Gary Fincke
In the appropriately titled The Corridors of Longing, a wide variety of otherwise ordinary people anxiously face crucial choices. Personal trauma, anger, frustration, sexual desire, cultural shifts, work, and an assortment of other common issues are deepened and made singular, even in these very short stories, by the sharp focus of close observation. In settings and situations that range from mid-20th century to the present, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, friends and enemies alike are given unique voices. The heart of each story is found quickly and followed until something beyond the apparently familiar is made surprising, yet genuine. Despite their imperfections, the characters, through their struggles with understanding, reach moments of tolerance and sometimes, through perseverance, obtain compassion and even love.Above all, despite how brief these stories are, they are nuanced and subtle. Instead of heroes and villains, there are characters who are complicated, with few exceptions, in less than a thousand words. In other words, they carry the weight of being human with varying degrees of success and failure. In other words, they are alive and demand our attention and respect.
