Boston: Little Brown, 2002. First edition - An account of his mental breakdown - a life-threatening depression brought on by a decade of alcohol and drugs - and his eventual recovery. Thomas Pynchon commented " ..Rick Moody, writing with boldness, humor, generosity of spirit, and a welcome sense of wrath, takes the art of the memoir an important step into the future." Includes Hawthorne's short story "The Minister's Black Veil", from which the title was taken, plus a selected bibliography. 311 pp,