recently had to write a synopsis for current novel in progress - rest for the weary - decided to post it; 6 months from now probably be oldnews; be's like that sometime
synopsis: rest for the weary: novel based on afroam myth of highjohn the conqueror - an exploration of prophecy; of art, magic & the conjuration of reality; of human destiny and the sanctification of holyground
tucept jubilation highjohn is a hoodoo conjuror that lives in a house on delta stilts in a riverside park in memphis. in the realworld he is a storyteller (text explores stories and the act of story) he is a hermit of a hoodoo sorceror who aspires to be a prophet of the hoodoo way - he is a good sorceror but a failed prophet, mostly because he is too timid
he has always treated women casually, surprised to fall in fevered allconsuming love w/a married woman somewhat boldly named Angel - she is fascinated with dreams and stories he begins to spin about her - and with his claim that he will immortalize her
calls himself hoodooing her and gets hoodooed
the park is a hole in the wall, a crossroads where reality and the spiritworld meet, many historical, mythical and literary scenes play out there - the little riverside community consists of characters from afroam folklore - folk like john henry, frankie & johnnie, staggerlee, brer rabbit and them
she is an archaeologist studying civilwar contraband camps based in memphis. in her research she finds a vague reference to some husharbor sanctuary newly freed slaves found in the park during the civilwar/1866 riots. unable to find any official information about this sanctuary she starts asking people in the community and gets all these different myths and stories about what really happened there
this segues into slavenarrative stories of a couple during the civilwar who experience the massacre at fort pillow, the memphis riots of 1866 and other incidents of that historical moment when blackfolk were transformed from slaves to freefolk - that moment fascinates me
this segment becomes the core of the novel - apparently during the riots of 1866 some memphis blackfolk flee the killing, gather in an old husharbor outside of memphis and listen to the sermon of a slaverytime preacher who preaches to them of a holy mission and gives them a geas - a responsibility for the destiny of humanity - that shapes the lives of their descendants
they have though over the years and generations lost the true knowledge and only remember all these different halfbaked myths and stories of what really happened. her inquires unearth the true story and change the lives of the folkloric members of the community (in this process i hope to update their myths and modernize afroam folklore as an instrument of cultural guidance)
trying to impress her causes him to publicly declare himself a prophet, his attempts to manifest as a wouldbe prophet perplex the community and his limited fanbase and he is rejected as i assume any true prophet must be - his stories are transformed from stories of individual heroes to stories of eternal love and community as he is himself transformed in his attempts to be what she needs in a man
turns out lord legba, the fon trickster god, in a delta manifestation as highjohn the conqueror, is using him in a gods game to influence black and human destiny, however it now appears that oshun, the yoruba goddess of love, has claimed him - it is a war of the gods
growing tension in their relationship because she feels guilty about committing adultery and starts drawing back - this starts a seesaw of breakups and getting back together - she has from the beginning been uncomfortable being objectified as his muse
feeling her drifting away in real life he begins to live more & more in his conjured dreamworld and stories of their eternal love - as he finds himself evermore manifesting as a would be prophet, his stories become more & more prophetic stories of the future
by now he is so far out there that nobody is paying attention to him, cant get no gigs, professionally he is a failure
one of his prophetic stories is transformed into the text, a lit/sci account of an academic couple on a university planet far into the future, studying the ancient old earth myth of the angel and the conjureman, studying the evolution of that myth and various interpretations of it over the years of humanity's spread into the stars.
meanwhile, family issues have come down on him and she leaves him for what seems to be the final time - he withdraws into the park, an apparent failure and a broken man, to start work on his greatest prophetic spell - the book Rest for the Weary
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