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McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #68
McSweeney's Issue 68
Coming this October, the 68th issue of our National Magazine Award-winning McSweeney's Quarterly features stories of duplicity and deception, double lives and secret histories, waiting for you underneath a cover by Italian artist Daniele Castellano (inspired by the Roman god Janus depicting duality in its many forms).
Inside, readers will find an essay by Alejandro Zambra on soccer sadness; an epic, time-bending short story from Carmen Maria Machado ; and new work from National Book Award finalist Lisa Ko .
Like all editions of McSweeney's, this issue includes work from established contemporary talents ( Catherine Lacey , Andrew Martin , Laura van den Berg ) alongside fresh emerging voices ( Stephanie Ullmann , Hallie Gayle ).
Readers will find new translations of Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo and Italian novelist Andrea Bajani , and a little diamond of flash fiction by James Yeh .
Compiled by visiting editor Daniel Gumbiner , McSweeney's Issue 68 offers a host of delights and surprises, from some of the world's best writers. Always changing, each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned (there have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head), but always brings you the very best in new literary fiction.
Inside, readers will find an essay by Alejandro Zambra on soccer sadness; an epic, time-bending short story from Carmen Maria Machado ; and new work from National Book Award finalist Lisa Ko .
Like all editions of McSweeney's, this issue includes work from established contemporary talents ( Catherine Lacey , Andrew Martin , Laura van den Berg ) alongside fresh emerging voices ( Stephanie Ullmann , Hallie Gayle ).
Readers will find new translations of Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo and Italian novelist Andrea Bajani , and a little diamond of flash fiction by James Yeh .
Compiled by visiting editor Daniel Gumbiner , McSweeney's Issue 68 offers a host of delights and surprises, from some of the world's best writers. Always changing, each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned (there have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head), but always brings you the very best in new literary fiction.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
201 pages, Hardcover
Published October 6, 2022
4 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 11, 2022
I am really starting to fall hard for the letters at the beginning of each issue. It is snippets of perspective from a world outside of my tiny corner of a state in the middle of nowhere. Some of them make me laugh while others make me ponder things, but all of them are worth the read.
This was a hardcover issue with (what I considered to be) a spooky illustration on the cover. A welcome gift for the Halloween season. It contained letters (something I am going to guess all of them have and open with) and eleven stories. Each story had an illustration on the page before it. I hate to say it, but no story in this issue stood out for me. It wasn’t a horrible experience, but not one I would remember or talk about with others.
Three stars to an extremely mediocre read.
This was a hardcover issue with (what I considered to be) a spooky illustration on the cover. A welcome gift for the Halloween season. It contained letters (something I am going to guess all of them have and open with) and eleven stories. Each story had an illustration on the page before it. I hate to say it, but no story in this issue stood out for me. It wasn’t a horrible experience, but not one I would remember or talk about with others.
Three stars to an extremely mediocre read.
November 17, 2024
the degree of [soccer] sadness someone experiences is inversely proportional to their expectations of a [game].
Another solid set of shorts in MQC #68, the stand-out being Alejandro Zambra's On Soccer Sadness.
As a non-resident citizen of that great crumbling empire that is or was or was imagined to be America, I feel a twinge of embarrassment whenever what all the world knows as 'football' is altered for the sake of fragile American sensibilities to the decidedly weaker 'soccer'. I've been around lifelong football fans all my adult life, from co-workers in NYC raised in the diverse communities of the Ironbound, to fellow expatriates--Brits, Dutch, Chileans, French, Germans, Brazilians, Ecuadorians, South Africans--all over Asia, to the last five years in the melting pot of London. Someone is always asking me what football team I 'support'. My answer has generally been 'I like American college football' as I once in a fit of irrational exuberance bought student section season tickets. The truth being that I enjoy watching sports every once in a while, but have never been what anyone would call a 'fan.' At best, I have a casual interest in the spectacle of people losing their shit over meaningless contests even as the world is pillaged by sociopathic criminals who include many of the 'owners' of these teams.
Football remains a sport in which virtually anyone can participate. No pads, helmets, or officials are required for a spontaneous friendly anywhere. Zambra's story reminds me of long-ago Saturdays in Toyomi Park, kicking a ball around with my three little boys for that all-too-thin sliver of time. It's a special kind of soccer happy-sadness.
Another solid set of shorts in MQC #68, the stand-out being Alejandro Zambra's On Soccer Sadness.
As a non-resident citizen of that great crumbling empire that is or was or was imagined to be America, I feel a twinge of embarrassment whenever what all the world knows as 'football' is altered for the sake of fragile American sensibilities to the decidedly weaker 'soccer'. I've been around lifelong football fans all my adult life, from co-workers in NYC raised in the diverse communities of the Ironbound, to fellow expatriates--Brits, Dutch, Chileans, French, Germans, Brazilians, Ecuadorians, South Africans--all over Asia, to the last five years in the melting pot of London. Someone is always asking me what football team I 'support'. My answer has generally been 'I like American college football' as I once in a fit of irrational exuberance bought student section season tickets. The truth being that I enjoy watching sports every once in a while, but have never been what anyone would call a 'fan.' At best, I have a casual interest in the spectacle of people losing their shit over meaningless contests even as the world is pillaged by sociopathic criminals who include many of the 'owners' of these teams.
