Customer Reviews

The Black Veil

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In the last pages of this memoir, Rick Moody expresses his worry about "leaving something out." Yeah, Rick, you left YOURSELF out of your own memoir. Though Rick's experiences of alcoholism are interesting and self-reflective, the weaved in literary criticism of Hawthorne's parable attenuate any emotional potential of the memoir. We can feel bad for Rick, but we better shut up quickly and think deeply about his examination of what the black veil means. Also, as one reviewer pointed out, Rick just seems wordy here. He actually writes sentences like, "i don't know how to describe this..." Well then don't!

Ahh.... . the days of The Ice Storm

However, after reading the first chapter of this book (even the first page), you will think you are in for a treat. So it is worth just reading the first chapter in a book store.

Having read this book several times cover to cover since it came out in 2001, I have grown to appreciate it more with each read. I think the main mistake previous reviewers have made in assessing the Black Veil is blaming this book (which I find is mistakenly categorized as a memoir to appease our label-loving publishing industry) for its inability to live up to their expectations of an average, straight-forward autobiography. It seems to me that Moody, as an esteemed experimental writer, had no such designs for this kind of total recall and those who foist their preconceptions of the memoir upon this book will indeed be disappointed.

For the open-minded reader however, Moody has a much more interesting offering. Using himself as a means of reflecting upon the vast scales of life experience, Moody connects discussions of family and friends, alcoholism and drug use, literature and music, to grand themes such shame, criminality, and tragedy in both personal and national identities. Using Hawthorne's story, The Minister's Black Veil as a touchstone, (think Proust's madeleine but more integral) Moody achieves the rare feat of making his particular life story feel universally important.

With "The Black Veil", Rick Moody has written a brilliantly realized memoir which I suspect will one day be remembered as well as Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes". Indeed there are many passages throughout "The Black Veil" which rank alongside "Angela's Ashes" for their elegant literary quality. If some readers - and I might add, book reviewers such as the infamous Dale Peck - have been frustrated with "The Black Veil", then I suspect it may be that Rick hasn't written nearly as engrossing a tale of survival as the one depicted by Frank in "Angela's Ashes". It also probably has hurt Rick that he has told his tale in a nonlinear fashion, jumping to and fro between various points from his childhood to early adulthood, while trying to mingle successfully with his memoir, writing a thoughtful literary exploration of the Nathaniel Hawthorne short story "The Minister's Black Veil" (The entire story is reprinted in its entirety at the end of "The Black Veil".) and of his own biographical odyssey in search of Joseph "Handkerchief" Moody, the ancestor who inspired Hawthorne's short story.

Among the more memorable passages are those relating to Rick's mental collapse and rehabilitation in a psychiatric clinic in Hollis, Queens (a New York City neighborhood in the borough of Queens) back in 1987. Indeed, I might add that I found most refreshing his acknowledgement of personal flaws such as drinking which led to his hospitalization (This is in stark contrast to what I read in Frank McCourt's "Tis", in which I perceived - whether correctly or not - that Frank was more willing to blame others for his own problems rather than acknowledging his own responsibility.). I also found rather interesting his relationships with his brother, sister, parents and grandfather, though I shall note that none of these are nearly as memorable as the anecodotes which Frank recounts of himself and his brothers in the dirty lanes of Limerick in "Angela's Ashes".

Rick Moody has demonstrated in "The Black Veil", his novels and short stories that he is among the most interesting literary stylists of our time, and perhaps among the finest in our generation (Editorial Note: Rick and I were classmates in a fiction writing seminar in college taught by British feminist science fiction novelist and short story writer Angela Carter.). I suppose that's why I regard him as among my favorite authors, ranking behind the likes of William Gibson and Jonathan Lethem, in my personal list of twenty five favorite writers (And yes, of course Frank McCourt is on my list, though I will plead the fifth regarding his placement on it.).

If you are a Rick Moody fan, hang on to your seats for a penetrating read.

I can't talk about Moody's work without disclosing that I have an intense personal identification with it, having grown up in his "neighborhood" in CT, NY and New England during the 70s and 80s. As a brooding, depressed and chaotic gal for the first 25-30 years of my life, I've shared countless external and internal experiences he describes. I've read the Ice Storm, book and screenplay several times and it never ceases to overwhelm me, how Moody has the ability to capture nuances of this place in time culturally, and this multidimensional place in the lifetime of more recent American generations. I've grappled with whether his experience, and my experience are terribly unique culturally to the NY area (or to drunk and psychiatric "cases" and the communities that surround them) and have come to the conclusion that if you are a child of any suburban/urban American community, and you experienced any kind of the spiritual void and disconnection that seems to present during these decades, and in his writing- then you'll probably find this memoir quite engaging.

Sometimes I think of the Cohen brother's "A serious man" as a more irreverent and lighthearted mirror to the Ice Storm (thought this may speak more to the contrast between Jewish suburban culture and WASP suburban culture in a delightful way- same situation, different interpretation) and I weigh in more on the side of universality than uniqueness. I'm curious how relevant this material would feel to current 20 or 30 somethings, though obviously certain elements of the experience of disaffected youth and young adults in the US are universal and Moody draws aspects of events that occurred in the 90s and new millennium into the discussion in an effective manner.

