Rick Moody's Demonology

I'm one of the few writers I know who hasn't read Rick Moody yet. So on Sunday when R and I were strolling around Park Slope I slipped into a used bookstore and bought a copy of Demonology, a collection of his short stories.

I have to say that I'm not really impressed. I mean, he's certainly clever and his writing profiscient, but I almost felt as if this cleverness was a detriment to the prose. There was no passion, no heart; somehow none of these characters felt real to me. The only story that came close was the title piece, "Demonology." (Two stories in the collection, by the way, are about a brother coming to grips with his sister's unexpected demise.) I found myself dropping the book half way through the collection to skim through the latest New Yorker in search for something halfway enlightening to read before bed. (There's a great piece by Milan Kundera in there this week... About the development of a novelist.)

I'll give The Ice Storm a chance, but right now I'm a little astonished.