The narrator of one of the stories in American Rick Moody's Demonology argues that soft rock music is “like a perfumed glob of used toilet tissue or a sample of imitation American cheese food product or meatless chili.” The same could be said for too many books of fiction—all light prose and predictable story lines. Moody's fiction is anything but soft or light.

Moody's latest collection—he's written a previous collection and three novels, including The Ice Storm and Purple America—is no easy-to-swallow literature you can read semi-absentmindedly in the subway. He's a gutsy writer who likes to experiment with form and structure, and the result is often impressive.

“The Ineluctable Morality of the Vaginal,” for instance, is told in a single 17-page sentence, ending with a meticulously described gynecological exam, a procedure the main character feels her lover needs to perform in order to understand her intrinsically.

The book opens with “The Mansion on the Hill,” a miniature novel so rich an entire review could be devoted to it. The narrator is a young man who has been in an existential funk since his sister died in a car crash. As the action takes wild twists and turns, the young man talks to his sister, confiding in her and seeking answers to questions too difficult to ask himself directly. The story brims with energy, yet to poignant effect.

Most of the book's characters are smart, educated and emotionally weary. Questions about who they are and the meaning of life keep popping in their heads, but answers rarely come. They are often nostalgic, given to Proustian musings about the past. They read Marguerite Duras, listen to Leonard Cohen, talk about Lacan's psychoanalytical theories. They are more disheartened than bitter, less sad than lost. They carry like a cross the consequences of bad decisions made earlier in life.

What prevents the stories from suffocating under the weight of all this angst is Moody's exuberant imagination and dark humour.

Perhaps the best, most moving story is “Boys,” an overview of two brothers’ lives from childhood to early adulthood. We see them concocting stupid pranks, worrying about school, struggling with acne, fantasizing about girls, experimenting with drugs. The opening sentence reads: “Boys enter the house, boys enter the house.” This phrase is used over and over again, becoming more mantra than leitmotif, the fuel that projects the story forward. The technique is reminiscent of Tim O'Brien's famous story “The Things They Carried.” And while the suburb of Edison, N.Y. is a less explosive setting than O'Brien's wartime Vietnam, “Boys” features the tragedies of every day—a sibling dying of cancer, a father struck down by heart attack. Large chunks of time are compressed in a mere seven pages, never leaving the reader with the impression it's just some biographical abstract. “Boys” is a tour de force.

Moody is a language pirouettist with a penchant for foreign phrases and fancy words (tintinnabulated, hermeneutical, rhizomatic). But his tongue-in-cheek attitude makes it fun, not annoying, the way it would be from some look-at-me novice writer. Even when he's jarring or cerebral or a bit too clever for his own good, he finds the way to be emotionally engaging—no small feat. This makes for a challenging reading experience that is ultimately rewarding on many levels.