Context
Review of Literary Magazines: McSweeney’s
Martin Riker
It’s been just under a year of Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern (called McSweeney’s for short) showed up in a handful of bookstores across the country. I
first heard about it from one of the contributors, but soon the name
was being mentioned by friends in diverse locations, people who had no
connection to McSweeney’s. So I bought a copy, and loved it. It
was one of the smartest, funniest literary magazines I’d read. Then,
along with the other readers of McSweeney’s #1, I waited for the second issue, which came out five months later under the new title Timothy McSweeney’s Blues/Jazz Odyssey? (still McSweeney’s for short). The second issue was 25% longer and even smarter and
funnier than the first. Twice as many copies were printed, and they
must have sold pretty well, because McSweeney’s is now coming out with an even larger third issue, titled Timothy McSweeney’s Windfall Republic. I’ve ordered a subscription, and have high expectations. I’m thinking what everybody else who reads McSweeney’s must be thinking around this time, namely, “How long can they possibly keep this up?” “This”
meaning the McSweeneyness, the extraordinary playfulness that marks the
magazine from the very first line, and is evident in everything from
the copyright information to the submission guidelines to the stories
themselves. McSweeney’s is a rare event: a publication with an identity. In this case, an identity that is basically impossible to miss: There
are no restrictions on the size or content of submissions, other than
that they should all be 2,300 words and about relationships. Any
submissions that are not 2,300 words long and about relationships will
not be considered, unless they are 2,300 words long and about talking
animals. If they are not 2,300 words long and about relationships or
talking animals, they should be 670 words and concern problems of race
. . . timeliness is much more of a hindrance than a help, though
material about impeachment might, considering the events in
Washington—whew!—prove very, very funny. . . . (from the submission
guidelines to McSweeney’s issue #2) McSweeney’s is more than funny, it’s new. It both builds on familiar ideas and
confounds them. It inflates to absurd proportion the conventions of
literature (and life), so while it has the basic look of a literary
magazine, and more or less the same features, it provides a very
different experience of reading. It’s eye-opening. Also smart. In
spirit, it’s pure Laurence Sterne: hilariously digressive, at times
brutally critical, always brilliantly new. Take a look at the “Notes On Contributors” at the back of issue #1. The subheading reads: Accompanied
by notes about the inspiration behind the pieces in question, written
not by the authors themselves but instead by Adrienne Miller, before
she read the stories in question or knew the authors responsible. ARTHUR
BRADFORD’S WORK WAS INCLUDED IN THE 1997 O. HENRY AWARDS COLLECTION
COMPILATION AWARD BOOK THING. HE LIVES IN AUSTIN, TEXAS. Adrienne
Miller’s notes continue on, following subsequent author bios, to form a
wandering narrative that exists symbiotically with the list of
contributors. As if somehow what Adrienne Miller has decided to write
in the space provided has become essential to the information that
“Arthur Bradford’s work was included in the 1997 O. Henry Awards. . .
.” If only the “Notes On Contributors” were written this way it might
seem just a quirky (and strained) juxtaposition, but in the context of
the entire McSweeney’s product the pieces become oddly
homogenous, by virtue of some demented overriding version of common
sense, so that it’s hard for me to imagine this particular “Notes On
Contributors” looking any other way. I offer this as an example of the
type of creativity at play in McSweeney’s, a creativity that
works not within a framework but on top of one, using pieces of the
framework itself to make this whole new entity—a Frankenstein’s
monster—this McSweeneyesque thing. Although to call McSweeney’s a meta-magazine (which is something you might be tempted to call it
given only these examples) would neglect the fact that it is also an
actual magazine, with real submissions as multifarious as the editorial
matter, and as important to McSweeney’s overall effect.
Contributions to the first two issues have included everything from
standard story-type fiction to annotated Korean-language lessons to
pictureless cartoons to charts comparing animals that can swim with
animals that cannot. Contributors have included everyone from big-name
fiction writers (like Rick Moody and David Foster Wallace) to
journalists to bookstore employees to college professors. This was just
two issues. Which brings me back to the question: How long can they possibly keep this up? Not a question I ask about many literary magazines. So . . . Availability/subscription info.: McSweeney’s has a website (www.mcsweeneys.net) which contains subscription
information, as well as a list of bookstores that carry the magazine.
The site was called “Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency” last time I
visited. It’s something like an electronic version of McSweeney’s,
but with different contents. Being a website, it tends to be more
topical, and in my opinion less interesting than the print version.
It’s okay as an introduction, but a better introduction would be to
leaf through a copy at a nearby bookstore.
Then we get:
I currently reside in a megalopolis in the American Northeast. I try to
be disciplined about my craft, try to lead a lusterlessly monastic
existence. Try not to let life intrude. I was put on this planet to
decline to participate in it. I’ve got this framed school picture of
myself (third grade, beaverish teeth-hair beaver brown) on my desk, the
desk where I sit every day. I look at that little kid whom I was, that
sinless little kid who once was me. No one thinks to tell you what’s
coming.
