Award Date

May 2024

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

First Committee Member

Douglas Unger

Second Committee Member

Maile Chapman

Third Committee Member

Gary Totten

Fourth Committee Member

Jorge Luis Galindo

Number of Pages

294

Abstract

The Dogs / The Ghosts is an auto-fictional novel derived from personal memories and interviews with the author’s family members. The text does not attempt to portray a real family history; it takes many liberties with material derived from family lore and much of the content is entirely invented. It is therefore presented as a work of fiction. The novel serves as a character study of Dean Rideout, a self-employed man from Portland, Oregon. The narrative is conveyed via four first-person perspectives, that of Dean’s wife Moira, and those of his children, Joanne, Beth and Morgan. The main events of the novel begin in 1989 with Joanne’s early childhood memories of Dean, and conclude in 1999 when Morgan witnesses Dean’s death. Additionally, flashbacks of Moira’s childhood serve as a contextual backdrop for Dean’s and Moira’s negotiation of parenting style. A deviation of the novel’s form is represented with (parenthetical italics), in which Morgan, as curator of the stories, comments and speculates from a future vantage point.

Disciplines

Creative Writing

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Available for download on Thursday, May 15, 2031


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