A Summer in Turners Corners

Date of Award

4-2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

English

First Advisor

Thisbe Nissen, M.F.A.

Second Advisor

Jil Larson, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Meghann Meeusen, Ph.D.

Fourth Advisor

Laurel Syder, M.F.A.

Keywords

Children's literature, fiction, magic realism, northern Michigan

Abstract

A Summer in Turners Corners is a young adult novel about two families from East Lansing, Michigan and their monthlong vacation in the fictional town of Turners Corners, a rural community nestled on the Lake Michigan shoreline in the northwest corner of Michigan’s lower peninsula. The story centers around the four children, ages eleven through fifteen, and their discovery of a magic pool. The exact nature of the pool’s magic is uncertain, but it seems to be “activated” by an encounter with a person possessing an intense desire. In this case, the person is Carrick, thirteen, who has been diagnosed with a constitutional growth delay, and is both desperate to catch up with his peers’ growth, and deeply afraid it will never happen. The story explores the costs and benefits to humanity’s relationship with technology, and the power and mystery of nature, particularly as it’s found in wild places. The story’s driving questions are about the nature of human desire: Do we really want what we think we want? Under what circumstances? What might the pursuit of our desires cost us and those around us? And how are we changed by the meeting of our desires?

Access Setting

Dissertation-Abstract Only

Restricted to Campus until

4-1-2125

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