Academic literature on the topic 'Family relationships $v Fiction'

Short stories examining interpersonal relationships, familial relationships and legacies, self-examination. These stories were written in an attempt to understand what it is to come of age in a damaged family, to explore the feelings and events associated with finding oneself.

The V Formation is a novelette which explores second-person narration, complex familial relationships, and grief. It questions what standards society sets for families, parents in particular, and what happens when your kin does not conform to these standards. As you grow older, how are you limited or how do you have authority in creating your family?

Set in rural Kansas, this story follows the lives of Jonathan Tate, his sister Lily Anne Tate, and their father, up until his death, Hershall Tate. They are an isolated family, seemingly living outside of time. John opens the novel with a walk into town to set the contrast between him and the rest of the world. Time is the theme and essence, because every scene and the tone of the scenes are weighted by the imminence of Hershall's death. He is dying slowly and so their lives move slowly. Lily can't help but be ornery, while John, assuming all the chores and anxiety of the future without his father, is reserved and reluctant. Hershall is set in his ways and not in a hurry to get the house in order before his death. There is the old-fashioned nature of Hershall, the isolated nature of the whole family, and the rest of the modern world to contend with. These beginning pages are setting up the next stage of the novel where Lily and John begin their journey after their father's death.

The remains of James Oliver Plunkett are dug up one night from their grave at Mount Calvary Cemetery by two college adjunct writing professors, Bob Rusher and Phil Pike. Having chopped through Plunkett's coffin with a pick, Rusher lifts Plunkett's skeleton from the coffin and pronounces his name--and in this moment Plunkett returns to consciousness as a cognitive vapor. The reason that Plunkett has been dug up is hinted at: After writing many unpublished novels and stories during his lifetime, and dying utterly anonymous, Plunkett's fiction has somehow been posthumously published, to great acclaim. Rusher is a huge fan of Plunkett's published work and is digging him up in the belief that one of his unpublished novels--The King of Portland--has been buried with him. When he does not find the novel, Rusher decides to kidnap the remains to force Plunkett's family to reveal the status of The King of Portland. Plunkett drives with Rusher and Pike to a strip club called the Serpentine, located in downtown Portland. They are not aware of Plunkett, but when they enter the club, leaving his bones behind in the car in a brown sack, Plunkett accompanies them. Rusher is courting one of the strippers, Hazel, and has given her one of Plunkett's posthumous novels to read, which she's enjoyed. Hazel's employer and perhaps boyfriend Chuck arrives at Rusher and Pike's table and, with Hazel still present, demonstrates his claim to the stripper by urinating in Rusher's beer. Rusher leaves the club humiliated. After dropping Pike off, he drives to the Hollywood District and brings the sack with Plunkett's remains into his house. His girlfriend Ava Snyder is there, reading the poet Rilke in the bathtub--fully clothed, smoking a cigarette, lying on an air mattress, and drinking an old fashioned. Plunkett is present in consciousness throughout. Rusher does not tell Ava about his grave robbing or the bone-sack he's carrying; but when he leaves Ava in the tub, taking the bones with him, Plunkett remains behind in the bathroom and is startled to find himself privy to Ava's thoughts. After Ava splits from Rusher, Plunkett remains with her, experiencing her life while wondering about the family he might have left behind at his death, nine years earlier. Ava has a scary encounter with her bullying, drug-addled sister Judy, during which she has hints of Plunkett's presence in her mind; but Ava dismisses these hints until after a disappointing visit to her mother, with whom she has long had trouble communicating. At this point Ava hears Plunkett's voice for the first time, and they begin conversing. After transitioning from disbelief to annoyance to the intimate, irresistible pull of their shared consciousness, Ava eventually helps Plunkett to discover the reason for his posthumous, unlikely literary fame and the state of his still-living family: A wife and son who have reaped the profits of his posthumous success, but do not harbor fond memories of their long lives together with him. Plunkett has a vision of his death, in which he apparently committed suicide over his decades-long literary obscurity. Ava seeks out Plunkett's son, Kyle Fleming, an artist who has established his own, prominent comic book company. Kyle is bitter toward his father for neglecting him while growing up, and has taken on his mother's maiden name; but he then reveals that it was his father's fame that propelled him to celebrity as a comic book artist and publisher. Meanwhile, Plunkett's wife Camille is suffering from dementia and lives in a managed care facility. Ava and Plunkett arrive at Camille's room; in the presence of her late husband's consciousness, Camille reveals that it was she who asked Kyle to send out one of his unpublished manuscripts for publication--a romance novel whose enormous, unexpected success led to the publication of several other best-selling works by Plunkett. In spite of this, Camille tells Plunkett that she experienced the happiest years of her life after he died. While Plunkett was never violent and rarely verbally abusive, he was always distant, neglecting his wife and son to write his fiction around a series of demanding day jobs. After this visit, in which she thought she might lose him to Camille, Ava informs Plunkett that she has fallen in love with him. Plunkett reciprocates her feelings. And yet, Plunkett's lack of physical being is causing Ava to consider a romance with Kyle, his son, in order to experience more fully the voice of the dead writer she has come to love. Ava meets Kyle at a bar on Lombard Street; Kyle informs Ava that his mother, Camille, has died. Kyle insists that Ava take him to the managed care home to help make arrangements for his mother's body. During this car ride, with Ava driving, Kyle begins to hear his father's voice and to rail against him. Kyle reveals that his father hasn't committed suicide, but that he shot him for what he considered to be Plunkett's cruelty toward his mother. Ava and Plunkett are stunned. By this time, Ava has Plunkett's remains in the trunk of her car; she insists that Kyle return the bones to their grave as penance for the murder. At the cemetery Kyle runs away; Ava cannot bring herself to let go of Plunkett's remains. Ava's sister, Judy, shows up at the cemetery and in a drug-addled haze shoots Ava, of whom she has long been jealous. Ava dies of her wounds. Plunkett is left behind--but ultimately they are reunited in the dry, dark sea beyond this life.

