The Whip 'Em King

What if ideas are parasites and our minds are the hosts? What if we are just vehicles to help ideas gain in voice and numbers and thus further their existence? Six of my characters think they may have stumbled onto something: the meaning for their existence. "The Whip 'Em King" is a novel about notions and the way in which they use us. Set in working-class, small-town America, its cast of characters begins to search for answers and ways to break free from what they increasingly feel is a cruelly scripted, tethered existence. But when one gets closer to the truth than the others, I am forced to intercede, implanting the idea of me and my power as the author in the minds of certain characters. The action takes place in a strip club and a home appliance factory, among other places, and characters include a TV weatherman sacked in favour of a puppet cloud, a bathroom attendant, a telemarketer, an octogenarian security guard who pretends he is an ex-Nazi and a failed musician and his wife and daughter.