Cooped Up

My 93K word adult, contemporary, humorous, commercial manuscript, COOPED UP, is a mullet with ROMANTIC COMEDY (by Curtis Sittenfeld) in the front and a LESS IS LOST (by Andrew Sean Greer) party in the back. It has TED LASSO (Apple+) and SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE (HBO) vibes too.

Michael Cooper is a divorced, depressed comedian, drowning in debt. He gets one last shot from his agent to go on a nationwide tour. At the same time, his mom is diagnosed with bladder cancer and given a year to live. Faced with a chance to rejuvenate his career, Michael goes against sane advice and takes his mom on tour with him.

They embark on a journey across our nation to clubs and hospitals searching for comedy and chemotherapy. Michael ultimately faces a choice between being with his mom during her life-saving surgery and attending a once-in-a-lifetime audition for Saturday Night Live both on the same day. He can’t get his uncle to take his mom on the day of the surgery because it also takes place on the same dark day as yet another insurrection after Trump loses the 2024 presidential election. 

My timely, life-affirming book celebrates America and is a love letter to families stricken by loss due to cancer. It is filled with love, hope, and poop jokes.

I spent seven years acting and in Improv in New York City. I wrote part of this book while sitting at my mother’s bedside during her chemotherapy for bladder cancer. If this book is published next year, it would tie in with Saturday Night Live’s 50th Anniversary.