Tom Hanks Wrote a Short Story

By: Aryanne Ferguson

Did anyone else know that Tom Hanks wrote a short story and it was published in the New Yorker? I knew from an NPR interview that the Hollywood film star collects typewriters, but I didn’t know that he’d used those typewriters to pen a kind-of-hilarious short story. Read it here.

I admit that I usually struggle with The New Yorker’s short stories, but I had a vested interest in this one because its topic is space travel. I had trouble with this story because I couldn’t imagine the story’s world, which is definitely not our reality. I may not have a degree in Astrophysics, but I know duct tape should not be part of the shuttle you use to rocket to the moon. The improbability of the scenario is what made the story kind-of-hilarious for me. Space travel has been in the news lately, due to the explosion of the Antares rocket at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility and the space tourism rocket crash. That Tom Hanks, always so relevant.

What do you think of the story, Reader? And who knew Woody had it in him?