Fugue – Winter 2005

Fugue is one of the journals I turn to when I’m in the mood for something reliable and satisfying. I know I’ll want to read the whole issue, that I won’t be confused about the editors’ choices, that I’ll find writers whose work I’ve enjoyed before and a few I’m happy to encounter for the first time. The work is always solid, readable, and pleasurable. This issue is no exception.

Fugue is one of the journals I turn to when I’m in the mood for something reliable and satisfying. I know I’ll want to read the whole issue, that I won’t be confused about the editors’ choices, that I’ll find writers whose work I’ve enjoyed before and a few I’m happy to encounter for the first time. The work is always solid, readable, and pleasurable. This issue is no exception. Fans of the poetry of Franz Wright (and I count myself among them) will be especially pleased to find six new poems. Wright is somewhat edgier than many of the other dozen or so poets here, although, as always, Fugue demonstrates a fairly cohesive, if generous editorial vision. I was impressed with Laura Hope-Gill’s unusual genre-defying work (appropriately placed in the section of the journal titled “The Experiment”), “The Fifth Fiancee: An Opera Without Parts,” complete with supertitles (especially interesting since the opera is in English and the supertitles are also in English) and lyrical stage directions. Fugue co-editor Justin Jainchill’s interview with fiction writer George Saunders is outstanding — intelligent, thoughtful questions that generate equally intelligent and thoughtful responses. (Saunders is exceedingly quotable, so it’s hard to select one enticing sound byte, but here’s a brief example: “The process of writing will always be trying to repair something that doesn’t exist with tools you have to invent on the spot.”) David Harris Ebenbach contributes a tender story concerning a young couple’s decision whether or not to have children (“Naming”), and Jessica Breheny contributes a story with an unusually convincing adolescent narrator. This issue also features three fine essays, including poet Christopher Buckley’s entertaining “Fame of Fortune,” which details his experience as the “other” Christopher Buckley (not the New Yorker humorist, read no fame, no fortune). This Buckley, has, of course, come closer to what passes for fame in the poetry world than most of us. [Fugue, English Department, 200 Brink Hall, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-1102. Single issue $8. www.uidaho.edu/fugue/home.htm] –Sima Rabinowitz