ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS
The Angels Know My Name, a Novel, and Other Storiesby
Miguel A. X. Cid
Master of Fine Arts in Fiction
University of California, Irvine, 2021
Professor Michelle Latiolais, Chair
The Angels Know My Name, a Novel, and Other Stories are works of fiction I began writing during my time at the University of California, Irvine. While these works are organized together in this thesis, I imagine the novel, The Angels Know My Name, will have to stand on its own, whereas the short stories are intended to be organized into collections of short stories. In taking the first steps with The Angels Know My Name, I set out to create a work of abstract art in fiction, an attempt at which I have failed. What has been coming through in these pages are narratives, letters, poems, a range of textures, all juxtaposed, some more closely linked than others, which all seem to work to create the world of the novel. Some poems and letters are intentionally untitled and have been left without their author’s name. In doing so, I hope readers will attempt to link poems to corresponding characters in the novel, or to wonder: who wrote which?
Most of the narratives written in the novel comprise of harsh criticism of the university where the characters attend and of those who they encounter. It may be unclear within these first pages, but I’m attempting to write the central characters in way where they are unaware that they have endured trauma and the way they project their disdain for others within the novel is somewhat a result of their experiences not fully realized.
With the short stories, “The Warehouse,” “Frank,” and, “Sometimes While Gathering Myself,” I am writing into fleeting life, characters who still loom long after they are no longer physically part of the narrators’ lives.