Rick Moody: behind the Black Veil. (PW Interview).(Brief Article)(Interview)

As a young celebrity literary lion, Rick Moody's biography was broadcast as part of the marketing behind his books: Ivy League--educated (Brown, Columbia) scion of a broken Connecticut family with ties to the Puritans; writes scathing portrayals of America's disaffected middle class; Generation X's Updike, only darker. Fame came early when his first novel, The Garden State, won a Pushcart Prize and his second novel, The Ice Storm, was made into a popular Hollywood film. He followed with a book of short stories, Ring of Brightest Angels Round I-leaven; another novel, Purple America; and another book of short stories, Demonology. His most recent work, his first of nonfiction, The Black Veil: A Memoir with Digressions, Moody investigates a purported family connection to Handkerchief Moody, an 18th-century figure who …