Excavations
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McSwain, Christine Elizabeth
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Abstract
Excavations is a collection of short stories set in the American south with emphasis on the southern Appalachian region. Stories bearing “Excavation of…” titles are connected, narrated by the same young woman exploring her family’s mythic memories as well as her own, all while getting to know her mother, who died in a car accident when the narrator was four. The “Excavation” stories deal primarily with the ways in which transgenerational trauma affects families. The stories explore faith, love, sadness, and grief. “Lash LaRue’s Back,” though not an official “Excavation” story, is told from the perspective of the grandfather from those stories, and deals primarily with loss and the unknown future. The stand-alone stories are still set in the American south and also deal with some of the same issues of grief, sadness, and belonging. “Imagine Explosions Here” focuses on a young girl, whose mother has recently died of cancer, and her desperate attempt to be strong for her brother and dad. “The Dead Girl’s Invitation” deals with young friendships, growing apart, and the sanctity of the dead’s memory. The flash fiction pieces are bridges between the “Excavation” stories and the unrelated stories, and serve as a way to incorporate magical realism into the collection, with more poetic renderings of loss in the form of kudzu filling a hospital room or a girl grieving her dead through the running of a ghost tour featuring her departed. These flash fiction pieces are exercises in lyric and have a more precise focus on language.