An Angel of Sodom is the title short novel, which is followed by 13 short stories, by David Vardeman, long-neglected, long at work, always writing. Now that he is published a unique and frankly indescribable author has come to haunt the literary milieu with is perverse, absurd, realist, Midwestern, US American, human being tales of people who generally go about their mundane quotidian while navigating the most difficult task of all--living sanely. In each story, the characters seem to be confounded by the banality of normal, while the undertow of an unglimpsed all-powerful strange tugs at them.
What they don't notice, luckily Vardeman does. His writing provides a variety of pleasures, including humor and puzzles that prick the intellect to discomfort, but his primary talent lies in providing endless surprises. Not a page goes by without unpredictable reactions, urges, indabas, insights, petty cruelties, odd moments of tenderness--which in this world are indeed odd, and not likely to last.
Primarily through comedy, Vardeman’s experimental stories run the gamut of human emotion, from hilarity to harrowing heartbreak.
From page one he offers an unflinching and unflattering view of the human animal’s foolish and various ways of tackling life. It is with a unique literary mastery of his chosen arguments that he depicts the often pathetically inept actions of his characters.
Above all, these are character-driven tales, taken to the very edge of believability. The conversations always take a turn for the bizarre, even as they touch on stunning human truths.
The aplomb on display is equalled on by the control of his gamma-knife-sharp wit. What results, is an utterly devastating circus of dream visions.
The first story forsakes punctuation except full stops, which makes for a learning curve. Force your mind around his rhythmic style and you will likely get addicted to the surprises to be found within and around every unexpected word.
Several of the stories capture convincing perspectives of troubled youth seeking after a place to belong, employing sardonic logical fallacies, coupled with rude, salacious, and satirical narration.
These are characters who take dysfunctionality to an art form, stroking their Godzilla-sized vanity with absurdist fantasies, indulging in their incurable blindness toward common sense and everyday propriety by behaving in shocking and silly ways.
I sensed touches of bizarro-fiction, but this could have only been my perception – a result of the constant fluctuations of bewilderment. You might describe this work as disturbing, twisted, demented, riotous, or profound. Vardeman asks the relatable question: why doesn’t anyone take me seriously as a human being? Am I a joke? Can’t anyone see past my obvious flaws to the brilliant unique individual beautiful person inside? The most commonly posited answer is: No. Or if they can, they don’t care, and are too worried about themselves to listen to your whiny pity party soundtrack/ sob story – like, get over yourself, join the party, get in line, etc.
Flying in the face of society’s strictures, the characters find hope and consolation in resistance to the norm, the safe, and the boring. They seek adventure and excitement as a means to define themselves and assign meaning to their terrifying lives.
“A Young Guy and his Career” is a bizarro detective story. It is unlike anything I have ever read.
“Farm Girl” is an immersive story about a girl growing up on a farm, longing to become a literary immortal, who thinks running away to Paris is sufficient qualification to become the next Proust.
The title story is poignant, and bizarrely descriptive, easy to parse, fast-paced, intuitive, with integrated dialogue and a pervasive sense of grotesque humor. I laughed out loud on almost every page. Utterly ridiculous. But it operates within the confines of its established logical landscape, becoming miraculously readable through rhythmic stylistic thrusts, charming through blasphemy, wrestling with biblical undertones, sliding into the just-plain-weird, until the sheer outrageousness becomes entertaining in a reality TV sort of way, but far more condensed, unrepetitive and deep. Vivid description accompanies sharp dialogue, again, dependent entirely on quirky character facets, often bordering on insanity, full of quips and egregious cleverness, and morbid in the extreme. The commentary on art and idolatry, pop culture, the media, tourists, and the backwater residents of America’s heartland were pointed, affecting, and effective. Its delusional characters shed light on our times and foibles. In complete helplessness, their confrontation with harsh reality cannot but be the anodyne for the oversaturated postmodern literary landscape we face today.
“Perversion is only a lack of acquaintance,” one of the characters says. This is during an exquisite punk rock satire, suffused with a sense of lost youth, spoiled potential, an inescapable dejection, amid moral decay, within a bereavement for the nostalgic pastures of youth, grappling with a sick sort of logic – all of which provide motivations to propel the narrative.
The author’s sophisticated commentary on religion through creative blasphemy lends itself to a range of interpretations. No matter how susceptible you are to the uncanny and the odd, Vardeman’s debut is a forceful example of honed aesthetic principles. For the herniated metaphors, and the stomach-churning detail of a pork-themed restaurant debacle alone, he deserves five stars. - L. S. Popovich
https://lspopovich.com/2020/11/04/review-of-an-angel-of-sodom-by-david-vardeman/
Who let this guy loose?
The opening title story is a wild read and an avalanche of deranged images. Fifteen year old Jackie weighs 342 lbs, his knockers are the envy of most girls. Under his belt lurks his mantool, buried beneath folds of flesh. Folds that prove resistant to hygiene, so they waft like only body stench can.
