V/R

The stories in V/r deal with the indoctrination of individual Americans into institutions, primarily through military service, and the legacy of this service on the individual who returns to civilian life. Aller Kenneth Burke's concept of identification, stories use the act of constructing narrative voices to explore the acknowledgement that divisions exist, and propose storytelling as a form that overcomes division by causing identification within the self, among characters, and, finally, between writer and reader. Some stories use first-person narration and a voice that slides between narrative description and an approximation of direct address to draw the reader into the world of the institution. Stories of this nature deal with individuals who have joined the institution, and central focal points include rhetoric, truths, isolation, and the legacy formed when an individual is indoctrinated into a system. Several of these foci are explored through characters estranged from the institution that in many ways defined them.