But is also a story about the collision of public events and private lives, and the devastating consequences of cultural and emotional dislocation on the members of a single family.

"Roger and Me" is not only a documentary, it's also a documentary about economic depression and emotional dislocation, which are usually gritty subjects even for public television.

Mr. Furst's prose is sensuous and sinewy, using odd symbols and sudden reactions to capture the dislocation - linguistic, cultural and emotional - that his hero feels every step of the way.

Similar emotional dislocations can affect individuals and their in-laws after any death or divorce, family professionals say.

It is not much of a leap from that childhood to the trademark quality of his writing, a severe sense of emotional dislocation.

At their best, the images in alternative fashion magazines offer color-saturated studies in loneliness, emotional dislocation and suburban tedium, sometimes more conceptually evolved than anything on the Independent Film Channel.

In mapping the moral and emotional dislocations wrought by apartheid, she has not only served as an eloquent witness to the situation in South Africa, but also produced fiction of enormous power and ambition.

And there was emotional dislocation as well.

The double album furthered the themes of emotional and spiritual dislocation found on Come to Where I'm From, and was described by Allmusic reviewer Thom Jurek as a "sleeper hit."

And Maria Irene Fornes, the director, emphasizes the sense of emotional dislocation by imposing a strict precision on every movement of the actors; the 20 brief episodes leave the impression they were choreographed.