Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness by Joe Moran (review)

The compendium or anatomy—that is, magpie history with a central, if diffuse, theme—leans heavily on style for its success. It is true that the painstaking burrower must bring forth rare rather than ordinary gems, but it is the remounting, the fresh setting, that makes the dull sparkle again. Moran has attempted something of this sort with the topic of shyness, in a that book he calls "a field guide, a collective biography, and a necessarily elliptical history of the shy." The key term remains intentionally ill defined, a conceptual cloud of social awkwardness, thick enough to include wariness, stage fright, stuttering, autism, and general eccentricity. Its fuzziness allows for the smuggling in of a wide variety of biographical anecdotes, culled from the primary research of others and presented more often than not with little added analysis other than their placement next to kindred examples. Some of these stories are interesting and revealing; many seem all too recent and familiar. (Do we need to have bits of Oliver Sacks's recent autobiography retold so soon after its publication, and is Garrison's Keillor's social awkwardness worth still another recounting?) The overall effect is light or perhaps "lite," a buffet of information that leaves the reader hungry for more lasting nutrition.

Moran is an intelligent, careful writer who produces clean, brisk sentences and the occasional vivid phrase. Functional, professional writing—and a Gladwellian sprinkle of social science—are not enough, however, to elevate this material above its limitations. The jewel-encrusted prose of Robert Burton or Sir Thomas Browne may not be required, but this miscellany of shy anecdotes cannot carry the burden of holding the reader's interest. It would be heartening to see so capable a writer attempt something deeper and more challenging.