McSweeney's Issue 66

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #66

by Claire Boyle (Editor), Dave Eggers (Editor), Stephen King (Contributor)

McSweeney’s National Magazine Award-winning quarterly brings you our 66th issue, an elegant paperback festooned with coded illustrations by Jacques Kleynhans (see how many versions of the number 66 you can spot). Featuring “Willie the Weirdo,” a brand-new story by legendary horror writer Stephen King; plus stories by Taisia Kitaiskaia, Hernan Diaz, and T.C. Boyle; poems by Soviet poet Anna Akhmatova newly translated by Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky; a surreal full-color comic by Teddy Goldenberg; letters from Samantha Hunt and Kate Folk; and more. McSweeney’s Issue 66 promises a rip-roaring time you won’t soon forget—peel back its pages and dig in.


Letters / from Samantha Hunt, Shayna Conde, Kate Folk, and Afabwaje Kurian --
Pelican Paradise / Nicky Gonzalez --
When a man dies / Anna Akhmatova (trans. Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky) --
Dog lab / T.C. Boyle --
The world of interiors / Hernan Diaz --
Origin story / Corinna Vallianatos --
Soil Science / Teddy Goldenberg --
Willie the weirdo / Stephen King --
from Northern elegies, #4 / Anna Akhmatova (trans. Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky) --
Neighborhood dogs / Taisia Kitaiskaia --
Viperidae / Victor Ladis Schultz --
The little men / Carl Napolitano --
Wild honey has a scent of freedom / Anna Akhmatova (trans. Katie Farris and Ilya Kaminsky) --
The sorrows of others / Ada Zhang.

Genres: Short Stories, Poetry, Fiction

202 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2022

Reviews

[Wayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love McSweeney’s Quarterly concern, so I’m a biased narrator, but there is something special about 66. Maybe it says more about me and my interrupted allegiance to subscribing to McSweeney’s, whenever cash flow allows, but I delight in the expansive and diverse viewpoints and voice that emanate from this particular quarterly. It’s a wonderful snapshot of a sliver of America.

I know that having successful, or rather, popular, well-known authors like Stephen King and T.C. Boyle (and for Russian poetry fans Anna Akhmatova) contributing to the quarterly, at once keeps them nimble and subscribers and newcomers alike delighted to find an old friend, and probably helps sell some copies.

But it’s the new, new to me writers, that really shine a light on what makes McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern a national treasure.

I loved all the letters, as usual, but was really blown away by Corinna Vallianatos’s vignette travelogue through Origin Story. Or Nicky Gonzalez’s Pelican Paradise, which slammed me back to adolescence and the wonders and mysteries of strange adults that I found comfort.

T.C. Boyle, comforted me with the humanity of his characterization of a dog and his person.

And I could go on. It’s a good one. I love to have McSweeney’s just show up, usually right when everything has gone to hell. Never enough to read but these moments, discovery through answering questions, being lead along on new adventures. I love it.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great issue - and the Stephen King short story is him at his creepy best

[Ostap Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the stronger recent issues from McSweeney’s, maybe because if felt less forced in terms of stories fitting a certain theme or diversity profile. Well worth picking up and reading, and as always, I appreciate the work McSweeney’s does to help writers.

Favorites:
Pelican Paradise, by Nicky Gonzalez
Dog Lab, by T.C. Boyle
Willie the Weirdo, by Stephen King
Neighborhood Dogs, by Taisia Kitaiskaia
The poetry from Anna Akhmatova, especially Wild Honey has a Scent of Freedom

Pretty good stuff too:
The World of Interiors, by Hernan Diaz
Viperidae, by Victor Ladis Schultz
The Little Men, by Carl Napolitano
The Sorrows of Others, by Ada Zhang

Didn’t connect with it:
Origin Story, by Corinna Vallianatos
Soil Science, by Teddy Goldenberg

[Amos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bought it for King.
Stayed for the rest.

