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Full text release has been delayed at the author's request until June 01, 2031
ETD Abstract Container
Abstract Header
The Martyr and Merv Spielman: A Novel
Author Info
Rooney, Joseph Paul
Permalink:
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1745282490298049
Abstract Details
Year and Degree
2025, Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, Cleveland State University, College of Arts and Sciences.
Abstract
A dark, Dickensian coming-of-age novel,
The Martyr and Merv Spielman
finds twelve-year-old Justin at his grandparents’ house for Christmas Eve, 1999. Still smarting from a recent school bullying incident, Justin is in no mood to join his older brother and their cousins around a Ouija board. But the séance going forward, the four children receive a name: Merv Spielman. Thus commences a cosmic catastrophe, with the children being drawn, on New Year’s Eve, as the clock strikes twelve, into Merv’s malevolent dimension. As the children’s relationships fracture, Justin must find a way to rescue his brother from the depths of darkness. A tall order, even for a child genius. But where darkness abounds, hope abounds all the more. This hope comes in the form of the novel’s narrator—who is Justin’s guardian angel, striding onto the pages of his own novel in order to enact a final, desperate
deus ex machina
.
Committee
Hilary Plum (Advisor)
Imad Rahman (Committee Member)
Mary Biddinger (Committee Member)
Pages
181 p.
Subject Headings
Literature
Recommended Citations
Refworks
EndNote
RIS
Mendeley
Citations
Rooney, J. P. (2025).
The Martyr and Merv Spielman: A Novel
[Master's thesis, Cleveland State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1745282490298049
APA Style (7th edition)
Rooney, Joseph.
The Martyr and Merv Spielman: A Novel.
2025. Cleveland State University, Master's thesis.
OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center
, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1745282490298049.
MLA Style (8th edition)
Rooney, Joseph. "The Martyr and Merv Spielman: A Novel." Master's thesis, Cleveland State University, 2025. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1745282490298049
Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)
Abstract Footer
Document number:
csu1745282490298049
Copyright Info
© 2025, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Cleveland State University and OhioLINK.