The Queen's English

The Queen’s English is a whimsical novel about a sexy future monarch who reigns over the country once known as the United States of America. She is guardian, too, of the English language. Her tongue-in-cheek name is Jackpot Pastiche, Harlot Queen of English, and we follow her story in a picaresque medieval-like tale, as she and her entourage “go a progress” through her realm. It is a land in geologic and linguistic turmoil, and the Queen needs every scrap of bawdy wisdom she can muster in “pronouncing judgments on matters great and small, settling ancient feuds, realigning mistaken attitudes, and diagramming the thorniest of sentences.” She must humble herself (no small thing) to ask advice of the Oracle of Style and Perspicuity, the ghost of Diana Hacker, of the Bed by the Ford. And on her journey (recounted by a hyperbolically academic and quirky narrator), she must face dangers and conundrums with only her wits, OED, and the help of her band of academics, her rather lewd Consort, Dripping Sea God, and Mascot, Diving Squirrel. They make their way through adventures, puzzles, word play, racy interlude, literary allusion and even tidal wave. The episodes affectionately parody many of the cherished teachings of the English department. The Queen’s English is a humorous blend of Canterbury Tales, Don Quixote, The Phantom Tollbooth, The Decameron, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and Freddy and Fredericka. (Approx. 51,000 words)