A Fingerprint Repeated

by Jeffrey Condran

"In these stories, Jeffrey Condran deliberately addresses the tensions and promise of our post-9/11 world with courage, intelligence, and empathy. His characters are often world-weary, but they remain open to the possibilities of love, connection, or even transformative ruin. Condran writes in a voice that radiates self-assurance and knowledge of the hopes and regrets that unite us all. This is a powerful collection." -Caitlin Horrocks, author of This is Not Your City

174 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2013

Reviews

[John Vanderslice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional collection of stories, very timely, very subtle, and very human. Unusual for American short story collections, each piece in A Fingerprint Revealed examines--sometimes up close and sometimes at a distance--the plight of the Arab or Arab-American in today's United States. Some are beaten, some are jailed, some are threatened with deportment, some simply disappear. Whether the protagonist of the story is a child or a college student or a young professional or a middle-aged father, somewhere in his or her life is an important person of Arab descent: a person who at the least is suspected and at the worst killed. Apparently, the inspiration for many of the situations depicted in the book arose out of the real experiences, post 9/11, of Arabs living in the United States. However, by no means is A Fingerprint Revealed a dated book. In fact, it's amazingly prescient. If the troubles many of the characters and their relatives suffer through technically stem from Bush-era politics, it is the anti-Muslim politics of the Trump era that the stories predict and which a reader can't help but think of. But in saying this I would not want anyone to think that A Fingerprint Revealed is an argumentative or consciously political tract. No, these are extremely human stories. And there may be no one better than Condran at exploring the subtle, mysterious corners of the human soul when it comes to love. No one better than he at showing how close love can mirror hate, and obsession can lead to anger or disappointment or resentment. My favorite story in the book: "Irregulars," about two adolescents who are in the habit of acting out Sherlock Holmes stories, and in the process of doing so come to an answer about the mystery between them. It's a notable gem in a book filled with many of them.