"Let us leave, if possible, myself--
But 'tis impossible. I must go along with you 'till the end of the work."
—Laurence Stern, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
(epigraph to Sunburn and Frostbite)
But 'tis impossible. I must go along with you 'till the end of the work."
—Laurence Stern, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
(epigraph to Sunburn and Frostbite)
Sunburn and Frostbite is my novel. I've written a complete draft (it's about 120,000 "words," in industry terms), a full outline for a newly revamped version, and the first four or so chapters of the re-tooled version. It's literary fiction, humorous but thoughtful, inspired by the likes of David Foster Wallace, Thomas Pynchon, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Jorge Louis Borges.
Sunburn and Frostbite takes place in a fancifully re-imagined contemporary American landscape, in which language is a precious physical object, regulated by the government. It's written from the perspective of the social climber Neil Guttentype, as he works his way into the upper levels of L'Academie Grammair, which is rife with strife caused by a schism between Grand Pontiff Webster Ark and National Librarian Ian O'Marryman. Will Neil collaborate with the high-flying aristocrats who've taken him under their wing and promise him all the vocabulary he could ever use—or risk it all by helping O'Marryman establish an experimental, egalitarian community based on free grammar?
If you know a literary agent who may be interested in representing this sort of work (or if you are one, yourself), please get in touch. Read the opening pages here. Check out a longer excerpt here (password required).
