What do you think?
Rate this book
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #55
McSweeney's Issue 55
Issue 55 of McSweeny's Quarterly Concern gathers fiction from Laura van den Berg, Gordon Lish, T Kira Madden, and Emma Copley Eisenberg, to name a few; letters about face masks and puttanesca and the rapid disintegration of our natural world by R. O. Kwon, Alexander Chee, and Jack Pendarvis; a searing nonfiction piece by José Orduña that harkens back to shoe-leather journalism, chronicling his experience at immigrant-rights demonstrations across the spectrum of activism; oh, and a 16-page section of mesmerizing photography by Pelle Cass from his series “Crowded Fields.” Read and be renewed!
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
253 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2019
2 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 16, 2023
found some new favorites in this 😙💡☝️……
• “monona” by raven leilani
• “ghost lover” by lisa taddeo
• “delandria” by asali solomon
• “the bone ward” by kate folk
• “monona” by raven leilani
• “ghost lover” by lisa taddeo
• “delandria” by asali solomon
• “the bone ward” by kate folk
July 19, 2019
Favorite stories:
- Mourners, by Shruti Swamy
- Ghost Lover, by Lisa Taddeo
- Delandria, by Asali Solomon
- The Bone Ward, by Kate Folk (probably the best of all)
Honorable mention:
- A Brief History of Grocery Stores, by T Kira Madden
- The photo essay Crowded Fields, by Pelle Cass
- Corpse Flower, by Lucy Tan
Favorite lines:
- “Then she’d seen him in the supermarket palming onions, and remembered the very particular way Wisconsin boys could be beautiful.” (Monona, by Raven Leilani)
- “He becomes calm, even as his body reaches the frenzy. The feeling is almost holy.” (Mourners, by Shruti Swamy)
- “You ate red and black berries on the sunny patio of the bungalow that morning and read the paper together, but the fear had crept in and was sitting on the wrought-iron bench beside you, your own ghost lover that only you could see.” (Ghost Lover, by Lisa Taddeo)
- “It took him a long time for him to forget about his brother, but eventually he did. Or maybe forget was not the right word. His memory was like a faint scuttling beneath the floorboards of a house. It was like eating a sumptuous meal to the barely audible sound of animals being slaughtered.” (The Pitch, by Laura Van Der Berg)
- “They [14th century wealthy merchants of Venice] consolidated a government in which only members of their class could hold office; invented managerial techniques and financial instruments that allowed them to accumulate vast wealth; instituted a police force that, at its height, numbered ‘one patroller to every 250 inhabitants’; and developed a system of legal codes that could appear to be neutral, objective, and rational, rather than the arbitrary will of those in power.” (A National of Laws, A People of Compassion, by Jose Orduna … how interesting how history repeats itself in varying forms across time and cultures)
- “I sometimes miss the sensation of total bone loss, its own kind of orgasm. A forced surrender, a sudden lack – like a floor dropping out, air and light rushing into a room.” (The Bone Ward, by Kate Folk)
- “But there are nights when your future seems to be daring you to change course. So you do or say something you don’t mean, strain to listen for an echo of the person you might be.” (Corpse Flower, by Lucy Tan)
- Mourners, by Shruti Swamy
- Ghost Lover, by Lisa Taddeo
- Delandria, by Asali Solomon
- The Bone Ward, by Kate Folk (probably the best of all)
Honorable mention:
- A Brief History of Grocery Stores, by T Kira Madden
- The photo essay Crowded Fields, by Pelle Cass
- Corpse Flower, by Lucy Tan
Favorite lines:
- “Then she’d seen him in the supermarket palming onions, and remembered the very particular way Wisconsin boys could be beautiful.” (Monona, by Raven Leilani)
- “He becomes calm, even as his body reaches the frenzy. The feeling is almost holy.” (Mourners, by Shruti Swamy)
- “You ate red and black berries on the sunny patio of the bungalow that morning and read the paper together, but the fear had crept in and was sitting on the wrought-iron bench beside you, your own ghost lover that only you could see.” (Ghost Lover, by Lisa Taddeo)
- “It took him a long time for him to forget about his brother, but eventually he did. Or maybe forget was not the right word. His memory was like a faint scuttling beneath the floorboards of a house. It was like eating a sumptuous meal to the barely audible sound of animals being slaughtered.” (The Pitch, by Laura Van Der Berg)
- “They [14th century wealthy merchants of Venice] consolidated a government in which only members of their class could hold office; invented managerial techniques and financial instruments that allowed them to accumulate vast wealth; instituted a police force that, at its height, numbered ‘one patroller to every 250 inhabitants’; and developed a system of legal codes that could appear to be neutral, objective, and rational, rather than the arbitrary will of those in power.” (A National of Laws, A People of Compassion, by Jose Orduna … how interesting how history repeats itself in varying forms across time and cultures)
- “I sometimes miss the sensation of total bone loss, its own kind of orgasm. A forced surrender, a sudden lack – like a floor dropping out, air and light rushing into a room.” (The Bone Ward, by Kate Folk)
- “But there are nights when your future seems to be daring you to change course. So you do or say something you don’t mean, strain to listen for an echo of the person you might be.” (Corpse Flower, by Lucy Tan)
July 21, 2022
If there was a theme to this volume, I failed to grasp it. The stories are well-told, and interestingly written. They often have the downbeat or truncated endings favored by Literary markets, but I didn't feel cheated. At least, not as I recall.
