Reese, a certified public strategist and cultural sociopath, would like nothing better than to get back into her mother’s good graces. Life was sweet back when Mom thought Reese was the prophesied Magic Californian who would inherit the governorship from her grandfather and lead the state to utopian glory. But lately Reese has done nothing but disappoint her family. All they wanted was for her to convince Californians that the history they’ve been learning is wrong, and that Grandpa did not, in fact, conduct a pretty thorough ethnic cleansing of the Oregonians fifty years ago. An easy task, yet Reese declined to deliver. Now she’s been offered a second chance to impress Mom and avoid deportation to the wastes of Oregon. They need her help; Grandpa’s decided to hold an election for the first time in his fifty years in office. Also on the ballot: an initiative that will determine, once and for all, whether California is an island.
Complicating Reese’s decision, Mom has totally flip-flopped on the whole Magic Californian thing. Now she’s pretty sure she herself is the chosen one who will inherit the governorship. And she’s finally said what everyone’s thinking: The Oregonians keep clamoring about human rights, but aren’t those, by definition, only for humans?
2) antagonist
Reese’s antagonists are her grandfather, IraBob, and her mother, Madeleine. Their goals are aligned: Seize more power to create the California they want, and ensure that the lineage of the governorship stays with the family.
IraBob has spent the past fifty years as the beloved governor of California. He seized the governorship as the culmination of a horrific and wildly popular ethnic cleansing of Oregonians, and now holds his constituents in thrall to his state religion, Samsara.
His daughter Madeleine leads from behind the throne, so to speak, and she wants Reese to step up and show some family loyalty. It’s not the tasks themselves that are important – Madeleine’s capable of gaming her own elections, etc.—it’s the symbolism of it all. Plus, is Reese going to produce the next generation of governors willingly, or does Madeleine need to threaten her with deportation to Oregon?
3) title options
Scenes from Post-Truth California
Tales of a Cultural Sociopath
None and Done
4) comp titles
The Nix (2016, Nathan Hill) for the sociopolitical satire and the protagonist’s core wound: He’s haunted by his mother’s abandonment.
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 (2016, Lionel Shriver) for analysis of generational mistakes and the glimpse into the probably inevitable apocalypse that awaits us.
5) logline
A political strategist to the trillionaires of post-truth California must choose between erasing the genocidal history of her grandfather or destroying her family’s toxic dynasty and losing her last chance at her mother’s love.
6a) primary conflict
When Reese was ten, her mother Madeleine sent her away to be raised and educated by Madeleine’s childhood friend Gershbein. Not that living with old Gershbein was bad, but Reese wanted her mother. Now, in her early thirties, Reese longs for her mother’s love and approval and simultaneously reviles everything her mother and grandfather stand for. She recently enraged Madeleine by refusing to erase IraBob’s genocidal history, and she was thrown into debt prison for it. She escapes, and eventually fetches up at the governor’s mansion in Beverly Hills, where her mother imprisons her until she agrees to align herself with the family goals, including producing an heir. She can’t decide whether to embrace her family and apply her considerable talents to helping them, or try overthrowing this vile dynasty, or perhaps just flee to Oregon.
To complicate things, she discovers she’s pregnant. She never had any intention of bringing another generation of this family into the world, and in fact, underwent sterilization, so WTF?? And she’s already feeling real Mama Bear toward the nugget of life inside her, so that’s just rich.
6b) secondary conflict
Reese betrayed her BFF, Allison, when they were very young, resulting in the destruction of her family and her father’s death. When they meet again as adults, Allison comes to understand that Reese’s family is truly to blame and that Reese was essentially another one of their victims. Allison then plays a key role in engineering the downfall of IraBob and Madeleine.
7) setting
The general setting is California in an alternate near future. Fifty years ago, IraBob and his “congregation” killed most of the lower and middle classes (“Oregonians”). He’s been the governor ever since and is absolutely beloved. The state religion, Samsara, teaches that socioeconomic standing is driven by suffering in past lives. Everyone tracks their next-life status via Samsara (the app) and consumes suffering the way we consume social media: performatively, competitively, with malice and virtue-signaling and one-upmanship.
Reese shifts locales from a Silicon Valley debt prison (sparse, boring, climate-controlled) to a fat camp frequented by the upper middle and lower upper classes (“fancy,” but hardly luxe by Reese’s standards) to an obscure stronghold in the wilds of Marin. It features groves of carnivorous redwoods, fat on the blood of genocide; the wrecked homes of those killed in the purge; and a white deer that grants wishes.
Later Reese is imprisoned in the governor’s mansion in Beverly Hills, a ridiculous playground of excess where his constituents gather to watch him spin records and flog temple slaves.
