Montese Crandall is a downtrodden writer whose rare collection of baseball cards won't sustain him, financially or emotionally, through the grave illness of his wife. Luckily, he swindles himself a job churning out a novelization of the 2025 remake of a 1963 horror classic, The Crawling Hand. Crandall tells therein of the United States, in a bid to regain global eminence, launching at last its doomed manned mission to the desolation of Mars. Three space pods with nine Americans on...

Rick Moody's novels have earned him a reputation as a "breathtaking" writer (The New York Times) and "a writer of immense gifts" (The San Francisco Examiner). His remarkable short stories have led both the New Yorker and Harpers to single him out as one of the most original and admired voices in a generation.These stories are abundant proof of Rick Moody's grace as a stylist and a shaper of interior lives. He writes with equal force about the bli...

Rick Moody has been writing about music as long as he has been writing, and this book provides an ample selection from that output. His anatomy of the word cool reminds us that, in the postwar 40s, it was infused with the feeling of jazz music but is now merely a synonym for neat. "On Celestial Music," which was included in Best American Essays, 2008, begins with a lament for the loss in recent music of the vulnerability expressed by Otis Redding's masterpiece, "Try a Little Tende...

From the acclaimed Rick Moody, a darkly comic portrait of a man who comes to life in the most unexpected of ways: through his online reviews.Reginald Edward Morse is one of the top reviewers on RateYourLodging.com, where his many reviews reveal more than just details of hotels around the globe -- they tell his life story. The puzzle of Reginald's life comes together through reviews that comment upon his motivational speaking career, the dissolution of his marriage,...

Lithium for Medea is as much a tale of addiction—to sex, drugs, and dysfunctional family chains—as it is one of mothers and daughters, their mutual rebellion and unconscious mimicry. Here is the story according to Rose—the daughter of a narcissistic, emotionally crippled mother and a father who shadowboxes with death in hospital corridors—as she slips deeply and dangerously into the lair of a cocaine-fed artist in the bohemian squalor of Venice. Lithium for Medea sears us with Rose’s breat...

The 50th anniversary edition of Metcalf’s extraordinary novel—with a new introduction by Rick Moody—is a reckoning with Columbus, America, myth, and his great-grandfather Herman Melville.This is a 50th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Rick Moody.First published in 1965, Genoa is Metcalf’s purging of the burden of his relationship to his great-grandfather Herman Melville. In his signature polyphonic style, the life of Melville, Melvill...

Hilarious and colorful episodes in the lives of families... many depicted from a kid's-eye-view... are the theme for this compilation. Being part of a family is often trying, and stranger than any fiction, but never dull and always worth it in the end. Join these very different families as they face the shrinking of parents, the preemptive guilt of First Confession, the secret worlds of children, and more!Included are:Shirley Jackson's CharlesRead by L...

The relationships in your life will make the difference between happiness and misery.The right relationship will launch you to the heights of achievement; the wrong one will tether you to mediocrity. Your relationships will be your sources of greatest joy and your venues of greatest pain. Van Moody says, “When people show you who they are, pay attention.”We need to undertake the important task of evaluating our relationships intelligently. We need ...

**This program is read by the author.Rick Moody, the award-winning author of The Ice Storm, shares the harrowing true story of the first year of his second marriage—an eventful month-by-month account—in The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Struggle and Hope in Matrimony.**At this story’s start, Moody, a recovering alcoholic and sexual compulsive with a history of depression, is also the divorced father of a beloved little girl and a man in love; his answer...

A spirited collection of stories revealing the extremes of the human experience from the author of The Ice StormIn his first story collection, Rick Moody provides readers with a poignant, brazenly honest glimpse into the lives of a wide array of characters, from a paranoid husband obsessively listening in on his wife's phone calls to the junkies and sex addicts of New York City's underworld. Whether they're grasping for connection or struggling to survive i...

This landmark study of 3 schizophrenic patients—each believing they are Jesus Christ—offers a “rare and eccentric journey” into madness, shining a light on the ethical dilemmas of institutionalized care in the mid-20th century (Slate).On July 1, 1959, at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, the social psychologist Milton Rokeach brought together three paranoid schizophrenics: Clyde Benson, an elderly farmer and alcoholic; Joseph Cassel, a failed writer wh...

One of The New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of the Year“Amy Hempel’s dazzling wit and exquisite use of language are impossible to disclaim” (San Francisco Chronicle) and this celebrated volume gathers together her complete work—four short collections of stunning stories about marriages, minor disasters, and moments of revelation.Amy Hempel is a master of the short story. With her inimitable compassion and ...