The Wasteland

by Harper H. Jameson, W.A.W. Parker

Overview

The extraordinary career and devastating life of T.S. Eliot. Eliot is a hollow man trapped in a dreary world. Working at the bank, a slave to the clock, the same routine, day after day. While London's elite enjoy a Great Gatsby lifestyle and poets like Robert Frost are rock stars, attracting thousands of fans to each reading, T.S. Eliot walks past life, peering at it through cracks or around corners. A world in color only in his stark imagination. Then one day he comes across Jack, an out and proud gay man being badly beaten, and something compels him to intervene. Life will never be the same. Jack introduces Eliot to the gay underground of early 20th Century London and to feelings Eliot had crammed down and locked away. And with freedom comes poetry. Extraordinary poetry that takes London by storm. But as Eliot's fame increases, pressure for conformity does as well. Religious intolerance, fascism's increasingly popular message of traditional values and the allure of untold success present Eliot with a decision that could have devastating consequences. The Wasteland is the untold story of T.S. Eliot, his secret struggle with being gay, the people left in the wake of his meteoric career trajectory and the madness that helped produce his greatest work.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646300433
Publisher:	Level 4 Press, Inc.
Publication date:	01/05/2021
Sold by:	INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	280
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

W.A.W. Parker focuses on telling stories about queer people in history in order to reclaim our cultural legacy. His debut novel “The Divine Proportions of Luca Pacioli” is out now and he’s currently writing a novel based on “The Wasteland,” a musical about T.S. Eliot. When he’s not busy rewriting his own queer historical musical, he’s enjoying his husband Raul’s cooking. When Harper graduated from Brown University with a history degree, there was no inkling that a career as a writer would follow. After running a successful business for years, then launching the Social Impact Conference to support business owners, artists and activists dedicated to positive social change, Harper realized that story-telling was fundamental to changing the world and that history housed the greatest stories of them all. Harper especially enjoys finding important but forgotten, or misunderstood, figures from history and bringing them back to life so that the reader can learn about them firsthand. After running a successful business for years then launching the Social Impact Conference, Harper Jameson realized that story-telling was fundamental to changing the world and that history housed the greatest stories of them all. W.A.W. Parker focuses on telling stories about queer people in history in order to reclaim our cultural legacy. After running a successful business for years then launching the Social Impact Conference, Harper Jameson realized that story-telling was fundamental to changing the world and that history housed the greatest stories of them all. W.A.W. Parker focuses on telling stories about queer people in history in order to reclaim our cultural legacy.

Editorial Reviews

"frequently poetic . . . stunning imagery . . ."

Get_lit_erature - Des

"The style is self-consciously poetic, presumably in homage to Eliot himself, and at times borders on self-indulgence. But when contrasted with the plaintive realism of its subject matter, it works. A readable and compelling novel that will be of most interest to readers who already know Eliot’s work."

Historical Novel Society - Jackie Drohan

"The novel has a rhythmic, poetic style, including much rhyming, which works well as an intense look inside Eliot’s conflicted mind . . . The Wasteland offers an inventive, albeit highly speculative, unmasking of the deeply reserved, guarded poet."

Gay & Lesbian Review - Charles Green

"The Wasteland is a solid 4.5-star read, that I would recommend with all my heart."

Daily Dose of Books - Lala

"Strained from historical fact, The Wasteland is a fictionalized glimpse into the conflicted mind of T. S. Eliot."

ForeWord Magazine - Danielle Ballantyne

"The Wasteland captures the beauty of Eliot's language, the singular eccentricity of his contemporaries (Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, etc.), and the richness of his personal story. A story that feels as relevant today as ever."
 

Midwest Book Review

"Give me a group of famous poets sharing a room any day . . .The Wasteland is a treat for readers interested in poetry and history. But it’s also an eye-opening foray into LGBTQ history and the unequivocal torture and social exclusion people faced due to their sexuality."

Independent Book Review - Liam Anthony

"The Wasteland is a fictionalized glimpse into the conflicted mind of T. S. Eliot. There are no heroes here: every character flounders within the shifting tides of a country on the brink of war, and the wars within themselves." —Danielle Ballantyne, ForeWord Magazine


"The Wasteland captures the beauty of Eliot's language, the singular eccentricity of his contemporaries (Ezra Pound, Ernest Hemingway, etc.), and the richness of his personal story. A story that feels as relevant today as ever." —Alyssia Gonzalez, Midwest Book Review 

"The Wasteland offers an inventive, albeit highly speculative, unmasking of the deeply reserved, guarded poet." —Charles Green, writer for Gay & Lesbian Review

From the Publisher