New York Pitch and Algonkian Pre-event Assignments - 2022
in New York Write to Pitch 2023 and 2024
Posted
Monterey Writers' Retreat 2022
1) story statement
Reese, a certified public strategist and cultural sociopath, would like nothing better than to get back into her mother’s good graces. Life was sweet back when Mom thought Reese was the prophesied Magic Californian who would inherit the governorship from her grandfather and lead the state to utopian glory. But lately Reese has done nothing but disappoint her family. All they wanted was for her to convince Californians that the history they’ve been learning is wrong, and that Grandpa did not, in fact, conduct a pretty thorough ethnic cleansing of the Oregonians fifty years ago. An easy task, yet Reese declined to deliver. Now she’s been offered a second chance to impress Mom and avoid deportation to the wastes of Oregon. They need her help; Grandpa’s decided to hold an election for the first time in his fifty years in office. Also on the ballot: an initiative that will determine, once and for all, whether California is an island.
Complicating Reese’s decision, Mom has totally flip-flopped on the whole Magic Californian thing. Now she’s pretty sure she herself is the chosen one who will inherit the governorship. And she’s finally said what everyone’s thinking: The Oregonians keep clamoring about human rights, but aren’t those, by definition, only for humans?
2) antagonist
Reese’s antagonists are her grandfather, IraBob, and her mother, Madeleine. Their goals are aligned: Seize more power to create the California they want, and ensure that the lineage of the governorship stays with the family.
IraBob has spent the past fifty years as the beloved governor of California. He seized the governorship as the culmination of a horrific and wildly popular ethnic cleansing of Oregonians, and now holds his constituents in thrall to his state religion, Samsara.
His daughter Madeleine leads from behind the throne, so to speak, and she wants Reese to step up and show some family loyalty. It’s not the tasks themselves that are important – Madeleine’s capable of gaming her own elections, etc.—it’s the symbolism of it all. Plus, is Reese going to produce the next generation of governors willingly, or does Madeleine need to threaten her with deportation to Oregon?
3) title options
Scenes from Post-Truth California
Tales of a Cultural Sociopath
None and Done
4) comp titles
The Nix (2016, Nathan Hill) for the sociopolitical satire and the protagonist’s core wound: He’s haunted by his mother’s abandonment.
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 (2016, Lionel Shriver) for analysis of generational mistakes and the glimpse into the probably inevitable apocalypse that awaits us.
5) logline
A political strategist to the trillionaires of post-truth California must choose between erasing the genocidal history of her grandfather or destroying her family’s toxic dynasty and losing her last chance at her mother’s love.
6a) primary conflict
When Reese was ten, her mother Madeleine sent her away to be raised and educated by Madeleine’s childhood friend Gershbein. Not that living with old Gershbein was bad, but Reese wanted her mother. Now, in her early thirties, Reese longs for her mother’s love and approval and simultaneously reviles everything her mother and grandfather stand for. She recently enraged Madeleine by refusing to erase IraBob’s genocidal history, and she was thrown into debt prison for it. She escapes, and eventually fetches up at the governor’s mansion in Beverly Hills, where her mother imprisons her until she agrees to align herself with the family goals, including producing an heir. She can’t decide whether to embrace her family and apply her considerable talents to helping them, or try overthrowing this vile dynasty, or perhaps just flee to Oregon.
To complicate things, she discovers she’s pregnant. She never had any intention of bringing another generation of this family into the world, and in fact, underwent sterilization, so WTF?? And she’s already feeling real Mama Bear toward the nugget of life inside her, so that’s just rich.
6b) secondary conflict
Reese betrayed her BFF, Allison, when they were very young, resulting in the destruction of her family and her father’s death. When they meet again as adults, Allison comes to understand that Reese’s family is truly to blame and that Reese was essentially another one of their victims. Allison then plays a key role in engineering the downfall of IraBob and Madeleine.
7) setting
The general setting is California in an alternate near future. Fifty years ago, IraBob and his “congregation” killed most of the lower and middle classes (“Oregonians”). He’s been the governor ever since and is absolutely beloved. The state religion, Samsara, teaches that socioeconomic standing is driven by suffering in past lives. Everyone tracks their next-life status via Samsara (the app) and consumes suffering the way we consume social media: performatively, competitively, with malice and virtue-signaling and one-upmanship.
Reese shifts locales from a Silicon Valley debt prison (sparse, boring, climate-controlled) to a fat camp frequented by the upper middle and lower upper classes (“fancy,” but hardly luxe by Reese’s standards) to an obscure stronghold in the wilds of Marin. It features groves of carnivorous redwoods, fat on the blood of genocide; the wrecked homes of those killed in the purge; and a white deer that grants wishes.
Later Reese is imprisoned in the governor’s mansion in Beverly Hills, a ridiculous playground of excess where his constituents gather to watch him spin records and flog temple slaves.