Last Rite, Alaska : a fictional manuscript

Last Rite, Alaska is an Alaskan Gothic fiction manuscript that explores the remote village of Last Rite and the connections between the inhabitants provided by the public radio station, KLRA-FM. In the far north, life achieves an equilibrium between survival and disappearance. Themes of love, loss, happiness, disillusion, madness, sobriety, incest, euthanasia, ancient Athabaskan culture, and European fairy tale are investigated in the lives of the town's characters during the eight months between Spring Breakup and Winter Solstice. Researching these themes required a number of approaches. Traditional research into the Northern Athabaskan First People, their rituals around death and burial was aided by the Western Canadian Journal of Anthropology and specifically Volume II, Number 1, 1970. Additionally, the traditions and riddles of the Ten'a Indians of interior Alaska was provided by the writings of Father Julius Jetté, S. J. of Fairbanks, Alaska, specifically his book, Riddles of the Ten'a Indians. Familiarity with the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Step Program and the syndrome of the "Dry Drunk" came from literature distributed at A.A. meetings. The broadcasting operations of a small radio station came from first-hand experience as a radio show host and station volunteer. Sheila Nickerson's nonfiction book, Disappearance: A Map, offered a historical discussion of the many facets of disappearance in the Alaskan Bush. Final Exit, by Derek Humphry, supplied the details for euthanasia and procedures for self-deliverance. Last Rite, the Alaskan town at the base of North America’s tallest mountain, has the smallest public radio station in the country. The volunteers at KLRA-FM, like a crazy quilt, form a blanket over a broadcasting area the size of Maine, and hope to insure the inhabitants’ survival by building community in this wild place. Four times a day the volunteers broadcast Denali Echoes, messages by and for the far-flung inhabitants of Last Rite without phone service. The Echoes are what keep everyone’s private desires as public as the noon news, connects the unlikeliest of inhabitants, and just as often aids in their subsequent conflicts.Arts, Faculty ofGraduat