Menasche passes literary milestone with Tin House story

By Paul Haist

A Portland native who has embarked on a writing career passed a key milestone in that career with the publication of a short story in one of America's foremost literary journals.
Daniel Menasche's story "We Just Came Up From San Francisco" appears in the New Voice section of the summer 2008 edition of Tin House magazine, published in Portland by McCormack Communications.
Menasche, 29, is the son of Abby Layton of Portland and Trout Lake, Wash.
He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from the New School in New York this spring. He did his thesis with David Gates, author of "Jernigan" and "Preston Falls."
Menasche's critical thesis for his MFA was titled "The History of Bastardy in Western Literature from the Classical Era to 1850." His stories comprised his creative thesis.
He earned his undergraduate degree from the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.
Of the publication of his story in Tin House Menasche said, "Tin House is the great democratic literary journal, accessible and intricate.
"For me, it's a special place to debut not only because it has its roots in Portland, but also because it's one of the few literary journals that really sells. They turn a profit, and pay us authors as though we might have done some work."
The story is a little dark, but, optimistic in the end. It is meticulously crafted and speaks of our drive to move on in life, once we can let go of things we allow to trap us, things that can be hard to let go of.
Perhaps it speaks of other things, as well, but, for a reader who was the author's age long ago, the story is an entree to a part of our culture where some of us can't live anymore, but reminds us of how alike we are generation to generation at various stages of our lives.
The story, said Menasche, "is about finding humanity in those we call evil. It is about power, both sexual and economic, and it is about what happened in the mid-90s in the Northwest."
Menasche has another story, "The White Bird of Siauliai," due out in October in The Massachusetts Review.
In recent years Menasche has moved between the east and west coasts. He said he will be moving to Portland soon.
Once back in Portland he plans to continue work on a novel he is at work on now.
He hopes to support himself then by teaching, copy-editing or writing, "anything that will make me feel as though I'm using my extra letters—I mean the MFA," he said.