Saving Sam Seymour

Rauls, Ashley (2019) Saving Sam Seymour. MFA thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

Saving Sam Seymour is a novel set in the present day South. Not only is it a commentary on the South, but it is also an acknowledgement that people are more alike than we think no matter who they are or where they come from.
This dissertation only contains the first forty-five thousand words, and I anticipate there will be an additional thirty thousands more to come before the novel is concluded. To give one a sense of how the novel will continue, I will briefly detail what is to come in this afterword.
After having a nice yet complicated twenty-four hours with Will Wallace, Sam Seymour discovers she may not be the only one he is potentially pining after. This causes Sam to retract once again from her friendship from Will, and she contacts Phillip her fiancé to apologize for their last phone call. The phone call gives both Sam and Phillip more confidence in their relationship, so much so that he books a plane ticket to visit her in Savannah in a week.
The next day, Sam receives a call from her doctor’s office asking her to come in for an appointment. Dr. Nelson reveals that the labs were slightly abnormal, but before jumping to conclusions she would like Sam to try to natural conceive if she would like a child. This information leaves Sam wondering if she would even like to be a mother now or ever. It also makes her doubt her relationship with Phillip again because she realizes no matter how trapped she feels in an engagement, having a child with him is a commitment she cannot reverse.
During Mr. and Mrs. Seymour’s wedding, the truth is unveiled about their divorce, leading to some short-lived commotion that is resolved right before the vows. Will is an undesired guest of the wedding, thanks to Mrs. Seymour’s love of invitations. He also settles any confusion that Sam has had about him and Catherine, which puts Sam in a greater predicament again between her feelings for Will and her commitment to Phillip. She sees how nice it is that Will gets along with her family and makes it a special day. She’s not sure if she will have this with Phillip.
As a last attempt to prove to Sam that she should remain in the South and that possibly he could be apart of her life, Will invites her to a weekend with his fraternity brothers at his parents’ beach house. This is almost enough to little to late when Phillip arrives the next morning fresh off the plane from Berlin and ready to make things work with Sam.
Only things are not that simple. When Sam gives Phillip a tour of her hometown, she realizes the love she does have for the South when he is not that impressed. To make matters worse, Will decides to tag along and put a wrench in Phillip’s plans. The source of the mysterious fight between Phillip and Will in New York City is revealed, and Sam doesn’t know how to feel when both Phillip and Will’s true motives have been revealed. Has it just been a game to both of them, or do they really love her?
Sam decides to take a break from both of her suitors and Savannah. She interviews for an editor position at a magazine in Atlanta, and she is hired for the job. Despite never wanting to return to the South, she acknowledges the parts she loves about it, that including the culture, the food, and her family. New York is too far to be from her family especially if she intends on starting her own family one day. Once Sam is settled in Atlanta, she gives Will a call to make amends and ask him to visit. The last thing Sam says to Will on the phone is that she is pregnant.
The reader isn’t told if it is Will or Phillip’s child, but they are safe to assume it is Will’s after the phone call. This will hopefully leave room for a sequel as an option.

• Item Type: Thesis (MFA)
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Keywords: Novel, contemporary fiction, women's contemporary fiction, fiction, fertility, infertility, cancer, ovarian cancer, high school, south, southern, southern fiction, southern fiction writers, Savannah, Georgia, New York, NYU, Tybee Island.
• Subjects: P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General); P Language and Literature > PQ Romance literatures; P Language and Literature > PS American literature
• Colleges/Schools: College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies
• Supervisor's Name: Jess-Cooke, Dr. Carolyn
• Date of Award: 2019
• Depositing User: Ashley B Rauls
• Unique ID: glathesis:2019-72984
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 05 Jun 2019 15:54
• Last Modified: 05 Mar 2020 21:30
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.72984
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/72984