Overview

Think Kafka, Calvino, Rushdie, and Coehlo. Now add Richard Beeson and his debut novel, Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer, a mythic tale that blends tongue-in-cheek humor with a serious exploration of our history, psychology, sexuality, spirituality, and our place in the multiverse. When an ancient Celtic god, Lugh of the Long Hand, decides to recapture his earthly power, he targets an unsuspecting New Yorker, Tony Fellows, as his contemporary messiah. By infiltrating Tony's dreams, orchestrating a series of personal crises, and steering him into a barrage of sexual and spiritual awakenings, Lugh succeeds in disarming Tony's once-solid grip on reality. In this three-part fable, author Richard Beeson sets a bold pace for the world he creates--a delicious world where killer whales morph into limo drivers and men fall in love with the daughters of gods. Here is magic realism at its finest. =========================== From the Preface to the Tenth Anniversary Edition: The image on the cover is a modern carving of the Mayan goddess Ix Chel. To quote a passage from this book, ""She is goddess of the moon, childbirth, death, the endless cycle...The rattlesnakes stand for nobility, reincarnation, and eternity. Nobility, because they are polite: they warn you with their rattles when you get too close. Reincarnation, because they shed their skins and grow new ones; eternity, because birth, death, the shedding of skin, go on for all time. Ix Chel is goddess of the moon, because the cycles of the moon are the cycles of fertility, the cycles that create our crops and our children. She is the goddess of death, because death is the other side of birth. There can be no birth without death.""I purchased the carving in the photograph from the man who carved it, a Mayan guard outside Loltun cave, in Yucatán, in May 1980. He spoke no English, but I managed to carry on a conversation with him using my rudimentary Spanish (with the help of a pocket dictionary) for several hours. Now, almost forty years later, I have come to realize how deeply what he told me informed my subsequent thinking, and that Ix Chel represents the spirit of magic and mystery that I wanted to convey. I have therefore put her on the cover.

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""Captivating...readers will undoubtedly be drawn in by the appealingprotagonist and the author's descriptive writing, which makes vivid both physical scenery and the characters' physicality...an enthralling read rife with creativity."" --Kirkus Discoveries ""Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer is an enjoyable, character-driven story written in the popular fiction style. It's a rich work of magical realism with symbology representative of creative struggles, the tortured artist, unfulfilled lives, and fears of castration and abandonment. The plot is skillfully developed and it's sometimes difficult for readers to determine whether they're in the character's dream or his reality. Multiple story layers and symbols---including Tony's Walter Mitty-like hallucinations, competing mythological gods, numerology, and dominos enrich the story's texture. Symbolic figures---like the kangaroo-sized dinosaur god Lugh who talks like a 1920s gangster and blows smoke out of his ears, quirky pets like a grotto of pet whales that carry travelers in their mouths, and tamed wild geese--infuse a bit of sideline humor into this dramatic tragedy. Readers should enjoy this symbol-heavy, richly detailed fantasy novel."" --ForeWord Clarion Review ""This book combines elements of theology and science in a story that lauds both with respect and reverence. Highly recommended for all those who still think and, despite worldly cynicism, still believe. A classic."" --Amazon 5-star reviewer ""I loved this book! The imagery is outstanding. I am very much a dreamer and into dreams. I do not want to give away anything or spoil it for the rest of the readers but, this is a book that will be kept and re-read again and again. I love the way it ends. I do not think it could be written any better. I see how this will easily be a book my children will all love too."" --Goodreads 5-star reviewer

"""Captivating...readers will undoubtedly be drawn in by the appealingprotagonist and the author's descriptive writing, which makes vivid both physical scenery and the characters' physicality...an enthralling read rife with creativity."" --Kirkus Discoveries ""Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer is an enjoyable, character-driven story written in the popular fiction style. It's a rich work of magical realism with symbology representative of creative struggles, the tortured artist, unfulfilled lives, and fears of castration and abandonment. The plot is skillfully developed and it's sometimes difficult for readers to determine whether they're in the character's dream or his reality. Multiple story layers and symbols---including Tony's Walter Mitty-like hallucinations, competing mythological gods, numerology, and dominos enrich the story's texture. Symbolic figures---like the kangaroo-sized dinosaur god Lugh who talks like a 1920s gangster and blows smoke out of his ears, quirky pets like a grotto of pet whales that carry travelers in their mouths, and tamed wild geese--infuse a bit of sideline humor into this dramatic tragedy. Readers should enjoy this symbol-heavy, richly detailed fantasy novel."" --ForeWord Clarion Review ""This book combines elements of theology and science in a story that lauds both with respect and reverence. Highly recommended for all those who still think and, despite worldly cynicism, still believe. A classic."" --Amazon 5-star reviewer ""I loved this book! The imagery is outstanding. I am very much a dreamer and into dreams. I do not want to give away anything or spoil it for the rest of the readers but, this is a book that will be kept and re-read again and again. I love the way it ends. I do not think it could be written any better. I see how this will easily be a book my children will all love too."" --Goodreads 5-star reviewer"

Captivating...readers will undoubtedly be drawn in by the appealingprotagonist and the author's descriptive writing, which makes vivid both physical scenery and the characters' physicality...an enthralling read rife with creativity. --Kirkus Discoveries Seduction of a Wanton Dreamer is an enjoyable, character-driven story written in the popular fiction style. It's a rich work of magical realism with symbology representative of creative struggles, the tortured artist, unfulfilled lives, and fears of castration and abandonment. The plot is skillfully developed and it's sometimes difficult for readers to determine whether they're in the character's dream or his reality. Multiple story layers and symbols---including Tony's Walter Mitty-like hallucinations, competing mythological gods, numerology, and dominos enrich the story's texture. Symbolic figures---like the kangaroo-sized dinosaur god Lugh who talks like a 1920s gangster and blows smoke out of his ears, quirky pets like a grotto of pet whales that carry travelers in their mouths, and tamed wild geese--infuse a bit of sideline humor into this dramatic tragedy. Readers should enjoy this symbol-heavy, richly detailed fantasy novel. --ForeWord Clarion Review This book combines elements of theology and science in a story that lauds both with respect and reverence. Highly recommended for all those who still think and, despite worldly cynicism, still believe. A classic. --Amazon 5-star reviewer I loved this book! The imagery is outstanding. I am very much a dreamer and into dreams. I do not want to give away anything or spoil it for the rest of the readers but, this is a book that will be kept and re-read again and again. I love the way it ends. I do not think it could be written any better. I see how this will easily be a book my children will all love too. --Goodreads 5-star reviewer

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