Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




Rick Moody


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Cover art for GARDEN STATE
FICTION
Released: April 20, 1992

 Anomie is raised to the level of a deadly virus in this first novel (winner of Pushcart's Tenth Annual Editors' Book Award) about wasted youth in suburban New Jersey. ``All over Haledon, kids were coming apart.'' Kids like punk- rocker Alice, 23 years old, unemployed, and less motivated than ever now that her band has broken up; kids like Lane, who has tried every drug on the menu and is debating when to kill himself, now or later. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE ICE STORM
FICTION
Released: May 4, 1994

"Too cold."
 In 1973, a decaying suburban Connecticut family has a bad day. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE RING OF BRIGHTEST ANGELS AROUND HEAVEN
FICTION
Released: Aug. 23, 1995

"Pointless, unfocused, and needlessly sordid overall."
 A debut collection from rising star Moody (The Ice Storm, 1994; Garden State, 1992), who, here, throws together a wild, perverse, and ultimately flat mosaic of contemporary life. Read full book review >
Cover art for PURPLE AMERICA
FICTION
Released: April 1, 1997

 Moody returns to the site of his previous novel (The Ice Storm, 1994), the Gothic underside of Connecticut's privileged suburbs, and once again finds despair, half-suppressed fears, and a pervasive anger. Read full book review >
Cover art for JOYFUL NOISE
NONFICTION
Released: Nov. 1, 1997

"In its narrow purview, this New Testament revisited is considerably less juicy than the original."
 A bid to shed fresh light on the New Testament, weighed down by a disappointingly predictable party line: Jesus-as-radical-moral-teacher. Read full book review >
Cover art for DEMONOLOGY
FICTION
Released: Jan. 25, 2000

"An infuriatingly uneven second collection (after The Ring of Brightest Angels Around Heaven, 1995) whose chaotic feel and flow prove both seductive and alienating. Moody marches on, to the beat of a drummer so different many readers may be unable to hear it at all."
Bizarre content and rhetorical overkill are the salient features of this oddball gathering of 13 short fictions (some aren't precisely stories), by the young author of Purple America (1997) and The Ice Storm (1994), among others. Read full book review >