Query Letter

How's this? (To be incorporated into new query letters, which start out describing the piece as satire.) (Subject to revision, of course.)

How's this for a tantalizing back cover blurb?

Cataclysmic forces of nature wreak havoc along the southeastern Continental Shelf, as a chunk of land mass dislodges and migrates southward, colliding into a sleepy Caribbean island. Profound social upheaval quickly follows. Twenty years later, Jack Black (not the actor) ventures to the island on a whim and soon finds himself trapped in a deathly web of political intrigue. Jack's neighbor Jerry suffers his own "reversal": Having volunteered for the control group in the trial of an experimental drug designed to cure homosexuality, the young homophobic attorney, staunch devotee of "natural law," finds himself rapidly (and irreversibly) turning gay.

Other memorable characters include Carson Jones, the department store heiress. Knocked in the head during the original cataclysm, she spends the next twenty years as a bag lady on the streets, suffering from amnesia. Eventually she recovers and becomes a famous Broadway actress. (In a way, though, she remains "homeless," choosing to live only in hotels.) Perhaps most memorable of all are the descriptions of the hurricane that ultimately ravages the island and changes everyone's lives, based in part on the author's own unique experiences in his native South Florida.

A veritable sampler of the author's virtuosity at narration, the first half of the book is revealed through passages from a diary Jack has been writing on his laptop computer, cleverly interwoven with omniscient narration in real time. A short prologue is rendered in humorous Rap couplets. Certainly a must-read for the literate--and anyone else just looking for a good, fun piece of fiction.