Football remains a sport in which virtually anyone can participate. No pads, helmets, or officials are required for a spontaneous friendly anywhere. Zambra's story reminds me of long-ago Saturdays in Toyomi Park, kicking a ball around with my three little boys for that all-too-thin sliver of time. It's a special kind of soccer happy-sadness.
January 6, 2023
McSweeney’s 68 starts strong and peaks early, ending up being a decent but not a standout issue. The letters to the editor from authors and friends of McSweeney’s are always a pleasure. I really enjoyed those from Sreshtha Sen (on cooking a proper aloo gobi and coming out to Bend it Like Beckham), Dave Schilling (on the absurdity of a Kanye West/Yeezy Gap Round Jacket), and William Brewer (on book etiquette and not wanting to loan or be lent books).
Of the short stories, the first was certainly one of the strongest, and that was On Soccer Sadness, by Alejandro Zambra. It related coming of age in Chile as a soccer fan, and was as wonderful as it was timely, given the recent World Cup. Another excellent work was Inheritance, by Laura Van Den Berg, about a woman who improbably inherits a house in Mexico from her stepfather, but upon moving there, finds the people from his past – and reality itself – rather mysterious and unsettling. I loved how this one ended.
A solid work and enjoyable read was Found, Paper, Soot, by Andrew Martin. It dealt with the death of a friend, and reminiscing the past with another, while acknowledging personal and professional shortcomings. How the work of self-taught artist James Castle was integrated was a nice touch. Another decent story was Long Black Socks, by Stephanie Ullmann, about a boy going to Beijing for his father’s funeral, and remembering the days when his parents divorced and he remained in America.
There are other works from Hallie Gayle, Lisa Ko, Catherine Lacey, Santiago Roncagliolo, Andrea Bajani, and James Yeh, but I found them just OK, not terribly good or bad. The Tour, by Carmen Maria Machado, on flitting between alternate universes to encounter slightly different versions of themselves, was the worst of the bunch. Too derivative of other science fiction and too easy for the author to come up with the variations, the story lacked depth, though I did like the queer representation and the line “An orgasm feels less like a thing my body can do and more like an ancient prophecy that has wound its way through ten generations of elders.”
All in all, worth reading, and it’s nice that the issue is simply a single hardbound book, avoiding the creativity that started getting too gimmicky (I’m looking at you, issue 53, with your supplemental stories on balloons that needed to be inflated).
Of the short stories, the first was certainly one of the strongest, and that was On Soccer Sadness, by Alejandro Zambra. It related coming of age in Chile as a soccer fan, and was as wonderful as it was timely, given the recent World Cup. Another excellent work was Inheritance, by Laura Van Den Berg, about a woman who improbably inherits a house in Mexico from her stepfather, but upon moving there, finds the people from his past – and reality itself – rather mysterious and unsettling. I loved how this one ended.
A solid work and enjoyable read was Found, Paper, Soot, by Andrew Martin. It dealt with the death of a friend, and reminiscing the past with another, while acknowledging personal and professional shortcomings. How the work of self-taught artist James Castle was integrated was a nice touch. Another decent story was Long Black Socks, by Stephanie Ullmann, about a boy going to Beijing for his father’s funeral, and remembering the days when his parents divorced and he remained in America.
There are other works from Hallie Gayle, Lisa Ko, Catherine Lacey, Santiago Roncagliolo, Andrea Bajani, and James Yeh, but I found them just OK, not terribly good or bad. The Tour, by Carmen Maria Machado, on flitting between alternate universes to encounter slightly different versions of themselves, was the worst of the bunch. Too derivative of other science fiction and too easy for the author to come up with the variations, the story lacked depth, though I did like the queer representation and the line “An orgasm feels less like a thing my body can do and more like an ancient prophecy that has wound its way through ten generations of elders.”
All in all, worth reading, and it’s nice that the issue is simply a single hardbound book, avoiding the creativity that started getting too gimmicky (I’m looking at you, issue 53, with your supplemental stories on balloons that needed to be inflated).
April 27, 2023
If you follow my reviews (and who has time for that?) you know that I've been a fan of McSweeney's since I picked up the second issue at the bookstore, and have all the issues since then. I had only read the issues sporadically until recently, and am greatly enjoying a systematic cover-to-cover reading campaign.
As is often the case, some of the best work in this issue, as far as imagination, is the Letters section. We start here with an appreciation of the movie Bend It Like Beckham two decades on, move to the Kanye West/Yeezy Gap Round Jacket, a Unified Theory of David Lynch, a letter that is really a therapy session, and so on.
