Genre confusion

[DVG2022]

A question about genre - a novel of mine is described (within the text by a character) as "a superhero-franchise-satire black-comedy-of-manners with socio-political undertones and an upper-class overlay of homoerotic camp".  And that's sort of what it is.  How does one define genre in a query if the point of the novel is to explode the basic template?  I've thought of "What if Douglas Adams and Evelyn Waugh collaborated on a Marvel Comics Universe movie", but do such things come across as too contrived and "clever"?

I realize without reading the book this may be a difficult question to answer but appreciate any ideas or suggestions.

[Tallis]

Hi DVG,

Seems to me that satire often crosses boundaries, and in a good way.  Since your purpose is to amuse the reader by playing against expectations, why not play with that in the query?  "This is a work of satire, so even my characters don't know what genre they're within.  I like to keep them off balance.  One of them calls his world 'a superhero-franchise-satire, black-comedy-of-manners, with socio-political undertones, and an upper-class overlay of homoerotic camp'... if that helps."

That's just one approach and it might be terrible... but perhaps a starting point.  I do like your mashup of Adams/Waugh/Marvel -- and from what I've seen, drawing such comparisons is a fairly standard tactic.

Good luck!