You Have the Wrong Man

Flook's stories enter the raw sanctuaries where men and women connect, and in these eight unveiled liaisons sexual desire is presented in its deepest reaches and its full human scale. In "Rhode Island Fish Company" a woman's maternal instincts run amok and kindle a startling betrayal; in "Prince of Motown" a household enters a crazed bereavement when Marvin Gaye is murdered; in "Lane" a man volunteers a point-by-point confession of threatening, bitter lust. These are only a few of the edgy coercions between men and women in stories that illuminate the moral tests and erotic pressures that tear up couples and unhinge families. In writing that is both psychologically precise and funny, relationships are worn down by carnal debts, hardships, and cold-blooded consummations, but these characters find reprieve as Flook evokes their purest motives - not just to survive, but to survive for one another.