Review: A Family Affair and Other Stories by Joseph E. Fleckenstein

A Family Affair and Other Stories by Joseph Fleckenstein is an engaging collection of fictional and non-fictional stories that span the globe.

Many of these stories have been previously published in literary journals, which speaks to the quality of the writing throughout, which includes those that have not been published before. Written in bite-sized portions, with some stories only two pages long, this is a collection that you can breeze through quickly, in part because of the eclectic variety of Fleckenstein’s storytelling. The stories travel to Egypt, India, Germany, and more, acting as a kind of travel diary, as well as work of fiction.

Fleckenstein is a clear writer, creating characters in the modern American style, somewhat terse and declarative, but still evocative. These are literary stories except for two, slicing off a piece of his life in the process, for stories that are at once personal and outward-looking.

The stories are also unapologetically from a male perspective, so the book could be categorized as men’s fiction. Sometimes, such as in “The Snow Queen,” this works well. In others, perhaps the female perspective is lost. The eponymous piece, “A Family Affair,” is one of them, but maybe that’s the point, as a sense of distance and detachment is key to this story about honor killings.

Perhaps the strongest story is “Too Late Dowry,” centering on Indian arranged marriages. In lesser hands a story like this could come across as false, or even offensive, as the author is writing outside his own cultural upbringing, but the characters are conveyed with sensitivity and authenticity. This marks all of the stories that focus outside of America. Each story conveys a sense of place exceptionally well, and clearly come from Fleckenstein’s own experience, as is made clear from the introduction to each story, and in the attention to detail in the stories themselves.

On that front, the prefaces to each story are interesting, but occasionally superfluous – the kind of information every writer has about the origin of a story, but doesn’t necessarily need to be included in a collection. The blurb is indicative of the author providing a bit too much information, stating that the stories are “intended to capture and hold a reader’s interest,” which goes without saying. However, there is an earnestness and sincerity in the small pieces of information Fleckenstein provides, and while non-traditional for a collection of short stories, they do provide interesting context.

Perhaps a better idea would have been to offer these pieces in an appendix, or at the end of the story, rather than leading the reader each and every time. Additionally, the cover is not quite indicative of the stories inside. While having an international focus, the stories are about the small moments between people, and the cover has more the feel of an international thriller with a singular cultural focus.

These issues aside, A Family Affair and Other Stories is an engrossing read. These are quiet, straightforward stories about a wide range of subjects and characters, for a strong literary collection.