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If you haven’t read the new Kelly Link story that’s in the new issue of Tin House, you should read it now. I think it’s totally different than anything she’s written before, and it’s really awesome. It’s a little long to read online, but I couldn’t pull myself away from it. If the computer is hard on your eyes, get the new issue of Tin House and read it in print.

5 responses

What is it you think makes it so different?

I think the rhythm and pacing of the story is different from any of her others. There’s less lyricism than usual. The characterizations feel flatter, but purposively so. The fantastical elements seem to float unfixed, as if the reader shouldn’t be able to contextualize them and understand what they “mean” or for what many readers would try to read as metaphor. In many ways it’s a fantasy that feels like science fiction, if that makes any sense at all. For me, these are different attributes than the ones that usually show up in Kelly’s stories. Or I should say, they have all appeared variously in her stories, but not all in once place as they do here. The closest story of hers that it feels similar to, for me, is “The Hortlak”. But even that story feels as if you can read the fantasy elements as a metaphor for entrapment in a world where consumerism is the lens through which people view and understand, or fail to understand, one another. I didn’t necessarily get that feeling for this story. I can make attempts to analyze it in such a way, but it feels more resistant to analysis than any other story of hers, for me.