I'm clearly still working it all through in the 5th decade of my life, and Rick Moody has offered me a nice mirror for (hopefully) "useful" contemplation that might serve both myself and others. I think the tapestry he's woven together of works from classic American writers and modern American history makes his story (our story ?) even more relevant. For someone who is trained as a therapist and not a writer or reader, it offered me an enlightening, personal and very rich view of some of the great American writers such as Hawthorne, who I had only briefly come in contact with in high school English class through a THC fog. If you tend to think about life, American life, your life, our history and what it may or may not mean, and you like to reflect on it beyond a simple chronicle of war stories- then I think you'll find this memoir penetrating, provocative and illuminating.

What Moody does with this book is simultaneously brave and daring. He combines the skilled prose and sort of literary scholarship that would interest a classic literature fan with a gritty portraiture, unsparing, of modern substance abuse addiction. What I particularly enjoyed about this book was that, contrary to most memoirs where the goal is to aggrandize the life a person lived, this book is a haunting, fascinating portrayal of the dark side of a life's events, despite fame and early wealth.

Should Moody desire to stroke his own ego, he would likely have had much to say--but in my view, the dense prose, philosophically complex constructs, and haunting moments in this piece made him all the more admirable for the reader. For isn't this what most of us would like to read and feel empowered by--the unglossed struggle and triumphs of those who take life by the throat? That one's private fears and foibles are actually part of the larger continuum that *is* being human?

I adored this book for its language, its elegance, its playfulness, its skill, and its invention. If you are a reader who enjoys a narrative that challenges you, this book is a lovely excursion into reading something vividly and artfully done.

But, what's better, it did not presume to give me yet another public persona with a spin-performing revisionist history team embellishing on the life of someone less than interesting. In my view, Moody is interesting in all projects he undertakes. And although, in all honesty, Moody's work has always fascinated me--from his early stories to essays I've read through the years--I was interested he would be so bold as to do a memoir, so picked it up and read it before other fiction on my to-read list, and thoroughly enjoyed his Black Veil.

It moved me. It made me think and question. It was worth my time and I read it in one day.

A piece like this gives one the feeling of viewing something mysterious and hard to capture, something seeming both hard as a plate of steel and simultaneously ephemeral and fragile as a butterfly's wing. The Black Veil is truly a fascination piece that wraps and binds a man's search for his ancestors neatly with (both literature as a departure point and) his own search for self-definition that is unflinching in many regards. In general, I hate memoirs. I loved this. For the thinking people who enjoy fine language and whimsical flight for the intellect, I do highly recommend. [close]

As did William Styron, Rick Moody has focused his writerly abilities on depression in this volume. Moody, the middle child, had divorced parents, the divorce event having transpired in 1970 when the family was living in Darien, CT. The home had been quiet. His father's favorite book was MOBY DICK. He was a financial planner. 'Black Veil" refers to a Hawthorne story, 'The Minister's Black Veil'. Presumably the writer used a Moody ancestor in the story, Joseph Moody.

Both the author and his grandfather, the owner of a General Motors dealership, were exaggerators. Moody's grandparents lived in Norwalk, CT, after living in Winchester, MA, where the dealership had been located, and Rowayton. The Grandmother occupied the second floor and the Grandfather the basement. The Grandfather told the children to get out of the house and do some work.

Hawthorne tried to write his way out of his life circumstances before getting married in middle age. After college Moody goes to San Francisco to do something new. The landlady is a psychiatrist.

Holidays, back East now, are given over to unquiet waiting. At Christmas there is sorrow, there is the burden of guilty conscience. Gifts have obligations attached to them. Christmas is a contested day with sets of parents. Moody's 'slough of despond' is alleviated by drinking.

Newton Arvin and Leslie Stephens wrote about the Hawthorne story. The veil may represent the sick soul. In York, ME, the author and his father visit the grave of the Reverend Joseph Moody. He died in 1753.

Melancholy is a way of thinking. After having a panic attack Christmas, 1986, there are therapist visits and drugs prescribed. Then in March Moody experiences irrational thoughts, blackness. He ends up in a psychiatric hospital in Queens in 1987.

The writer began the book seeking to conceal nothing. It is an interesting amalgam of family history, personal history, and descriptions of the writer's craft. The Hawthorne story is presented at the end of the book.

I hesitate to write anything negative after reading the editorial claim for "one of the most admired writers of his generation" who has written a "searing, brilliantly acclaimed memoir", but alas... . I was interested in reading the book based on its premise and an interview with the author I heard over NPR. Unfortunately, after I slogged through one-third of it, I paged through the rest trying to find something to restore my initial enthusiasm, but without success. His memories, insights, experiences, and writing seemed no more interesting than my own or those of any blogger on the face of the planet. If there is a lesson, it is probably that depressed people are depressingly uninteresting.

The "digressions" part of the subtitle primarily refers to the fact that this is not only a memoir but also a sort of family genealogy, or an attempt at one. Moody finds that he may be the descendant of a Reverend Moody who was fictionalized as the title character of Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil." Digging through obscure histories and travelling about New England in an attempt to find out more about the man behind Hawthorne's self-loathing minister, Moody creates a sense of very powerful parallels to his own struggles with severe depression and drugs. These sections alternate without Moody making explicit connections between the two stories, but the format keeps the pages turning and the reader intrigued.

I'm a professional writer and a recovering alcoholic with 25 years' sobriety. This book is a pretentious and incomprehensible attempt to be 'literary.' I wasted my time and hard-earned cash on the hard-cover edition. Go to a movie instead.

This is the memoir to read. This is the memoir to be surpassed.