Vice Nimrod (A Novel of the Tower of Babel) Chapter 2

We continue the second round of PILCROW’s Serialized Novel Contest, with our first Finalist’s second chapter. Over the next three weeks, we’ll serialize the first few chapters of our three Finalist’s unpublished novels, and then subscribers (both free and paid) will vote on a Winner to be fully serialized here on the Substack. Finalists are awarded $500; the Winner $1,000.

Our Finalists are:

• Vice Nimrod by Colin Dodds

  • Chapter 1

• Still Soft With Sleep by Vincenzo Barney

• Don’t Disappoint by Martin Van Cooper

While the traditional organs of American letters continue to wither, we recognize the need to forge a new path. If you believe in what we’re doing, PLEASE share and subscribe and spread the word.

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In Vice Nimrod, a young refugee from a brimstone-wrecked small town, Ishkebek finds his way to Nimrod’s Mighty Tower, where he lands a job. Through a mix of savvy alliances and good luck, he rises through the ranks, and survives a professionally disastrous friendship with an idol-smashing protege, to reach the rank of Vice Nimrod, Communications. In his words, we learn how Nimrod’s Communications Group deftly handles the inquiries of the neighboring kingdoms, how it spins the burning of Sodom & Gomorrah, and how it finally flounders through the varied crises that make up the Confusion of Tongues.

Colin Dodds is a writer. He lives in New York City, with his wife and children. His novels, scripts and films have won multiple awards. His essays appear regularly at No Homework. And his aphorisms can be found at Forget This Good Thing, now available as an app for the iPhone and Android.

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Junior Associate - Communications, Tourism & Mental Felicity

It was a bad job. I might have grumbled, but I was new and didn’t know anyone to grumble to. Atop the tower’s latest yet-unbuilt top floor, I read and re-read a series of announcements to the illiterate interns. The announcements were about the preciousness of the bricks, how each was the product of centuries of divine guidance, how each took a full year to rise from the earth to their divine station in the tower, how each one would outlive the man who carried it, and should be handled with a care bordering on worship.

The top of the tower was incredible, at first. People at the bottom of the tower and in the city beyond believed ...