Seep: a novel; or, placing change
Date
2012
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Abstract
Seep is a novel about the relationships between place, identity, and narrative. The central narrative follows Dwight Eliot as he assembles an archive of information about the day of his birth. He was born on a baseball diamond in 1959, during a riot between his hometown team and a team of barnstorming Cubans. That story is a kind of legend about his origin. The town of his birth, the Seep of the title, is being dismantled, and redeveloped as a recreational destination. Because he feels a strong attachment to the narratives of identity that are attached to the townsite, he becomes involved with those who are resisting the redevelopment. He struggles to make sense of his relationship with his drug-addicted older brother, and with his own gambling addiction. As he pursues the accumulation of his archive, and his participation in resistance, he must come to terms with family relationships, and those of the communities he inhabits. The narrative ranges through time to reveal the truths behind the deep dysfunction of his family, his inability to maintain relationships, and the history of his town. The threads of the novel converge at a protest picnic at the demolished townsite. Seep presents itself as a story within a story. Throughout the novel are excerpts of a letter from Dwight's mother that uncovers information about the town and his family that disrupts the self-defining narrative Dwight collects in his archive. The novel is framed by commentary from Amy, who reveals how she has discovered Dwight's narrative, and who questions its accuracy, even as she affirms its truthiness. These polyvocal elements operate to enact the constructedness of the processes by which we represent ourselves, and how representation through narrative accommodates (and complicates) the sometimes ineffable pluralities of placed experience, memory, and narration itself. The Afterword, "Placing Changes: Creating a Fictional Historiography of Place," presents a critical exegesis of Seep. This essay frames the process of the creation of the novel within a critical discussion of place, the archive, and fiction.
Description
Bibliography: p. 241-248
Includes copy of copyright permissions. Original copies with original Partial Copyright Licence.
Includes copy of copyright permissions. Original copies with original Partial Copyright Licence.
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Citation
Giles, W. M. (2012). Seep: a novel; or, placing change (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/4974