A creative writing thesis by Laura Lopez
CONTEXT
A. 9/11 Literature
My creative project, “Conversation With My Father,” is important when considered alongside a number of literary contexts. While it’s obvious to situate the work within the context of other 9/11 literature, it is also necessary to understand how it relates to the epistolary form, genre blending, grief writing, and the memoir. “Conversations With My Father” was created with an informed awareness of the existing literature within each of these sub-genres and with a conscious effort to add value and understanding to the study of each. For the purposes and scope of this thesis, however, I have focused my efforts on the relevant 9/11 literature.
My research includes a diverse sample of works which demonstrates the broad range of representations and strategies employed by writers attempting to capture the events of 9/11. Because of the nature of my project, these works include both fiction and nonfiction selections. Although I categorize the following works as “9/11 literature,” many of them cross over into various other sub-genres: Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, David Llewellyn’s epistolary-style novel Eleven, Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, In the Shadow of No Towers, and Marian Fontana’s A Widow’s Walk: A Memoir of 9/11 have been instrumental in informing both my creative and research processes.
Much has been written about the emerging pool of post-9/11 literature. Representations ranging from comics and poetry to novels and plays have been dissected and reflected upon (Frost 2010). Common threads in these analyses include the push-pull tension between personal and historical portrayals, the struggle in creating meaning and understanding around an event with such magnitude, and the emergence of hybrid genres in an attempt to effectively capture the jarring reality of the attacks (Randall 2011).
What does it mean to have witnesses and to recall an event that felt incommensurable, inaccessible, and incomprehensible? Is it possible to speak in a voice that exceeds the personal, to use a public voice, to launch a political critique in literature? What form can such literature take, negotiating as it must between the event itself and the dictates of genre, tradition, and the impulse to find an audience? How, in brief, does literature after 9/11 represent the possibility of witness, the political or public sphere, and its own literary status? (Keniston & Quinn, 2008).
My project, which may be partly described as an epistolary memoir layered with fictional exchanges and historical artifacts, adds to this discussion by examining how the events of 9/11 are remembered by those personally impacted. Today, more than 16 years after the attacks, the focus is less on the historical details of the how and why, but more on the impact on individual lives and the forever altering of society.
The notion of a struggle within the literary community to effectively and appropriately portray the events and aftermath of 9/11 is not unsubstantiated. Randall asserts, “...there is a developing suggestion that fictional realism might not be the most efficacious or suitable genre and that more hybrid forms – the graphic novel, the essay/memoir, the film-poem, conceptual art – are better suited to represent the attacks” (2011). For this reason, the employment of a nonconventional hybrid form situates my project alongside widely-known works that push the boundaries of genre in pursuit of accurately representing 9/11. “Literature...has only recently begun to enter the fields of tension between documentary and fictional, objective and sympathetic, and visual and textual modes of representation” (Dawes 2007).
b. Rationale
On September 11, 2001, the lines between truth and fiction became blurred (Keeble 2014). I was forced, like many, to question my entire belief system. It has become commonly acceptable to acknowledge the events of 9/11 as some of the most impactful in our nation’s history. My connection to this transformative moment in history has given me a unique vantage point from which to share my story. My personal search for meaning, truth, and self plays out alongside the nation’s ongoing quest for sense in the senseless. Keniston and Quinn support this idea in Literature After 9/11 with, “...literary works reframe and focus the meaning of 9/11 by employing representational strategies that emphasize the desire for (and construction of) meaning, and that dramatize the continuing resonance of 9/11 in the collective life of the United States and beyond” (2008).
How will the world remember the events of 9/11 long after all eyewitnesses have passed? How will victims’ family members share their stories with future generations? How might re-imagining these events (and my father) aid in the creation of meaning and understanding? What insights into my own grieving process and personal development might be gleaned from this process?
Like the events of 9/11, my project straddles the lines between the real and imagined by leaving unanswered questions for the reader. “Real” letters, poems, photographs and other 9/11-related artifacts are intertwined with fictional dialogue between me and my father. These exchanges occur via handwritten letters, emails, and text-messages. They are crafted with the intention of both remembering the events of my personal experience (pre and post 9/11) and re-imagining my father as he was and as he might be today. As an added layer of inquiry, I have created communication with my father that passes the present day and spans years into the future in an attempt to capture how my thoughts and ideas might further evolve alongside the thoughts and ideas of the world around me. Lastly, the work employs a double-sided book format which allows for experimentation with the unfolding of the narrative. One side, entitled “Conversations With My Father,” reads in reverse chronological order beginning with my death and being reunited with my father. It then navigates its way back to the events of 9/11, ending with a note written to him on September 10, 2001. Again, the reader is challenged to come to conclusions about what is real and what is fictitious. The other side of the book is entitled “Conversations With My Daughter.” This version of events is told chronologically and begins with a note from my father to me dates the morning of 9/11 and ends with the (imagined) death of my mother. All but the first few pages of each version are identical. In this way, questions related to efficacy and impact are considered.