Letters from the heart

A short story cycle is a collection of interconnected stories. The origin of the short story cycle lies in the 19'^ century, with the expanded version of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. However, it was not until the early 20th century, with the publication of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, that the genre flowered into its modern, tightly-integrated form.

This dissertation is a short story cycle written in the tradition of Winesburg, Ohio. Letters from the Heart uses the linking devices of continuing protagonists; a consistent setting; a progressive development of theme; the recurrence of people, places, objects, and situations; continuing ideas; and framing episodes that begin and end the collection to integrate the pieces that make up the cycle into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

There are five continuing protagonists in Letters from the Heart, Joseph Jasmine, Harry the Hippy, Annie Wild, Bryan "Barkeep," Cacahuetita, and Kurt. All of these recurring first-person narrators develop across time as the stories unfold.

The eighteen pieces that make up Letters from the Heart are all set in Austin, Texas. The stories either take place in Austin, or the characters are Austinites who have left the city for reasons that become clear as the collection develops.

Every piece that makes up Letters from the Heart turns in some way on the theme of a coming Apocalypse. The stories take place at the end of the 20th century, and the approaching Millennium lends an air of impending catastrophe that affects the characters' lives.

Like the continuing protagonists, all of the major characters in Letters from the Heart develop across stories as the plotlines play out. The characters' lives grow richer as a result of their relationships with one another.

There are four linked plotlines in Letters from the Heart. All four plot sequences, which play out across multiple stories, interconnect in the nexus piece, "Words to Live By." This story takes place during a Mother's Day Lobster Brunch at Azalea Cafe in Austin, and all the major characters in the cycle are in some way involved in the set of events that occurs at Azalea Cafe on that day.

Two framing stories, "Fear Is a Lie Told in the Daytime" and "Narcosis," help to integrate the collection into a tight-knit unit. Both of these stories center around the return of their protagonists to the water—the element that gave rise to all life. So the collection circles back upon itself and the cycle ends where it begins.