Abstract:
This is the first part of a three-part novel. It is the story of Thomas Reed, who is graduating from college and embroiled in the task of learning how to grow up. A few weeks before graduation Tom is contacted by a man who claims to have information about Tom's missing father. This man forces Tom to confront aspects of his past and to consider his future in a new light. The story explores the power our pasts exert over us, and what we can lose and gain by trying to forget our traumas. This issue becomes even more difficult in the modern world, in which Tom and his friends are so continually distracted by information from televisions, computers, newspapers, that it is challenging for them to form a narrative about themselves at all. The story of their life is being continually interrupted, like commercials interrupting a television show, and so they are perplexed by their pasts, unsure of what their stories mean.
