This dissertation is a short story collection surrounding the theme of water.
The first story of the collection is The Rain, The Ash which uses the rain as a
device for two friends in a car to talk about the loss of one of their mothers
and the failing of their marriage. The second story, The River, The Wall,
follows a young boy in facing his cowardice and resolving to stand up to his
abusive father by saving a man from drowning in a river. The final story of
the collection, The Sea, The Edge, presents a woman dealing with the
dissociation of her husband’s PTSD after the Second World War as they
spend a holiday in Valencia.
After the collection is an essay which looks at epiphanies in short stories,
mainly looking at the writers Ernest Hemingway and Lucia Berlin, and
briefly at the work of Raymond Carver and Haruki Murakami. The essay is
exploring whether there is a need for short stories to have epiphanies for
them to be successful.