The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony

by Rick Moody (Narrator)

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 to the question “Would you like to be in a committed relationship?” is, fully and for the first time in his life, “Yes.”

And so his second marriage begins as he emerges, humbly and with tender hopes, from the wreckage of his past, only to be battered by a stormy sea of external troubles—miscarriages, the deaths of friends, and robberies, just for starters. As Moody has put it, "this is a story in which a lot of bad luck is the daily fare of the protagonists, but in which they are also in love.” To Moody’s astonishment, matrimony turns out to be the site of strength in hard times, a vessel infinitely tougher and more durable than any boat these two participants would have traveled by alone. Love buoys the couple, lifting them above their hardships, and the reader is buoyed along with them.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Relationships

Audible Audio

First published August 6, 2019

About the author

Hiram Frederick Moody III is an American novelist and short story writer best known for the 1994 novel The Ice Storm, a chronicle of the dissolution of two suburban Connecticut families over Thanksgiving weekend in 1973, which brought him widespread acclaim, became a bestseller, and was made into the film The Ice Storm. Many of his works have been praised by fellow writers and critics alike.

Reviews

[Adam Dalva · Rating 5 out of 5]

More on this astounding memoir when it comes out in August - add it to your to-read stack. It is acutely told, brave, and lyrically stunning.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

“A first marriage must end for a second marriage to begin “ according to author Rick Moody, as he shares the story of a new beginning (with his second wife Laurel Nakadate) in: “The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Struggle and Hope In Matrimony” (2019).

After a family holiday dinner, Moody and his (unnamed) first wife decided to end their marriage amicably, they had a young daughter, Hazel. Moody didn’t take his fatherhood responsibilities lightly, despite his complex marriage running out of steam. His mental health problems combined with their mutual agreement to have an open marriage certainly didn’t help. By the time attorneys entered the picture, the divorce settlement didn’t work out quite as he had anticipated—there were even questions concerning ownership of book copyrights he wrote during the marriage.

The life of a writer can be solitary and lonely, particularly during his first marriage when he wasn’t very honest with significant others that shared his love life. Although he doesn’t name names and understandably leaves many identifying details out—his writing is superb as he describes how disengaged he was from his own life. There were too many angry boyfriends, husbands and too much heartbreak along the way. One of his romantic partners said he was “evil” and would be the death of her. In his award winning memoir “The Black Veil” (2002) Moody wrote of a serious depressive episode that led to his psychiatric hospitalization. To make matters worse, the death of his 37 year old sister followed from a rare seizure disorder.

It was unclear why he and Nakadate went through such a formal wedding process and reception when they both seemed fine with marrying without fanfare at the local courthouse. Moody, older and wiser, sought therapy for his mental health problems, and apparently found the love and stability he needed to be a good husband and father. He is proud of his wife’s photography and artistic accomplishments and abilities. The book recall ‘s month by month their first year together, including longer passages of Nakadate’s IVF treatments. This may interest some readers or not. Moody wrote of his famous friends, a cursed postcard (signed by Charles Manson), aging parents, the literary life of travel, readings, preforming in a garage band, his writing instruction included teaching at NYU and Yale. There were difficult and traumatic events that he and Nakadate were forced to deal with, but together they managed well, the birth of their son sealed the deal. ** With thanks and appreciation to Henry Holt and Company via NetGalley for the DDC for the purpose of review.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 5 out of 5]

Towards the end of this beautiful memoir, Rick Moody goes on at some length about grace and all its implications. Much of this applies to his honest, generous account of the first year spent with his soul mate, his partner in every sense of the word, Laurel. This is a fine example of the difference evident when a professional writer produces such a memoir. No ghostwriting, lovely passages, heartfelt passions for the bad as well as the good. I would like to say that his respect and appreciation for his partner are evident on every page, and the trials they encountered during this "honeymoon year" are legion and their survival is thanks to the grace shown by both to one another and to the world at large.

[Amy Bruestle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book through a giveaway in exchange for an honest review...

I don’t really know what to say right now. This is a hard review. I don’t really feel passionately one way or the other...hence the middle of the road rating. It was a very personal account of Moody’s life, which was refreshing. It was nice to read something “real” with no sugarcoating or BS, if you will.