I was not taken by the photo-collage-essay, feeling that a single example would have made the whole point.
Having had the experience of having an actual memoir-essay published in a magazine that labeled it Fiction, I'm a bit of a stickler for honest labeling. McSweeney's 55 takes the opposite view. The result is that in a mixture of fiction, memoir and essay, I don't think many readers would be correct in guessing which was which. Does this make us ponder the nature of Reality? No, I think it makes us question the quality of Honesty.
I found Lisa Taddeo's story "Ghost Lover" to be brave; and it addresses something that is being suppressed and self-censored these days.
T Kira Madden's second-person piece "A Brief History of Grocery Stores" got the note "Ouch" from me, and also an unintended side-effect. I was reading _The Long and Faraway Gone_ when I read this story, and my mind folded it into that book as one of the subplots. I would realize it was intruding into my memory of the book, and I would carefully extract it. A day or two later, it would be back in.
It's a strong piece, despite trying to invade somebody else's novel.
Kate Folk's "The Bone Ward" is a speculative fiction of some stripe, and I think one needs to evoke Kafka as the comparison point. It invents a disease in which the person's whole skeleton dissolves each night, then (in the right circumstances) reforms in the morning. It's an unreliable -- or maybe just despicable -- narrator story, and would be an interesting one to make undergraduates chew on.
Favorite line, on the subject of paper towels, from Lucy Tan's "Corpse Flower": She had a condescending way of pulling a square off the roll.
Cliché Warning: on page 228, there's one of those breaths the POV character didn't know they were holding.
I was not taken by the photo-collage-essay, feeling that a single example would have made the whole point.
Having had the experience of having an actual memoir-essay published in a magazine that labeled it Fiction, I'm a bit of a stickler for honest labeling. McSweeney's 55 takes the opposite view. The result is that in a mixture of fiction, memoir and essay, I don't think many readers would be correct in guessing which was which. Does this make us ponder the nature of Reality? No, I think it makes us question the quality of Honesty.
I found Lisa Taddeo's story "Ghost Lover" to be brave; and it addresses something that is being suppressed and self-censored these days.
T Kira Madden's second-person piece "A Brief History of Grocery Stores" got the note "Ouch" from me, and also an unintended side-effect. I was reading _The Long and Faraway Gone_ when I read this story, and my mind folded it into that book as one of the subplots. I would realize it was intruding into my memory of the book, and I would carefully extract it. A day or two later, it would be back in.
It's a strong piece, despite trying to invade somebody else's novel.
Kate Folk's "The Bone Ward" is a speculative fiction of some stripe, and I think one needs to evoke Kafka as the comparison point. It invents a disease in which the person's whole skeleton dissolves each night, then (in the right circumstances) reforms in the morning. It's an unreliable -- or maybe just despicable -- narrator story, and would be an interesting one to make undergraduates chew on.
Favorite line, on the subject of paper towels, from Lucy Tan's "Corpse Flower": She had a condescending way of pulling a square off the roll.
Cliché Warning: on page 228, there's one of those breaths the POV character didn't know they were holding.
