A fun, lyrical experience...

The following is reprinted from The Montgomery Advertiser.

Quirky Novel Brings up Variety of Questions

Dr. Blip Korterly impulsively begins a game of graffiti tag on a local overpass with the phrase, "Uh-oh."

It's anonymously replied to with, "When?" Korterly's response, after great deliberation, is "Just a couple of days."

What Korterly doesn't know, however, is that he is about to become a pawn in a much bigger game. The government just happens to be working on the ultimate biological weapon, the Pied Pier virus.

It will render humans incapable of basic linguistic skills, and the government needs Korterly to make sure things go according to plan.

This is the setup for Tony Vigorito's originally self-published novel, Just a Couple of Days. After it gained interest for movie rights, it was picked up by a larger publisher.

The basic premise is this: What better way would there be to humanely incapacitate a society while still preserving infrastructure and resources, yet allow ease of invasion and occupation?

But one must look on the practical side of things. What does one do with that society once it is under control? Why, not much if people aren't capable of basic communication.

Well, that's the spot the government is in. They have no vaccine. So, Korterly is arrested and used as leverage to influence his friend, Dr. Flake Fountain, into assisting with finding a cure to the Pied Piper virus.

The novel had already achieved a great deal of cult following for several reasons. Vigorito's narrative style is a fun, lyrical experience, and the short chapters move the reader quickly.

The shadowy government operations on the surface story provide light entertainment, but the deeper questions are there to plague and arrest the conscience. Would this type of scenario be an end to humanity, or a metamorphosis to a higher level of existence?

Fountain bears witness to how it affects his friends, Blip and Sophia Korterly, and ponders if humanity could survive. More importantly, would it want to?

The reader needs to know and wants to know."

Kathryn Lay is a system administrator at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base and a student at Troy University.