A Tomb With A View and Two Stories

In the “Introduction,” I discuss how the works presented in this “creative” thesis draw upon traditions of both experimental fiction and realism. The novella makes up Volume I of a longer work. The episodes in the life of the protagonist are depicted in chronological order, but not as chapters in a seamless narrative. In constructing the novella in this way, I attempted to convey how an individual might, for reasons peculiar to himself, choose to view certain moments of his life as turning points. But I do not rely upon the first-person point of view. By using a third-person limited, a third-person omniscient and “second-person” narrative voice in several of the chapters, I hoped, in part, to give to the representation of the “the life of Donovan Jewell” the quality of the “case study.” Each of the “two stories” following the novella is meant to stand alone. Written in the present tense, they both offer intimations of a coming family crisis—or perhaps of a crisis that will be forever postponed.