LITTLE WONDERS

144 Pages·2017·1.41 MB·English

LITTLE WONDERS:
A MEMOIR IN FOUR PARTS

A Thesis
Submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of

Master of Arts
in Creative Writing and English
University of Regina

by

Debra Fern Adair
Regina, Saskatchewan
July, 2017

©Copyright 2017: D. F. Adair
UNIVERSITY OF REGINA

FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH

SUPERVISORY AND EXAMINING COMMITTEE

Debra Fern Adair, candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in Creative Writing and
English, has presented a thesis titled, Little Wonders: A Memoir in Four Parts, in an oral
examination held on June 29, 2017. The following committee members have found the
thesis acceptable in form and content, and that the candidate demonstrated satisfactory
knowledge of the subject material.

External Examiner: Dr. Barbara Langhorst, St. Peter’s College

Co-Supervisor: Dr. Troni Grande, Department of English

Co-Supervisor: Dr. Medrie Purdham, Department of English

Committee Member: Dr. Sheri Benning, Department of English (One-time
Committee Member)

Chair of Defense: Dr. William Smythe, Department of Psychology
ii

ABSTRACT
My creative thesis, Little Wonders: A Memoir in Four Parts, is a manuscript
of literary nonfiction. I reflect on the past with respect to marriage and motherhood
in the lives of my grandmother, my mother, myself, as well as on the experiences of
my two sons. I explore memories in order to uncover the significance of being able
to remember them. This memoir reflects on my decision to make a new life for
myself and my sons alone, a conclusion I consider against the life choices of my
mother and grandmother, thereby shedding light on the intergenerational transmission
of gendered expectations on marriage and on divorce for the women in my family. In
exploring this process of negotiating loss and subsequent rebuilding, I examine how
creative expression can be both an outlet from and a response to these stresses in our
lives and I weigh the question of what is important to keep, leading me towards a
consideration of the objects that symbolize and resonate with the past. I have been
influenced by memoirists Lorri Neilsen Glenn, Haven Kimmel, and Alice Walker,
concerning their explorations of memory, honesty, and seemingly small actions.
Memoir theorists have informed my writing: Patricia Hampl, Vladimir Nabokov,
Ben Yagoda, and Philip Lopate. These experts have educated me on the nature of
creative nonfiction writing: Hampl’s claim that we carry only images of value, so
that from revision and reflection—Nabokov’s process of “caress[ing] the detail”—
significance and meaning from memory are revealed; Yagoda’s consideration of the
imprecision of memory; and Lopate’s instruction to question why it is we want to
write about others. In my critical introduction, I engage with work by theorists D. W.
Winnicott and Jo Malin. The theoretical understandings of Winnicott’s transitional
object are considered, allowing me to explore the power of our objects and their space
iii

made internally available to us from these early associations. Malin’s ideas on
embedded maternal narratives allow for new subjectivities for the women in my
family, myself, and my sons, creating a dialogue within the memoir, validating all of
our experiences, born out of their narratives and my own.
iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As the first person at the University of Regina to write a creative thesis in
literary nonfiction, and specifically, memoir, I would like to thank both of my
supervisors, Dr. Troni Grande, Head of the English Department, and Dr. Medrie
Purdham, for their guidance, support and effort which helped make this new
manuscript become a reality. Thank you, as well, to my third committee member, Dr.
Sheri Benning, for her time and valuable insights.
Thank you to the English Department for granting me a Mature Entrance
Scholarship and to Campion College for their Class Spirit Award. Thank you to the
Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, Campion College, the English
Department, the Global Learning Centre, and the Student Success Centre at the
University of Regina for awarding me Graduate Teaching Assistantships and for
allowing me to work as a graduate student while I completed my thesis.
I would also like to thank God, with whom all things are possible; Jes Battis
for his encouragement and for his suggestion to take the title of my fourth chapter and
make it the title of the manuscript, Scott J. Wilson for his support; the two writing
groups I’ve been a part of, The Donkeys and The Esteemed Colleagues, for their
feedback and friendship; my family and friends for never doubting me even when I
found that I was; and lastly, my sons, Andrew and Aiden, these little wonders, for
their love and for their patience with a mother, who, in the middle of trying to raise
them, ended up finding herself in the process.
v

POST DEFENSE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to thank my external examiner Dr. Barbara Langhorst from St.
Peter’s College for attending in person, for her insightful questions and comments,
and for articulating further my earlier hope (22) that I want to imagine a future of
possibilities for my sons (130). Thank you, as well, to Dr. Sheri Benning for also
attending in person, and to Dr. William Smythe for chairing my examination.
vi

DEDICATION

To Andrew, to Aiden,
and to Barb Boughner, my mom
vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................ iv
POST DEFENSE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ................................................................. v
DEDICATION ................................................................................................................ vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................... vii
NOTE ON IN-TEXT CITATIONS ............................................................................... viii

INTRODUCTION to Little Wonders .............................................................................. 1
PART 1
“Our Funerary Summer” ................................................................................................ 24
PART 2
“Pretty Things” .............................................................................................................. 50
PART 3
“Tendrils Around the Sun” ............................................................................................ 79
PART 4
“Little Wonders” ........................................................................................................... 111

WORKS CITED ........................................................................................................... 132
viii

NOTE ON IN-TEXT CITATIONS
In keeping with the practice of other memoirs, including Lorri Neilsen
Glenn’s Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry, rather than
throughout the manuscript, my referencing is included at the end.
1

Introduction
Several years ago, I read a piece in Victoria magazine, a memoir by Patricia
Hampl, entitled “The Need to Remember.” It was a small memoir, and I believe this was
the first instance in which I was introduced to this literary form. Hampl’s piece was the
first instalment of Victoria’s new memoir section. The memoir forum in this nostalgic,
neo-Victorian style magazine is “dedicated to writers who remember, who capture the
gestures, the furniture, and the fabric of bygone times, who help us all go home again”
(Victoria 36). It began with how Hampl wrote letters in English for her Czech
grandmother and ended with a description of how she herself is compelled to remember,
to explore and to write about what she knows (36, 119). I have always remembered two
things from my initial reading of her piece all those years ago: the first is that Hampl
reflected on why she wrote memoir, citing after much consideration an inherent need to
do so (119); the second was the surprise and slight optimism with which I still recall
thinking, You can write this? A curiosity and a space for opportunity that I am now only
beginning to recognize again formed in me back then, at that reading, and I am grateful
that I came across her piece. As I save many things, I have held onto this issue; its pages
are yellowing but the magazine is in perfect condition. Hampl’s memoir not only
entertained and educated me but also planted a seed about the idea of memoir that has
grown for me—how it offers writers a way to write about their lives and their families,
how through memoir one can think about the significance of seemingly small things, and
how it offers a way to write about memory and reflect on why we remember in the first
place.