It has been more than a decade since the American writer Lorrie Moore published her last novel, the Women’s prize-shortlisted A Gate at the Stairs, although there has been a collection of stories and an anthology of essays in between. Like Donna Tartt, the rarity with which Moore publishes adds to the cachet of a writer often hailed as the best of her generation; most celebrated for her wisecracking, often heartbreaking short stories, she has been called “the nearest thing we have to Chekhov”. In 2020 her stories were published as part of the Everyman Library, an honour usually reserved...