A review by storyonlystory
The Four Fingers of Death by Rick Moody

5.0

I’ve seen in negative reviews for this book that there are complaints of pointless dialogs and tangents. But I realized early on in Book Two that the author is treating each character and aspect of the story as it’s own little novel. So from the homeless guy who you know is going to be dead in mere seconds because he just disrupted the arm’s resting place, to the retarded boy who will laughingly witness his loving brother’s brutal death, to the history of the founding of a strange and seemingly aimless but popular new religion, you will get life stories, explanations of theology, intimate insights into character’s personalities, etc. There are many mini stories inside the main story. Perhaps people become frustrated because we will never hear of the homeless man and the retarded boy again and it seems pointless but what the author is doing is drawing a picture of a town, a broken society, and the individuals that live in it. The main story isn’t the entire point in this book. What you’re experiencing is many little books inside of a larger one, each having it’s own purpose, just as we have our own complete stories inside the stories of the places and societies we live in - hell, the world we live in. I really enjoy this writing style and hope it is appreciated by future readers and not so misunderstood.