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MIDDLE GROUND: A NOVELLA AND COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES

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Date Issued:
2009
Abstract/Description:
This collection of fiction--a novella and a collection of short stories--focuses on the commonality of the human condition. While we create separations for ourselves by focusing on distinctions such as, religion, class, gender, and race, we are, I believe, spiritual beings sharing a human experience. My work tends to explore these distinctions and our motivations for embracing them. In the novella, Middle Ground, two sisters in alternating narrative voices share the story of their parents' struggles with separation, sobriety and cancer. Their voices, as distinct as their perspectives, explore the landscape of a family, the borders between forgiveness and acceptance, the self-preserving act of looking beyond imperfections and weaknesses, and the realization that truth is an illusion and flawed love the only certainty. The short story collection consists of eight pieces. Many of these stories explore characters in a state of recovery--a brain tumor operation, a death of a spouse, a shot to the head where a bullet rests and reminds--and plot occurs as these characters attempt to move on. They meet sandhill cranes who cry out in pain for the death of another, lovers who speak in italics, vets who swear that the blasted silence is louder than King Kong screaming in your ear. They sit with shrinks who lie, sleep with poets who stray, compete with incarcerated ex-husbands who were "man enough" to put a gun to a woman's head and pull the trigger. They are nothing--and everything--like all of us, and readers are invited to join the characters beside the mirror of our collective Middle Ground.
Title: MIDDLE GROUND: A NOVELLA AND COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES.
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Name(s): Uttich, Laurie, Author
Rushin, Patrick, Committee Chair
University of Central Florida, Degree Grantor
Type of Resource: text
Date Issued: 2009
Publisher: University of Central Florida
Language(s): English
Abstract/Description: This collection of fiction--a novella and a collection of short stories--focuses on the commonality of the human condition. While we create separations for ourselves by focusing on distinctions such as, religion, class, gender, and race, we are, I believe, spiritual beings sharing a human experience. My work tends to explore these distinctions and our motivations for embracing them. In the novella, Middle Ground, two sisters in alternating narrative voices share the story of their parents' struggles with separation, sobriety and cancer. Their voices, as distinct as their perspectives, explore the landscape of a family, the borders between forgiveness and acceptance, the self-preserving act of looking beyond imperfections and weaknesses, and the realization that truth is an illusion and flawed love the only certainty. The short story collection consists of eight pieces. Many of these stories explore characters in a state of recovery--a brain tumor operation, a death of a spouse, a shot to the head where a bullet rests and reminds--and plot occurs as these characters attempt to move on. They meet sandhill cranes who cry out in pain for the death of another, lovers who speak in italics, vets who swear that the blasted silence is louder than King Kong screaming in your ear. They sit with shrinks who lie, sleep with poets who stray, compete with incarcerated ex-husbands who were "man enough" to put a gun to a woman's head and pull the trigger. They are nothing--and everything--like all of us, and readers are invited to join the characters beside the mirror of our collective Middle Ground.
Identifier: CFE0002600 (IID), ucf:48261 (fedora)
Note(s): 2009-05-01
M.F.A.
Arts and Humanities, Department of English
Masters
This record was generated from author submitted information.
Subject(s): Fiction
novella
short story
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002600
Restrictions on Access: campus 2010-04-01
Host Institution: UCF

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