Query to literary agents:

Understanding that you represent literary fiction, I hope you will consider my novel, OBLITERATING HISTORY – a guitar-making mystery, domination & submission in a small town garage.

Pre-occupied with maintaining her figure at the Curves gym in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, Carol MacLean doesn’t know that her husband Frank is even interested in bondage, let alone that he’s exploring domination and submission with another Curves member, Veronica Dorval.

Looking at photos on a dating website, Frank is aroused by the outline of a Platex Cross-Your-Heart bra beneath the tightly-buttoned white shirt of a well-built strawberry blonde. With the bra’s white elastic binding bouncing through his childhood memory banks, Frank boldly sends the bra’s owner a suggestive message. Meeting for a game of pool, Frank and Veronica articulate a bondage scene that results in a mad dash for the nearest motel room. But wait. Neither of them brought rope. Now the big question: what time does the hardware store close on Saturdays?

Vibrating at a very high level of control-freakishness, there’s almost nothing Veronica likes more than hearing a waiter ask, “The usual, Miss Dorval?” A staunch feminist, Veronica is perplexed by her sexually submissive nature. She can really let go when she’s tied up, knowing a married man is in no position to reveal her secret.

When Carol finds out about the affair, she demands to be shown how domination and submission works. Frank agrees for the wrong reason. He wants Carol to see him in a position of power. With Veronica on her knees, hands tied behind her back, Carol takes the opportunity for revenge.

OBLITERATING HISTORY, complete at 78,000 words, is the account of an affair from three points of view: a husband, a wife, and the woman who comes between them.

The author of two published novels, I am a two-time recipient of Canada Council for the Arts awards ($10,000 each) as a professional writer of creative fiction.

Excerpts of my fiction and articles on culture have appeared in Village Voice, NPR online, the American Book Award winning anthology Sounding Off!: Music as Resistance / Rebellion / Revolution, The Globe & Mail, the New York Foundation of Arts’ Current magazine, Rolling Stone, Review of Contemporary Fiction, McSweeney’s, and 3:AM Literary Magazine.

I write a weekly, fiction-based column for Magnet Magazine. Editors at Magnet and MungBeing Literary Magazine nominated excerpts of my fiction for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.

As the singer and lyricist in (and manager of) the literary rock duo Mecca Normal (13 CDs released on Matador, Kill Rock Stars and K Records), I maintain a significant platform. I tenaciously promote my projects and products.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Jean Smith

throwsilver@hotmail.com

The Eagle and the Poodle (Matador 1996)

Who Shot Elvis? (Matador, 1997)

Sitting on Snaps (Matador, 1995)