3 Creative Stars

[Jessy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5! <3 mcsweeney's

[Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories all around. My faves were from Boyle, King, Diaz and Schultz. One of the best issues in recent memory :)

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag, got this for the King story which was only ok. A few others were pretty good, and some awful.

[Amanda NEVER MANDY · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review of the previous issue explains how I ended up here. Here being completely out of order because I read it first, received it second and reviewed it second. Here also being the why to how I ended up with the previous. If you don’t follow, I understand, because I barely do myself. I am past here, far into there, as I sit her months after the fact, typing this sentence.

This one contained a Stephen King short story, which is what brought me to this adventure in reading (not using the H word to spare your sanity). It also contained letters, one illustrated story, three poems and eight other short stories. Two of the stories stuck with me because of how fast they submerged me in their emotional muck, “Pelican Paradise” and “Dog Lab”. Two more left me perplexed with their oddness, “The World of Interiors” and “The Little Men”.

All in all, a read worth four stars.

[Kristopher Larsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple really good short stories in this volume! Particularly 'A Volcano is Born' by Brenda Lozano and 'El Senor de la Palma' by Edmundo Paz Soldan.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just getting to my 2022 Covid hermitage McSweeney subscription as the bookshelf purge continues.
#66 themes: Dogs, death / aging / the end of things.

As typical with McSweeney's collections, there are too many stories by struggling middle class writers about struggling middle class writers.

Three stand-outs:
- Stephen King's "Willie the Weirdo": ☆☆☆☆
- Taisa Kitaiskaia's "Neighborhood dogs": ☆☆☆☆
- The three translations of Anna Akhmatova's poems are excellent. I will have to seek her out.

Worth a look:
- "Viperidae" - six village characters hunt a giant rattlesnake in a dark cave: ☆☆☆

The others range from curiosities to 'meh' to the aforementioned struggling artist navel gazing:
- "Pelican Paradise"- brief adolescent contemplation of the human condition around a phenomenon in which expecting fathers develop empathetic false pregnancies, which kill them when their partners give birth: ☆☆
- "Dog Lab" - requires a strong stomach but well-crafted: ☆☆
- "World of Interiors"- one of the struggling artist / new parent autobiographical snoozers: ☆
- "Origin Story" - yet another one, but worse: ☆
- "Soil Science" - illustrated, bland, feels like zionist apologia: ☆
- "The Little Men" - loads of cum and yet another struggling artist writing about himself: ☆
- "The Sorrows of Others" - I just couldn't care about any of these people; maybe a hazard of being the final story: ☆☆

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, I just love Jacques Kleynhans's cover art for this issue. The small cartoons are either references to the stories or to the number 66, which is the edition number. This has the inside-joke, attention-to-detailishness that has been a chief attraction of McSweeney's from the beginning.

Shayna Conde's letter at the beginning is a brave bit of art, and it reminded me of Tess Hadley's approach to experience and decision-making. (I'm not suggesting that the letter is fiction, at all, but just trying to describe the emotional detail.)

This is a strong collection of fiction, but it did not feel cohesive. Stephen King's piece is very much his type of horror, neatly done. Boyle's piece feels close to polemic, which has been my impression of his work (which I've not read to any extent). Strong, but close to polemic. There were a high number of "outsider POV" tales, which is often an excellent choice.

My two favorite pieces were King's and Ada Zhang's "The Sorrows of Others." The Zhang describes a difficult attempt at adjustment, and did not go where I thought it would be going. I will be looking for more of Zhang's work.

One story got the note "weirdly interesting" from me, and that is "The Little Men" by Carl Napolitano. It's half folk tale, half surreal, and all Event story. This one would be very interesting to teach, as it is more complex than it feels while reading.

I believe this issue is also grimace-free.

