Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2014 Blasting at the Big Ugly: A novel Andrew Donal Payton Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the Fine Arts Commons Recommended Citation Payton, Andrew Donal, "Blasting at the Big Ugly: A novel" (2014). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 13745. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/13745 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Blasting at the Big Ugly: A novel by Andrew Payton A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTERS OF FINE ARTS Major: Creative Writing and Environment Program of Study Committee: K.L. Cook, Major Professor Steve Pett Brianna Burke Kimberly Zarecor Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2014 Copyright © Andrew Payton 2014. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT iv INTRODUCTION 1 BLASTING AT THE BIG UGLY 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY 212 VITA 213 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am graciously indebted: To the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Environment at Iowa State, especially my adviser K.L. Cook, who never bothered making the distinction between madness and novel writing and whose help was instrumental in shaping this book; to Steve Pett, who gave much needed advice early on; to my fellow writers-in-arms, especially Chris Wiewiora, Tegan Swanson, Lindsay Tigue, Geetha Iyer, Lindsay D’Andrea, Lydia Melby, Mateal Lovaas, and Logan Adams, who championed and commiserated; to the faculty Mary Swander, Debra Marquart, David Zimmerman, Ben Percy, and Dean Bakopolous for writing wisdom and motivation; and to Brianna Burke and Kimberly Zarecor for invaluable advice at the thesis defense.