Date of Award

Spring 2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Department

English

Program/Concentration

Creative Writing

Committee Director

Michael Pearson

Committee Member

Brian Silberman

Committee Member

Joseph Cosco

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E64 O53 2003

Abstract

This memoir explores my relationships with my father, my brother and my children. My dad was my baseball coach, football coach, history tutor. But he drank too much. At times, he became violent. My mom left him, and he went into years of drunken insanity.

As teenagers, my brother, Craig, and I responded to the disintegration of our family by embracing life on the street. Over the next four years, we made a series of bad decisions that led us deeper into drugs and violence, but we stuck together. Craig's violent behavior increased and began to scare even me, but Craig represented strength, success and greatness to me. I felt weak and ashamed that I couldn't keep up with him.

I enlisted in the Navy at twenty, which kept me off drugs long enough to begin to see other options for my life. While I was home on leave, someone stabbed Craig. I felt bound to kill Craig's assailant. In what I can only think of as direct intervention from God, the police found the knifer before I did. That night I decided not to return to San Francisco after my discharge.

I married, started a business, had children, and forgot about my past. Having children inspired me to return to college, and eventually, to earn an MFA. While an undergraduate, my brother died in prison. Craig's death, my father's actions, both good and bad, and my desire to help my children avoid the snares that entangled me as a young man, led me to the examination of the past that forms the substance of this narrative.

Rights

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DOI

10.25777/d32f-h145

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