false 15378 0316166340 9780316166348 94 26 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166672343m/15378.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15378.Right_Livelihoods_Three_Novellas 2278 Rick Moody 4210 451 2 0 false Thu Jan 08 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 23 17:49:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 08 16:56:44 -0800 2009 Rick Moody to be one of my favorite contemporary authors. It was all because of his first collection of short stories, The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven, where his prose left me breathless and inspired. That collection, as well as his handful of early novels that were all about people just trying to DEAL with life's chaos, seemed to be paving a brilliant path for this writer.

And then something happened. Around Demonology, I think, Moody's writing just sort of lost something, some vital electrical current that had made his earlier words jump off the page like live wires. It was as if he had disconnected from the reality where his best characters lived, and instead retired to a faraway world where no one would interrupt his tangential thoughts as he traced the outlines of characters' shadows. I should have stopped reading him after The Black Veil, which may be the worst book I've ever forced myself to read all the way through (and I did, dutifully, page by awful page, because I believed in Rick Moody's writing prowess that much). If not then, I should have stopped reading after The Diviners, not quite as horrid as Black Veil's attempt at memoir but still pretty damn unreadable.

This latest work, Right Livelihoods, is not actually as awful as the previous two. Moody seems to have regained some clue about character development, at least, and has returned to his familiar territory of lost people in a lost world. There is an aging, delusional public official on a quixotic quest to rid his upscale community of terrorism; a lonely office worker bent on eradicating conspiracy in her midst; and a shell-shocked writer trying to navigate the drug-crazed landscape of post-apocalyptic New York City.

But instead of renewing my faith, this may be the book that actually finally gets me to stop reading him. Not because it's so bad, but because it's so mediocre. After I closed the book, I realized there is nothing to recommend it: it was neither good nor bad, just completely unremarkable and forgettable. And of all the literary sins Rick Moody has committed, mediocrity is the one I can never forgive.]]>