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Date of Award
Spring 2026
Rights
Access restricted for 5 years to EWU users with an active EWU NetID
Date Available to Non-EWU Users
2031-06-09
Document Type
Thesis: EWU Only
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA) in English: Literature
Department
English
First Advisor
Polly Buckingham
Second Advisor
Gregory Spatz
Third Advisor
Julia Smith
Abstract
OODA Loop is a work of literary fiction that follows Gavin, a corrections officer who wants to have children, and Michael, his nephew, who is trying to find his missing brother, John. Gavin’s storyline moves through the disciplined, high-pressure world of correctional work, where control, surveillance, and routine violence shape his daily life, even as he imagines a future that includes fatherhood and some form of home. Michael’s storyline follows a desperate search through neighborhoods, houses, schools, and other unstable spaces, where family is fractured and responsibility becomes immediate, exhausting, and uncertain.
The novel uses parallel narratives, close interiority, concrete social detail, and accumulation to explore masculinity, kinship, and care under strain. Gavin’s desire for children is tied to questions of legacy, vulnerability, and what kind of man he can be outside the demands of his job. Michael’s search for John becomes both practical and existential, revealing the pressure of brotherhood and the instability of the world around him. Throughout both narratives, the prose places tenderness beside violence, domestic longing beside institutional control, and hope beside fatigue.
At its center, OODA Loop asks what it means to want to protect others while living inside systems that repeatedly make protection difficult. The novel is concerned with the ways people inherit damage, try to repair it, and keep moving even when certainty is unavailable. Through its shifting perspectives and grounded, emotionally charged detail, the manuscript presents care as something improvised, fragile, and deeply human.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Holmes, Larry T. Jr., "OODA LOOP" (2026). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 995.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/995
