A creative dissertation consisting of two parts: a novel and a critical preface. The critical preface, titled “Novel without Falsehood” deals directly with David Shields’s Reality Hunger, touching on issues of reality as it pertains to truth, writing, fiction, and contemporary culture. The novel is entitled Down and Out and follows the fortunes of a small town in Arkansas before, during, and after its sole source of employment ceases to exist.

Report on the study of groundwater in Texas, nearby states, and in Mexico.

Interview with James F. Brede, dentist and U.S. Army Air Forces veteran. The interview includes his personal experiences in World War II as a B-17 co-pilot with the 8th Air Force in the European Theater, his childhood in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, enlistment in the U.S. Army Air Forces in 1943, preliminary training in Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas, his active service with the 379th Bomb Group in Kimbolton, England, combat experience in 35 missions, return to the U.S. and continued military service as a flight instructor in Lakeland, Florida and Wichita Falls, Texas, as well as the return to civilian life, marriage, dental school under the G.I. Bill, reenlistment in the Air Force as a dentist, his deployment to Korea, his discharge from the Air Force, and the establishment of his dental practice and experiences since retirement. The interview includes an appendix with a copy of his book.