The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Out of the Girls' Room and into the Night by Thisbe NissenRebecca Kaiser
Thisbe Nissen. Out of the Girls’ Room and into the Night. Univ. of Iowa Press, 1999. 244 pp. Paper: $19.95.
In her debut collection, Thisbe Nissen tackles big, life-altering subjects as told by an almost entirely adolescent cast of characters. Parents make a few appearances—and are sometimes the subject of the teenage tribulations—but mainly they exist as foils to or in support of their gay, anorexic, or runaway children. I was delighted by Nissen’s ability to put me inside such characters and create empathy in ways that I would not have imagined. Although the characters have little in common besides age—they range from Midwestern college roommates to transient Deadheads to Peace Corps volunteers—Nissen knows the details of each one’s embarrassments, heartaches, and physical sensations, and she expresses those sensations through hilarious pop cultural references and simple, transcendent images that are quite moving.
Nissen performs well with metaphor, convincingly drawing connections among love, illness, death, and life throughout these stories. While this collection may contain some of the unevenness expected from a first-time author, more than a few of these stories were truly enchanting. I look forward to reading more from this author as her skill matures. [Rebecca Kaiser]