[Rachel Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to Rick Moody, NetGalley, and Henry Holt & Company for providing an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Although not uninteresting material, this was difficult to get through due to the author's writing style. I am not a fan of overly idealistic soliloquys, nor of extremely long run-on sentences filled with seemingly unrelated phrases.

From the subtitle [A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony], as well as the book blurb, I was expecting this to be an account of how the author learned from mistakes in his first marriage in order to make his second a success, despite overwhelming odds. I didn't pick up this theme in the novel. Moody does chronologically detail the hardships he and Laurel experienced, but did little to link it to any kind of overarching message or tone.

Nearly half the book passes before we get any sense of who Laurel is. It is difficult to be invested in the outcome of the titular marriage when we don't have any commitment to one of the parties.

[M. Sarki · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/th...

What a pleasure it has been to recently discover the writer Rick Moody, who makes it very hard for anyone to pigeonhole him into one art genre or another. It is even more difficult to write about what interests me most about him. Last week, for example, I spent an hour reading and browsing through his many articles collected in the Swinging Modern Sounds column that on a monthly basis he contributes to the online mag Rumpus. In his always-expanding music review collection there is an enormous amount of material and insight for anyone interested in musicians that for the most part remain off the beaten path. But what brought me first to Rick Moody was this publisher’s review copy of his latest book The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Struggle and Hope in Matrimony. Immediately, and right out of the box in his introduction, Moody confesses to being a long-time philanderer with one failed open marriage already on the books, and then he name-drops Amy Hempel as being one of his best friends. And that pretty much did it for me because of my long history with Gordon Lish and all our shared illicit dalliances, along with Lish’s own intimate accomplishments with Amy Hempel. Not that I have actually involved myself in committing serial adulterous acts, but I can certainly be rightly accused of promoting said actions and also somewhat complicit in arranging them. So my relationship with Rick Moody already is complicated without my ever meeting him.

...My first wife seemed earnest and totally available, and she lived in Chicago, which was nowhere near where I lived in Brooklyn, and right from the start it was more of the same, for me, by which I mean both love and inconstancy, deceit and impulsiveness, failure at intimacy...

It could be suggested that I might involve myself in extended experience with Moody’s writing before attempting to personally contact him, which is part of the reason I was perusing his many columns online in Rumpus last week. Later my wife and I spent a couple hours streaming YouTube videos of him reading from his books, and also videos of a few interviews with Moody as the primary subject. He was engaging, personable, and also a very good speaker.

...Under no circumstance did it seem that monogamy was an impulse that I wanted to explore, and it was not that I didn’t love anyone with whom I was in a relationship at the time; more it seemed that I loved everyone, and could not bring myself to make a choice among them…

This new memoir promised to be the harrowing true story of the first year of his second marriage but Moody did little in the beginning to prepare us for what might come. He did warn in his preface that at that time he was emerging from the wreckage of his past due to his being a recovering depressive alcoholic and sexual compulsive. But there was no proof through example and certainly no demonstration of it. Just his word, which is never enough for a discerning reader to buy into even if Moody is already held in good standing. Having never read any of Moody’s novels, but being aware of the adulterous film The Ice Storm that was based on his early book by the same title, I still was expecting in this memoir a few sordid details of his life leading up to his turning over a new leaf and dealing with life sober. This is not to minimize the publisher’s blurbed stormy sea of external troubles—miscarriages, the deaths of friends, and robberies to be recounted but this reader needed to be emotionally involved first with Moody. In other words, as I read his words there was no prior intimacy developed between us, and there could have been had he given more of himself first before recording this monthly raining of somewhat sentimental, though battering, personal hardships. But, in Moody’s defense, near the end of the memoir it became crystal clear the torments constantly attacking the start of their new relationship.

...I was not sure I would be able to write anything else until I had attempted to render in words this our annus horribilis...

And what a year it was. I do understood why he had to write it. What a mountain of misfortune, too much really, and I cannot imagine myself going through the number of events described in hard-to-stomach detail. But it is always a good sign when I begin taking notes and even writing a paragraph or two before finishing a book. Certainly, an argument could definitely be made for reading all of Moody’s work in chronological order before tackling, especially, a second memoir. Beginning at the beginning would have been the smarter way for me to go, and I would encourage new readers to Moody to follow my advice. But I was already all in with The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Struggle and Hope in Matrimony and determined to finish this long and painful ordeal. And by the end I did feel satisfied. Sort of happy even. Moody, in his genius, managed to completely buy me out. And I do feel more intimate with him now after his guts were spilled and managed to bloody my page. But life is good, as five of his previous books just arrived in my mailbox.

