Visigoth

Author's Bio:

Gary Amdahl was born in Minnesota and now lives in Southern California.  The recipient of a Jerome Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, he has had several plays produced, and his work has appeared in Santa Monica Review, Fiction, Gettysburg Review, and The Quarterly, among others. Amdahl has worked as a janitor, has reviewed books for the New York Times and the Nation, and was most recently an employee at Dutton’s Brentwood Bookstore in Southern California.

Quotes:

"Violence—real and imagined, implied and impending—breaks out in fits and starts in this rigorous debut collection. Amdahl considers, often in high style, the sometimes diabolical nature of men, a big theme and dne to death, sure, but rarely in such off-kilter tones. The precedents are discretely cited here—Arthur Miller, Barry Hannah, David Rabe and Tim O'Brien, a fellow Minnesotan—but Amdahl's voice is is own. . . . A serious, demanding collection."—New York Times Book Review

"The Midwestern men in Gary Amdahl's Visigoth are sorely tempted by violence. A star high school wrestler goes mad and nearly strangles his best friend. A hockey player's girlfriend tries to play dominatrix with him, bringing on 'not great desire but a terrible reflexive violence I caught and was able to turn back only in the nick of time.' . . . Befuddled by rage, that's how Amdahl's characters live."—Washington Post Book World

"The men in Gary Amdahl's passionately visceral debut collection of stories, Visigoth, range from lotharios and politicos to hockey jocks and thick-as-mud middle managers. But in Amdahl's highly literary, tragicomic vision, they all melt our doubting hearts."—Elle

“Gary Amdahl's vivid stories are at once lyrical and unexpectedly in your face.  American wrath here puts on its several seductive faces and native charm, suggesting our worst side has grown as comfortable as an old shoe. A book we'll remember.”—Thomas McGuane

“Although rich in anger and brutality, the stories collected in Visigoth are told with charm and a ranging, passionate intelligence. Gary Amdahl reveals to us the men we are or, given a hockey stick or some other blunt object, could be.”—Ken Kalfus