'America's first lady of darkness and mirth.' Guardian 'I'd rather spend time with her than anyone else on Earth.' Nicole Flattery 'Lorrie Moore is one of my very favourite writers.' Monica Heisey Complicated, awkward, funny, cruel, heartbroken, mysterious; Self-Help forms an idiosyncratic guide to female existence which is just as relevant today as it was 30 years ago. These stories are modern America at its most real, with characters sharing thoughts and experiences they could have borrowed from our own lives. This is how to deal with divorce, adultery, cancer, how to talk to your mother or become a writer, the Lorrie Moore way.

Lorrie Moore is the award-winning author of five story collections, four novels, a collection of criticism and a children's book. A Gate at the Stairs was shortlisted for the 2010 Orange Prize, now the Women's Prize, and she has received numerous accolades from the Lannan Foundation, the National Books Critics Circle, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. After serving for almost three decades as the Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Moore is now the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University.