Every day author Drew Chial hikes 25 miles to ensure his novel HE HAS MANY NAMES has a place of prominence in every little free library across the city of Minneapolis Minnesota.
“I started carrying these microfiber gloves to make sure my magnum opus doesn’t look like it’s been gathering dust.”
While most of the Dan Brown and James Patterson titles stand spine to spine Chial positions HE HAS MANY NAMES with the cover facing outward.
“I want the occult iconography and Andy Warhol color scheme to bedevil readers into exploring further. HE HAS MANY NAMES? Ooh. Who might that be?”
This Monday Chial’s efforts finally paid off.
“My blistered bunions bore fruit! I couldn’t help myself. I took a selfie next to the gap where my novel used to be. My mother said she could barely recognize me. I’ve never looked so happy.”
While many think pieces are lamenting the death of the novelist Chial is an entrepreneur in a changing literary landscape.
“I went to Barnes and Noble with a trench coat lined with copies of HE HAS MANY NAMES. I’d slit holes in the coat so I could leave stacks in the endcaps. I didn’t even have to take my hands out of the pockets. I’d snatch a handful of copies of The Secretand leave my little devil book in its place. A week later I’d check on my contribution to the store’s visual merchandising. At first I was overjoyed to see that every copy of my book was gone, until I found a stack beside the dumpster with torn covers. That’s when I realized publishers paid to have their books featured on those endcaps. HE HAS MANY NAMES didn’t have a chance next to John Grisham or Khloe Kardashian so I went back to the white board and got to brain storming.”
Lightning must have struck because if Monday’s news is any indication all 300 hundred copies of HE HAS MANY NAMES Chial in little libraries throughout the city are about to be snatched up.
Chial hosted a celebration at the Minneapolis Marriott banquette hall to commemorate his victory. He toasted all 150 authors in attendance. “Neil Gaiman once said, “The model for tomorrow is… to try everything. Make mistakes. Surprise ourselves. Try anything else.’ And that my friends and colleges is exactly what I have done today.” Chial raised a glass of Dom Perignon. “To me!”
•••
Meet Noelle, a Hollywood transplant that’s been subsisting on instant ramen and false hope. She’s on the verge of moving back into her mother’s trailer when her agent convinces her to take a meeting at the Oralia Hotel. Enchanted by the art deco atmosphere Noelle signs a contract without reading the fine print.
Now she has one month to pen a novel sequestered in a fantasy suite where a hack writer claims he had an unholy encounter. With whom you ask? Well, he has many names: Louis Cypher, Bill Z. Bub, Kel Diablo. The Devil.
Noelle is skeptical, until she’s awoken by a shadow figure with a taste for souls.
Desperate to make it Noelle stays on, shifting the focus of her story to these encounters. Her investigations take her through the forth wall and back again until she’s blurred the line between reality and what’s written. Is there a Satanic conspiracy, is it a desperate author’s insanity, or something else entirely?