Abstract

Skin Baby is about the inevitability of decline and decay—what happens when we turn away from it, and what happens when we're forced to confront it head on. The essays in this collection focus on navigating a parent's devastating diagnosis of Parkinson's disease and the struggle to control its accompanying chaos. The collection interrogates identity, addiction, generational mental illness, and parent-child relationships. In "Home for the Holidays," illness is an invisible foe that shatters expectations. "Prologue to Revelations" and "This Too Shall Pass" consider rampant escapism and anesthetization. "The Druggist's Daughter" explores preconceived notions of family dynamic. Other essays focus on discoveries about inherited traits both physical and mental ("Things Unattended"), desperation for metaphysical and spiritual understanding ("Bruja," "Peripheries") and accepting the inescapable ("Skin Baby," "What is Owed," "Next Year in Jerusalem"). Parkinson's disease slowly robs people of their faculties as it progresses. Death ultimately occurs, but not before a long period of watching and waiting. Skin Baby explores what that watching and waiting looks like for one family.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2020

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Bartkevicius, Jocelyn

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Degree Program

Creative Writing

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0008002; DP0023142

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0023142

Language

English

Release Date

May 2025

Length of Campus-only Access

5 years

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Campus-only Access)

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Restricted to the UCF community until May 2025; it will then be open access.

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