Rick Moody was born in New York City and studied at Brown University and Columbia University. He has attracted considerable attention and received lavish praise for four books: Garden State (1992) (winner of the Pushcart Press Editors' Book Award), The Ice Storm (1994) (Ang Lee directed a film version released in 1997), Purple America (1997), heralded as Book of the Year by both the New York Times and New York Post and, most recently, his highly acclaimed collection of short stories, Demonology.New Yorker, the New York Times, Harper's, Esquire, the Paris Review, The Atlantic and he is a regular contributor to the on-line magazine, McSweeneys. He has taught at the State University of New York at Purchase, t
Here, Moody talks about his noonday demons and how he surmounted them. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
Moody's first foray into nonfiction is a curious amalgam of family history, literary criticism and recovery memoir. The title refers to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil," which, according to Moody, is based on the true tale of a Moody ancestor who wore a veil throughout his adult life as penance for accidentally killing his boyhood friend. Having this familial connection, Moody (The Ice Storm; Demonology; etc.) also links it to the sadness he experienced as an underpaid, overeducated 20-something searching for himself, first in San Francisco and later as a publishing assistant in New York. He alternates between explaining Hawthorne's story, describing trips to research his colonial-era paternal heritage and depicting how its legacy of apparent freakishness lives in him. In one bizarre episode, Moody confesses having had throughout much of his mid-20s a fear of being raped, an anxiety that eventually led to an alcoholic breakdown. Much of what Moody discovers in Maine graveyards, in old, coded diaries and in his delusions reinforces his own suspicions about a melancholic family inheritance. He's rarely straightforward, interweaving much of the book with occasionally cryptic passages by other authors, along with his own italicized commentary. This hybrid composition will surely enhance Moody's reputation as a thoughtful prose stylist, though he fends off the temptation of self indulging in the intense demands of self-scrutiny with an occasionally dry and strident tone. By the end of this daring experiment, it's clear that, even as the discoveries mount, forcing the veil of the past to fall away and revealing a sympathetic and sensitive man, Moody still hasn't managed to lose his angst. (May 6) Forecast: A 12-city tour to highlight the author's photogenic face and edgy image will help bump sales, but mostly to established fans. New readers will likely be left scratching their heads. Look for an interview with Moody in an upcoming issue. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
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