[Anthony Crupi · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s one thing to come to terms with the fact that we’re never going to get another Ice Storm or Demonology out of Rick Moody, but it’s another thing entirely to be asked to sign off on the phrase, “I personally find gourds meaningfully tragicomic and resonant.” Setting aside the redundant evidential marker, this is a cluster of words seemingly devised to send a close reader scrambling for the Valium. (It’s the Pumpkin Spice Latte version of Withnail & I’s justly celebrated “As a youth, I used to weep in butchers’ shops,” only slightly less ridiculous.)
Moody’s inimitably exasperating habit of forever carping about the shortcomings of other people tends to obscure the fact that he’s nearly always projecting; if he’s not grousing about how his former in-laws “obliged” him to watch Thanksgiving football (no better way to celebrate the holiday than to begrudge the harmless enthusiasms of your hosts), then this ambulatory pork-pie hat is making a fuss about the gentrification of Park Slope—this despite the fact that he resided among the swells on Prospect Park West.
Perhaps he’s blinkered by privilege or merely tone deaf w/r/t his staggering hypocrisy, but Moody’s more or less bonkers lack of self-awareness really starts to curdle when he relates the anecdote about his participation in an elaborate staged “transformative experience” devised by a theatre troupe-cum-art collective dubbed “Odyssey Works.” Despite forever trying to cast himself as a hard-luck iconoclast who can’t afford to pay for his wife’s fertility treatments, Moody is the sort of person who will spend up to $50,000* in order to experience a faux-kidnapping that culminates in his standing around for a couple of hours in a field somewhere in Saskatchewan.
All of these regrettable choices perhaps would have been more negotiable were Moody’s prose still up to the job, but The Long Accomplishment reads like an automatic writing experiment, an effort to try to populate a world from the raw materials of cliché and a hyperbolic self-regard. But not everything about the book is like wearing underwear made of fine-grit sandpaper; if nothing else, at least Moody finally seems to have kicked the italics habit.
*or allow others to pay his way

[Deanna Comer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went back and forth with this book. The name dropping does absolutely nothing for me. I also felt like a large part of the book was written to appease his wife like "hey! look at the nice things I wrote about you and your family!" and lacked depth. I rarely got a genuine glimpse of their relationship because of that.

The real hardships of the relationship weren't apparent until the end and acknowledging that presence in a more matter of fact way would have helped throughout because I kept saying to myself "yea right, the long accomplishment, this guy has no idea!" It's such a brief amount of time in the eyes of a long term marriage. His ruminations at the finish did help to pull it together.

There were times when I thought I could jive with this guy and his friends and that kept me interested to read on. I'll have to look at some of his earlier works because I would be interested to read about his "messy" years.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is a real occasion for reflection in life when you are invited to look back and see if there is someone who might be willing to do you harm. When the police ask you this question it has a bright, menacing aspect that it doesn't have in your own depressive musings."

The good news is that the crisis that spurs this observation has -- forgive the cliché-- a very precious silver lining.

EDITING to add that I have the book, but will seek out the audio because Rick Moody is one of the very best readers I have ever heard live. The last time I checked, his work was not available in audio format and it would be so great to have all of his oeuvre read in his unique voice.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moody revealing story about his relationship shortcomings, his divorce, and his remarriage sometimes feels overwritten, but that's part of the Rick Moody charm. Sometimes comically self-critical but always thoughtful, Moody dissects his re-awoken heart with wit and style.

