Contorted Royal

Publisher Marketing: Contorted Royal, inspired by the critical and sometimes scathing humor of novels such as Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais or Catch 22 by Joseph Heller, is a satirical book that seeks to critique, question, and make fun of such social ails as family dysfunction, societal corruption and degradation, the empathy gap, and character flaw (and conversely the impossibility of reaching a character ideal), and it is a requestioning of such taken-for-granted terms as insanity and madness. The novel uses a special technique of only following one character perspective for each chapter, coming together in a collage of sorts to paint a dark but simultaneously humorous portrait of multiple perspectives in a very chaotic and often carnivalesque world. The novel chiefly follows the adventures of the royal family of Contorted Royal, a "pseudo-medieval" kingdom, which includes the characters The Suicide King, The Black Queen, and The Jack of Knives, all who have their own various problems, and unfortunately make the lives of others more miserable the harder they try to figure it all out. Other characters include Alice, inspired by the main character from Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland, who suffers from schizophrenia but is granted royal status in the kingdom-that is, until the saintly Bishop comes to destroy all that Alice stands for, such as her questioning of the absurd and backwards logic of Contorted Royal and the circumlocutions that abound. There is also Ace, deeply determined to fulfill his darker agenda for the kingdom, and Ralph, who becomes Contorted Royal's last chance for redemption ... but not without some hefty struggles along the way. Deeply interested in probing the darker side of human genius often masquerading as insanity, Contorted Royal depicts the conquests of The Jack of Knives as he tries to take over the kingdom, The Black Queen as she struggles to figure out what to do with herself, and The Suicide King as he tries to become a stronger king ... through self-destruction. The characters move from their pseudo-medieval world to the modern-day world and back again, but not without a few laughs and non-sequiturs along the way. In the end, the novel is a reimagining of all that society does wrong ... but also, all that it attempts, even if haphazardly or inaccurately, to do right, thus representing each little kingdom and castle in the world as its own contorted royal, worth having even with all of the quirks and flaws. Contributor Bio:  Phoenix ADRIAN NIKOLAS PHOENIX has had stories published in several magazines and anthologies. She currently lives in Oregon (with three cats, of course), but travels to New Orleans, the city of her heart, whenever possible.