The Cockroach That Died

Abstract

There’s Something Wrong With Him is the draft of a creative non-fiction memoir, which is the creative component required for the Master of Creative Writing. It’s accompanied by the exegesis The Cockroach That Died. The exegesis is a candid chronicling of the creative work’s development, with a particular focus on character, genre, narrative structure, tone, and endings. The main purpose of The Cockroach That Died is to give insight into the emotional implications writing a memoir has on the memoirist.

There’s Something Wrong With Him is a creative-non-fiction memoir ultimately resounding in hope. That destination, however, and the journey to its centre, is complex and tender. Nothing is off-limits in this memoir, its reader forced to look upon child abuse, suicide, rape, and many other sites of the human experience that most turn their backs to. This isn’t done to elicit pity. It’s done to elicit hope. The reader walks alongside the author through the terrains of his tumultuous life, as he questions the narratives he was made to bear.