Lost in the male

IT would be easy to loathe the men in “Visigoth” -- or at the very least, misunderstand them. They are a pack of reckless brutes, careless creatures who, throughout these eight short stories, tromp through life falling through sheaths of thin ice into treacherously cold waters and bringing others down with them; they pick fights, overturn bookcases and break ribs. Political riots break out around them and towering trees fall in their midst, accidentally killing the men’s dearest friends. Murder just happens. Wrath ensues wherever they go. But they are not Visigoths, far from it. They are well-intentioned Little League coaches, college athletes, restless husbands, toiling office managers, and all are, in one way or another, victims -- of societal pressure, midlife boredom, political apathy or religious oppression and ultimately -- of their own self-destructive tendencies. Collectively, they offer a desperate portrait of the American male struggling not just against modern-day trappings and unrealistic expectations but against himself. They are men ascending and descending at once.

In the opening story, “The Flyweight,” an aggressive high school wrestler hurdles toward his fourth consecutive championship, but privately he is “tired of hurting people.” The wrestler, archly named Dennis Hurt, implodes due to pressure from his coach and the local media, the literal and figurative weight upon him bringing on a drug-induced nervous breakdown.

In the title story, the mix of sexual tension and intellectual inferiority felt by a college hockey player ignites a rage that manifests itself on the ice when he picks a fight with a passing skater. “I longed for him to hit me. But the blow, I feared, would be weak, and that would infuriate me. At the same time, I longed to leave these innocent people alone,” the narrator stews. And in “The Volunteer,” a middle-aged “manager of information” wallows in boredom over the everyday grindstone. To compensate, he coaches Little League hockey because the feisty 8-year-olds display the energy and ambition he lacks. But he resents the kids for it. And, in turn, he hates himself for resenting them.

Amdahl draws his characters with such an insightful, empathetic hand, placing them in almost poetic context, that the reader can’t help but feel for these boorish men. The aforementioned characters, plus two slacker bouncers and a seething politician, among others, flail around in a testosterone-thick environment where stifled emotions have gone awry; but they are gentle people at heart who have simply fallen prey to their own disappointments, poor judgment, fears and limitations. They embrace their violent longings, throw punches, drink too much, hurl insults, evade responsibility. But we don’t need to despise them; they do it for us.

If there’s a peaceful moderator in “Visigoth,” it is the backdrop. Most of the stories are set against the Midwest. The author grew up in Minnesota and his love of the area -- its sweeping vistas and clear blue skies -- is apparent. Amdahl conjures, with tenderness and longing, a sturdy sense of place. Despite the hovering threat of violence, it’s still a pleasure to journey with him along the open roads where gusts of wind rustle through the cottonwoods and the smell of corn and manure permeates the air. It is a peace so powerful that it grips at least one of Amdahl’s narrators like a narcotic.

Conversely, in a quietly funny, sometimes sardonic way, he takes on the Left Coast, which he describes as “a state of high anxiety” in “The Flight From California.” The story follows a man fleeing his home in the Inland Empire (“the road rage capital of the world”) with a sick, diarrheic cat and very old dog with a weak bladder. “I loathed California,” he admits. “The only consideration that tempered my loathing was strong, vivid memories of loathing Connecticut when I lived there.”

These are smart, fully realized stories -- sensitive, layered and deliberate. And the collection, a lean and well-thought-out package, displays a calculated ascendancy: from adolescent fear of failure to midlife/middle-class perceived failure, to a violence that manifests outside the self in a rural working-class town undergoing a bout of political unrest. In the final piece, “Narrow Road to the Deep North” (for which the author won a Pushcart Prize in 2002), the structural rhythm climaxes in murder. This sort of thematic cohesiveness is hard to ignore -- Amdahl is not just portraying the alpha male as victim, turning the stereotype on its head, but making a statement about “the grotesquely ignorant and self-righteous sense of expectation and entitlement that ... characterized American culture.”

In a way, there’s something freeing, refreshing, about Amdahl’s voracious, inappropriate Visigoths. They may be bloody, but they’re real. Whether you’re male or female, gentle or prone to outbursts, you get it -- these stories are about pain and suppressed rage. As Amdahl’s characters unapologetically air their innermost urges, the pieces read as humorous fantasies, exercises in wish fulfillment. Most people wouldn’t follow suit in real life. Which makes the stories not just a tad ironic but, collectively and comparably, also about restraint.