Heartwood, a story

Hurley, UK

Abstract

This novella length text is the first volume in the Heartwood trilogy. It stages a praxical enquiry in which the creative texts perform a triple function: as original literature, as documents of process, and as critical enquiry. In so doing the texts add to our understanding of how life history and gender influence literary production, and delineate the nexus of fiction/biography/autobiography, both in terms of the individual writer negotiating the matrix of self and other, and in terms of the author in a wider social and historical context. The main apparatus for this investigation is a work of prose fiction that exploits the ability of the novel to sustain a critical exploration while simultaneously delivering a satisfying narrative. It is a composite text that, I argue, works as historiographic metafiction to dramatise key events in the apparently disparate lives of three women who are separated by historical and social context. The relationship between the three women becomes visible as the narratives gradually reveal their connections. Via this structure, layers of resonance accrue as the themes outlined above are worked through in this fictional space.

Citation

Hurley, U. (2016). Heartwood, a story. Liverpool: The Argotist Online

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Online Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Apr 11, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 14, 2016
• Publisher URL: http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/HEARTWOOD.pdf
• Related Public URLs: http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Ebooks%20index.htm
• Additional Information: Additional Information : The first chapter won the Unbound Press First Chapter Prize, 2010 and the entire text was short-listed for the MMU Novella Award 2014 (top 7 from an international field of 140).