Synopses & Reviews
From the concentric rings of strangers passing on a New York City street to the rings of madness in a vainglorious college student's mind, Rick Moody opens up to us a world of frustration, yearning, lies, and neglect whose frontline soldiers are the young. In the stunning title novella, a tale of sexual decay and obsession, he challenges his characters and readers alike to open up and feel their painour paineven when there can be no turning back.
Review
"Ambitious... consistently inventive....A considerable achievement." Michael Gorra, New York Times Book Review
Review
"Moody's dark wit and unflinching eye for the bathetic render him a particularly appropriate seer of contemporary alienation....He captures with piercing clarity the vacuity of his characters' lives." Claire Messud, Village Voice
Review
"Often wonderful prose....Moody's language pushes and pulls boundaries; it avoids and seeks intimacy, with the same insistence, terror, and self-consciousness as Moody's protagonists." Amy Bloom, Boston Globe
Review
"Rick Moody has caught the dark and anarchic undercurrents of personal lives in New York City... and he has set them (discreetly and unpretentiously) in a larger philosophical context....The range and ingenuity are impressive." Madison Smartt Bell, Spin