I found Rick Moody through his short stories published in McSweeney's and picked up a copy of his book at Trident Book Store in Boston last month. The story was about two families, the Hoods and the Williams, living in an affluent Connecticut neighborhood in 1973 during a bad ice storm. Both families are unhappy as Ben Hood and Elena Williams are having a miserable affair and there is a developing love triangle between Wendy Hood & the Williams brothers Mike & Sandy. As the story unfolds the adults go to a neighborhood party during the storm that ends up being a key party where whoever wants to participate will swap partners at the end of the night based on who draws what set of keys. The love triangle heats up with Wendy’s affection switching interest to the other brother who she really wanted all along and Paul Hood is in NYC trying to romance a girl from his prep school who is home on holiday. The stories all collide after the storm has done quite a bit of damage and there is a major tragedy late. One of the largest themes is sex where literally every major character is partaking from the parents affair then all the members of the key party and the kids coming of age exploration. I thought it was extremely well done as most of it wasn't sexy and was used to show us something about the characters. I imagine it's hard to write about underage sexuality as a man without it being creepy and Moody has done it well capturing that innocence & confusion we all felt in those first experiences.
This books a hard one for me to figure out how I feel about it. It was good and I enjoyed it but it wasn’t mind blowing. I’ve never really been a fan of depressing books so that might have something to do with it. While the book definitely had its funny moments, by and large the story revolved around unhappiness & loneliness. That being said Moody did what a great artist does and challenges the reader to think and reflect.
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