Awesome! Thanks for doing this.
Dear AgentofLit,
Meet Ralph Ellison. Ralph doesn’t know that much about the world. Not that much about other places like Peru, or Yemen, or most of the United States even. Doesn’t even know Boston very well, though he’s been living here almost twenty years. He can’t pick any of the rat pack out of a lineup. Are any of them even still alive? Can’t tell you an aria from a, well, from whatever else. He is not exceptional. Not even average. He might be depressed, maybe, he’s not sure. If he’s nowhere close to happy, at least he’s not suicidal.
Lately, he just feels invisible, even when he’s not.
The Trouble with Super, complete at 80,000 words, tells the interweaving story of several super-powered characters’ journeys to find their place in a world without superheroes. There’s Ralph who you’ve already met; Sarah, a telepath with a secret (she can’t seem to help but take over the minds of others every now and then); Sarah’s father Don, an obese man who once could fly; there’s Calvin, a Catholic shapeshifter who can’t seem to stop sinning; Tabitha, a faith-healer who bests her evangelical peers in that she can actually heal others despite her own lack of faith in the Almighty; Elisa who can see the future but can’t communicate it due to a genetic disorder; and finally Elisa’s brother Howard Jacobson, a disgraced ex-Colonel whose only power is desperation to find a cure for his sister.
Each character’s journey reaches its end at Register Cliff, Wyoming, a now-forgotten stopping off point for the original pioneers on the Oregon Trail. At the cliff, Sarah’s secret and uncontrollable power struggles against all of them, Sarah most of all, and loses.
If you require any more information, please let me know. You can reach me at (phone number) or (email address). Thank you for your time, and I look forward to working with you.
BendersButtflaps
My main problem here is that this novel is told from several character’s POVs, and follows two separate plotlines (Sarah, Don, and Ralph in one line, and then Tabitha, Calvin, Howard, and Elisa in another) which are both resolved in the last chapter at Register Cliff. So, when I try to summarize the story and the characters, my query ends up either too convoluted or too vague. Right now, I’ve settled on the opening paragraph, then a character summary. Thoughts? Advice?