In these twelve intelligent tales, seasoned poet and story writer
Gary Fincke reconciles lost hope and quiet despair with small
blessings and ultimate redemption. In his world, as easily as one
man becomes a hero, another is riddled with failure. Fincke weaves
together the large and small tragedies of daily life to create an
inescapable, yet at times oddly comforting, reality. His characters
inhabit a world of strip malls and fast-food joints, low-down jobs
and physical ailments, lottery tickets and cheap beer. Here,
everyone and everything is suspicious, and only the luck of the
draw determines who, if anyone, will survive.
In the title story, Ben, a fifty-year-old bookstore clerk facing
the possibility of prostate cancer, feels his life spiraling out of
control as he endures his female doctor's examinations with
childlike embarrassment on the one hand and struggles to conceal
his age from his teenybopper coworkers on the other. Ben's only
consolation is that "every day he heard about something a hundred
times worse." In "Gatsby, Tender, Paradise," Bridgeford encounters
a group of lightning strike and electrocution victims and feels
lucky to have survived several light-switch shocks--the same type
of shocks that have permanently disabled one man in the group. Such
are the small but important blessings that ultimately rescue
Fincke's characters from despair. Here at last is someone who can
articulate both our constant, mortal desire to transcend ordinary
experience and our simultaneous comfort in the unremarkable and
familiar.
General
Imprint: |
University of Georgia Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction Ser. |
Release date: |
March 2013 |
First published: |
March 2013 |
Authors: |
Gary Fincke
|
Dimensions: |
203 x 133 x 15mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
232 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8203-4501-7 |
Categories: |
Books >
Fiction >
Special features >
Short stories
|
LSN: |
0-8203-4501-6 |
Barcode: |
9780820345017 |
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