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comedy
October 2009 
Dear Editor ...
Posted on Jun 29th, 2009
by 
Luke
Luke
Please find here, in its entirety, my novel Beginner’s Luke for your consideration.
Beginner’s Luke is the first in a series of six already finished novels of approximately the same length that relate the often hilarious, sometimes irreverent “imaginary life” of my eponymous narrator.
Luke Soloman is more than merely self-conscious. He is sui generis, literally believing himself into being. While titillating in the rambunctious tradition of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac and Tom Robbins, Luke’s signature obsessions with self, sex, satire and slapdash highlight a serious, and life-changing, point: consciousness creates. The point is there is a point to living in the imagination—for only through it can we reinvent ourselves and our world.
In 2005 a respected New York publishing house, with a reputation as one of America’s best independent presses, offered me a publishing contract for the Beginner’s Luke Series. After much soul searching, I declined and embarked on an experiment in self-publishing that has yielded thousands of online readers and a number of encouraging professional reviews.
Apex Reviews called Beginner’s Luke a “mind-bending journey through the mind of the ultimate iconoclast.” Reader Views described it as a “modern-day Alice in Wonderland.” And literary scholar Niama Williams, Ph.D., host of “Poetry & Prose & Anything Goes,” called Beginner’s Luke a “spiritual journey that you do not want to put down.”
It is worth noting I am an accomplished writer of nonfiction. In just over three years, my self-published Conscious Healing, which Australia’s Nexus New Times called “revolutionary” and a “paradigm-reworking book,” has sold thousands of copies and been translated into multiple languages.
My goal is for Beginner’s Luke to reach a mainstream audience as a successful series, and I have ample reason to believe this is not only possible but inevitable.
I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Sol Luckman
http://www.beginnersluke.com
Access: PublicTagged with: publishing, query, novel, fiction, writing, success, consciousness, imagination, humor, comedy
*** Reviews by Fellow Writers ***
I felt as if I was way back when and reading Tom Robbins for the first time!
Obviously, from the feedback below, nobody knows how to critique this, because they can't. It doesn't follow any of the rules, so there's nothing to compare it to.
Greetings … I salute the master. You've just made my day. I … have learned by reading this book I know nothing about writing.
Your name is apropos to your fantastic use of words. Sol Luckman, the lucky man with the magic pen. You captured me and had me under your spell for all thirty-five hundred words. I came here to quickly scan through your book and fell right into your trap. All I can say is you are a genius in the making, a master story teller and a whole hell of a lot of fun. This kind of writing is going to make you rich and famous.
From your first paragraph, you've got me. This book is fabulous, it's been polished and fine-tuned, reads like a dream. Not only is it incredibly humorous, it's intelligent … I could keep writing on the pleasure of this book all day. Let me pause to shelve it now, and assure you this work is grand.
Once in a while I'm blown away by some book I've sampled here: this is one of them. Criticism would be superfluous–you know you've written something good. You've already had some success with it and a good following. You also have the confidence to say that it is part of a series. Add me to the list of its fans/supporters.
This was fabulous. So different from anything I read, but it kept me enthralled the whole time.
This is fall over funny. Your wit, tongue in cheek-isms, and downright pulling the mickey is so darn refreshing and delightful!! And you do it all with such aplomb, brazenly flaunting a fabulous vocabulary, writing a captivating story, but it's soooo delicious! This is the kind of book that makes me suck my fingers and announce, scrumptious!, I'll have a second helping!
A very polished, original take on the comic coming-of-age story.
I suppose the references to Kerouac and Miller were what attracted me in the first place–and indeed the book started very much in Kerouac's style. I would have been content with that, but you then moved on into a totally new dimension. Exhilarating stuff.
This book needs to be up there in the charts. Period.
Obviously you’ve got real talent. It’s a great story, a fabulist sort of yarn told in a great voice.
You have created a new world with a new culture and it's all breathtaking!
Miller? Kerouac? No, Luckman. You have a very personal style and I feel comparing you to those two authors takes away from the BRAVO I want to give you. Very special, very funny, weird, crazy, delicious.
A hectic ride this one, with some witty asides and powerful language. There is a lot on offer here and sometimes I feel it needs reigning in, and then I think, what the hell, let it flow. There is a real offbeat power here.
AWESOME. Bravo. As am I sure you know there is no video feed on Authonomy so you'll just have to take my word for it when I say, I'm giving you a standing ovation.
I've only read the first chapter and I'm so sorry it took so long to get to reading this … sorry for ME. Damn! This is brilliant! The visuals, the pace, the power of your character's curiosity is staggering … Sterling work, Sol!
Your mastery of the language is impressive, and you make the writing of this look simply effortless. I’d shelve you for that alone, but as a bonus the story is a lovely one anyway, and hugely imaginative.
I'm not sure how hilarious you expected this to be, but I was chuckling at a regular cadence reading this. The writing moves very fast and the twists on thoughts really have me going.
This is a fantastic read. I'm positively reeling inside of it all. It's the way you brilliantly dismantle segments of society, take up the segments, and re-entwine them into something entirely unheard of. It's crystal clear sanity, drenched in insanity.
Not my usual kind of reading material, these days, but I have to admit to being totally hooked. Extraordinarily powerful writing, strongly reminiscent of Kerouac but very much in your own style.
This is so different from everything else I've encountered on this site. Very original.
I think good writing is easier than funny writing–and you've done both.
Absolute comic genius. A great break from reading so much serious stuff … I know we're of a different ilk, but good writing is good writing if it's in a spiritually based thriller or literary satire. I do hope appreciating good writing and not adherence to a preconceived set of values is what this site is about.
Love what I have read so far. Racy and intelligent, acerbic wit.
It's a long long time since I've read Kerouac but you've brought back some really surreal memories. You are your own man but enjoy the comparisons.
Very compelling and flows really well, a real head trip. Love it. No constructive criticisms at all … Would like to read some more once my head has stopped spinning.
Your prose is vigorous and cuts like a knife–visceral if not eviscerating. Somehow rough and powerful, yet refined in a strange tongue-in-cheek way. I love your style.
How do you keep up the pace? Your writing is sheer poetry but is it possible for the content to be wholly fictitious? If so, you have an extraordinarily fertile imagination.
You have an opening that left me gasping–partly for breath, it didn't feel natural to stop and breathe at any point on the way through. The almost narrative stream of consciousness is impressively controlled … Strangely the work this most reminds me of is John Bunyan's PILGRIM’S PROGRESS … I hope others recognise quite how good this is.
Glorious: crackling with energy and humour, tongue firmly in cheek … a roller coaster. Love it.
I've only read this first chapter, but it was pretty genius, I have to say. It flows really well. Fast, but not too fast. This is really great.
Good damn writing!
I loved this story for the same reason I loved Seinfeld. It's about nothing, going nowhere (seemingly), but it just keeps you going … It's about just reading beautiful, sound writing. Words strung together in such an artistic fashion, that it becomes an intriguing picture, off which you cannot take your eyes. This has got a voice! Brilliant!
Wow! Great beginning, it really sucked me in and flows so fast with so much going on–I hate dull beginnings so this really appealed to me even though it's not something I would normally read. I enjoy your style of writing, quick and to the point with no “flabby” bits …Very visual and a great voice.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter–well written and engaging. Some real gems here, such as where you vomited just at the thought of getting a job (I laughed out loud). I have a brother with exactly the same problem … Brilliant writing.
BEGINNER’S LUKE is so strange … that only your excellent writing makes it so … real.
Nothing else I can do to it except to give it a thumbs up and a HI-five! … and … ask; Where is THE TOY BUDDHA?