Leonard on Moody's _The Black Veil_

[Doug Millison]

''The Black Veil'' concludes with a positively brilliant howling at white
privilege, an apostrophe to ''blackness'' that reciprocates Melville's
incantation on the lovely whiteness of pearls, brides and sharks. ''To be
an American, to be a citizen of the West, is to be a murderer. Don't kid
yourself. Cover your face.''


... Pynchonian reverberations (especially recalling  Pynchon's response to
Hawthorne) at
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/books/review/07LEONART.html