Digital Commons Network^™

Split At The Root, Robert S. Gryder

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Influenced by— and sometimes in conversation with— diverse literary voices such as Dorothy Allision (BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA), Harry Crews (A CHILDHOOD), and Mark Doty (FIREBIRD), SPLIT AT THE ROOT is a literary bildungsroman told primarily in the narrative mode. The memoir traces the narrator’s volatile beginnings in the trailer parks of rural South Carolina in the 1980s to the day he accepted, sight unseen, an offer of admission to Yale University, boarding a plane in 1993 for the first time in his life. This memoir explores the narrator’s quest for agency, deploying the essayist mode to interrogate along the …

The Illnesses And The Oddities, Reina Lipkind

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

THE ILLNESSES AND THE ODDITIES is a linked memoir covering two decades the author worked as an Emergency Room physician before her unexpected retirement. Included are glimpses into the formation of the author’s initial career as well as her prospective career.

Working in an overwhelmed system impacts the treatment of patients and staff morale. Like Tim O’Brien’s " The Things They Carried," the ER can be a war zone, causing moral injury to those who deal with endless illnesses and odd events. Memories of youthful experiences are recalled as the author encounters difficult situations, as in "The Crystal Palace" by …

Apparent Magnitude, Diana Anaya

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

APPARENT MAGNITUDE is a collection of lyric essays that explores family relationships, the Cuban-American immigrant experience, coming-of-age, and sexual trauma through the dual lenses of science and myth. This collection uses experimental forms, playing with the page. The experiences of an immigrant Cuban family are recounted through extended metaphors of celestial bodies, fairy tales, fables, and myths.

The literary influences of APPARENT MAGNITUDE include Rebecca McClanahan’s lyric essay, “Interstellar,” as well as A SMALL PLACE by Jamaica Kincaid. McClanahan’s use of scientific language and the metaphor of celestial bodies informs the way this collection approaches autobiographical experience. Kincaid’s prose style …

North Atlantic Black, Chazz R. Chitwood

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

North Atlantic Black is a collection of contemplative, lyrical poems that explore issues of coming out, suicide, yearning, and male relationships.

Woven together, North Atlantic Black moves through different questions of masculinity encountered by the poet through the process of coming out. Early poems explore themes of masks, of theater, and of dressing and costume as means of escaping the traditional bounds of masculinity

North Atlantic Black further braids in concepts of home, how they relate to identity through heritage and expectation, and how they inform the poet’s thoughts on what it means for men to have relationships—how ideas of …

This Terrible Silence, Jeff Bonar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Terrible Silence is a collection of nineteen stand-alone stories. The work largely focuses on characters on the fringe of society—alcoholics, gamblers, thieves, liars, cheaters, and loners, who feel trapped or destined to repeat their troubles. In the struggle to break free, either by self-fulfillment or outside interference, these stories showcase the characters’ hearts and wills in the face of often daunting or insurmountable desperation.

The stories in this collection are influenced by the work of Raymond Carver, and the Dirty Realism of Larry Brown, Breece DJ Pancake, Jayne Anne Phillips, and others. With minimal exposition, the characters are laid …

Blotto In The Lifeboat, Paul Christiansen

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blotto in the Lifeboat is a book of poems that investigates natural processes and idiosyncrasies of human societies. Ranging from the absurd to the scientific in tone, the poems in Blotto in the Lifeboat situate themselves on the blurry-line between fact and imagination, employing a style that Thomas Lux describes as “imaginative realism.”

The middle of three sections is comprised solely of the long poem, “A Compendium of the True and Wondrous,” which collages remarkable facts and anecdotes to highlight the strange realities of the world and the rapidity of change. The first and third sections contain shorter, narrative poems …

Mothers Of Sparta, Dawn Davies

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mothers of Sparta is a collection of thirteen personal essays that examine place—knowing one’s place, and finding one’s place in the world. The narrative arc chronicles the narrator’s childhood, young adulthood, marriage and child rearing years, ultimately encompassing the difficulties of raising a child who, due to brain damage, faces an uncertain future.

As the narrator grows older, place shifts from a concrete knowledge of the physical world around her, to learning her place within gendered and regional social constructs, and defining her place through roles such as wife, mother, student and writer.

These essays are diverse in style. Woven …

Haiti, 1965 - A Novel, Fabienne Sylvia Josaphat

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

HAITI, 1965 is a historical novel set in Haiti where a struggling taxi driver, Raymond L’Eveillé, struggles to provide for his family under the rule of the infamous dictator François Duvalier Sr.

Raymond’s brother Nicolas, a professor and attorney, lives a more luxurious lifestyle, and both brothers are at odds over finances. When Nicolas decides to write a book about the crimes committed by the government, the inevitable happens. The brutal Tonton Macoutes militia raid his home and find notes that are as evidence enough to send him to Haiti's most notorious gulag of the era, Fort Dimanche, It will …

Visitations: A Novel, Joseph Anderson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

VISITATIONS, a novel, explores themes of haunting and desire in New York City, in two time periods. The modern-day action focuses on Alan Philips whose wife, Beth, has recently died. His efforts to resume a normal life are sabotaged by what he comes to believe is her ghost. In the parallel story, in 1924, Oliver Nathan Blackburn, a pulp writer, in the midst of a breakdown writes a story that may play a role in Beth’s death.

VISITATIONS presents Alan and Oliver’s perspectives in third person narration, so that the reader is both close to and may question the subjectivity …