Fathers and daughters

Despite well documented evidence that Jane Austen's relations with her father were harmonious and affectionate, only one of the twenty-one fathers and surrogate fathers depicted in her six major novels approaches the ideal of the patriarchal family--a wise and humane father. The preponderance of fallible fathers is a unifying metaphor for a disintegrating family structure, the inevitable legacy of a failed patrimony. The phallocentric heritage has rendered the lineal society anachronistic by fostering paternal irresponsibility due to unfettered privilege, by permitting the poorly prepared, succeeding generation of inheritors to govern, and by reducing the status of women to submission and dependency.

The Hurricane Notebooks is a manuscript-length memoir of the narrator's quest to piece together the enigmatic character of her late father. She does this through her discovery of his private notebooks as well as her unearthing of four generations of family turmoil.

Telomeres is a manuscript-length lyric essay in many parts that traces the relationship of the narrator and her father as they both navigate the landscape of post-traumatic stress disorder after his return from Vietnam.

High Summer is a manuscript-length compilation of narrative science essays that trace the relationship the narrator has with her father. These essays focus on the ongoing presence of drugs, their historical basis, and their pharmacological effects on the body.