The pieces that stood out for me were Catherine Lacey's flash piece "Tether" (that finishes out with rhetorical questions rather than narration), Santiago Roncagliolo's "How to Become a Star" (describing a bizarre catfishing episode), and Stephanie Ullmann's "Long Black Socks" with its ironic symbolism.
The opening piece - "On Soccer Sadness" - is very good on culture and mood, and it actually has a proper ending.
Laura van den Berg's "Inheritance" got the one-word label "weird" in my marginal notes. It is nicely mysterious as the pages turn, but it's another literary short fiction that punts on an ending. Don't get me wrong, I understand the origin of such fiction. I sometimes write and sell them myself. But this volume provides a steady diet of arcless fiction (and I was reading a volume of Best American Short Stories at the same time, so getting a double dose of such), and by the end of this piece I was downright testy about it.
This edition is what I expect from McSweeney's, which includes the unexpected, so I can firmly recommend it.
As is often the case, some of the best work in this issue, as far as imagination, is the Letters section. We start here with an appreciation of the movie Bend It Like Beckham two decades on, move to the Kanye West/Yeezy Gap Round Jacket, a Unified Theory of David Lynch, a letter that is really a therapy session, and so on.
The pieces that stood out for me were Catherine Lacey's flash piece "Tether" (that finishes out with rhetorical questions rather than narration), Santiago Roncagliolo's "How to Become a Star" (describing a bizarre catfishing episode), and Stephanie Ullmann's "Long Black Socks" with its ironic symbolism.
The opening piece - "On Soccer Sadness" - is very good on culture and mood, and it actually has a proper ending.
Laura van den Berg's "Inheritance" got the one-word label "weird" in my marginal notes. It is nicely mysterious as the pages turn, but it's another literary short fiction that punts on an ending. Don't get me wrong, I understand the origin of such fiction. I sometimes write and sell them myself. But this volume provides a steady diet of arcless fiction (and I was reading a volume of Best American Short Stories at the same time, so getting a double dose of such), and by the end of this piece I was downright testy about it.
This edition is what I expect from McSweeney's, which includes the unexpected, so I can firmly recommend it.
June 30, 2024
This was a strong issue of McSweeney's. Sometimes it's fine to drop with the themes and just deliver a solid collection of quality prose. Highlights include:
The letters. Always the letters.
Alejandro Zambra's "On Soccer Sadness" - about his relationship to football, including the hilarious story of his wacky attempts to hide his fandom from his girlfriend.
Carmen Maria Machado's gripping "The Tour" which uses a sci-fi premise to give deeper insight into a romantic/lusty relationship
Andrew Martin's "Found Paper, Soot" about writer/teacher coming to terms with the death of a friend.
The microfiction "Tether" by Catherine Lacey
"How to Become a Star" by Santiago Roncagliolo about how far a rich mother would go to help her song achieve his dream.
"Inheritance" by Laura van den Berg, which takes place in the near future, about a woman inheriting a house in Mexico from her late-mother's husband, and the drama connected to it.
The letters. Always the letters.
Alejandro Zambra's "On Soccer Sadness" - about his relationship to football, including the hilarious story of his wacky attempts to hide his fandom from his girlfriend.
Carmen Maria Machado's gripping "The Tour" which uses a sci-fi premise to give deeper insight into a romantic/lusty relationship
Andrew Martin's "Found Paper, Soot" about writer/teacher coming to terms with the death of a friend.
The microfiction "Tether" by Catherine Lacey
"How to Become a Star" by Santiago Roncagliolo about how far a rich mother would go to help her song achieve his dream.
"Inheritance" by Laura van den Berg, which takes place in the near future, about a woman inheriting a house in Mexico from her late-mother's husband, and the drama connected to it.
August 27, 2023
Maybe my favorite issue of McSweeney's yet. I loved the theme of duplicity and double lives, the speculative twists of Carmen Maria Machado and Laura Van Den Berg, the heart-wrenching parenting tale of Andrea Bajani, and the evocative illustrations of Daniele Castellano. I've got a backlog of McSweeney's that were delivered to my old house over the last year, and I'm excited to get back into reading the rest.
October 10, 2022
One of my favorite McSweeney’s Quarterly Concerns. Several stories that packed a big emotional punch.
October 24, 2022
Consistently great
November 3, 2022
I just love this literary magazine, this issue a collection of short stories on “duplicity and deception, double lives and secret histories,” all of them engaging.
December 27, 2022
Solid collection of eclectic pieces. I really enjoyed the cover and the illustrations provided at the top of each entry.
January 22, 2023
3,5/5 - Not my favorite issue but consistently high quality writing.
July 31, 2024
This is another very good issue of McSweeney’s. Any issue with a piece by Alejandro Zambra is worth getting.
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September 29, 2024not much to say abt this one. overall just okay imo, though i enjoyed some stories. carmen maria machado remains the best to ever do it.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews