The Best Way to Kill a Butterfly and Other Stories, and In Their Absence: Investigating the Phenomenon of Missing People through Short Stories and Flash Fiction

This PhD submission is composed of a collection of short stories and an accompanying critical commentary, focusing on the theme of missing people. The short story collection reflects the diverse experiences relating to the phenomenon of missing people: child abduction, grooming and sexual exploitation, suicide, relationship breakdown and loneliness. The stories in the collection are of various lengths, from ‘flash fiction’ of fewer than 500 words, to longer, more sustained stories. The accompanying commentary investigates the theme of missing people, drawing upon legal, sociological and creative sources. The research underpinning the project was conducted in close consultation with agencies, charities and other professionals working within the field, as well as drawing upon personal accounts by people who have been missing themselves or testimonies of those affected by a loved one’s disappearance. The short story - as a form that is often characterised by what is unsaid, by what is left out, by absence - is a particularly fitting vehicle for exploring the theme of missing people. This thesis demonstrates the link between the form of the short story and the theme of absence. It also uses fiction as a means of throwing new light onto the human meaning and significance of the phenomenon of missing people.