[Kayla DeLarme · Rating 1 out of 5]

I heard this book of a radio interview and thought it might be interesting.I was not a fan of the writing style, nor did I think the story a very good one. The chapters are labeled as the months in his first year of marriage but goes off on long tangents of months and even years prior. I felt the tangents did not contribute to the relativity to the story, being a difficult first year of marriage.
It was almost as if the writer was proud of going through these first world problems in his fifties without spiralling out of control. I am not saying he didn't go through some difficult times but while reading I felt he was fishing for the bad times to say hey look how bad my year was when individually they would have been written off as unimportant. Some of the difficulties he went through it seemed you would read an entire chapter set in a different time before he wrote about the "hardship" of the month lasting as short as a page and a half.
Being married I was hoping for a look at difficulties and hardship in marriage and how he and his wife worked together. Not only did I finish the book without really knowing much about his wife I also feel there was nothing learned, more of a this is what happened and I learned nothing but I am going to write about it anyway.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I didn't find the narrative thread of this memoir to be particularly compelling, I appreciated Moody's thematic observations and definitely found some good takeaways about marriage, "the long accomplishment" of the title. Not long in the sense of duration--for Moody is ironically just reflecting on the first year of his second marriage--but the daily stamina, the "normal excellence" of supporting another person and finding true partnership through life's myriad obstacles.

[Valerie]

A self-effacing and honest account of an intentional, later-in-life marriage, with some complications.

[Sondra Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

If the first year of my second marriage had unfolded as Rick Moody's did, I would have assumed The Fates were telling me I had made a terrible mistake. I won't spoil the tale by listing the events, but suffice it to say, if it could go wrong, it did. There was no self-pity in the telling of this story, however, and the author was honest and self-effacing in revealing what he viewed to be his "faults," which, in my opinion, may have been exactly the characteristics he needed to endure such a year. As I read, I found myself saying, " Do NOT tell me this is happening. You cannot be serious." Or, "Again? How in the world can this possibly be happening to you AGAIN?" Yet, Moody and his wife continued to put one foot in front of the other and deal head-on with a succession of events that would leave most of us reeling and in shock.. We should all be so fortunate to have that level of love and commitment in our relationships.

There were times in which I asked, "Why does this event need to be told? Why was this included in the story?" I knew, however, that all I had to do was continue reading, and the author would have me right back in the palm of his hand.

I didn't know until recently that Rick Moody is the author of "The Ice Storm," which was made into one of my favorite movies. I'm now following him on Goodreads, and will look into his other works. Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read "The Long Accomplishment" in exchange for an honest review.

[Susan Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Addicting story of marriage. It feels as though the people are sitting across from you instead of reading about them.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

A SMALL GEM OF A MEMOIR ABOUT LOSS AND SALVATION

The greatest American writer of my generation, Rick Moody, offers readers what may be his most accessible work of prose; “The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony”, a small gem of a memoir about loss and salvation that may remind some readers of such classic works as Pete Hamill’s “A Drinking Life”, and especially, Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes”. This is a heartfelt, often memorable, examination of Moody’s first year of marriage to his second wife, photographer Laurel Nakadate, that is a literary celebration of matrimony, with ample trials and tribulations that may garner for him, some of the devoted readership so richly earned and deserved for “Angela’s Ashes”. While Moody’s prose may seem more ornate and convoluted than McCourt’s, there is much in his writing that is not only exceptional prose, in a literary style that discerning readers may realize is often poetic and at times, lyrical, too. His latest may also be an excellent introduction to his vast body of work, ranging from his second novel “The Ice Storm” – most likely the novel for which he is best known – to “The Four Fingers of Death” – a dense genre-spanning homage to Ray Bradbury’s speculative fiction – and his most recent novel, “Hotels of North America”, a terse, often profound, examination of online reviewing in our current Internet age by an almost anonymous protagonist.

Rick Moody himself has noted that this is an incredibly sad book, and one that chronicles the personal losses suffered by his and Laurel’s families. Yet it is also an eloquent statement on how he and his wife’s first year of matrimony endures despite ample hardships, most notably the intense emotional and financial struggle to have a successful in vitro fertilization and pregnancy, which culminates eventually with the birth of their son Theo. It is also a memorable testament to Laurel’s personal strengths, whether it is celebrating her talents as a superb fine art portrait photographer and filmmaker, or in noting her brief defiant behavior against someone who had unknowingly profited from hers and Rick’s latest misfortune, as recounted in the memoir’s final pages. It is also an exceptional declaration of Rick’s love, especially for Laurel, but also for his daughter Hazel - the child he had with his first wife - and for his older sister Meredith, a wife, mother and talented photographer in her own right, who died unexpectedly from an unforeseen medical issue, nearly twenty years before he marries Laurel.

