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

This program is read by the author.

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 listener is buoyed along with them.

Rick Moody was born in New York City. He attended Brown and Columbia Universities. He is the author of the award-winning memoir The Black Veil and of the novels Hotels of North America, The Four Fingers of Death, Purple America, The Ice Storm, Garden State, and multiple collections of short fiction. Moody is the recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, and his work has been anthologized in Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. He lives in Rhode Island.