Moody Food Reviews

"Robertson's skill in writing about music earns this book its place on this list. He doesn't merely describe a song from the outside; he enters fully into the flow, recreating the experience for the reader with an often heart-breaking clarity. There are musical moments in Moody Food that are, quite literally, breathtaking."

—The Vancouver Sun, Best Books

"...Moody Food can be read as a great twisting of the tale of Gatsby, with amphetamines and cocaine as the tonics of choice...Robertson is a moral writer and a bitingly intelligent one, a man who writes with penetrating insight about what needs to be written about: beauty, truth and goodness in people living at a time when there is no agreement about these or any values..."

—The Globe and Mail

"Moody Food has the vibrancy of The Sun Also Rises...Robertson's ability to catch the mood of the times is uncanny. The book is a rollicking good read."

—The London Free Press

"One of the major pleasures of the book – one among many – is its language...every voice and description in the book rings with authenticity."

—The National Post

"...his characters are as engaging as they are vivid. The spell of his barroom yarn never lets up...Burning question: Will Ray Robertson and his book make the cover of Rolling Stone?"

—The Montreal Gazette

Young Canadian novelist Robertson re-creates the funky atmosphere of 1960s Toronto in this homage to the short, drug-fueled life of musician Gram Parsons (here fictionalized as American southerner Thomas Graham). Yorkville bookstore employee Bill Henderson is instantly mesmerized by his first sighting of Graham, who is decked out in his customary flamboyant attire--"white cowboy boots and a red silk shirt, all topped off with a white jacket covered with a green sequined pot plant, a couple of sparkling acid cubes, and a pair of woman's breasts." Once Graham lays out his vision for melding country and rock, what he calls Interstellar North American Music, the ragtag band is born, with Bill's bald, vegan girlfriend on bass and an alcoholic old-timer on a weeping pedal steel guitar. As they embark on a tour that takes them from dives to the legendary Whisky Club in L.A., Thomas and Bill become increasingly obsessed with their music and with hard drugs. Robertson builds in a sense of foreboding even as he offers a frequently hilarious take on a troubled musical visionary.

—Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist

From the land of back bacon and Labatt comes Ray Robertson's Moody Food, a book about musician Thomas Graham taking college dropout Bill Hansen on a trip down the sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll highway on a quest to make "Interstellar North American Music". Graham is based on country-rock musician Gram Parsons, and the novel somewhat follows the arc of Parsons' story, but I think the real star of the book is the writing, with its displays of sharp humor and deep love of music.

—Jamelah Earle, Litkicks.com

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