Joe Queenan is a humorist, essayist, cultural commentator and broadcaster, for the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Spy magazine, Movieline, HBO, the BBC, Channel 4 and many more. He has published over a dozen collections and original books since 1992, including Imperial Caddy, If You're Talking To Me Your Career Must Be In Trouble, and Closing Time.

Yesterday, Mel McDonnell had been one of the most influential and respected members of the United States Senate. Today, he found himself reincarnated as a moist heap of whale excrement, languishing on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean. What was he doing down there? Why had he been relegated to such a demeaning, retrograde, and humiliating condition? What was his error, his crime, his tragic flaw? Were the wreakers of vengeance, the bringers of darkness, the chastisers of hubris on the prowl again? Was the Lord wroth? And if He was indeed wroth, what was He so wroth about? Surely, Mel's story bears telling. Thus begins Joe Queenan's satirical fable of reincarnation, political ambition, man's folly, and the capricious nature of the universe, lusciously illustrated with his signature wry wit by award-winning cartoonist Keith Bendis.