Confessions of a Knight Errant - Drifters, Thieves, and Ali Baba's Treasure

"Confessions of a Knight Errant is a comedic, picaresque novel with a loose plot and a flamboyant cast of characters. It's written in the tradition of Miguel Cervantes, Laurence Sterne and Henry Fielding with a modern twist. Dr. Gary Watson is the picaro, a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist without any technical ability who has been accused of masterminding a computer virus, which wiped out the files of a major publishing company. His Sancho Panza is Kharalombos, a fat, gluttonous Greek dancing teacher, who was wanted by the secret police for cavorting with the daughter of the "Big Man" of Egypt. They return to Cairo on the eve of the most violent day of the Egyptian uprising in 2011. The adverse Dulcinea in this story is Gudrun Grunwald, a German-American tourist. She arrives on the scene with a Russian aristocrat, Viscount Triksky, who is much like the Duke in Huckleberry Finn, and an Egyptian archaeologist, Ramses El-Kibir. Gudrun owns a girls' camp in central Texas with a retired American missionary, Mary Alice Bodewell. A dead body turns up on a neighboring property, and is connected to antiquities and documents from the Middle East, a revelation causing pandemonium amongst the main characters. But little do we know what the final revelation would be. Perhaps as implausible as fiction"--

About the author

Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen Texas. After graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt, Turkey and Japan. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and was awarded a teaching Fulbright to Syria from 1997-1999. Her stories, essays and reviews have appeared in The Barcelona Review, Archipelago, National Public Radio, Story South, Guernica, The Common, The Millions, and the LA Review of Books. Translations in English and Arabic have been published in: Nizwa, Banipal, Brooklyn Rail in Translation, World Literature Today and Washington Square Review with Mohamed Metwalli. Her bi-lingual book of short stories in English and Arabic, Three Stories From Cairo, translated with Mohamed Metwalli was published in July 2011 by AFAQ Publishing House, Cairo. A collection of short stories about expatriate life in Cairo, Shahrazad’s Tooth, was also published by AFAQ in 2013. Currently, she is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the American University in Cairo. Her website: www.gretchenmccullough.wix.com/gretchenmccullough 

Summary

Confessions of a Knight Errant is a comedic, picaresque novel in the tradition of Don Quixote with a flamboyant cast of characters. Dr. Gary Watson is the picaro, a radical environmentalist and wannabe novelist who has been accused of masterminding a computer hack that wiped out the files of a major publishing company. His Sancho Panza is Kharalombos, a fat, gluttonous Greek dancing teacher, who is wanted by the secret police for cavorting with the daughter of the Big Man of Egypt. Self-preservation necessitates a hurried journey to the refuge of a girls’ camp in rural Texas. Then a body turns up nearby that is connected to Middle East antiquities, and they are on the run once more.

Product details

• Authors: Gretchen McCullough
• Assisted by: Cune (Editor)
• Publisher: Cune Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 18.10.2022, delayed
• EAN: 9781951082444
• ISBN: 978-1-951082-44-4
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature