OR
A New Tale of a Tub
ISBN: 979-8283793023
WELCOME TO RICHARD CRAVEN’S BRISTOL A TWISTED, SATIRICAL LANDSCAPE WHERE CHAOTIC MISADVENTURE IS MET WITH WIT, VENGEANCE, AND A TOUCH OF THE GROTESQUE.
In this the inaugural volume of Richard Craven’s Bristolian Chronicles, disreputable Bristolian gym manager Herod swears vengeance against the microbe colony infesting the spa hot tub and blamed for the genital gangrene which has unmanned him. In the pursuit of his vendetta, he recruits a gallery of corporate psychopaths, spiritual charlatans and raving homoeopaths. As a signifier of his quest he sports an outsize marital aid, the White Willy.
A darkly humorous, unflinching and characteristically Bristolian satire of societal degeneracy, Amoeba Dick recalls everything between Greek tragedy, Jacobean grand guignol and the Victorian novel, and promises to resurrect classical literary fiction for a contemporary audience.
| 1st eternal cockwasher | 1st sacrifice to St Sebastian, Spartacist no.15, q.v. AD ch16 |
| 2nd eternal cockwasher | 2nd sacrifice to St Sebastian, Spartacist no.18, q.v. AD ch16 |
| 3rd eternal cockwasher | 3rd sacrifice to St Sebastian, Spartacist no.21, q.v. AD ch16 |
| Adrian | Catamite of Rogers Boyes |
| Aeromonas Annie | Enterologist |
| Anonymous Psorietist | Scabby gym-goer |
| Book | Kidult |
| Caliban, the yob | Caliban/Alph |
| Caliban/Alph the Unsacred | Bather in Charybdis |
| Cerberidae | Collective name for Billy & Peggy |
| Chard | Somerset dipsomaniac |
| Colloid | Petra Mountjoy's assistant |
| Costa | P 'n' Q Director of Compliance |
| Crass Cheseham | Proprietor of the Fascist Dictatorship of Stokes Croft |
| Dee Fwend | Kidult |
| Don Quicksotte | CEO of Idiot Left Energy |
| Enematopoeia | Handmaiden to Illingworth the colonist |
| Ertha Mather-Steiner | Earth mother |
| Evelyn Wagge | Appalling hipster |
| Face, the kidult | Infantile adult |
| Gilles de Pantalon Rouge | Manager of Quads & Pex Down Like Fuckin' Easton |
| Guy Pigge | Personal trainer at Pex 'n' Quads |
| Harrison Lupin | Predator |
| Hermaphrodite | Bather in Charybdis |
| Herod | Manager of P 'n' Q |
| Hippus | Ageing yoga god |
| Ianeass the Gimp | Sacred chess loon |
| Illingworth | Colonic irrigation therapist in Knowle |
| John Virgil (later “Haruspex”) | P 'n' Q Director of Marketing & Placemaking |
| Jupiter | Caliban/Alph |
| Lady Dragon | Lady who lunches |
| Lady Snatch | Lord Snatch's wife, poshtitute |
| Lord Snatch | Trust-funded squattocrat |
| Madame Lycra | Lady who lunches, yoga enthusiast |
| Marshall Petoman, the flatulist | Flatulent gym-goer |
| Meltynge | Somerset dipsomaniac |
| Mimi | Kidult |
| Mr Luvvertory | Costa's assistant |
| Mr Vagus | Bankrupt who died in his workshop in the shadow of Horfield Gaol |
| Nero Cesare | P 'n' Q Director of Diversity |
| Peggy | Gym receptionist |
| Peter Astley | Bear to Timothy |
| Petra Mountjoy | P 'n' Q Director of Diversity Compliance |
| Psorietes | Bather in Charybdis |
| Rodolfo Mather-Steiner | Earth father |
| Rogers Boyes | Bear to Adrian |
| Scrumpy | Somerset dipsomaniac |
| St Just | Lord Snatch's gofer |
| Stig O’Dump | Nero Cesare's assistant |
| The Phantom Crapper | Pex 'n' Quads staircase scatter |
| Timothy | Catamite of Peter Astley |
| Titus | AD Narrator |
| Wanksy | Edgy fake psychopath |
| Wookey | Somerset dipsomaniac |
| Wurzel | Somerset dipsomaniac |
| Cerebellum Towers | University |
| Elysium | P 'n' Q's clothing-optional spa |
| Hell | P'n' Q's changing rooms and weights room |
| Hotwells | A floating world of houseboats and sun-bleached nudists, where Clismathea and Enematopoeia sunbathe in a haze of transcendental nonsense. |
| Montypee | A designated yobbery, the haunt of drug-addled failsons of Clifton's people who attend all the right fish suppers. |
| Pex ‘n’ Quads | Gym in Hotwells Road |
| Quads & Pex down like fuckin’ Easton | A bastion of hypermasculine piety, home to the House of Muscle, where Easton's steroidal sages dispense wisdom between sets. |
| Stokes Croft | A festering sink of anarchist utopianism, where reality bends under the weight of unwashed idealists and performance art. |
| Charybdis | Jacuzzi in P 'n' Q |
| The White Willy | Huge white dildo |
| Fruit & Nut Flake | Montpelier pub |
| The Old Disgrace | Pub at the bottom of Snandrews Road |