journal of a nineteenth-century spinster running a boarding house and housing a character we come to realize is none other than John Wilkes Booth & the narrative of Finn, a (former?) high school teacher in 2016 who leaves his brother's death bed to drive the reanimated corpse of his ex-lover Lily to her preferred final resting place. Yes, you read all that correctly. It's certainly a trick of artistry (or perhaps sorcery) that Moore is able to craft such a gripping, tender love story between a wildly depressed man and a literally decaying body. "I just hope I'm not a horror to you," Lily says at one point, and I goddamn *sighed* -- what is this magic that Moore can weave?! Finn's road trip across America (one in which he vaguely registers the country's imminent--recent? perpetual?--descent into madness by way of yard sign and bumper sticker is intoxicating, just as Finn's attempts to wade through unyielding grief is absolutely irresistible. Just an unbelievably beautiful, complexly elegiac novel; Moore brings her signature wit and propensity toward wordplay just as she plays with the entire American literary canon. Riffing on Faulkner, winking at Hawthorne, nudging Kerouac and Nabokov and McCarthy, Moore sneaks in a true masterpiece with little fanfare and no small amount of grace.

I really tried hard to get into this one, but I couldn't get my brain to focus on the dense thinking. Maybe I'm in the wrong headspace, but after trying it in different formats several different times, I don't think this one is for me!

Making this short because I don’t really have a lot to say about this one. Lorrie Moore is clearly a fantastic writer. The turns of phrase in this one are at times incredibly funny, and I love the weirdness; however, and this may have more to do with my age, very little about this one had resonated with me. Although, as I will get into below, I think this has more to do with the writing than my life experience.

What a strange and wonderful novel this is. A Lorrie Moore book, whether one of her amazing story collections or a rare novel, is always worth the wait. I love the complex structure of this book with its three storylines. Only Moore's skillful craft could have brought these three plotlines together. It's not an easy read, of course. That has never been Moore's style. This novel is a masterclass for writers, especially historical fiction writers, looking to up their game. I plan to reread this and write more at length.

This book started off interesting, with two very different storylines and some philosophizing on life and death, but I was disappointed in Lorrie Moore's execution. The two storylines never converged in any meaningful or impactful way, I thought the more "out there" undead elements were inane, and none of this (characters, dialogue) felt real in a way that let me become emotionally invested. In a novel about grappling with grief and dying, the farcical elements could've worked to emphasize the vast unknowability of death, but instead felt unearned. I hoped for an ending that tied everything together beautifully but it was mostly scattered and garbled. I just wanted to care about any of the characters in this book and I did not.

This is definitely a book for a Lorrie Moore fan or someone more interested in the zany elements of this plot, but this was not for me.

It’s been fourteen long years since Lorrie Moore last published a novel. Like all her work, “I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home” is a deeply thoughtful and imaginative piece of fiction full of glorious language that makes the wait all the sweeter. It begins with Elizabeth, a self-described spinster who has written a letter to her sister after the Civil War. She’s the owner of a boarding house and describes with chill remove both the horrific remnants of the war and the pleasures of modern life. Whether electricity and hot air balloons or the mutilated bodies of soldiers, all receive the same droll delivery. She is not affected by much. “I am braced at every turn for disenchantment,” she says. Elizabeth is particularly plagued by a “handsome lodger” with a “cork foot from the secesh” who pursues her company and harasses her Black companion. But she only seems to become emotional when longing for her sister.

Moore then cuts abruptly to another very specific time in American history during the Clinton/Trump election, and although the book really doesn’t have anything to do with the election, the occasional reference is so specific it places the reader firmly in that moment in time. (Example: “Pizzagate.”) We’re introduced to Finn, who, while visiting his dying brother in hospice, is also deeply concerned about his suicidal ex-girlfriend Lily. The brothers’ devotion and care for each other is tender and sad, particularly as Max, who is dying, seems to pity Finn even more than Finn pities Max. Finn grapples with summarizing his love and affection for his brother in his dying moments with the goals of extending his life through the pleasure of baseball. (Chicagoans will recall the Cubs will win the series in this book.) Despite his good intentions, he ends up shocking Max with his conspiracy theories and his ex-girlfriend’s suicidal ideation. And then he leaves unexpectedly.

The book takes yet another hard turn as Finn embarks on a cross-country road trip with a ghost and a mission. Here, “I Am Homeless If This is Not My Home” becomes an even heavier dialogue-driven meditation on grief and love. Moore continues to juxtapose extremes, lovingly describing even the grossness of a decomposing corpse. Finn’s ghost jokes that the worms haven’t gotten to them even as they brush one off their sleeve. Moore describes larvae clinging to their cheek “as if to a plum” in a way that verges on the romantic. “So, what is death like anyway?” Finn asks. There aren’t easy answers. There is mystery and there is inconclusiveness. “Kind of what you think. And kind of not what you think,” says his ghost. “Not everything dies all at once and together. And some things flicker back on. You kind of get trapped in this partial power outage. The guys with helmets fix some things but not others.”

Moore links Elizabeth and Finn in the most tenuous of ties while leaving plenty of space for the reader to draw their own conclusions. She certainly gently guides us toward that dark veil, the connection of siblings and the depth of grief after a loved one dies, but this book leaves ample breathing room for interpretation. Lest this sound very dreary, rest assured Moore’s hand is light, the badinage of the characters is generally delightful and the imagery is Southern Gothic. It’s a novel worth waiting for. (Kelly Roark)

“I Am Homeless If This is Not My Home”
By Lorrie Moore
Knopf, 208 pages

Oh, dear, this book was not for me. The beginning of the story was interesting - a gossipy letter written by a boarding house owner to her sister during the Civil War. The second part - about a young man visiting his dying brother in 2016 - was interesting, too. But when the story lines came together, the author lost me - what an odd choice - and I ended up not finishing the book. Thank-you to NetGalley, Knopf, and Ms. Moore for the ARC of this title

Lovely book. One of my favorite things about reading in this century is that authors aren’t afraid to do something different, to mix it up, to stretch their imaginations! just perfect.