Abstract:
This project is the first two chapters of a novel that will be approximately twenty chapters
in length. The novel tells the story of two cousins in an alternate New York City where jazz
offers the same amount of energy as a combustion engine. The cousins, Felix and Fiona, must
deal with the increased societal pressures this technological innovation places on the already
turbulent Roaring Twenties. For Fiona, these pressures include seeing the horrors of American
racism up close for the first time; for Felix, they consist of impending fatherhood and an unruly
private detective he feels responsible for. Through its tense, engaging plot, its scrutiny of the
protagonists, and an omniscient narrator that routinely interrupts the otherwise close, third-person
focalization, the novel examines the interpersonal and cultural costs of apathy.
