Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? – Lorrie Moore (1994) 148 pages
The final post of Novella a Day in May 2020! Despite my optimism about completing every day earlier in the week, it was a close-run thing. I’ve just finished reading Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore and came straight to writing this post, so I beg your indulgence of typos and wandering sentence structure (which you’re probably used to given the number of hurriedly written posts I’ve cobbled together this month 😀 )
I chose this novella thanks to Paula’s always brilliant Winding Up the Week post halfway through May, which directed me to this article on contemporary novellas. The wonderfully titled Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? was included, and I had it in my TBR pile, which I’m really trying to reduce during lockdown (and failing dismally, of course…)
It starts with a brief portrait of Berie (Benoite-Marie) on a working holiday in Paris with her husband. Their marriage is not in a good place but they are trying:
“The affectionate farce I make of him ignores the way I feel his lack of love for me.”
We are then taken back to 1972 in upstate New York, where adolescent Berie is working in Storyland with her friend Sils. Sils is beautiful, employed to play Cinderella in the park while Berie works the ticket counter.
“Little girls would stand in line to clamber in and tour around the park with her – it was one of the rides – then be dropped back off next to a big polka-dot mushroom. In between, Sils would come fetch me for a cigarette break.”
Moore captures perfectly that feeling of being on the cusp of adulthood, of desperately wanting everything to happen but being unsure as to whether you are ready for it, of being uncomfortable in your own skin and not quite knowing who you are.
Berie is skinny and underdeveloped, she doesn’t have Sils’ body or the sexual interest from others that it attracts. When Sils gets a motorbike-riding boyfriend named Mike, Berie is left somewhat out in the cold.
“Everything would turn out fine. Or else – hell – it would burn. I only wanted my body to bloom and bleed and be loved. I was raw with want, one made for easy satisfaction, easy story, quick drama, deep life: I wanted to go places and do things with Sils. So what if the house burned down.”
This naivete coupled with recklessness leads to trouble for both girls, in very different and yet ordinary ways. There are significant events in Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, but nothing hugely dramatic.
“My childhood had no narrative; it was all just a combination of air and no air; waiting for life to happen, the body to get big, the mind to grow fearless. There were no stories, no ideas, not really, not yet. Just things unearthed from elsewhere and propped up later to help the mind get around. At the time, however, it was like liquid, like a song – nothing much. It was just a space with some people in it.”
What Moore demonstrates is how little we can know those closest to us, even alongside the intensity of adolescent feelings. Berie is close to her brother Claude, but they drift apart. She grows up with her adopted sister LaRoue, but never really takes time to connect with her. Her parents are absent a lot of the time. All her feelings are focussed on Sils, but Sils is moving into adulthood faster than Berie and there are things they cannot share. This distance between people who know each other intimately is continued into adulthood as her marriage comes close to collapse.
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? is the first of Lorrie Moore’s work I’ve read and I really enjoyed her humour and wit. Overall though, I found this a melancholy book. It portrayed the singular aloneness of human beings and how this underpins ordinary everyday lives. But maybe that’s what I took away because I’ve been self-isolating for eleven weeks now!
Lorrie Moore writes in a beautifully precise way that never feels laboured. She’s insightful, funny and sad, and I’ll look forward to reading more by her.
You can hear Lorrie Moore talk about Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? here.
I don’t mind at all – you are amazing to have read and reviewed every single day this month. I barely managed to read 6 – finished one today, otherwise it would have been 5 – and for a long time, it seemed to be just 2…
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Thanks Marina Sofia! It has helped me get back to reading but I don’t anticipate keeping up this pace. Whatever we manage is fine after all – reading is supposed to be fun 🙂
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A great finale to a wonderful month – huge congratulations on another magnificent project this year. I hope you have time for a good lie down and lots of pampering through June! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🎉🥂
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Thanks so much Liz 🙂
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Well done on your inspirational achievement and an apt choice to end with, relating as you did within that paradigm of being in isolation yourself. Enjoy the pleasure of no pressure now and of choosing what to read next. Interesting how despite the increased reading rate few of us have made a dent in the TBR.
