Please note: creative writing theses are permanently embargoed in OpenBU. No public access is forecasted for these. To request private access, please click on the lock icon and filled out the appropriate web form. / This thesis contains six short stories and an excerpt of a novel. / 2031-01-01T00:00:00Z

This thesis approaches the issue of the detective in the 21st century through the parodic novella form. The main body of the work is a piece of fiction about an amateur detective trying to find a solution to an imagined crime. This comes from my study of detective fiction, starting with Oedipus and ending with twentieth and twenty-first century examples, especially in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Chester Himes, where the detective loses power. The novella follows Whitney Sloat as he acts as detective in a world that can’t let go of the hardboiled traditions. He and the people around him struggle to connect with reality, pursuing a way of life that cannot exist outside of their world.

This master’s degree thesis exists in two parts: a critical introduction and an original novella entitled Side Effects. The critical introduction introduces and explains the theories on, literature surrounding, and literary uses of dystopian fiction, the novella format, and drug-based psychotherapy. Current opinion on dystopian fiction sees it characterized by a seemingly perfect societal setting that ultimately contains hidden or suppressed moral flaws. The ultimate purpose of dystopian fiction is commentary on contemporary society through a defamiliarized setting. The novella format is shown to exist in a middle-ground state between the short story and the novel, yet the format manages to maintain positive literary elements of both. Finally, a discussion on drug-based psychotherapy illustrates the use of chemical compounds to treat or cure psychological conditions, a topic of much debate amongst current psychology practitioners. The section on drug-based psychotherapy focuses largely on memoirs for purposes of first-hand experience and character creation for the original novella. The novella, entitled Side Effects, follows the character Edward, a middle-aged man who creates and tests serums that suppress by mandate the emotions that his society deems toxic to the human condition. Edward remains ignorant of any life outside the symmetry and order of the Company, the corporation responsible for the maintenance of the society. That is, until a chance encounter with a young woman named Gabrielle causes Edward to explore a world outside the confines of his carefully crafted city and lifestyle. She introduces him to a community of people who reject the mandates of the Company and exist as the extreme opposition to its ideals. As Edward spends more time with this group, known as Splicers, he must confront his long-held standards and finally choose for himself what life he will live.

The Rowing Coaches is about friendship, money, love, loss, and rowing. It chronicles the turning point in the lives of three friends who are professional rowing coaches. The friends are Don Bestos, Bill Maxwell, and Bergman, men who are or were at the very top of their sport, and now question their friendships with each other and where their lives are headed. The story takes place on a weekend in the summer of 2000 at the USRowing Convention in Las Vegas, the big blow-out for everyone in the sport of rowing. The Rowing Coaches also offers a look at an esoteric and often misunderstood sport. The main character is Don Bestos, a fifty-year-old head coach from Northeastern University. Don is recently divorced and has yet to move on from the failure of his marriage. The memory of his ex-wife Annie causes him physical pain and occasionally haunts him. Don is in crisis and he questions what he has done with his life and whether he can continue with his chosen career. Don's concerns are compounded by his alcoholism. He grapples with his addiction throughout the story. Don also has a peculiar gift; upon touching certain inanimate objects, such as a boat, he can sense if the object has a soul. Don's best friend is Bergman, the obese head coach from the University of Pennsylvania. Bergman's team has been losing for years and he has lost the drive to continue as an elite rowing coach. Bergman is a loyal friend and he watches out for his friends. The one coach who appears to be on the upswing is Billy Maxwell, Don's assistant coach at Northeastern. Billy is a former Olympian and he is considered one of the rising stars in the coaching profession. Billy has been a winner at every level in the sport and he is willing to sacrifice everything to win, even friendship. Other characters include Stacy Kookla, a sociable sales representative for the top rowing boat manufacturer in the country; Andy Carr, the head coach of Yale University; and Missy Krajcik, the fastest female rower in the world.

In Search Of: Stories from the Ones Left Behind introduces five young women-- June, Leila, Kiss, Marianne, and Alma-- who struggle to impede loved ones from abandoning them. One woman confronts her worst fears when she finds out about her husband's affair with a mutual friend; one comes to terms with her sister's poor lifestyle choices; another copes with her mother's sudden marriage; and yet another figures out that in order to keep her fiance, she must be willing to take on responsibilities foreign to her. And then there is the story of Alma, a contemplative but naive seventeen-year-old girl who commits a serious mistake, an act of prostitution, and when her parents find out, she's left with no choice except to leave her hometown before high school graduation. Alma learns that when it comes to the aftermath of mistakes, women often get a double-dose of pain, plus they run the risk of being removed from the family circle. These stories also touch on other themes: mother-daughter relationships; sibling rivalry and communion; adultery; marriage to foreigners; spirituality; atheism amongst a religious family; dependency; and also how contemporary young women deal with relatively successful careers. But the one common thread running through the heart of these women's stories is how they confront the threat of being pushed aside or deserted by a loved one.

Many cities in Latin American countries are surrounded by slums. The inhabitants of the slums are often victims of corruption, famine and murder. The victims include everyone and especially affect the most vulnerable, women and children. They are the voiceless whose stories are lost and never told. Children who lack adult support have to pull from their inner strength to rise from hostile environments, nevertheless their lives are lived with ardor and immediacy, a way of life that is built within a culturally-layered community. It is in those layers that not only pain but marvels can be found. My creative thesis, interconnected stories that are woven into a composite novel, focuses on the lives of children in the slums who are constantly beaten down by the chaotic and violent ambiance. These children are of different ages but of similar circumstances, who rise to the challenge, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing.

Engulfed by the tumultuous 1960s, seventeen-year-old Katherine Dayes conceals her pregnancy from the conservative seaside community of Samphire, her hometown. The novella traces a year in Katherine's life, from her summer of love through a winter stained by blood and moonlight. Throughout the story, Katherine endures the push and pull of a culture torn between tradition, represented by community leader Margaret Blythe, and modernism, embodied by the free spirit Evelyn Partridge. Inspired by the life of an actual eighteenth-century woman, Samphire explores the complexities of the 1960s feminist movement. Using vivid imagery of natural elements, it examines opposing views of sexuality and cultural criticisms that women have faced throughout history. The character-driven narrative seeks to deconstruct societal views of teen pregnancy, motherhood, women's sexuality, and infanticide by exploring the psyche of a young woman caught between cultural perceptions and her personal reality.

The Third Island is a novella about a Puerto Rican woman of Spanish descent who faces her biggest fear—death. Death comes in many forms and for Laura Maria De La Esperanza Castel, it comes in the form of a man with whom she thinks she is in love. Vacationing on an island in the Bahamas, novelist Laura Castel finds that the only way to survive is to overcome her fear and reject being controlled by the figure who is trying to take her. She overcomes many obstacles and is taught about self-sufficiency, the history of repression of minorities groups or of the misunderstood, and the importance of protecting those who are not able to protect themselves.

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Using concepts of cognitive evolutionary theory, the author explores how narrative storytelling manifests itself in Denis Johnson's novella Train Dreams. The novella form is also discussed, focusing on its manipulation of linear time, its naturalization of supernatural elements, and its deconstruction of dichotomous relationships. Utilizing the novella's distinct structural and thematic elements, Johnson's text shows the myth of American expansionism and industrial progress and that of Kootenai holism in collision, resulting in a narrative renegotiation that seeks to affirm coexistence and complexity.