Fly

Date of Award

Spring 2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

Creative Writing

Committee Director

Michael Pearson

Committee Member

Joseph Cosco

Committee Member

Joyce Hoffman

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64 K89 2004

Abstract

In February of 1980, Joe Kohn arrived in my dorm room at Saint Bonaventure University where I was then a freshman. For the next several months we talked about my planned bicycle trip across the United States, recounted his own ride to Brazil, and uncovered dark stories from his three years in Zaire. One night he told me of an idea he had: He planned to canoe the entire length of the Congo River alone. For the following year or so, we mapped routes and studied the dangers. He left in the late fall of 1980, but his anticipated completion in March or April passed without word. Apparently his adventure ended tragically. While I admitted this probably true, lack of evidence forced me to investigate further. That is when my adventure began; I decided to search for Joe.

The journey I undertake is more than a search for a friend; it is a psychological search for the energy and excitement that I lost when Joe disappeared. Throughout the narrative, my search becomes one not so much of an attempt to find a body, but an attempt to find a soul, most in particular my own. The excitement, exuberance, and energy established in planning the trip is juxtaposed with the sense of hopelessness and loss of my wandering through south-central Zaire, drained of life, of hope. I search for a time that no longer existed, and my journey an attempt to return to the ideal Joe and I established in our minds. The adventure of canoeing the Congo River alone is not the heart of this narrative. It is merely a motivating factor for the story that takes place in Fly.

Yes, Joseph Kohn spent a year planning a suicidal trip that no one had ever attempted. But why would Joe attempt such a trip? Why would Joe and I ever believe it possible after all the information we unearthed during the year prior to the journey? And perhaps most importantly, why would I risk my own life to search for someone l already knew had to be dead?

Rights

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DOI

10.25777/e1s3-zh38

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