National Network for Equitable Library Service

Lisa Moore's Open makes you believe three things unequivocally: that St. John's is the centre of the universe, that these stories are about absolutely everything, that the only certainty in life comes from the accumulation of moments which refuse to be contained. Love, mistakes, loss -- the fear of all of these, the joy of all of these. The interconnectedness of a bus ride in Nepal and a wedding on the shore of Quidi Vidi Lake; of the tension between a husband and wife when their infant cries before dawn (who will go to him?) and the husband's memory of an early, piercing love affair; of two friends, one who suffers early in life and the other midway through. In Open Lisa Moore splices moments and images together so adroitly, so vividly, you'll swear you've lived them yourself. That there is a writer like Lisa Moore threading a live wire through everything she sees, showing it to us, warming us with it. These stories are a gathering in. An offering. They ache and bristle. They are shared riches. Open.