Heresies and Seditions

“Heresies and Seditions” can best be described as intelligent fun. It contains Rabelaisian jests, insolent satires, vicious parodies, wacky improvisations, imaginary interviews, prose poems and lyric poems. It generally avoids the standard narcotizing narrative of popular fiction. In addition to the literary satire, there are portions of the book that can be called philosophical satire, somewhat in the tradition of Mark Twain’s “The Mysterious Stranger.”

The book combines fiction and verse in an original way. Prose pieces are followed by poems, which modulate between sections, and there is a structural logic and flow from beginning to end, as in a musical composition.

The most substantial piece of fiction—“Mr. K. and the Demons”—is, among other things, a satirical critique of U.S. foreign policy from the Vietnam War to the “war on terror.” Who or what are the demons? They are, besides the protagonist’s personal ones, the demons of Washington and Wall Street, of war and war profiteering, the blatantly overt demons of the Right, the covert demons of government surveillance, the demons that rush out of the HD television and lodge in the minds of viewers.

The “heresies” part of the title refers to writings on themes drawn from esoteric religions. Many people today no longer find the orthodox belief systems spiritually fulfilling. Seekers such as these may enjoy my heretical pieces.

I write what I have to write and not what I think an editor or niche audience will like. Since some of the topics I deal with are potentially depressing and/or provocative, I have chosen to treat them in a humorous or fanciful way that expresses sobering truths without dispiriting the reader.