Author

Jessica Lewis

Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

MFA Creative Writing Thesis

Degree Type

MFA

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

English

Committee Chair

Mark Brazaitis

Committee Co-Chair

Kevin Oderman

Committee Member

Glenn Taylor

Abstract

Based on a rural mountain farm in Virginia, She Spoke Wire is the story of a woman, Maeve, who, through a traumatic childhood experience, becomes certain that barbwire is alive on her family's property. Over twenty-eight years, the novel follows Maeve, while juxtaposing her fears of wire with the racial and economic issues of Virginia and Washington D.C. Maeve's quest through the woods plagued with wire is paired with her family's past, including the story of how her father and mother flee riots of 1968 to inhabit the rural, isolated farm; how Maeve befriends the ill-fated renter's boy; how her mother ultimately comes to abandon her; and how Maeve copes with her early life as she moves into adulthood.

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