A Vaudeville of Devils: 7 Moral Tales

A Vaudeville of Devils reveals its weighty preoccupation with its anachronistic subtitle, 7 Moral Tales, introducing the mythic dramas within. Lavish, enigmatic, and faintly sinister, Robert Girardi's fourth book flaunts a Borges-like sensibility, faux folklore encompassing an enormous universe. Moving from the medieval Levant to post-apocalyptic California, its concern is the moment of choice, when characters are confounded by dilemma.

In "The Demons Tormenting Untersturmführer Hans Otto Graebner" an SS officer dispatched to destroy allegedly subversive paintings finds himself first confronted with his own hypocrisy and then, literally, captured by art itself. "The Primordial Face" follows an obsessive Arabian's search for a legendary carving on the floor of the sea while his two divers succumb to the charms of his young daughter. "Three Ravens on a Red Ground" juxtaposes a Crusading knight devoted to a lost cause with a suburban executive troubled by an impending merger. "The Dinner Party" takes place at the end of the world, where martini-sipping gods icily dismiss their flame-ravaged creation. And in "Arcana Mundi," an eerie, fairy-tale-like retelling of an ancient Greek story, a vintner allows two mysterious strangers to raise his young daughter.

Rich in setting if slightly rigid in emotion, Girardi's stories are a strange brew of mystery and meaning. Decisiveness comes slowly to his protagonists, suggesting that, while existence demands resolve, the guideposts are few. Or, as one character explains, "Without God, friend, the world is a vaudeville of devils." --Ben Guterson