THE HEART IS A SLOW LEARNER AND OTHER STORIES explores love's vagaries in settings that range from the Deep South to Alaska. The stories depict relationships between lovers, friends, and family members--especially mothers and daughters. The stories fall into three sections: Living, Loving, and Leaving. Living shows men and women struggling to find happiness and make sense of their lives. A mother of an autistic child in "Texas Facts of Life" must fend off a deadbeat ex-husband as she searches for a way to communicate with her son. "Millennium" presents a woman so overwhelmed with life that she can't get out of bed. "Hammer Toes" explores family rivalries in today's New South. Loving, the collection's middle section, further examines love's vicissitudes. In "Truckin'," Roy wrangles with a seductress named Lila and a truckload of minks before realizing his wife is the one he loves. The collection's title story, "The Heart Is a Slow Learner," is set in Alaska. In it, Fred recounts his struck-by-lightning affair with Honey, the woman who got away—on a sled. Another story features a woman who tells her best girlfriend the details of her affair only to learn that the girlfriend has used the information to seduce the man herself. Loving ends on a lighter note with "Loving Alexander," the story of a woman's affair with a 6'2" cat. Leaving, the final section, opens with "The Night of the Leonid Showers," the story of a woman mired in a loveless marriage, who discovers a way to loop through her own future and past. In "Falling, or Eden Revisited," a woman witnesses the dissolution of her neighbors' marriage. Set in New Mexico, "Guitar Lessons" interweaves the stories of two affairs, one between Chloe and Peter and one between her mother and his father. In "Where Luck Lies," the hapless and romantic protagonist, Josh, escapes his destructive affair with a femme fatale and finds a truer lady love. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2006. / May 19, 2006. / Relationships, Identity, Infidelity, Southern, Women, Family / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Olen Butler, Professor Directing Dissertation; David F. Johnson, Outside Committee Member; R. Bruce Bickley, Committee Member; Elizabeth Stuckey-French, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_181601 |
| Contributors | Larkin, Mary (authoraut), Butler, Robert Olen (professor directing dissertation), Johnson, David F. (outside committee member), Bickley, R. Bruce (committee member), Stuckey-French, Elizabeth (committee member), Department of English (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution) |
| Publisher | Florida State University, Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text |
| Format | 1 online resource, computer, application/pdf |
| Rights | This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s). The copyright in theses and dissertations completed at Florida State University is held by the students who author them. |
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