false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172337724m/164615.jpg 164615 9 Rick Moody is a traditionalist. Despite his page-long paragraphs, brand-name dropping, obsessive cataloguing of workplace ritual, seemingly random italicizing, and inevitable digs at "multinational entertainment providers," Moody makes classically beautiful short stories. His tools are those of any master storyteller: detail, catharsis, the right word at the right moment. Granted, the details can be unexpected: e.g., comparative values of different Pez dispensers. And his brand of catharsis can be mighty abrupt. "Now the intolerable part of this story begins," he warns us in the title story of <I>Demonology</I>, while "Hawaiian Night" includes the ominous spoiler, "Here comes tragedy." Yet his word choice is always immaculate.<p> Moody's collection is framed by two stories in which the narrator ruminates over his dead sister. In the first, "The Mansion on the Hill," he speaks directly to the departed: <blockquote>You were a fine sister, but you changed your mind all the time, and I had no idea if these things I'd attributed to you in the last year were features of the <I>you</I> I once knew, or whether, in death, you had become the property of your mourners, so that we made of you a puppet.</blockquote> The story promptly turns into a revenge fantasy, with an absurd climax wherein the narrator attacks his sister's former fiancé. "Demonology" deals with the actual circumstances of her death. First we see her tucking the kids into bed prior to her fatal seizure: "And my sister kissed her daughter multiply, because my niece is a little impish redhead, and it's hard <I>not</I> to kiss her." Moody then switches tone smoothly and beautifully as the medics work on the dead woman: "Her body jumped while they shocked her--she was a revenant in some corridor of simultaneities--but her heart wouldn't start." A writer who pins down such fluidities can get up to all the experimentation he likes. We'll go along willingly. <I>--Claire Dederer</I> 331127 2000 Demonology: Stories total:604|5:88|4:214|3:213|2:75|1:14| 604 2099 877 62 1 2 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 10:25:16 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 25 05:24:38 -0700 2008 While some of the short stories were interesting, many of them were so jumbled and inconsistent that I was unable to make heads of tails of their purpose.

Some o...more...]]> 0 2 false false Thu Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Tue May 29 12:02:14 -0700 2007 Tue May 29 12:02:14 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Nov 18 00:00:00 -0800 1990 Mon Nov 23 05:42:06 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 23 05:43:16 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Apr 17 11:31:33 -0700 2009 Fri Apr 17 11:35:23 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Apr 24 12:46:31 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 12:48:51 -0700 2008 italics gets really annoying after awhile. In an interview he said it was one of the hallmarks of his style, although he didn’t say why he did it. It must mean something to him, but I have to say that most of the time (the only exception being when he uses it to indicate dialogue) I don...more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Oct 11 16:16:10 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 04 20:59:52 -0700 2008 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and had no idea about the connection between the two authors when I began the book. (Eggers is even thanked by Moody at the end of the book.) Two, I was ea...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun May 06 08:43:28 -0700 2007 Sun May 06 08:53:21 -0700 2007
My main criticisms is that it's hard to form a coherence among the pieces. A short story is something that needs to be able to exist outside of a collection.

When you gather a group of them together in a single ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 01 11:33:27 -0700 2007 Sat Sep 22 08:24:16 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jul 31 05:15:16 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 31 05:25:20 -0700 2008
Someone send this dude a card that says "congrats-you are now one of the rich and established people you idolized from afar as a kid."

New England settings and voice left me flat. I repeatedly thought "Who gives a shit?" and "Don't I have...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Jul 07 21:29:20 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 07 21:29:20 -0700 2007 more...]]> 2 0 false false Wed Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 13:00:01 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 13:02:41 -0700 2009
Certainly not the worst book on earth, but irritating to me personally because of Moody's obvious intention to adopt a flowing, stacking, over-worded style like Elkin's. He doesn't fail, but his success is a bit gruesome.]]> 4 1 false false Thu Apr 09 09:49:49 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 09:51:32 -0700 2009
I liked most of the stories here. A few of them made me all tingly in my nether regions. A couple were lame. Such is life.]]> 3 0 false false Mon Aug 25 13:13:17 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 25 13:19:26 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 17:55:18 -0700 2009 Sun May 24 15:07:19 -0700 2009 The Mansion on the Hill, the first of the short stories contained in the pages of Demonology, I found myself completely hooked. Moody's stories depict normal people living through depression, trauma, and even temporary insanity. The characters are messed up in the way Palahniuk's, ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Dec 16 08:07:20 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 16 08:08:26 -0800 2008 0 0 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 03 11:11:25 -0700 2007 Sat Jul 14 11:59:42 -0700 2007 more...]]> 1 0 false false Sat Mar 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Feb 23 18:12:44 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 14 10:46:33 -0700 2009 2 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 12:13:22 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 24 12:20:46 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Apr 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 07:15:35 -0700 2009 Mon Jun 01 08:15:47 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Feb 15 21:06:08 -0800 2008 Thu Dec 27 13:19:13 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 27 13:23:19 -0800 2007 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=164615