Excerpt:
“Finger: Knuckle: Palm” intricately creates an immersive world which makes the text become the thing it describes. Samuel Beckett said once that James Joyce’s “writing is not about something, it is that something itself.” In fact, the very best art achieves this distinction. The Christopher Nolan film “Memento” makes the viewer truly experience the memory loss from which the protagonist suffers. The audience does not simply observe his ailment because they also participate in it. Without making too audacious or lavish a comparison, “Finger: Knuckle: Palm” produces a very comparable effect. It cannot be consciously stated that this novelette is about a journey into the depths of the subconscious mind because reading “Finger: Knuckle: Palm” makes one feel that they are immersed in that journey themselves. Yet, because this work is something and is not about something, we do not have the usual expository paragraphs and explanatory dialogue to set things up, let us get our footing, and explain what is happening before it happens.