Dave Eggers

A beautiful issue to commemorate McSweeney's 50th edition since it started in 1998. This is the first issue to be edited by Claire Boyle instead of Dave Eggers, and the last issue in which Eggers provides the introduction in the tiny print of the colophon as has been his tradition. The 50th includes the work of 50 contemporary authors, most of whom are friends of the magazine and have frequently been published by it. More than that though, it includes a little bit of everything McSweeney: a beautiful, creative, quality object, a book jacket that folds out into a gorgeous and touching piece of graphic art, letters from celebrities, humor pieces, essays, and weird little touches like Sarah Manguso's six-sentence story printed on the cover.
I fully expect McSweeney's to last at least another 50 issues as it pushes on with Eggers simply in the role of "Founding Editor" and new captains manning the ship.… (mais)

After more than two years of silence, while McSweeney's transitioned to being non-profit, raised money through donations and advertising, and had to sell off its beloved Believer Magazine, many thought McSweeney's Quarterly Concern was dead. But out came issue 49, a star-studded collection of contemporary writers providing new versions of classic short stories by famous writers. Issue 49 also marks the last time Dave Eggers is listed as McSweeney's Editor, and the first and only time McSweeney's contained third-party advertising.
I seem to recall that the original design for this issue was for it to mimic a box set of vinyl records with the stories in individual booklets made to look like record albums. No doubt that proved too costly and they pared back to this square paperback with front and back covers much in the style of The Beatle's Sgt.Pepper, with the inspirational artists on the front and the actual ones on the back. The letters in the Letters section are almost all about music, and there's excerpts from the autobiography of record cover artist, Gary Burden (also the creative director for the issue's cover), all of which is line with the box set idea.
The stories are uniformly good ranging from simply retelling the original in modern voice, to placing the key events in new settings, to using the original idea as a beginning point and going off in a new direction. I particularly remember Emily Raboteau's take on Alice Munro's "Some Women," Megan Mayhew Bergman's version of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and T.C. Boyle's remake of "The Agentine Ant," by Italo Calvino. Some of the stories inspired me to read the original version. The issue also includes poetry covers, a teaser excerpt from Patty Yumi Cottrell's (now Patrick Cottrell's) book, "Sorry To Disrupt the Peace," an introduction by Mr. Eggers explaining the issue's concept and lamenting society's backward step with the Trump presidency, and clever little snippets throughout comparing great speeches from history with the tweets of D. J. Trump.… (mais)