The center of the comic universe might be San Diego for this year’s Comic-Con, but once upon a time Matt Groening, the Hernandez brothers and others worked and thrived in Los Angeles.
The Four Fingers of Death A Novel Rick Moody Little, Brown: 730 pp., $25.99 Rick Moody grew up on a nutritious diet of Pynchon, Vonnegut (to whom this book is dedicated), Roth and Updike, some Melville and Hawthorne for New England-style moralizing, a pinch of Carlos Castaneda for spice and a good helping of the Bible (comfort food, the cassava of Western culture).
Poor Lenny Abramov. He’s old (39!) and likes to read. Two strikes against him in the socially and spiritually bankrupt future world created by Gary Shteyngart.
A reissue of “The Colossus of Maroussi” chronicles the American writer’s travels around Greece with pal Lawrence Durrell in the grim days of World War II.
