<b>LONG JOURNEY HOME AND TWO STORIES<b>
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Cannon, Laura
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This collection contains long-form writing by way of a novel excerpt in addition to two short stories. The novel, entitled <i>Long Journey Home</i>, explores multi-generational family relationships in light of traumatic events and complicated grief, with the influence of creativity at its core. The story uses close third-person narration and through the woven narrative of father and daughter perspectives. Shortly after the father and his wife make the momentous decision to move across the country for economic reasons, Eldon survives a car accident with long-standing neurological complications. Fourteen years after the accident itself, his daughter, Louisa, is forced to begin a delayed healing process when Eldon nearly loses his life again. “Gratuity” is a story about a man named Mark, whose venture into middle age renders emotions he doesn’t know how to harness. He becomes angry and crass to the people around him, and creates a series of events that leads to his breakdown in his favorite diner. Told through Mark’s perspective, this story also aims to consider the culture of service-industry jobs and the consumer’s interaction with that industry’s workers. Finally, “I, Voyager” is a first-person narrative that spans twenty-seven years in the life of a woman who tries to start a family with her husband and ultimately fails. She is captivated by NASA’s <i>Voyager</i> spacecraft, and follows the decades-long routes as a sort of map for her own journey on Earth. Through this, she eventually cedes to acceptance, though she continues to find similarities in the <i>Voyager’s</i> travel and her own life.