A piece of “Frontiersville,” a hybrid novel that makes use of poetic tactics in prose. In the section included, “Alkali,” the narrator attempts to make sense of what happened to her great-great-great-great-grandfather who came over the Oregon Trail in 1849 and disappeared for 30 years. The critical project was a review of Maggie Nelson's “The Argonauts,” a successful piece of hybrid writing that blends cultural criticism with Nelson's lived experience in order to take a fresh look at the way gender, sexuality and queer family-making operate in our society.