A Vaudeville of Devils: Seven Moral Tales

A Vaudeville of Devils: 7 Moral Tales
Author Robert Girardi
Country United States
Language English
Genre Mystery novel
Publisher Delacorte Press
Publication date
1999
Media type Print (hardcover)
Pages 421 pp
ISBN 0-385-33398-6
OCLC 42359780

A Vaudeville of Devils: 7 Moral Tales is a collection of short stories and novellas by Robert Girardi.

"The Dinner Party"

The short story, loosely set in Portugal, is a synthesis between "The Masque of the Red Death", Our Man in Havana, and Shikasta.

First published in TriQuarterly Review, Issue 99 (Spring/Summer 1997).

"The Defenestration of Abu Sid"

A crime, or detective novella about the Washington D.C. public defender Martin Wexler, and his personal growth defending a sociopathic gangster.

"Sunday Evenings at Contessa Pasquali's"

A mystery novella about the expatriate American Billy, who has settled in Naples and the Contessa's Sunday night soirees. "Vedi Napoli e poi muori."[1]

Criticism

New York Times Book Review, 06/27/1999 "[Girardi] writes sensuous prose that unapologetically invokes the supernatural. Although moral in theme, these frank, erotic tales are never moralistic."—Katherine Wolff [2]

"Robert Girardi is the only writer I know of who is working successfully in the neglected tradition of Guy de Maupassant, Isak Dinesen, and Edgar Allan Poe--with as protean an imagination and as dexterous a pen as any of theirs. You can read these seven moral tales for pure entertainment, then wait to see what else may linger."—Madison Smartt Bell[3]

Times Literary Supplement, 09/10/1999, "A Vaudeville of Devils, a collection of shorter fiction, is preoccupied with darkness and light, appearance and reality. The stories in this volume are richly descriptive, with a whiff of the grotesque and macabre."[4] - Baret Magarian

References


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 5/1/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.