Billed by its publisher as a “a radical reinterpretation of the Loki myth,” Kurt Baumeister’s second novel Twilight of the Gods is a comic noir about a 21st century Ragnarok in a world where fascism is politically ascendant. The point of view belongs to the Norse god of mischief, rendered cleverly and affectionately by Baumeister as a devastatingly handsome pansexual Black man who sees his current incarnation as carrying implications for his adversarial relationship with top Norse god Odin, who turns out here to be friendly with Nazis, both historical and contemporary.

As readers might gather from this description, Baumeister is committed to balancing a mischievous sense of humor against his interest in examining the place where religion or mythology, racism, and authoritarian politics intersect. He manages this effect largely by working through voice and prioritizing comic set pieces and digressions (the asides are particularly strong: in one, we learn Loki lived through the early 1930s as a bear with positively poetic feelings about eating trout) while the bigger parts of his story fall into place.

This strategy of seriocomic detachment, the character of which suggests the influence of Martin Amis, builds a warm sense of rapport between the book and its reader, and, indeed, Loki addresses the reader directly at times. This approach, heavy on concept and light on detail, allows Baumeister to keep things moving in this tale that literally covers thousands of years of history. And lest mythology lovers worry Baumeister has skimped on the source material, never fear: the gang’s largely accounted for, from Thor and Fenrir down to the Norns and Sleipnir.

This swift and inviting read is plugged into the present moment in a variety of ways. It is also highly companionable. For all the visibility of his narrator’s politics (and, one is tempted to suppose, his own), Baumeister avoids coming off as didactic or screedy, and he’s as devoted rendering the pleasures of sex and goofy human awkwardness as he is to drawing connections between 1930s Germany and the current political atmosphere. This quality of his writing left me thinking about the novels of another Kurt—Vonnegut— who brought a light touch to writing about some of the deadly serious topics of his day and who, were he with us still, might well be sounding the same alarm.

***

Twilight of the Gods
by Kurt Baumeister
Stalking Horse Press; 332 p.

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