Thesis advisor: Susan Michalczyk<br>Isaac Newton's third Law of Motion states that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." When things collide, there is an immutable effect on both the initiator and the reactor. In the same way, people are in constant motion, "colliding" with one another and irrevocably changing in the process. It was only when I had to live on my own at Boston College that I realized how much the people in my life had such a powerful influence in my life. They are the ones who guided me to evolve into the person I am today. Swayed by my scientific background, I had always believed that I was mostly predestined by my genetic makeup: who I will ultimately become was written in my DNA from conception. However, living in a suite with seven other women and developing close relationships with people who were so unique made me question everything: my beliefs, my approach, my reactions, my opinions. The first chapter is a personal experience I had with my mother in dealing with the cultural and language barriers we had to face. A great deal of our misunderstandings arose because I was the first generation in my family to be born in America and to pursue a higher education at college. Many children come to a point when they rebel against everything their parents tell them to do because they do not understand why their parents do and say the things they do. It is only after the child and the parents can come to a mutual comprehension of each other that steps can be made toward building a stronger relationship, a relationship that goes beyond the simple acts of obedience — or rebellion — and of giving commands. My parents had immigrated to America in their early twenties in pursuit of better opportunities for their future. It was not until I was older and when my relationship with my mother had deepened that I could begin to comprehend her side of the story, her journey, her past which had influenced her decisions that she had made for her children. In order to recount this experience creatively, pieces of conversations that I had with my mother are woven throughout my scenes and my mother's scenes, which, in their stark contrast, causes a palpable tension. Being able to recount the memories in retrospect gives the ability to compare each experience and to reach an understanding. The second chapter is an exploration of the ripple effect amongst strangers and how individuals are all connected in one way or another. Our influences are felt by those around us, even though we may not be directly connected with them. Opening with a dramatic scene, the reader is taken sequentially backwards in time, tracing the steps that the seemingly unconnected characters had taken, ultimately understanding the woman's motivation. Each individual's secrets and conditions all culminate into that moment where one person tries to take her own life. It is rarely one isolated moment that triggers action. Like a snowball that rolls down a hill, increasing its speed and its size over time, various facets of one's life and of other's lives collect together to produce a bigger consequence of which one is aware. The concluding chapter of this series explores the fictional world of a family dealing with the repercussions of their past actions. Each individual's decisions had ramifications for the rest of the family, which they struggle to deal with years later. Characters face guilt, anger, bitterness, and responsibility, as they are constantly reminded of the day when their lives came crashing down. Instead of telling these characters' story by starting from the past and proceeding to the present in chronological order, I decided to include pieces of information and scenes from their memories for the reader to piece together. In the end, the reader is left with having to make a decision: with whom will he or she ultimately sympathize? Will he or she even make that choice? This comprehensive and tedious project provided many obstacles and tensions throughout the year, but it was a journey and a journey worth taking. Before this year, I was never afforded the opportunity to pursue a goal I had set for myself after watching "A Walk to Remember" in high school: to write a novel. It has been rewarding to see the end product of constant revisions, of constant criticisms, and of constant growth<br>Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007<br>Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences<br>Discipline: English<br>Discipline: College Honors Program