Date of Award

1-1-2023

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of English

Content Description

1 online resource (iii, 94 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Edward Schwarzschild

Committee Members

Aashish Kaul, Mike Hill

Keywords

Working class

Subject Categories

Creative Writing

Abstract

Salt City is a multigenerational novel spanning nearly two centuries in a small Kansas town. The story follows the family of Patrick Holland, who emigrates from Ireland in the mid-19th century, and continues through to the end of the family line in the mid-21st. Told through multiple points of view and more than a half-dozen narrators, Salt City’s style runs the gamut from prairie literature to the postmodern, with influences ranging from John Steinbeck to Sylvia Plath and Junot Diaz to Jennifer Egan. In Salt City, Chris Evans seeks to tell the American story from the perspectives of the working and lower-middle classes who live, strive, struggle and occasionally thrive in the so-called flyover states. The dissertation consists of polished chapters of the novel in progress and includes an extended critical introduction by the author.

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