University of Southern Maine USM Digital Commons Stonecoast MFA Student Scholarship 2017 Wearing Bare Feet J. P. Schlottman University of Southern Maine Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/stonecoast Part of the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation Schlottman, J. P., "Wearing Bare Feet" (2017). Stonecoast MFA. 61. https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/stonecoast/61 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Scholarship at USM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Stonecoast MFA by an authorized administrator of USM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Wearing Bare Feet ___________ A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE STONECOAST MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING BY J.P. Schlottman ___________ 2017 Abstract Wearing Bare Feet is a linked collection of wry short stories about a family of three on fictional Eel Island, three miles off the coast of Maine, an island that revolves around lobstering, tourism, billionaire movie stars, department store heirs, jewelry store heiresses, people who houseclean for snowbirds ... and the old, rich and entitled summer people who come back from Florida for the annual Fourth of July Parade, and then die. Because it is easier to die there. It is why the 13-mile-long "rock off America" has more ambulances per capita than anywhere else in New England. It also has a lot of guys who just smoke skunk weed that's happened to fall off the sterns of fishing boats, drink 16-ounce Bud tallboys in brown glass only (cans are for pussies), cut grass and plow snow.