{"id":30451,"date":"2024-09-30T19:24:23","date_gmt":"2024-09-30T23:24:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=30451"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:01:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T02:01:24","slug":"lore-segal-stories-about-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2024\/09\/30\/lore-segal-stories-about-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Lore Segal: “Stories About Us”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Stories About Us”<\/strong><\/span>
by Lore Segal<\/span>
from the October 7, 2024 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After one of the shortest gaps I can remember, we are getting a second Lore Segal piece (her prior once was “Beyond Imagining” from the June 10 issue a few months ago). I have really liked Segal’s work in the past, but I didn’t get much from “Beyond Imagining” — I hope “Stories About Us” is better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I’m not hopeful. It seems we are back in the same format and with the same characters as we got in “Beyond Imagining”: Bessie, Lotte, Ruth, Farah, Bridget, Ilka, Hope, and Lucinella. I’m not sure if I missed it last time around, but in 2023 Segal published Ladies’ Lunch: And Other Stories<\/em>, and “Beyond Imagining” and “Stories About Us” are a continuation of that series. I’m looking at the table of contents for Ladies’ Lunch<\/em> and there we see, among the nine stories in that section of the book?, “Ruth, Frank and Dario” and “How Lotte Lost Bessie.” I wonder if I’d have gotten more out of “Beyond Imagining” had I read these.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how “Stories About Us” begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

IN THE MAIL<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once [writers have] finished a new manuscript and put it in the mail, they exist in a state of suspended emotional and psychic animation . . . and it’s cruelty to animals to keep them waiting.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    -Robert Gottlieb, The Paris Review<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Let’s get the complaining out of the way,” proposed Hope. “I’ve got me a pacemaker.”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farah said, “I’m losing my vision.”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bessie said, “I lost my husband.”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Bridget said, “I sent my story to a friend from my old writing class.”<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“And how is that a complaint?” Bessie asked her.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bridget said, “Because it feels — maybe it’s something like the actor’s stage fright.”<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We’ll see how this goes for me! I hope you all are about to start a beautiful October, and I hope if you read this you’ll let me know your thoughts below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

The collection also includes the other stories, like “Dandelion,” which I remember loving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s New Yorker fiction is Lore Segal’s “Stories About Us.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1110,94],"tags":[1461],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-30451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lore-segal","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2024-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/October-7-2024-Featured-Image.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7V9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31102,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30451\/revisions\/31102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30451"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=30451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}