McSweeney's Issue 9: We Feel This One Is More Urgent

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #9

by Dave Eggers (Editor)

The ninth edition of this American literary quarterly includes contributions from Isaac Babel, Doug Dorst, Jeff Greenwald, A. M. Homes, Gabe Hudson, Denis Johnson, Roy Kesey, K. Kvashay-Boyle, Nicholas Minton, Ellen Moore, Val Vinokurov, William T. Vollmann.

This edition is a simple paperback and returns to the earlier tradition of naming the collection.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Literature, Anthologies

252 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

McSweeney’s hit it out of the park with this one! Nothing fancy about the presentation, just an incredibly solid collection of stories. The spine says “We feel this one is more urgent” and the stories live up to this, not in their importance, but in the urgency in the writing. It makes for a strong page-turner!

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple stories/essays were extremely moving. Vollman's and Greenwald's in particular.

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the early issues of McSweeney's, and throws back to the cover design of the first three issues. Already, though, it had become the place to publish, and the quality is quite high.

It contains Roy Kesey's story "Pacazo" which, I understand, was later an interesting novel. Jeff Greenwald's "My New Best Friend" (a trekking memoir piece) claims it is to be part of a longer book, but I don't think that happened.

I liked Val Vinokurov's piece on Russian skaz literature, followed by the example chapter, Isaac Babel's "Salt." Useful as a way of thinking about narrative style beyond the Russian version. ("Sholom Aleichem's Tevye, Mark Twain's Huck, I.B. Singer's Gimpel, Anthony Burgess's Alex, Sapphire's Precious..." are examples of skaz-like work.) I especially liked William T. Vollman's "Three Meditations on Death." I'll also be recommending the A.M. Homes piece and the Nathaniel Minton piece as excellent examples of writing in a strong POV.

"Notes from a Bunker along Highway 8" contains one annoying detail, page 111, where the term "click" is used for a measure of distance. I assume the author meant klick, and also didn't know what that meant (since the distance would be too great).

What didn't work for me at all, at all, was Denis Johnson's play, "Soul of a Whore." Very low traction, very low gear, in my opinion. I know it went on to be staged and I admire other Johnson work, but no.

[Mikael · Rating 3 out of 5]

first time i met william t. vollmann was in the catacombs in paris

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

McSweeney's publishes my kind of contemporary fiction. And by that I mean the kind that I can actually get through and enjoy.