Customer Reviews

McSweeney's Issue 34 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)

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McSweeney's 34 is 2 paperbacks inside a plastic jacket. It's well presented although the paperbacks stink of plastic when you're holding them.

The first paperback is the usual McSweeney's, short stories. There's also a letters page where writers like John Hodgman and Sarah Vowell try to be as funny as Robin Cooper and fail. The only contribution worth reading in this book is an extract called "The Wreck of the Beverley B" by TC Boyle, from his forthcoming novel "When The Killing's Done". It's an excellent story about a woman out on a fishing boat with her husband and his friend who gets shipwrecked and winds up on a deserted island with huts full of food and clothes. Who lived in the huts and when will rescue come? Boyle proves why he's the only famous name here with this great story and usual high quality writing.

The second paperback is Nick McDonell's book "The End of Major Combat Operations", a look at the American occupation of Iraq.

The novelist Nick McDonell is embedded in the 1st Cavalry Division for 2 weeks ostensibly on behalf of Time magazine to gather information on an article about the tensions between the Arabs and the Kurds and whether this would escalate into a civil war. The book is an account of his day to day time in Iraq during those 2 weeks.

McDonell sees how soldiers who have been trained to fight have to learn to become diplomatic policeman as they patrol the streets, direct traffic, search houses, and mediate disputes. It's an uneasy situation for the soldiers who mostly seem lost and bored.

The book shows how fragile the supposed democracy of Iraq is. Iraqi interpreters (or "terps" in military slang) are saving money to leave the country before the end of 2011 as that's the date set for US Military withdrawal. If they stay behind, they will likely be killed. When McDonell talks to soldiers in the Iraqi army, they say quite brazenly that as soon as the US leaves they will take off their uniforms and run away. There is a lot of talk about police chiefs supporting terrorists and taking bribes.

Even when the Americans are trying to do good they end up inadvertently causing trouble for the locals. On one occasion, soldiers are monitoring the distribution of rice sacks to the population. 2 masked men show up and begin shooting at the soldiers who shoot back. The masked men run off but 2 young boys who were playing by a nearby truck are shot dead in the crossfire. McDonell wonders if the soldiers had not been there if the boys would not be dead. McDonell organises a basketball game with a friend's cousin but has to reschedule due to meetings. The game never takes place and he receives an email saying the cousin was killed because he was playing basketball and seen to be promoting a Western pastime.

The overall impression of the book is faint as, personal tragedies aside, there isn't an overall message or vision that will come as a surprise to many. Iraq is a mess and the occupation is, and always has been, shaky. The American presence is the only reason any perceived progress is made and when the Americans leave, all that they've tried to set up, the infrastructure, the ideology, all the work gone into improving society, will probably come undone.

It's a well written book that holds your interest but there isn't anything groundbreaking imparted by the writer. But then he was only there for a fortnight. The book left me with a weariness I feel whenever I think about the Iraq war. It just seems so pointless. One of the soldiers, Specialist Patterson, a medic with the 1st Cavalry, sums it up succinctly: "They were fighting each other before we got here. They're gonna be fighting after we leave." Why are we still bothering this country?

It's not a strong issue after the triumphant newspaper issue but it's got a couple of highlights anyway.

Another strong issue. This issue comprises two books--one a collection of stories, another a novella-sized nonfiction book about interpreters in Iraq--held in a thick plastic sleeve.

As always, Anthony Doerr outdoes himself in his new novella "Afterworld," about a Jewish refugee in her last years, who remembers her childhood orphanage friends and her escape and--well, as usual, it's a Doerr story that rejects easy summarization, that sets ridiculous ambitions for itself and answers all of them. It's an entertaining, poignant, and brilliantly well-written story. Again, Doerr is worth the price of admission alone.

T.C. Boyle also has an incredible long short story/novel excerpt about a Navy wife surviving a disaster at sea. It's an exciting story that goes where it will, but never predictably, the clear sign of a master at work.

Otherwise, there are five good stories, two decent ones, and two duds (the bookends). Mona Awad writes a fun story about a self-aggrandized musician and his "fat girl" groupie, a story about methods of revenge. Sean Casey writes a bizarre and joyful account of courting strange women in strange ways. Tom Barbash has a great epistolary story about an obsessive tennis coach and his attempts to tutor a reluctant phenom, a wonderful example of the unreliable narrator. Daniel Handler has a quiet story about an old couple realizing their end, a story that's slyer than it first seems. Bridget Clerkin has a nice piece that can't be summarized for giving it away, and Peter Orner and David Means write some short shorts.

They bring back the letters for this issue, which are there if you like letters. Nontextually, there's also a series of self-portraits by celebrities and writers, which are a moment's amusement.

"The End of Major Combat Operations," the nonfiction Iraq War supplement by Nick McDonell, is interesting for its focus on interpreters, an otherwise overlooked aspect of the Iraq War. The book reinforces the themes of bewilderment and bemused resignation that frame the best war stories fiction or non-, and it does deliver a few novel bons mots: "I would like to 'learn and adapt'--to learn, perhaps, that isolating the ephemera of a complex and bloody war--a field manual, for example--is an easy way to criticize an institution, and an old trick." To his credit, McDonell has very little discernible agenda, and when irreverent, it's an irreverence considerate and well-aimed.