Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
2002
Thesis Director
John Kilgore
Abstract
Marty Kaden can fly. A champion Taekwondoist with serious hopes and a good chance of making the United States team, propelling him all the way to the Olympic Games one day, he takes his chosen martial art seriously. Trouble looms on the horizon, however, and soon brings Marty down to Earth. After suffering defeat at the hands of an arch-rival, Marty spins out of control. Worse, his master instructor disappears under what Marty believes are mysterious circumstances. Yet no one will take him seriously—the police, his mother, his master's assistant. None of them shares his concern. Marty's despair sends him on a wild journey that threatens his life and his dream.
Watching her son suffer, his mother, Sarah, who hides a terrible secret about the tragic death of Marty's father, finally joins forces with her estranged son. This leads the two on yet another journey, fraught with hope and despair, but ultimately pulls the two closer together.
Marty was written for young adult males, those who enjoy action novels, yet anyone of any age can find truths in the plight of a single mother and her 15-year-old son struggling to make it in a world gone mad.
The comprehensive introduction covers the process of the writing of the novel, the author's background and a survey of literature important to the subgenre of boys' action novels and novels outside the genre, including a book from the Harry Potter series, as well as books on the craft of fiction writing. Among others, these include Earnest Hemingway's Death in the Afternoon and Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, both books on writing and fine embodiments of their own advice.
Recommended Citation
Feltt, Bill, "Marty on the Edge" (2002). Masters Theses. 1409.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/1409
