Semester
Spring
Date of Graduation
2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Type
MFA
College
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department
English
Committee Chair
Mark Brazaitis
Committee Member
Glenn Taylor
Committee Member
Rosemary Hathaway
Abstract
This is a novel about two recent high school graduates, Moz and Kelsey. The novel, which is set in 2014, alternates in perspective with each part, Kelsey in first-person and Moz in a close third-person. Moz and Kelsey, who have been friends since their freshman year, formed a two-person band together in the fall of their junior year. They have been reasonably successful, playing in local venues and getting some attention on social media. For the summer after their senior year, they decide to go on an eight-week tour around the East Coast and near Midwest together before Kelsey starts college. When the manager of the Meaty Goblins, an up-and-coming indie band, explains that the opening act for their six-month tour has dropped out and offers them the spot, Kelsey must decide whether she is willing to defer her admission and scholarship to college for a year, even if it will likely anger her controlling parents. The consequences of this decision send the band on a journey both literal and internal, a journey through “liminal spaces,” places that feel disconnected from the world that Moz and Kelsey have known before, hotels, parking lots, gas stations in towns they might never visit again. In these spaces, they find the room to grow and change, to begin figuring out the people that they might be becoming. But will these changes bring them together or tear their band apart? And what does Moz really mean to Kelsey?
Recommended Citation
Schles, Anna Hamilton, "An Alternate History of the Bad Years: A Novel" (2023). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 11730.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/11730
Embargo Reason
Permanent Embargo – MFA Creative Writing