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Bicycle liberation
Abstract
Bicycle Liberation is a collection of fragmented non-fiction stories told mostly in first person and alternating with second person to tell the narrative of a struggle for personal freedom and independence. The narrator begins in Seattle in part one, "Bike Frame," and goes back and forth in time, showing the movement of both physical and internal transformation from Christian fundamentalism on the fringe of patriot and homeschooling movements to a current identity of a feminist queer. But it is more than that; it is a story of a daughter's love for a father who is sick and dying and the subsequent fallout from their last meeting. The project is held together structurally by using the names of bicycle parts as titles for each fragmented piece throughout each section. Parts two and three, "Road Bike" and "Fixed Gear" respectively, mirror each other in that they are both a continuous narrative about two different time periods. Part four, "Touring Road Bike," returns to the first pattern of going back and forth in time, to reflect current and past identities.