In the thirteen stories assembled in Demonology , Moody seems eager to explore new forms and subjects for his writing, and in the process of this exploration, show how broad and varied his talent really is. The collection is peopled with the quirky sorts of people that tend to move through the landscape of short fiction, and the stories revolve around exactly the kinds of moments good short fiction should. In the bizarre, slightly-skewed worlds of the characters in Demonology , Moody finds the perfect medium for his deliciously ironic sense of humor, the exacting specificity of his metaphors, and the power of his ability to render deeply sympathetic characters and situations. Each of these stories work, in part, because of Moody's chameleon ability to fit his narrative voice to the subject at hand. Two boys, one of them striking the other with a willow switch about the head and shoulders, the other crying, enter the house.
Boys enter the house, speaking nonsense.
Boys enter the house, calling for mother. On a Sunday, in May, a day one might nearly describe as perfect, an ice cream truck comes slowly down the lane, chimes inducing salivation, and children run after it, not long after which boys dig a hole in the backyard and bury their younger sister's dolls two feet down, so that she will never find these dolls and these dolls will rot in hell, after which boys enter the house. Boys, trailing after their father like he is the Second Goddamned Coming of Christ Goddamned Almighty, enter the house, repair to the basement to watch baseball. The deliberate repetition and short, descriptive sentences are touchstones which Moody calls back to for the final, powerful sentences that end the piece, and mark the sometimes momentary transition from boyhood to manhood. I was reading the opening of Ancient Evenings by flashlight when who should go past, down below, on the verdant Cambridge street where I lived, but Anna Feldman, like a specter from a future I would never have.