It may surprise readers to learn that the memoir is among my least favorite literary genres, especially since I was fortunate to have studied creative writing with Frank McCourt in high school, many years before he finally wrote down the memorable tales he told in class that would become his justly celebrated “Angela’s Ashes”. I prefer instead, fiction, especially speculative fiction of the kinds written eloquently by the likes of late masters such as Ray Bradbury and Ursula Le Guin, or living ones like Pat Cadigan, Samuel R. Delany, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Michael Swanwick, and Catherynne Valente. Moreover, as at least one critic has noted, Rick Moody often writes like he is the smartest person in the room, writing his distinctive prose in such a way merely to remind others of his intelligence. However, I have no doubt that in his second memoir – the first was his celebrated “The Black Veil” – Moody has written such an engrossing, truly memorable, account of personal loss and triumph that may earn from both critics and readers alike, favorable comparisons with “Angela’s Ashes”.

[Rick Schindler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rick Moody's account of the strife-ridden first year of his second marriage is brutally honest yet lyrical. It's also surprisingly funny.

The brilliant, incisive social critic who wrote The Ice Storm and Purple America has, well, thawed in recent years, become gentler and wryer while losing none of his penetrating eye and fierce intelligence. Except, perhaps, when looking at himself; he is unsparing at cataloguing what he assesses as his shortcomings as a life partner, parent, musician and handyman (to name just a few categories).

The vicissitudes of Moody's annus horrbilis (September 2013 to September 2014) are legion, including the deaths of friends, heartrending family drama, a devastating home break-in (two, actually) and, most central, an agonizing (and terribly expensive) fertility struggle. He is at his funniest and his most poignant when describing the manifold indignities of his IVF saga.

Moody previously painted a harrowing portrait of the trauma of the invasions of his home in a story called "A Country Scene." In The Long Accomplishment: A Memoir of Hope and Struggle in Matrimony he adopts a more clinical tone of reportage, a little reminiscent of true-crime shows like Dateline. My favorite part of this section is when Moody's wife, the photographer and artist Laurel Nakadate, personally confronts the proprietor of the pawnshop where the culprits disposed of the Moodys' purloined belongings. This is the part where I best understood how deeply he admires and loves this woman, and where I really understood why.

In an age of scabrous social discourse and scorched-earth politics, this book offers blessedly nuanced and compassionate perspective on love and marriage.

[Ellyn Lem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like I should write a memoir about reading this memoir; I don't think I have ever taken longer to finish a book. First, some background. I started reading this book under odd circumstances. Not a huge fan of Moody's fiction after having tried a few works, I thought this book might be different because truth be told, it was non-fiction and the whole reason I know of Moody is that he dated a good friend of mine in graduate school. From reading "The Long Accomplishment," I now know he was a serial romancer and probably dated extensively in all the boroughs, but I was hoping there would be mention of my friend. There wasn't. Instead, the memoir is all about how in love he is with his second wife with not a whole lot of details about what went wrong in the first marriage tho' we can assume the mention of substance abuse and sex addiction might have been a factor. So, here is some insight from a lit professor for all the writers out there: writing about how fantastic your new wife is does not make for scintillating literature. Those fawning sections and several other highly detailed digressions really slowed my reading process, and I wanted some good escapism as I read this during some back issues with limited options for my typical reading with exercise. Fortunately, Moody can write well about other topics and I found the sections on the infertility experience he and his wife went through to be very moving and heart-felt. In addition, he documents struggles with neighbors over some use of chemicals on floors in his Park Slope condo that also were memorable. With less digressions and "my wife is the best thing since sliced bread" I might have read faster and with more conviction. Oh well.

[Myles · Rating 4 out of 5]

People have tried to frame this as (a) an annus horriblis memoir, (b) the story of a couple plagued by infertility problems, (c) a paean to Laurel Nakedote, (d) a Book of Job narrative about everything that goes wrong following the author's acquisition of a cursed postcard (autographed by Charles Manson), but really, it comes down to this passage:

"If you start to think that every interaction in your life is part of a performance piece of some kind, with a resultant emotional purpose, then it stands to reason that all of your life has thematic weight. You begin to read your life as though everything in it is important, not something simply to be sped through (the checkout line sucks!) to get to the other more high-impact sections..."

Moody writes with this purpose in mind, the result being a few hundred pages of deeply indulgent digressions in the life of a clever but out of touch, funny but never trenchant writer whose work is special exactly because it occupies the spot just beneath greatness.

