It’s hard to describe what Harald Voetmann has captured in Visions and Temptations. It is a meditation on death, faith, sin, and human struggle. It is a hallucinatory travelogue of heavenly reward and divine punishment. It contains a striking monologue about onion-based farts. Fundamentally, though, Visions and Temptations depicts two fundamental and immutable elements of the human experience: mundanity and empathy. A compact, fascinating, and affecting read, unlike anything I’ve read before.
Visions and Temptations by Harald Voetmann, (List Price: $15.95, New Directions, 9780811229807, July 2025)
Reviewed by Charlie Marks, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia