McSweeney's 39

Edited by Dave Eggers

Nothing beats a solid issue of McSweeney's.  There's always such a good mix of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and I've yet to come across a boring issue.

This issue first caught my eye because of a poem by Roberto Bolano, my current favourite writer.  'The Neochileans' is nice, but I think I agree with the critics who prefer Bolano's prose to his poetry.

Julie Hecht provides a memoir about Marimekko dresses, and Elmore Leonard gives us a short story featuring one of his more popular characters, Karen Sisco.  I've never read Leonard before, but this makes me want to.

Perhaps my favourite piece in this issue is a non-fiction article by Jennie Erin Smith called Benjamin Bucks, about a man who made a name for himself by smuggling reptiles out of Africa.  Smith gets close to Bucks and his circle, including a colourful older Pakistani man known as Captain, and reports on their shady dealings, all of which would make an incredible movie.

I also found myself getting very swept up in Tom Barbash's article about Bobby Armao, the man who became the protector and agent of the Shah of Iran following his exile.  This is a very well-researched and balanced piece that provides a detailed look into a story I was previously completely ignorant about.

Vaclav Havel was always one of my favourite world leaders (mostly for stories about his ditching his security detail so he could have a little fun), but his article 'Politics and Conscience' was a little too dry for me.

EC Osundo's story 'Bumsters' is a fun little tale about a vacationing middle aged woman who falls for a young man in Gambia.  The story reminded me very much of Dany Laferriere's Heading South (perhaps the movie more than the book).  Yannick Murphy's 'Secret Language' is a strong story about an inter-racial marriage gone wrong.

'Anything Helps', by Jess Walter, is about a homeless man's efforts to stay sober, which become all the harder once he's kicked out of the 'Jesus Beds'.  This story is touching, especially when he goes to see his son at his foster home.  Benjamin Weissman writes an equally touching story in 'Louella Tarantula', which is narrated by a young man whose mother is dying from cancer, and whose only relief comes from having a pet tarantula lie on her face.

'Giant of the Sea', by Abi Maxwell, is a difficult story about two young women who are basically kidnapped in late 19th Century Sweden to be brought to New York and put to work.  Maxwell writes this story very well,but it is a harsh one.

The book ends with 'Carlos the Impossible', JTK Belle's mildly magical realist story about a gigantic bull, and the bullfighter that is unable to defeat him over a period of some twenty years.

McSweeney's 34

There's nothing better than a good collection of short stories, and the 34th issue of McSweeney's definitely delivers.  This 224-page book makes up half of this edition; the other half is a long journalistic piece that I'm going to read next.  In this book there are a number of different pieces of short fiction, one example of oral history, and a collection of self-portrait sketches.

My favourite piece in this book is a story called "Twenty Questions" by a first-time author named Bridget Clerkin.  It's a delightfully twisted little tale that seems, on the surface, to be about a woman remembering how difficult her mother was during her childhood, while her and her boyfriend play 20 Questions with a child.  The flashback scenes contain the random strangeness of the best of David Sedaris's work, and the end of the story, with its revelation about the game that gives it its title, is unexpected and chilling.  This is one of the best short stories I've read in ages.

I also quite enjoyed "The Wreck of the Beverley B.", an excerpt from T. Coraghessan Boyle's new novel.  This story, which has a pretty self-explanatory title, reminded me of how much I enjoy Boyle's work.  It's been years since I read one of his novels, and I should make a point of doing that soon.

Among the other stories I found memorable were Lawrence-Minh Bùi Davis's "Like the Locked Antlers", a story about the Vietnamese-American press and their coverage of Hurricane Katrina; Anthony Doerr's "Afterworld", an interesting tale about memory and the Jewish experience in the Second World War; and Mona Awad's "Your Biggest Fan", about a wannabe rock star and the girl he could always count on for a good evening.

I also enjoyed "Letters From the Academy" by Tom Barbash, an epistolary tale concerning an obsessive tennis coach and his young charge; and Sean Casey's "Conversations With Girls", which is a very bizarre, likely allegorical story, although I'm sure I missed the point, lost as I was among the nine to fifteen feet tall girls with strange limbs and appendages.

The self-portraits did little for me, but the inclusion of Tafi's account of incarceration and torture at the hands of Robert Mugabe's police in Zimbabwe was haunting.

Strangely, I think my favourite part of this book is the letters at the beginning from a variety of authors or 'friends of McSweeney's'.  These letters are frequently funny, such as the one that intends to explain red wine to an ignorant audience ("Some famous people who famously drank red wine include Val Kilmer"), or another that recounts the story of a young man discovering his strange uncle in a compromising position with the family's Thanksgiving turkey late one night.

This is a great, eclectic collection of contemporary writing, and I think I'm going to have to become a regular reader.