More than anything, The Long Accomplishment reminded me of Thoreau's Walden-- a comparison Moody explicitly invites. Like the crusty Transcendentalist, his work bears the conviction of a forever optimist who isn't afraid to share deep-felt but unfashionable opinions.* In these times, the effect is quaint, even charming.

*See the somewhat unfair New York Times hatchet job for more on that...

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

"The Long Accomplishment" shares stories from the first year of marriage between author Rick Moody and visual artist Laurel Nakadate. The stories in this memoir cover topics like divorce, remarriage, miscarriage, infertility, family relationships, neighbors, mental health, suicide, and robbery.

Unfortunately, I could not get into this book at all. I didn't relate to any of the stories, didn't like the author's writing style and never connected emotionally to the author. As I read, I kept thinking that the book would be more suited as a story reserved for the author's children, not a wider audience. I did appreciate the author's views on addiction and his honesty about his past addictions and struggles.

Note: This book includes adult language and sexual content.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a compelling memoir of marriage. Moody's candor is so raw and brave. He doesn't hold back any of his transgressions, demons or the hardships he and his marriages faced. From the joys to the misery he lets the reader look in and bares it all. Sincerely written, I really enjoyed his writing style.
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Marriage is hard. Life can throw you so much. But if you are lucky enough to have a partner that pulls you back up and you face whatever it is together then love triumps. This book is a real testament to that. If you like memoirs give this a read. Available August 6th!
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Thank You to the publisher for sending me this #ARC.
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For more of my book content check out instagram.com/bookalong

[thebookwormscorner · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book took me forever to pick up, and now I know why. I didn't enjoy it the least bit. I just felt like he was making excuses throughout the book. Run on sentences. It seems he didn't learn much about his previous marriage

Reading the blurb I thought the book would be about someone who went through serious issues in their marriage and recreated themselves and started off fresh with intentions of not screwing up again. But, it just seemed he wanted to just impress his second wife with what he wrote. Overall wasn't impressed with the writing or the book overall. Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillian for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Kevin Camp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent. A rambling, meandering book. Somehow it reaches a semi-satisfactory conclusion. At least it is a quick read. I grew weary at the constant name dropping. Large sections are just not that interesting.

Few authors are justified in writing not one, but two memoirs in the course of a career. Sad to say, Moody hasn't written a compelling work in years. We may never get a book from him that measures up to the high bar he set with The Ice Storm and Purple America.

[Grete · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

The book begins with the author describing his issues with his first marriage, but never gets into much about how he changed before remarrying. So this leads to the first half of the book feeling a bit like I'm floundering around trying to figure out what I'm reading about. The book ends right when I feel like I was getting somewhere with the struggles between fertility issues and home troubles. It felt abrupt.

[Jamie Rutland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway. It is a true story written by Rick Moody about his life. It details his struggles and his victories in a life that has been riddled with failures and ultimately, success. It was somewhat of a slow read, mainly because of the intricate details of his life. If you enjoy autobiographies or memoirs, this is a book for you.

[Jane]

Nope. Nope nope nope.

Bad things happen to lots of people. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean the audio needs to be read as if by a combination of Keanu Reeves and Alan Rickman. I don't really understand what kind of mood that was supposed to set.

Life's too short and I'm not interested in the rest!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book drew me in at certain parts and all in all enjoyed it. At times I wasn’t quite sure if I would enjoy it or where the story was going. But I did find myself looking forward to reading it at the end of the day. Certain parts were slightly dry but it was quite clear he loved his wife very much and that came out very strongly in his writing.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moody writes well, and I could identify with the accounts he gave of life in Brooklyn and of their journey through infertility. However, this is a memoir of a rather mundane, albeit challenging, first year of marriage for two creative types. There’s not much to get excited about. It’s a three-star book.

[Heather · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had a lot of hope this book was gonna get to me and while it was tough to read it was not at all due to the topic. The way the author wrote it was like he drug on about the small details and then the huge things where I wanted to feel every emotion. Well just flew by but that’s a man for ya I guess. I do say I know this wasn’t easy to write about I’m sure!

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truth: I’m always drawn into Rick Moody’s writing and his memoirs in particular. The story of his first year of marriage, full of so much loss, was packed with the visual and anecdotal details I love from him.