"Marshall Moore gives readers all the pleasures of good writing without any of the easy comforts of meaning that might earn him a large commercial success. This collection of eighteen short stories, many previously published in anthologies and quarterlies, is only his second book, following the novel The Concrete Sky, and it is extraordinary. I recommend Black Shapes in a Darkened Room to anyone interested in serious fiction--with the caution that readers should be prepared to be both fascinated and appalled by what they will encounter.

"Supernatural events occur in these stories, but Moore is not writing science or fantasy fiction. He is writing about a state of mind found in "us schmucks from the American suburbs," a state of mind so blasé it can accept abuse and incest and murder and dragons without judgment, without even comment. Many of the characters in these stories are young gay men recently out of college and carefully avoiding career paths. Moore captures the sensibility of this generation as well as any current writer, but the sexual orientation of his characters is one given among many, and it would be limiting to label his work gay fiction. Where Moore comes closest to the gay literary heritage is in his humor. Amidst all the blackness in these stories there are drop-dead funny moments. The source of this humor is usually a tone of voice--such as that of Jasmine Melendez-Hill, the 16-year-old adopted daughter of a Bay Area lesbian couple ("Fixed")--but Moore can also make a gay Christmas party or a mother's visit into situation comedy funnier than anything allowed on television. The humor in this dark book depends on an appreciation of gay lifestyles. Since those lifestyles have been so successfully co-opted by the mainstream media, any reader is likely to get the joke.

"Not the least of Marshall Moore's considerable skills as a writer is his ability to pull the reader into a story from the first sentence. Usually these sentences are short and problematic, daring us not to keep going: "The siege has been on for weeks," "I think a Japanese eggplant started all of this," "I remembered to shave father this afternoon." Once started, Moore's plots are lean and fast moving, backtracking only when necessary to explain the narrator's predicament, never losing the forward thrust. This pace and the increasingly violent or bizarre events create tension in the reader. It is not that you want to know what will happen next. You become afraid to find out.

"Composed over a period of seven years, the stories in Black Shapes in a Darkened Room are impressively even in quality and varied in form. One of the most traditional, "Everybody Loves the Musee D'Orsay," resembles the early stories of Andrew Holleran or Edmund White in its exotic setting (Kuala Lampur) and sexy young lovers surviving the funny but ultimately destructive visit from an unhappy mother. At the other end of the spectrum is "The Glue Factory," a story that reads like the drugged fantasy of suburban teenagers horribly abused and horribly able to abuse. Despite formal differences, all of the stories in the book contain elements of the author's singular vision, a vision that produces the discomfort that comes from realizing the world we knew has changed and this writer will guide us to places we may not want to visit.

"Marshall Moore's protagonists are sophisticated, talented young men unable to engage in life. They let hot men get away. They have trouble shopping for food. Some cannot even leave their apartments. In their pasts are hateful relationships with parents who abused them for being sissies, for being gay, for failing to meet some grown-up standard. The most horrific of these stories end in the murder of parents by children, children by parents. Kill or be killed. The ultimate casualty in Moore's world is feeling itself. "But in the end, I don't know what to say," concludes one victimized young man. "I'm not a better person. Hell, I'm not even a very nice person." When love enters the lives of these characters, it is usually short-circuited: they either love men who reject them ("For Your Own Good') or are loved by men they reject ("Black Shapes in a Darkened Room").

"Moore could have made it easier for his characters if he let the expected emotions of those who suffer--grief or anger or pity or forgiveness--come to their rescue in the end. Instead, bewilderment and blunt acceptance of a dark world are the deepest feelings he allows his characters--and his readers--to experience. This is a bleak vision of what our affluent society has done to our children, one not likely to make an author vastly popular. Marshall Moore is a brave writer, and his bravery is sustained by his talent."

—Daniel A. Burr, Lambda Book Report