Face-Lift 104

Guess the Plot

Duty Boy

1. A first-person, present tense, saga of toilet-training told by a three-and-a-half-year-old boy under enormous pressure to succeed.

2. When Captain Responsibility quits the superhero racket and goes on a three-day bender, it's up to his sidekick, Duty Boy, to take over his obligations.

3. Cub Scout leader Pius Piatro finds himself the focus of a national debate when he expels eight-year-old David Fenneman from Troop 212 on suspicion that David might be gay.

4. "Duty Processing," Alabama's controversial new system of legalized slavery, is working out great for business owners--until one of them is murdered.

5. A customs agent's son enlists on a pirate ship as the captain's boy, but finds the captain's idea of high seas thrills is nothing like his own.

6. Triple Crown winner Duty Boy is a dud at stud--until a stable boy goes beyond the call of duty.


Original Version

How much pain is one life worth?

David Ellis has found himself in the middle of a circus. [He is . . . the Ringmaster!] [On the assumption that there had to be a comic book character called the Ringmaster, Evil Editor researched the matter. Sure enough, the Ringmaster was a villain who took on the likes of Spiderman, Hulk, and Howard the Duck. Since my comic book collection includes issues 1 - 27 of Howard the Duck, I dug them out and looked for the one with the Ringmaster. It was number 27. At the end, Howard says to The Ringmaster, "So now it's down to you 'n' me, Ringo--unless you care to surrender!" And the Ringmaster says, "Capitulate to a duck!?! Are you mad??" Anyway, different ringmaster.] Protestors, TV news crews, human rights groups, and Hollywood directors are converging on Birmingham after the murder of a local businessman. But the victim and trial are mere side notes to the real issue: Duty Processing. [Couldn't they come up with a better name? Duty Processing sounds like what goes on in the colorectal system.] A controversial government program 25 years in the making, Duty Processing has taken work-release to a new low. Nonviolent criminals are given work contracts instead of prison terms, and what started as rehabilitation has, through the years, devolved into little better than slavery. [Slavery? I get it, you get caught embezzling, your punishment is working the drive-through window at McDonald's, and while you're handing people their food, Ronald McDonald is whipping you.]

Now a business owner has been murdered and a young DP is accused. As the suspect's advocate, Ellis is the only one protecting him from execution. [Maybe the only one officially protecting him, but the protestors, news crews, human rights groups, and Hollywood directors are probably mostly on his side.] Resisting every pressure to plead his client guilty and be done with him, David faces threats to his home, his family, his job, and even his life as the forces that profit from the DP system fight to crush his case.

DUTY BOY is a mainstream novel of 91,000 words that follows this case from the day of the murder to the trial's verdict. The completed manuscript is available, as well as a synopsis and sample chapters.


Notes

Evil Editor changed a few words rather than reprint the whole query with very few changes. I would have changed the term "Duty Processing," but couldn't tell if the author made it up, or if it's the actual name of a program.

How about including a couple examples of the jobs DP's have to do, and of how (besides the lack of paychecks) they're like slavery.

So, is the accused actually called "Duty Boy" in the book? Because that's kind of insulting, both parts. It also sounds kind of childish; when Evil Editor was a kid, some children referred to doodoo as "duty," rather than use the more sophisticated term, "caca." Don't know if that's still the case.