VIILA AND THE DOOMSDAY AFFAIR

A gorgeous sex vampire and a rabbi team up to settle the fate of the universe in this fantasia.

Danchik’s raucously off-color novel embeds bizarre characters in a satirical reimagining of Jewish religious traditions. Front and center is Viila, an irresistibly beautiful goddess who has slept with many of the men in the Bible as well as demons, giants, and historical figures. The most fatale of femmes, she tempts men into assaulting her and then slaughters them and drinks their blood after sprouting fangs and razor-tipped breasts. Just as unfortunate are the men she likes: After treating them to heavenly sex, she dumps them, whereupon they waste away pining for her. Viila feels so guilty about their plight that she wishes she could end her wearisome life. One night, she is gallantly defended by Rabbi Benjamin. The members of the rabbi’s sect fight by hopping about with their backs turned to opponents. Impressed by Benjamin’s pious resistance to her charms, she accompanies him on a quest to Mount Sinai to find the tablets given to Moses by God, which have the power to grant any wish. Rounding out their company are Benjamin’s horny teenage son, Milton, and a Teraphim, a disembodied head given to uttering prophecies and sleazy come-ons. Vying with them to get hold of the tablets are the Master of Death, an archvillain who wants to end all life in the universe, and the Sect of the Holy Nose Bashing, whose high priest wants to become God. Danchik sets his picaresque amid ribald spoofs of Torah stories—Adam appears as a narcissistic dolt who mates with every species in Eden—and Talmudic ruminations. (“By tradition and by ancient law, all Rabbis must master the 3,721 basic sexual positions approved by the Bible, and, most importantly, do nothing” that Amorites do “with Camels.”) The author’s fictive world is inventive and his prose is vigorous and colorful. Unfortunately, his shambolic humor is aggressively lewd and crude. (“Barnabus pushed forward three or four pairs of male genital organs in different sizes and colors. ‘You never know what a hot chick will like,’ he confided to the Rabbi. ‘I like to give them a choice.’ ”) The narrative sometimes feels like an overelaborate excuse for a series of gonzo japes.

An imaginative but vulgar sendup of all that is holy.