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Thanks so much Claire! I’m at a total loss as to what to read next 😀
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Thank you so much for another brilliant novella-filled May. None of your posts seem cobbled together to me. All just as characteristically thoughtful and perceptive as ever.
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Thanks so much for such a lovely comment Susan – it’s much appreciated!
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Another inspiring month which has once again greatly added to my tbr lists. But they’re only short books, right? So they don’t really count? 😉
Congratulations on making it through the month and thank you for such a valuable resource 🙂
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They definitely don’t count Sandra 😀
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Thank you so much for the mention, Madame B. I’m really glad you enjoyed your final novella – and what a fab title. Many congratulations on completing another successful NADIM. I knew you could do it! 😃
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You’re very welcome Paula – thanks for pointing me towards such a great novella to finish on!
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Well done! Such an impressive project – I am in awe!!
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Thanks so much Kaggsy!
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Well, that was a lot of fun, reading nearly the whole months worth all together! Congratulations on another excellent and inspiring month of novellas. 😀
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Thanks so much FF!
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I’ve liked everything I’ve read by Lorrie Moore so far so will look for this one.
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I’d like to read more by her so that’s great to hear!
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Thank you so much for running Novella a Day in May. I enjoy your blog all year round, but especially in May:)
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Thanks so much Lisa!
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Well done! It has been an inspiring Novella a Day in May!
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Thanks so much Elisabeth!
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Congrats on completing your novella project, that’s quite an achievement! As in previous years, I think you’ve taken great care in showcasing a wide range of books from across the literary spectrum, both old and new. As for the Moore, it sounds great – a fitting one to end on as the month draws to a close.
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Thanks Jacqui! I do aim for a range but as I don’t plan it in advance I’m never quite sure how it will work out. I’m really pleased you thought there was a breadth there.
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Congratulations Madame Bibi. Well done. You did way more reading than I did.
I used to like Lorrie Moore but since her New Yorker piece – not so much anymore.
Utter disgrace
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/13/the-nurses-office
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Thanks Caroline! I hadn’t seen this article, thanks for the link. I find it completely bizarre – what was the point of it being written or published? It’s not saying anything and I think it’s trying to be funny & failing.
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She did herself a huge disservice with this. I didn’t see anyone who found it funny.
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I’m so pleased you completed your Novella a Day. It has been lovely to see so many wonderful reviews. Will it take some time getting used to longer novels now?
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Thanks Janet! I think i might ease myself in with something around the 300 page mark…
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I read this last summer and really enjoyed it. Congratulations on your May blogging – it’s been inspirational!
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Thanks Cathy – glad you enjoyed this one too!
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Excellent work! Now, as a break from the novellas, is your next book 800+ pages?
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Haha! I briefly toyed with the idea of Ulysses but quickly changed my mind 😀
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I love the sound of this one, I haven’t read Lorrie Moore yet though I have had a very slim collection of stories by her tbr for years!
Well done on completing a novella a day again.
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Thanks Ali! I’ve heard her short stories are excellent, so I hope you enjoy them when you get to them. I’d like to try her short stories next rather than one of her novels.
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Well done! Another great year, and – as before – has got me thinking about doing my 25 books again… I got this book in a Secret Santa a few years ago, and quite enjoyed her short stories in Self Help a while ago.
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Thanks Simon! I’d like to read her short stories. It would be great if you did 25 books again, but no pressure 😊
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I know I’m late but congratulations for finishing the month, amazing and another great sounding title here!
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Thanks Jane!
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YAY!!! Congratulations. And well done on bringing attention to an oft-overlooked (and sometimes maligned) form.
I’ve read this collection and, I think, one other, as well as a novel about ten years ago. The feelings you’ve described about this novella fit with my reading of the novel too. It wasn’t disappointing, but I don’t think I expected the simmering melancholy either. I’d had the idea it was going to be a lighter story too (with a photo of the shore on the cover and a comfortable house).
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Thank you! And thanks for all your comments and suggestions on twitter – you’ve given me plenty to look out for.
I agree, this wasn’t disappointing, but the overall tone/feeling at the end was surprising.
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