Day of the Dragonfly
Description
Day of the Dragonfly is an epic story of the struggle against poverty. Beginning in rural Brazil during the Great Depression this Odyssey ends in 1975 on a broken-down chaise longue in front of a trailer in Miami. Two of the three "books" that make up the novel involve heroic journeys ? a twelve-year-old girl seeking safety, a fourteen-year-old boy searching for land free from drought. They are separated by the story of a young woman's destruction and exile within a cult.
The way in which poverty clutches onto its victims is made apparent. It isn't possible, even once, to throw money at a problem, and without that tool the true difficulty of poverty becomes clear. At its most heroic, Dragonfly challenges conventional morals, and in the end, the reader is shown something of the importance of a life little noted.
The book is sometimes dark. Heroes are not always kind, and religion shows the worst it has to offer. Still, the imaginative ending will move the reader to tears while being inspiring rather than depressing.
More details
Person
Shortly before his fifth birthday, David Vogel announced he wanted violin lessons. When his father insisted violins were too expensive, David went knocking on doors and came home with the loan of a half-size violin. Growing up, it was assumed he would become an artist of some sort while his older brother would be a scientist. David was not the better student of the two. When he graduated from high school, the principal called his parents in for a conference and informed them that it would be a waste of David's time and their money to send him to college. But in college, he and his brother switched places. His brother became an actor while David earned a PhD in biophysics (but with a subspecialty in eccentricity).
Most of Dr Vogel's writing has been educational, and almost all of it (including an introductory physics textbook) has been humorous. (His research papers on neural network models of higher cognitive processes are not at all amusing, but at least he almost failed his thesis defense when the conservative academic from a country with a certain national stereotype took issue with his amusing style - not appropriate in scientific writing).
Facing retirement, Dr Vogel has taken the opportunity to begin writing fiction. (Well, the physics problems about his Chrysler powered Smart Car were already fiction.) Day of the Dragonfly is the first novel he has let out of his hands, and it is the first that is not humorous. "It was an unexpected book that came chasing after me while I was sitting with my wife on a long, hot, tropical day in Brazil. It didn't have a single joke in it, but it insisted on being written. It seemed to write itself. Unfortunately, it wouldn't stop writing itself, and when it went past three hundred thousand words, it had to be hacked back like an acre of kudzu."
David Vogel presently resides in Hull, Georgia. He's easy to find. Hull is just one vowel from Hell. The serous tone and formal style of the new book have not stopped him from doing stand-up comedy.