[Martin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very mixed bag of short stories and poetry, certain to be a top selling issue because of the inclusion of a horror story by Stephen King. The best story in the bunch is by Ada Zhang. A couple of the stories use indirect writing to hint at the plot, blah. Two of the stories are truly offensive. We know that very few people enjoy these types of stories, but there is a group of readers that love the idea that others are offended. It gets them off and builds within them a sense of superiority. "Look, I'm reading the story about the torturing of dogs and other people will hate it; those intellectually inferior swine."

We are left to wonder, why do editors choose to put truly offensive stories into an issue like this? The King story will pull in readers who've never or rarely purchased McSweeney's, but before the hook is set a good portion of this new audience learns, "What the editors really want to do is give pleasure to one group of readers by offending another." There's nothing in these two offensive stories that would make them good stories. They are not well written or witty or eye opening. They are just disgusting. Well done McSweeney's; your audience will not grow, reducing your opportunity to share the work of a writer like Zhang with the world. Instead, you can only look forward to getting a circulation pop the next time a writer like King decides to do you a favor.

[Marcella · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had some excellent stories and some that were confusing to me (a pleb who doesn't understand symbolism). I enjoyed it as a whole, I also thought it was well curated - the stories fit together. I also liked the general concept of reading work by writers who haven't run the full gauntlet of "getting published and popular enough that my local library has them on a shelf".

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

McSweeney's is always a good collection, but this one had a couple of stand outs. The first one is "Dog Lab" by T.C. Boyle. Incredibly moving and philosophical piece on ethics and humanity. The second is "The Little Men" by Carl Napolitano which is the kind of weird magical realism backed with massive literary skill that I love so much.

[Julian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been excellent to get back into my backlog of these. The stories are often surprising in depth of feeling for their brevity. Seeing Stephen King among the authors of this volume was unexpected and the short horror story he contributed was perfect.

I'm looking forward to catching up to more recent volumes.

[Paul van Zwieten · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good set of stories, especially T.C. Boyle, Stephen King, Victor Schultz, Carl Napolitano - very sad and beautiful story about creativity and loss. But all the other stories were nice, strong poems by Anna Achmatova (hope for more translations!), a weird graphical story by Teddy Goldenberg.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like I made the complete journey here from “why don’t I read more short stories? These are incredible” to kind of peeking ahead to see how many were left. Maybe just got tired of them, or they front loaded the really stellar ones. Pleasant read though.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection about strangeness. As usual the work ranges from the comfortably absorbing to the dreadfully self-absorbed. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Stephen King's story is far and away the best.

[Gerard Van Elzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great issue!
Best stories imho:
Nicky Gonzalez: Pelican Paradise
T.C. Boyle: Dog Lab
Hernan Diaz: The World of Interiors
Carlk Napolitano: The Little Men
Ada Zhang: The Sorrows of Others
Stephen King: Willie the Weirdo
And Ana Akhmatova!

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thi was a back to basics home run! I loved all of these stories. The theme seemed to be they were all just a little bit weird.

[Melanie Rogers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Couldn’t put this one down, another no-miss issue

My favorites being Anna Akhmatovas poetry, Kings eerie addition, and Diaz & Boyles refreshing stories

[Sean Kottke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vacation read #1 - stories from Stephen King, TC Boyle, and Carl Napolitano are standouts.

[Myles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was pretty easy to read. My favorite was probably the Stephen King story, or Neighborhood Dogs or Viperidae

[Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are odd stories, but also oddly compelling. A great collection.

[Daniel Pyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read “Willie the Weirdo.”

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was a nicely varied set of stories, with some fine classic poetry to balance things out.

[Kookie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this specifically for the Stephen King story, Willy the Weirdo, which had previously been published only in France. It is excellent, but so is nearly every story in this volume.

[Constant_reader_UK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only really bought this for the Stephen King short called Willy the weirdo and it was a great little read.

[JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very weird ones in here.

[Jim Lang · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid issue of McSweeney’s. The Stephen King story has stuck with me, it was great to see some new TC Boyle, and I enjoyed everything else in here.