The Swetky Agency - The Ghost Dance of Johnny Tango

Submission Synopsis

The Ghost Dance
Of Johnny Tango
by William “Wild Bill” Taylor

Length:
85,000

Genre:
Literary
Historical
Psychological Drama

Series:
This is the virgin birth of the first one in a series.

Sentence:
In this surrealistic tale of Shane meets Kurt Vonnegut, Billy learns the hard way that life is one long helluva ride!

Blurb:
An empire had best tread lightly when it comes to treating its war heroes, for the enemy it faces might not be the one from across the ocean but rather one from within his own family. That's what Billy learns in this kaleidoscopic journey through life where he comes face-to-face with the Korean War, psychiatrist Major John D. Hepcat, General George Armstrong Custer, and his own demons in the form of the Ghost Dance of Johnny Tango.

Synopsis:
Flannery O'Connor once said, "A novel is a house waiting to be haunted." For our protagonist, Billy, it is instead a rusty old barn and three acres of beautiful Virginia farmland that bedevil him along with his childhood characters decorated by youth, mythology, and a hot-wired imagination that festers, once the sun goes down, with asthma and the unpredictable insanity of the people who gain control of his mind and his household.

This is where our main character meets Confederate partisan Johnny Tango and the Civil War. As the plot unfolds, we learn the true nature of Captain Tango and that mystical evolution between him, Billy, and the other ghosts of reality. Billy takes us on a trip back in time to his and America's childhood and, later, to his evolution as an agent of America's black military operations. We find him under the psychiatric care of Major John D. Hepcat, MD, charged by his superiors at the Pentagon to determine if Billy remains a security risk and to divine for him a plan of long-term treatment.

Billy shows signs of latent paranoid schizophrenia via an overall veil of grayness and a surrealistic connection to life, as the competent but mechanical Doctor Hepcat takes us on a wonderfully kaleidoscopic journey through the ancient-modern world of his patient.

At first, Billy's therapy makes him more agreeable to civilian society, but Hepcat uncovers a deeper truth: Billy craves the kill. And the list of targets selected by the U.S. government soon grows to include others not on anybody's hit list. What better person to retell America’s history than our own Billy Boy who, despite great effort, cannot look at his or America's past with those clearly defined bifocals now used by the political elite, certain priests and politicians, and the rest of us who sit blandly in front of our television sets, night after night, uttering vain moral platitudes and making dreary predictions about the fate of the human soul.

At first, Billy finds the great atrocities committed upon a tired world seem to be the work of the dumb and the stupid who fall in line at a whisper. But in time he comes to understand that it is America's henchmen, the educated and the gifted, who condemn thousands to die without getting any blood of their own on their hands. When they get caught, they cry the universal cry of defense, "I was just following orders!" And, sadly, despite what we are taught in History Class and morning vespers, many get away with it.

Through an accurate reflection of traumatic events such as Appomattox, Custer's Land Stand, the nature and the goals of Fifties' American psychiatry, biological warfare, secret military operations, the Great Depression, Korea, and the enigmatic Ghost and Sun Dances of the Plains Indians, the journey winds toward its inexplicable end. Come follow the road with me, as The Ghost Dance of Johnny Tango just might be the most unusual trip you’ve ever been on!

Bio:
Two books of my poetry have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize (I nominated myself, but who’s asking!). I was a paramedic for 16 years, serving as Director of Emergency Medical Services in Pasadena, California, and Corpus Christi, Texas, as well as in that seaside resort of Jersey City, NJ. I had direct managerial oversight over more than 200,000 EMS calls, granting me true insight into the nature of heroism and goodness, and I have found that even the most moral of men are sometimes really cowards.

Endorsements:
D. J. Herda, President, American Society of Authors and Writers (“The Ghost Dance of Johnny Tango is a profound and electrifying look at the nature of man through the eyes of a man-child protagonist searching for the ultimate reality of life.”) and Richard Walter, Chairman, Screenwriting Department, UCLA School of Film and TV.

Film:
I hear the sounds of Sundance on the horizon.

Additional:
According to Richard Walter, "I count my lucky stars that I have been placed by God in such a position as to encounter souls of light such as yourself. You have not only the talent and discipline, but also the courage to reach and stretch and take risks to be creative."