8/13/2019 Reader's Guide: Bark by Lorrie Moore

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8/13/2019 Reader's Guide: Bark by Lorrie Moore

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Readers Guide: Bark by Lorrie Moore

1. What is the metaphor of the title? How do the epigraphs help to set it up?

2. The stories share several themes, among them aging and the passage of time, parents and

children, divorce and separation. What would you say is the primary theme of the collection?

3. Several of the story titles have multiple meanings. How does Moores wordplay keep the reader

guessing?

4. The dialogue in Moores stories is often funny. Would you call the stories themselves humorous?

5. Real-life current events cast shadows over several of the stories. How does Moore use them to

shape a deeper meaning?

6. In Debarking, when Zora tells Ira, Every family is a family of alligators, (p. 15), how does this

foreshadow whats to come?

7. Ira reads a poem in Bekkas journal: Time moving. / Time standing still. / What is the difference? /

Time standing still is the difference (p. 31). He has no idea what it means, but he knows that its

awesome. What do you think the poem means?

8. Why do you think Moore titled the story following Debarking The Juniper Tree?

9. This second story has a dreamlike quality. Do you think Moore expects the reader to accept it as

realistic?

10. In Paper Losses, Kit asserts: A woman had to choose her own particular unhappiness

carefully. That was the only happiness in life: to choose the best unhappiness (p. 68). What do you

think of this notion?

11. What point is Moore making in Foes?

8/13/2019 Reader's Guide: Bark by Lorrie Moore

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12. What is the metaphor of the rat king sequence (p. 140) in Wings?

13. In Subject to Search, Tom says that cruelty comes naturally to everyone (p. 166). Do you

agree? Does that assertion prove true in Moores stories?

14. Thank You for Having Me draws a clear connection between weddings and funerals, marriage

and death. What connections have you seen in your own experience?

15. On page 184, Moore writes, Maria was a narrative girl and the story had to be spellbinding or

she lost interest in the main character, who was sometimes herself and sometimes not. Which other

characters in the collection could be described in this way?

16. Which of Moores characters would you most like to meet again?

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