![]() 'Humanity' is one of those embarrassing words one doesn't know quite what to do with these days. Sensitive readers will try to store these kinds of interesting and bewildering questions at the backs of their minds: An Incomplete List of My Wishes will ask us to reconsider them eleven times over, while it overwhelms us emotionally and beguiles us with its technical dexterity, its complexities of tone and points of view, its sheer humanity. May we even call these prizewinning works short stories? Only if we allow that a short story need not necessarily tell a story, or that it can tell many stories all at once. Is it historical? In part, but the 1990s reside still in many living memories and can comfortably coexist with the present. Is it LGBTQ? Assuredly, yet the breadth of human response the book elicits encompasses far more than specific issues of sexual/gender identification. Should we call An Incomplete List of My Wishes, Jendi Reiter's outstanding collection of short stories, Southern fiction? Possibly, but only as long as we permit a Southern sensibility (however defined) to extend as far north as New York and Connecticut. Book Lover Resources, Advice for Writers and Publishersįine writing transcends generic boundaries. ![]()
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