January 7, 2020
I was impressed by the high quality of writing in this, my first, McSweeney's. I enjoyed the short story called "The Bone Ward" and the non-fiction essay "A Nation of Laws, A People of Compassion" from which:
"Our presence confronted them with the reality of being healers in a system that privileged capital over life." p. 155
"People may lose a great deal of money on an almost continuous basis in these casinos, but orders of magnitude more lose everything to hospital bills and mortgage lenders. At least here the casinos clearly post the odds." p. 160
"According to the Human Freedom Index, the United States is among the freest countries in the world. The index makes this claim despite the fact that the US also has the highest number of prisoners worldwide." p.165
"What can liberty mean, I think, when children younger than the girl I'm looking at now are locked in cages by successive American presidents from both parties?" p. 167
"Their message (to Pelosi) was multipart: (1) the United States bears huge responsibility foe creating migration because of its predatory economic and military interventions throughout Latin America and the so-called third world, which means that (2) the US government owes a tremendous debt to the immigrants already here and to those who may need to come in the foreseeable future, and that (3) this debt can partially be redressed through immigration policy, and that (4) the Democratic Party has always collaborated in the ruinous policies that create migration and then criminalize and persecute immigrants." p. 171
"Our presence confronted them with the reality of being healers in a system that privileged capital over life." p. 155
"People may lose a great deal of money on an almost continuous basis in these casinos, but orders of magnitude more lose everything to hospital bills and mortgage lenders. At least here the casinos clearly post the odds." p. 160
"According to the Human Freedom Index, the United States is among the freest countries in the world. The index makes this claim despite the fact that the US also has the highest number of prisoners worldwide." p.165
"What can liberty mean, I think, when children younger than the girl I'm looking at now are locked in cages by successive American presidents from both parties?" p. 167
"Their message (to Pelosi) was multipart: (1) the United States bears huge responsibility foe creating migration because of its predatory economic and military interventions throughout Latin America and the so-called third world, which means that (2) the US government owes a tremendous debt to the immigrants already here and to those who may need to come in the foreseeable future, and that (3) this debt can partially be redressed through immigration policy, and that (4) the Democratic Party has always collaborated in the ruinous policies that create migration and then criminalize and persecute immigrants." p. 171
February 22, 2024
Great Issue.
T Kira Madden's Story 'A Brief History of Grocery Stores' might be the best story, or possibly the most haunting one I've ever read in 55 issues of McSweeney's. I'm still recovering.
The José Orduña piece about protest marches is, however, even more scary. Here in Belgium, we are also starting to get these protest-stifling laws. Only recently a union leader from Antwerp was convicted for blocking a street. We are not making progress! Orduña makes clear what exactly we are in the process of losing.
Other favorites:
Emma Copley Eisenberg: 'I want a friend';
Asali Solomon: 'Delandria';
Lucy Tan: 'Corpse Flower'.
T Kira Madden's Story 'A Brief History of Grocery Stores' might be the best story, or possibly the most haunting one I've ever read in 55 issues of McSweeney's. I'm still recovering.
The José Orduña piece about protest marches is, however, even more scary. Here in Belgium, we are also starting to get these protest-stifling laws. Only recently a union leader from Antwerp was convicted for blocking a street. We are not making progress! Orduña makes clear what exactly we are in the process of losing.
Other favorites:
Emma Copley Eisenberg: 'I want a friend';
Asali Solomon: 'Delandria';
Lucy Tan: 'Corpse Flower'.
July 27, 2019
Some pretty good stuff in this issue. I was happiest with the stories by Laura Van Den Berg, Lisa Taddeo, T. Kira Madden, and Asali Solomon. Kate Folk's disturbing story The Bone Ward impressed me the most, and I enjoyed José Orduña's nonfiction about protest in Las Vegas. The last story, by Joanna Howard talks about the time that Hoyt Axton sang on an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, which made me feel like this book was made just for me.
August 24, 2020
This felt like one of the strongest McSweeney’s in a long time - a great blend of fiction, reportage, and even some photography. Standouts include T Kira Madden’s A BRIEF HISTORY OF GROCERY STORES, Laura Van Den Berg’s THE PITCH, and Kate Folk’s THE BONE WARD, but there are very few weak spots in the whole collection.
May 27, 2025
Picked this book up in a little free library because of the cover (no shame) - and I am reminded why I love free little libraries. Did I love this? no, in fact some of the short stories in the collection were scary. But, I never would have found this and read this otherwise and it is good to explore.
August 23, 2020
All were very well-written works, but I felt lukewarm about most of them. The exception was The Bone Ward, which was a spectacular short story incorporating romance, mystery, and a terrifying disease. Delandria, Ghost Lover, and Corpse Flower were also fun.
April 21, 2019
Rating not a reflection of quality, just of my own enjoyment. Liked a handful of stories, was ambivalent to most.
April 24, 2019
Great stuff - back to collecting great writing
June 19, 2019
Strong issue; the opening short story was my favorite.
Read
August 1, 2019Coll.
October 28, 2019
Just a good, solid collection of pieces. Nothing much more to say about it!
September 11, 2020
Super good issue. Kate Folk's short story "The Bone Ward" is astounding.
February 16, 2023
One or two stunning stories in here surrounded my middling, forgettable pieces. Kate Folk's story was phenomenal. I can't stop thinking about it.
September 17, 2023
Enjoyable but not memorable. The bone ward and the piece about protesting for DACA were my favorites
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews