Customer Reviews

McSweeney's Issue 18 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)

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McSweeney's Issue 18 isn't much to look at, granted, with a pleasant-enough maze design accounting for its sole visual flair, but it is one of the strongest issues in terms of prose.

Surprising first of all is the amount of nonfiction in the pieces here. One of the strongest is Edmund White's memoir about a lifetime of illicit affairs, which is engaging and quotable throughout. There's also a flash nonfiction self-titled piece by Deb Unferth (what could be called a metafictional exercise, but only if you were being dishonest), and some straight-up science writing from Lawrence Weschler.

Nonfiction also informs Daniel Orozco's story of Paraguayan dictator Anastasio Somozo García. Orozco's story is rich with detail, the work of a linguaphile loving his subject, poetic and impressive.

As goes pure fiction, Chris Adrian's story of a large group of siblings evaluating their various stepsfather is funny, astute, and quietly unnerving. Roddy Doyle's "New Boy" is just what you want Doyle to be--very quick, very readable, and possessive of a great ending. The story does hamper itself slightly with forced topicality, but so be it. Elsewhere, Adam Levin writes a perceptive untrustworthy-narrator story about a tough guy and his smart-set girl (novel because that relationship has only ever been told from the other direction).

Also superb is Rachel Himmelheber's "Happiness Reminders," a convergence story that executes well that often-treacherous style. It's a cops and robbers story, essentially, exploring how the lives of the main cop and robber transect each other unbeknownst to either character. And it has a terrific ending. Joe Meno's story about a man whose wife can't stop turning into a cloud is a sharp, undislikable piece of absurdism.

There are also strong stories from Philip Meyer, about an estranged son trying to prevent his father's suicide, Alan Ackman, about a superstitious man and his trophy wife avoiding demons, Yannick Murphy, about a mother and son reconciling the loss of their husband/father in the face of a bear, and Nelly Reifler, about a nurse undergoing a harrowing final exam, including a vivisection.

In fact, the only dud of the issue curiously belongs to Joyce Carol Oates, and illustrates the hazards of accepting just anything from a big name. Like a band who submits an unmastered, tossed-off B-side for a charity compilation, it's hard not to think of this story coming from Oates' bottom drawer.

But oh well: the story is a tiny fraction of the whole, and the rest is pure quality. The short stories in 18 are quite long too, giving them a chance to develop, to explore themselves and their rich topics. This issue is again chockful of great material, another shining example of some of the strongest fiction being written nowadays, another example of why to befriend Timothy McSweeney.

I've only read the first story so far,
and it was a joy to read.

Whoever it is that wrote it-- I'll be looking for books by you.