Thad Says Parts Is Parts (And Thad Is Right)

Anders Flagstad’s new novel Thad Says Parts Is Parts (And Thad Is Right)is a screwball comedy of errors straight from the vaults. Literally. It’s an adaptation of the Roman playwright Plautus’s comedy Epidicus, but set in 21st century LGBT San Francisco, and asking the often agonizing and perplexing question “Is it possible to be rich, gay, San Franciscan and happy, all at the same time?”

Many are those who ask. Few are answered. Even fewer remember what the question was when the answer hits them squarely between the eyes with all the subtlety of a rapidly swung two-by-four. Eddie Stone – the hero of this and his own story – he happens to be one of those few people. Eddie ends up, as you can imagine, with a very sore head.

Edward “Eddie” Stone is not a happy man – and he knows it.

Eddie has embezzled, stolen, lied, repeatedly laundered stacks of well-worn twenty dollar bills and now local law enforcement is on to him and he’s running out of places to hide and he did it all to save his 23 year-old son.

Well, the boy’s not really his son. Actually, they’re not even related. But still, he did it for him. All of it. Honest.

Paul Periphanitides, Mr. P., is Eddie’s employer. He is also not a happy man. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t know that he’s unhappy. Not yet. But he will. Soon.

Ace Periphanitides, the young twenty-something Eddie’s trying to save is pretty much always happy. He’s rich, handsome, young, and goes through boyfriends like a sinus infection sufferer goes through boxes of Kleenex. Ace will end up very, very confused, very shortly.

In this twisted and torturous tale of errors based on Plautus’s favorite play Epidicus, sons are found and lost, love blossoms and then is rudely plucked, mother’s hearts are mended and broken and mended again, much money changes hands, and destinies are chosen, sometimes involuntarily. There’s also a couple of drunken brawls in some of the rougher neighborhood Lesbian bars.

And of course, it all takes place in The City – the city by the bay, San Francisco.

- The novel “Thad Says Parts Is Parts (And Thad Is Right)” is Book Two of the Principal Parts Series – Book One of the series is “Spare Parts”, a collection of short stories. The series Principal Parts is a set of interconnected books and characters about San Franciscans and how they got that way and what they do to stay that way and where they expect to go with all this stuff they’re doing.