The Frog King

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Harry Driscoll is living in New York City (if you call trying to survive on an editorial assistant's salary living). His family is wealthy (but Harry Driscoll is not). His education is Ivy League (but what good is it doing him?). His publishing job is entry-level (with no exit in sight).

BUT

Harry Driscoll has a dream (if you call an unfinished manuscript hidden in the closet a dream). Harry Driscoll has a girl (although intercourse is out of the question). Harry Driscoll even has feelings. (He asked this girl, one day in the park, to be in his life forever . . . and he meant it!)

The Frog King is a love story by Adam Davies (in that it involves love). It's also a motion picture - or planned to be, at any rate.

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Tropes used in The Frog King include:

• A Date with Rosie Palms ('It was a wank only Henry Ford could love.')
• The Alcoholic
• Author Vocabulary Calendar (Harry reads the dictionary and has logomachy games with Jordie.)
• Bittersweet Ending
• Cannot Spit It Out
• Can't Have Sex Ever (Evie starts the novel off with endometriosis, which makes sex excruciatingly painful.)
• Deadpan Snarker (Harry's friend Keeno)
• Did Not Get the Girl
• I Call Him "Mister Happy" (Evie's 'Jiffy Lube')
• Infallible Narrator (To be fair, Harry's an aspiring writer. Still, 'Her black hair was curling madly in the heat in a gonzo Pre-Raphaelite way I already knew she hated and she smelled of the street - dirty rainwater and hot tar'?)
• Intergenerational Friendship (Harry and Birdie)
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold (He may be an alcoholic, a failure at his job, a complete asshole to his girlfriend, a compulsive liar, and absolutely self-absorbed - but at least Harry looks after Birdie. Sort of. A little.)
• Princess for a Day (Harry and Evie have a game called 'Madame Bovary' where they pretend to be famous and try on expensive clothes)
• The Loins Sleep Tonight (The stress of his 'interactions' with Judith gets to Harry occasionally.)
• Love Martyr
• Narrator
• Nobody Thinks It Will Work
• Painting the Fourth Wall (The text is littered with 'Question' and 'Answer' segments by the narrator/Harry, as well as a 'Correction'.)
• Sophisticated As Hell (Jordie Wesselesh is a lexicographer, which means he uses words from all cultures - like 'Cronkite' for news.)
• Street Urchin
• Your Cheating Heart (Harry has 'Date/s', before Evie asks him to get rid of them. Then he just has Judith.)
• Wrong Genre Savvy (Harry hates clichés and the 'Hallmark' idea of love, and tries to avoid being too romantically cliché. Evie eventually points out that he's completely missed the fact that his attitude to life is, by that point, one big Wangst.)