The Purple Knight of the Ozarks
The Nearly True Story of T. Allen McQuary
A Serialized Novel with Historical Documentation
Period illustration
AI reimagining
This serialized novel follows McQuary's actual path through court records, newspaper clippings, and a surviving promotional pamphlet. Each chapter is accompanied by historical documentation, photographs, and newspaper articles that reveal the thin line between McQuary's fiction and his reality. This is the story of America's most persistent and creative liar—a man who turned deception into performance art and performance art into a way of life.
Table of Contents
Part One: The Quest Begins
- Prelude: A Rainy Night in Darkest Indiana
- First Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
- Chapter One: A Bright Young Man in a Dull Small Town
- Chapter Two: A Nearly Painless Digression on Journalism in the late 1800s
- Chapter Three: Ka-whang!
-
Chapter Four: Mack's Triumph Among the Presbyterians
The Purple Knight takes Cincinnati by storm
-
Second Interlude: Notes from the Desk of a Real Scatterbrain
Further discoveries from the archives, including McQuary's own promotional materials and newspaper accounts
-
Chapter Five: Our Hero Travels to Springfield
Go east, young man!
-
Chapter Six: The Offices of the Springfield Leader
Mack seeks answers in the city and encounters an angry editor
-
Chapter Seven: At the Admiral Bimbo Inn
Mack and M.S. Glenn get acquainted
-
Chapter Eight: The Zoo Park Send Off
Wherein Otis Bulfinch vows his revenge
-
The Third Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
McQuary's own account of life on the road, selling booklets and charming girls
-
Chapter Nine: How Mack Made It Work
Yes, Virginia, there is a Purple Knight
-
Chapter Ten: How Glenn Made It Work
Behind the scenes with the man running the con from Missouri
-
Chapter Eleven: How Claude Made It Work
A Note From Claude at Anthropic
-
Chapter Twelve: The Road Along Big Sandy
Girls, thieves, and other stories
-
Chapter Thirteen: Our Hero Receives a Lesson in Local Lore
The legend of the Hatfields and McCoys at a Kentucky inn
-
Chapter Fourteen: The Purple Knight Tells a Whopper
How to make bank with other folk's stories • November 14, 1897 • Pikeville, Kentucky
-
The Fourth Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
A meditation on mortality, memory, and the ghost of Billy Simpkins • July 28, 1948 • Galena, Missouri
-
Chapter Fifteen: Otis Bulfinch Has a Dream
One good cartoon deserves another • February 20, 1898
-
Chapter Sixteen: The Purple Knight Upsets the Charleston Country Club
Say what you mean and mean what you say • January 3, 1898 • Charleston, South Carolina
-
The Fifth Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
A confession from the Purple Knight • October 21, 1947
-
Chapter Seventeen: What Actually Happened in Charleston, South Carolina
Mack's triumphant entry, the Fox sisters, and the seance on King Street • January 6, 1898 • Charleston, South Carolina
-
The Sixth Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
An inconvenient haunting • October 31, 1947
-
Chapter Eighteen: The Resurrection of Billy Simpkins
A seance goes terribly wrong when the planchette writes on its own • January 8, 1898 • Charleston, South Carolina
-
Chapter Nineteen: Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Absinthe, Mahogany Hall, and the crowning of King Comus • February 22, 1898 • New Orleans, Louisiana
-
The Seventh Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
A confession: the truth about the Indrani and the stories McQuary told
-
The Eighth Interlude: From the Desk of Otis Bulfinch
Otis presents his evidence
Part Two
A Fortnight of Folktales: Crossing the Atlantic
-
Chapter Twenty: Hoot and the Hog
Night One — Mack tells Captain Trotter a tale of superstition and bad luck aboard the steamer
-
Chapter Twenty-One: The Pyramid
Night Two — Captain Trotter tells of a mysterious black pyramid that rose from the Pacific and the purple figure inside
-
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Pilgrimage of Peace
Night Three — First Mate Alistair Baxter tells of a Quaker minister's ill-fated pilgrimage of holy men bound for Jerusalem
-
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Scarab
Night Four — Sometimes a ball of shit is a good thing
-
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Serpents and the Two Seed Church
Night Five — There's always a snake in the garden.
-
Chapter Twenty-Five: How to Kill a Witch
Night Six — Like Grandpa says, "You can't believe something if it ain't there to believe in."
-
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Bone Tour
Night Seven — Wherein the Purple Knight learns the consequences of his masquerade.
-
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Ruminations in the Middle of the Sea
Night Seven — What's a nihilist supposed to do?
-
The Ninth Interlude: From the Desk of T. Allen McQuary
A memory of Maggie
-
Chapter Twenty-Eight: After the Bone Tour
Mack Circles the Mediterranean Sea
-
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Farewell, Theophilus!
The First of Two Stories — Captain Trotter purchases Darwin's missing link in Java and exhibits him to the Royal Society and the Crown
-
Chapter Thirty: The Splendid Victory of Commodore Dewey
The Second of Two Stories — Mack witnesses the massacre at Manila Bay and is forever disillusioned with the glories of war
-
Chapter Thirty-One: The Oriental Art of Bookbinding
Stranded in Japan, Mack finds solace operating a Stanhope press and learning bookbinding from an ancient Chinese woman
-
Chapter Thirty-Two: “Blessed Be the Ties That Bind”
June 1, 1898 — Marooned between worlds, Mack stitches books in Yokohama and confronts the ambivalence at the core of all human experience
-
Chapter Thirty-Three: Homeward Bound
July 8, 1898 — Mack sails home on the Kinghu Maru, arrives in Astoria, charms a Portland newspaper girl named Lyla, and steams up the Columbia to The Dalles
Part Three
Homecoming
-
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Purple Knight and Otis Meet Again for the First Time
November 1, 1898 — Otis Bulfinch tracks the Purple Knight across two continents and finally confronts him at the Turnverein Germania Hall in Joplin, Missouri
-
Tenth Interlude: From the Desk of Otis Bulfinch
Otis walks out of the Turnverein and decides, at last, to hold the Purple Knight's story lightly and with no expectations
-
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Return of the Prodigal
November 7, 1898 — Mack arrives home to Lebanon, Missouri, only to find his parents have moved — and have had enough of his lies
-
Chapter Thirty-Six: The End of an Era
November 12, 1898 — Mack rides into Mountain Grove and confronts M.S. Glenn — and the promise of a book that will never be written
-
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Maggie Swan
May 25, 1900 — Working as a printer in Emporia, Kansas, Mack becomes obsessed with his landlord’s fourteen-year-old granddaughter and hatches a desperate plan
-
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Farewells
The final chapter — Otis finds his redemption on an Easter Sunday, M.S. Glenn goes to prison, and Mack McQuary lives out his days in Galena, Missouri
-
Coda
A final word from the author on McQuary, Bulfinch, and the nature of truth
But this ain't all, folks! The Purple Knight Chronicles comes fully loaded: Historical Notes that dig into the real record, AI-generated images that may or may not tell the truth, and a multi-level exploration of identity, deception, and redemption that goes sideways as often as it goes forward. Keep your eyes peeled for live images — click on ‘em and see where they take you. Fun for the whole psyche. No refunds.