I've paid the fees and spoken to an editor and a designer. Chasing the Last Whale will be available in both trade paperback and e-book format. The cover will be designed by my brother Tim. As always, he's come up with a killer concept.

Chasing the Last Whale is a novel about how rage takes many forms, but it always destroys. It can destroy a childhood, a once-in-a-lifetime love, an unlikely friendship, a profession, and a family. Rage can erase memories and blind one to opportunities. It can bring about utter ruin.

Elliot Finell--an angry, maimed young man--meets Trey Gillespie, someone even more crippled in body and soul than himself. They become friends, despite their utterly dissimilar backgrounds, temperaments, and worldviews. Elliot's rage has cost him his health, his relationship with his family, and the love of his life, a moody Southerner nobody but Elliot understands. While navigating his strange friendship with Trey, Elliot embarks on a program of improvement. He will try to heal his damaged body, because it seems to be all he has left.

When Trey suffers a crisis, he asks Elliot to commit an act that would violate all of Elliot's principles. Fighting off Trey's excruciating, stressful pleas causes Elliot to discover the source of his rage. He must then decide if he will maintain the anger that has become habitual, the main component of his identity. Once he understands what has really crippled him, he's able to see how rage has damaged so many others: his lost love; the beautiful young woman who is his implacable nemesis; his ambiguous, sex-crazed British friend; and of course Trey, a nuclear reactor of rage and bitterness.

Chasing the Last Whale explores intent and outcome. What constitutes a crime? How does victimhood end? Can mercy be immoral? Is love a choice?

And, one of the reasons I wrote the novel: Can any topic be made funny?

No, not any topic. But most can.