Keywords

Nonfiction, Abuse, Health, Religion, Memoir, LGBTQ+

Abstract

Building Eden Where We Can is a nonfiction memoir told in vignettes that come together to build a wider story. Through these vignettes, we are shown a narrator who is simultaneously surviving an abusive family, navigating a rare diagnosis, and coming to terms with their queerness. By braiding narratives and maintaining these various threads, this collection examines the intersections of sickness and religion, tradition and freedom, as well as fear and love. The lattermost dichotomy is represented in the narrator’s ultimate choice to leave behind a life of fear in the mother figure’s safe cage. In exchange, they receive a life of love in abundance: friends, freedom, a bit of danger, but also the light of the narrator’s life: that darling Caitlyn Heather. In early segments, we are primarily situated within the narrator’s childhood—when they were first diagnosed, hospitalized, and coming into their own as a young teen. By the end of the first half, the narrator has finally made a firm group of friends and has begun to date someone for the first time. As the narrative expands, the narrator realizes how abnormal their life has been and reflects on their relationship with their parents. Through these fragments, it’s shown that not only was the abuse emotional, it was also physical. Not only was it relational, it was also religious. As the narrator comes to terms with the reality of their past, they also make the crucial choice of risking it all, running away from home to discover the larger world.

Completion Date

2026

Semester

Spring

Committee Chair

Turner, Brian

Degree

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

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Identifier

DP0053102

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