Award Date
5-1-2024
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.
Controlled Subject
Creative writing; Fiction
Disciplines
Creative Writing
File Format
File Size
1728 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Rudolph, Michael David, "The Dogs / The Ghosts" (2024). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 5076.
http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/37650901
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/