McSweeney's Issue 72

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #72

by Claire Boyle (Editor)

Finish out 2023 in style with a jam-packed metaphorical evening of cultural nourishment courtesy of McSweeney’s 72. Inside this three mini-book volume (bedecked with art by printmaker David Ryan), you’ll find a new play, The Headliners, by Jeffrey Neuman (produced here in an extended playbill of black and white photos from the Denver world-premiere production along with the play’s full text); and experience the hardships and thrills of life on the road as comedian and musician Tim Heidecker guides you through his intimate diary and documentary photos of his The Two Tims tour. With your whistle appropriately wetted, settle in for a full festival’s worth of literary stars including Ed Park’s latest tale of generational differences in family and love; Selena Gambrell Anderson on the intentional wrecking of a rich man’s ill-used ship; Jim Shepard’s new narrative perspective of Dr. Jekyll and his Mr. Hyde; Caleb Crain’s painfully accurate take on the time-honored tradition of hooking up at a writing conference; and Lauren Spohrer on the frightening specter of ghost planes and ghost citations, misattributions and appropriations.

Find all this plus letters considering product demand, the future as an airport terminal, teleportation of orgies to Iowa City, and lingering baby teeth from Dan Poppick, Mina Tavakoli, Vi Khi Nao, and Justin Carder; an excerpt from Eskor David Johnson’s Pay As You Go; Brian Robert Moore’s new translation of Lalla Romano; new work from Erin Somers, Adrian Van Young, Sahar Delijani, and Kevin Moffett; and the winner and runner-up of our inaugural Stephen Dixon Prize: Kristina Ten and Maz Do. Get ready to enrich your soul and live it up in the most introverted way possible, with this concentrated blast of stunning literary periodical content.

Genres: Short Stories

Hardcover

Published December 19, 2023

Reviews

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a bad little selection. This time around you get 3 minibooks. One a script of a play based on a (real) publicity hungry female entertainer from the early 20th century which addresses issues of gender roles and female empowerment. It's actually not as ponderous as I'm making it sound.

Another wee book is the tour diary of comedian/musician Tim Heidecker. I'd not heard of him before but enjoyed the diary.

The final book is the main part of the issue and has the usual prelude of readers letters followed by a series of short stories. Two of them were the winner and runner up of a award for innovative short stories and were great

[Bethany Borgia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adultery is boring

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The format of this one is just a little too twee, and honestly made reading it a chore. Unfortunate, because there were some interesting pieces.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the play and also the tour diary. Stories were a mixed bag but mostly good. I did. OT care for having to read most of it the wrong way. Too cumbersome. The art was also not really my style.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange issue, and I don't just mean the fact that it is pocket-sized and read vertically. It was a challenge both for my brain and my booklight. Standouts for me were "Washing Up" by Erin Somers, "The Air as Air" by Ed Park, and "The Testament of Edward Hyde" by Jim Shepard. The inclusion of Jeffre Neuman's one act play "The Headliners" was also really cool, and I'd love to see it performed. I was a little confused by the inclusion of Tim Heidecker's "From the Bus" which might be fun to read if you're a fan, but I've never actually heard of him before and didn't find anything particularly insightful or interesting from reading his road diary, but maybe if I looked up some of his work, I would.

[Alissa Sheldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guys, there were some nice pieces in here but my Lord the format was annoying - and not up to your publishing quality standards- this time. Please do better.

[Ostap Bender · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, a note to the McSweeney’s editors: please stop publishing these issues in these kinds of twee formats. Pocket-sized and printed so that the booklets have to be rotated 90 degrees isn’t an enjoyable reading experience, and I imagine if I was an author getting something published it wouldn’t be doing me any favors either. Please, just great writing without the gimmicks please.

It’s a shame to have this distraction because there are some notable stories here:

- Washing Up, by Erin Somers, about a woman separated from her husband and living at her job at the car wash, then having a fling with a customer.
- The Air as Air, by Ed Park, about a war vet who does breathing exercises to help cope per a guru he follows meeting his somewhat abrasive father who’s visiting.
- The Testament of Edward Hyde, by Jim Shepard, a take on Jekyll and Hyde with clever, intelligent writing, my favorite of the bunch.
- Time of Useful Consciousness, by Lauren Spohrer, about a proofreader and the parallels between a breakup with a maddeningly inert boyfriend and an incident on an airplane, also a brilliant read.
- Adjective, by Kristina Ten, which cleverly tells the story of subtle racism encountered in the workplace, incorporating an artful spin on Mad Libs.

Also good were:
- Jewel of the Gulf of Mexico, by Selena Gambrell Anderson
- When the Moths Came, by Maz Do
- The Headliners, by Jeffrey Neuman, an included booklet with a play about the real turn-of-the century performers Eva Tanguay and Julian Eltinge, which was snappy and provided a great jumping off point to read up on these two.

Unfortunately, there are also glaring issues aside from the format of this issue, starting with one story printed in its entirety twice, Electric Day by Eskor David Johnson. The letters to the editor were notably subpar, a surprise given how much enjoyment I usually take in them. Lastly, the inclusion of the booklet From the Bus by Tim Heidecker was unfortunate unless you’re a big fan of his, because despite his modest success as a comedian, reading his banal diary entries about his concert tours quickly became tedious.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing short story collection - not sure if they qualify as manifestos

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A couple of stories that really stood out to me, a couple that didn't really resonate. I was really not into the two "supplementary" books that came with this issue, though.

[Paul van Zwieten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erin Somers, Washing up; Sahar Delijani After Life; Maz Do When the morhs came;

[Vladimir Ghinculov · Rating 3 out of 5]

This issue is broken into three booklets: one journal of some guy that may be a local celebrity (musician/ comic) that covers his tour - this was utterly boring and sometimes cringey, a play that was almost ok and the stories that were very good.