Dust Bowl of the Damned

For months now, the blurb/pitch for Exit The Skin Palace started off like this: 

    One moment, 12-year-old Montgomery Slaybaugh is screwing off, killing time before the birthday pool party to end all birthday pool parties.   The next moment, Monty's dead.  

     He's not in Heaven.  He's not in Hell.  He's a ghost.  One more shuffling shiftless soul in the Game Room - a rust-colored wasteland, the dustbowl of the damned.

Now it has evolved to this:       

     One moment, 12-year-old Montgomery Slaybaugh is screwing off, killing time before the birthday pool party to end all birthday pool parties.   The next moment, Monty's dead.  

     He doesn't wake up in Heaven.  Or Hell.  Monty's one more ghost in a dust-covered, rust-colored wasteland the thousand-plus locals call the Game Room.

Mostly the change stems from the gut-check realization what should've been - "Dust Bowl" of the damned - made it to most agents as -dustbowl.  

Oopsies.  But it's ok.  I'm used to looking like a fucking idiot at this late point in trying to secure and then savor the loving touch of a publishing industry professional.  

But if this is really a book for the YA and Teen set, 'dust bowl of the damned' doesn't mean squat, I would think.  So there is that reason for the change, too.

I can't look at Exit or Surfer right now. Someone else needs to but I seem short of the $1000-$1500 most copy editors are looking for to take the shears to a 67,000-word MS.