| This dissertation is a collection of short fiction. While I have not intentionally linked these stories thematically, I have connected each of them to North Carolina, my home state.; "Begin With Where They Are" is about a father trying to regain the love and respect of his children after his release from prison. This story uses several North Carolina locations, including Carowinds, a theme park.; "Home Video #5" tells of an aging couple and their communication breakdown with their adult son. This story is set in and around Asheville, including the Blue Ridge Parkway.; "The Story of My Sister" is set in High Point. The narrator of this story has, in his mind, betrayed his sister in the worst possible way. He relates the dark experience from his teenage years in a way that pleads for forgiveness.; "Stanley at Thirty-Three" is about an alcoholic on the verge of losing everything valuable in his life. He commits a horrible mistake from which he may never recover.; "Arrowhead" is experimental, told in three first-person sections. Through the change in narrators, the characters relate the story of a disintegrating family.; "Donations" is about two brothers, one an athletic hero, the other living in the shadows. The story explores what happens when the heroic brother needs the younger brother's help just to stay alive.; "Salting Cows" and "The Golden Lariat" are two short-short stories, respectively about a young teenager's first experience with his grandfather's alcohol and a child's imaginative interpretation of his parent's divorce.; "Goon: A Pseudobiography" is set in Greensboro, and it is the story of a sportswriter trying to understand the bizarre life of a minor-league hockey player.; "All I Wanted" tells the story of a developmentally challenged man who lives in a group home and works as a janitor.; "Praying for Rain Near Montezuma's Head" is the only story not set in North Carolina. However, its characters---a husband and wife, are North Carolinians. They come to the desert in search of wildflowers just after the husband discovers he is not able to father a child. |
