It's funny how writing from 25 years ago can feel dated in a way the same kind of writing from 65 years ago doesn't. Moody's tales of middle-class (white, obviously) East Coasters transpire in a similar milieu to Cheever's, but time has bestowed a golden patina on the latter (who, of course, is also inherently better). How we were 25 years ago, when wheeled luggage was going mainstream, mixtapes were still unironic (both grist to Moody's mill), and "website" was written as two words, like on the back of this book, seems ridiculous, because we were there. How we were 65 years ago might as well be the Canterbury Tales. The past is a foreign country, it gets a pass; the recent past is more like a yearbook photo you wish you could destroy all copies of. At least that's how I felt reading Demonology.

This collection feels like a writer terrified of sincerity, reliant on predictable pop-culture references for the advancement of both character and plot. "Wilkie Fahnstock: The Boxed Set" is a biography of a typical Moody dude comprising a 10-cassette mixtape with liner notes. In a similar vein is "Surplus Value Books: Catalogue Number 13". The 100-page "The Carnival Tradition" is caught between short story and novella, a Frankenstory, two episodes from an instantly forgettable life, lacking the spark to animate its constituent parts. The less said about "Pan's Fair Throng", a Renaissance fair in prose seemingly written for a dare, the better. The two-page "Drawer" was "drawn", against its will, from a gallery pamphlet, where it should have remained. If I had to praise one of these stories it would be the opener, "The Mansion on the Hill", a passably jokey account of work life at a New York State wedding venue which revolves uneasily around the spectre of a dead sister — a theme directly addressed in the title story, and maybe elsewhere in the collection: if I'd given more of a shit I'd be able to tell you.