I once heard the bit Hemingway supposedly wrote about Miller, something about writing about a blowjob as if he invented it. Moody doesn't remind me of Miller, but he reminds me of this line.

Anyway, Moody's noted sympathy for freaks, weirdos and other lost souls would ring truer if he didn't write as if he had discovered them. At every moment it reads as a Christopher Columbus style discovery. Kerouac's menagerie is left standing there holding their Roman candles with a look on their faces that says hey kid so what.

To be fair, this is hardly bad. To be accurate, there is better. If you like Moody, then try Denis Johnson.

Perhaps im being unfair. Maybe it's simply the fact of Moody's sincerity that evokes repetition, an echo of an echo of. We've heard it all before, but because it is for so long that we have been lost. ( )

Fin de siècle redux, pan-fried crass American style, seasoned with heroin and crack cocaine. A time capsule of the dissipated malaise that was prevalent in 1990s American culture. If you lived through it, you probably don't need it rehashed. Others might be interested... ( )