The Letter Y and The Veil

I am almost finished with The Black Veil and damnit I'm starting the like the thing, or more to the point, I'm starting to like Rick Moody more and more. In that one of the measure's of whether or not a book is decently written is if you care about it's characters enough to judge them one way or the other, I'll have to revoke my original assessment of the book as being poorly written.

The passage in the book when he decides to start wearing a veil himself and the subsequent first journey to Walmart (where he considers asking a sales clerk in which aisle one might browse if they were in the market for a soul) is heart-breakingly funny. I keep thinking about my plan 2 years ago to change my last name to the letter "Y". How I had convinced so many of my writer/artist friends of what a "cool" idea it was. I had a little group show at a public art space in town and put up a piece under the name of "meg y". Man, no wonder I didn't get much feedback on the thing. People probably didn't even know I had done it. I had also tried to subscribe to a couple of magazines as Meg Y but they all came back saying they could not process my order without my complete "information." At least Moody, had the sense not to wear his veil out to dinner. Well, not that he admitted in print anyway - wry smile.

Oh dear.


c - megdoeswords