Not my favorite cover art, I have to admit. I also have one featuring a package of Smarties on a robin’s egg backdrop.
Demonology, a collection of short stories by Rick Moody, has been my favorite book for a few years now.
For fans of Garden State (which I just started), these stories almost seem like they’re written by another person. The style is much more informal, even a little abstract at times. There’s a different hint at fantasy than the one you get reading Garden State, likely because of the different moods brought on by such widely varying characters in so many different settings.
The stories in Demonology deal with human connection and the ways that connection has become damaged or lost, or perhaps was never there to begin with. Relationships vary from familial to romantic to platonic and sometimes float in uncomfortable in-between spaces. It’s gritty, it’s harsh, it’s sometimes hard to read, but that’s what makes it beautiful.
amelia molly heath 