Tin House – Summer 2008

This issue of Tin House contains writing that is as vivid and entertaining as its bright pink cover. In the editor’s note, Rob Spillman explains what his magazine looks for in a story or poem: “To see things anew, to be reminded of what it is to be alive.” Sounds like a large ambition, but the selection of stories, poems, essays, and book reviews in this magazine provide just that.

This issue of Tin House contains writing that is as vivid and entertaining as its bright pink cover. In the editor’s note, Rob Spillman explains what his magazine looks for in a story or poem: “To see things anew, to be reminded of what it is to be alive.” Sounds like a large ambition, but the selection of stories, poems, essays, and book reviews in this magazine provide just that.

The fiction section is diverse. Alan Gurganus’s story, “Fetch,” is tantalizingly slow and poetic, drawing out a single moment of its characters’ lives. On the other hand, Helen Schulman’s “Parent’s Night” races through its subject matter with the help of a chatty first person narrator. Ehud Havazelet, who dedicates his story, “Bill and Arlene,” to Raymond Carver, lives up to this weighty allusion by providing a solid specimen of the kind of realism Carver made famous, while Paul Feldman, author of “Specialists,” turns to science fiction to provide a world for his main character. All these stories are good, but my favorite was Adam Johnson’s “Hurricanes Anonymous,” which features a charming ne’er-do-well father trying to take care of his toddler son in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita.

My favorite poems were by Oliver de la Paz and Bridget Talone. De la Paz is a master of simile, providing gems like, “the sea / stows us as a song in the belly of a maestro” and “The salmon were lustrous like diamonds / in the gutter and I had to cradle each one.” Talone’s poems deal with the death of her father, and they are frank and touching. In “Expecting Honey” she writes, “When you died, you took the bugs and the music / and the ghosts. Nobody told me / you could do that.”

This issue also contains an interview with Frank Bidart, several fascinating essays covering writing, food and dogs, and five excellent book reviews. Whether you, like Rob Spillman, want “to see things anew,” or you’re just looking for some good writing, you’ll find what you want in this issue of Tin House.
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