Such is merely the opening of a painfully funny novella.
Within weeks, however, Jackie experiences “growing up” lessons, and his outlook detours into a sadder perspective.
Oh, the novella is written without commas or quotes. Yeah, yeah, the author is being artsy.
“… I’ve always had to do the wrong thing to find out what the right thing would have been …”
So sighs Mrs. Windbourne, pondering her quietly misspent life. She has struck up a conversation with a new friend in “Stomboli” as their cruise ship circles the volcanic island of the same name. Both females, one insecure, the other incisive, drink cocktails on deck, and their exchanges grow ever more irrational and incoherent.
The next outing bears a conversational tone, with a repetitive narrative style. Meaning a phrase or sentence is echoed in varying degrees. This repetition, for me, became like an annoying coworker.
Anyway, “A Young Guy And His Career” might just as well be Detection 4 Dummies. One morning, Wally decides he is a detective. He posts an advertisement, and lands his first case within 15 days. From there, the tale moseys from Pigge to pig. I kid you not. A satire on hard boiled dicks and the Great American Way, if a little hammy.
“Tramp On The Street” is another long tale. Opening paragraphs resemble a standup monologue. Our narrator’s mother has just died – so – doing as you or I, he heads to the local saloon.
The usual table, the usual cronies, spouting alcohol soaked wisdom and philosophy. Much of your sympathy here may depend on your thoughts on the human race.
There are one or two interludes where our narrator, Kap, leaves the table and reflects. Situations, observations, paths untaken. Mr. Vardeman enters more serious territory here, before stepping back and returning to sarcasm de jour.
This is not a collection to trot through or to read solo, one story after another. The author’s voice has a “samey” quality, and I found it best to space these between stories or novels by other writers.
https://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=1587&page=16
David Vardeman, Suddenly, this Summer; April
is the Cruelest Month. Korona Samizdat, 2020
This flip book consists of two novels by David Vardeman written ten years apart. Suddenly, this Summer is a dark mystery; April is the Cruelest Month is a dark farce. The change is not in Vardeman at all. As you read either of the two novels, the Vardeman of the other novel is lurking, and maybe laughing...even scoffing.
Suddenly, this Summer, turns you into an intelligent beetle and sets you free to roam the mind of Roberta Sookey, Iowa librarian, fat woman, woman beset by tragic circumstance, iron lady, proto-feminist, fearless, with the moves of a boxer or ice skater and a mind like a patch of ice she didn't see coming. Your time inside her head will change nothing outside your door.
April is the Cruelest Month may be the cruelest book. But you will laugh at it, and therein is your complicity. Eddie P'Poole strangled his mother and then shot himself, and there you sit reading and laughing. What kind of monster are you?
In many regards, this seems a continuation of “Tramp On The Street” from An Angel Of Sodom.
The usual barflys cluster at Uncle Miltie’s, where sitting is preferred.
“Uncle Miltie’s is not a place where people stand. We prefer our drunks seated.”
At the noisiest table, one of the cronies is absent. Eddie. The quiet Eddie. The Eddie who strangled his mother before blasting his brains out.
Around the table, slurred mouths express theories, opinions.
Why? How could he? Do you think? Will this impact us – meaning, me?
Miltie’s is a dump, the regulars are assorted failures, more sodden with each pitcher of beer.
For every stray nugget of insight that spills from someone’s lips, the remaining dribble is drivel.
If you enjoy following drunken warbling, inebriated boasts, and a brawl of misunderstanding, then crack this one already, junior.
If, however, you prefer to drink yourself to stupefaction by your lonesome, thank you very much, then this collection of eightballs might be your ticket to paradise.
https://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?p=166220
David Vardeman, Suggestion Diabolique.
Korona Samizdat, 2022
Through corona\samizdat David Vardeman has become known as a genius of the short form, as they say; the short form, for Vardeman being any length from a few pages to a few hundred, in the case of this book hovering about 100 or so for the first four stories and 20 or so for the last story--Vardemanian humor implicit in the title Zeitgeist being given less shrift than, say, the story Corn, the second longest in the book ("Watering corn was their code, in social situations, for needing to urinate, no delay.") Here's a typical Vardemanian moment, chosen at random: "Sometimes, Irv, you just want the naked man out of your house." Vardeman is genius of the mundane absurd.
David Vardeman, Letters of Thanks From Hell,
2021
Letters of thanks concerns a case of supposed witchcraft and demon possession in Boston, 1688. The incident serves as a prelude to the more famous witch trials of Salem and Andover 4 years later. The Puritan Minster Cotton Mather, takes into his home a 13 year old girl, Martha Goodwin, recently cursed by condemned witch Goody Ann Glover. The intransigent “witch” is condemned to death on specter evidence. Mather strives to save her soul. Meanwhile he and members of his congregation work to release Glover’s victim, Martha, from her supposed state of demon possession. His efforts work to the detriment of his reputation and the corruption of his home life, as will his influence over the Salem trials several years later.
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