Product Description

McSweeney’s began in 1998 as a literary journal, edited by Dave Eggers, that published only works rejected from other magazines. But after the first issue, the journal began to publish pieces written with McSweeney’s in mind. Soon after, McSweeney’s attracted works from some of the finest writers in the country, including David Foster Wallace, Ann Cummins, Rick Moody, Heidi Julavits, Jonathan Lethem, William T. Vollmann, and many new talents.

Today, McSweeney’s has grown to be one of the country’s best and largest-circulation literary journals. The journal is committed to finding new voices, publishing work of gifted but underappreciated writers, and pushing the literary form forward at all times. McSweeney’s publishes on a roughly quarterly schedule, and each issue is markedly different from its predecessors in terms of design and editorial focus.

Issue 17 is not an ordinary issue of McSweeney's. It is, however, an ordinary bundle of mail, stacked and rubber-banded, containing the usual items: a recent issue of Yeti Researcher, a sausage-basket catalog, a flyer for slashed prices on multi-user garments, a couple letters . . . the usual. Also: the debut of a DVD quarterly, featuring never-before-seen work by Spike Jonze and David O. Russell. Also: stories.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #482228 in Books
• Published on: 2005-10-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages

Customer Reviews

Breaking all the rules of lit mags
Breaking from their standard issue of a hard-bound book filled with stories and other writings, McSweeney's #17 is perhaps the most daring way to market a literary journal yet. Unlike other issues, you can't flip through this one for four hours at the bookstore, so either satisfy your curiousity and buy it or let it remain a mystery. However, once you get over the packaging and presentation, it's still a traditional issue of McSweeney's, complete with a book of stories, a tongue-in-cheek "Yeti Researcher" (similar to the article about Giant Squids in issue #11) which will be an excellent "gag" to slip on your local library's magazing rack, beautifully reproduced art (this time in color: a bonus) and a few other extras. It is these "extras" that makes McSweeney's stand out from any other lit mag--more so than its fiction.

If you're new to McSweeney's, this might be a good issue to start with, especially if you're more visually inclined. However, if you're a short fiction purist, preferring substance over style, start with issue #11.

Note: NO DVD INCLUDED in issue #17. If the package included a DVD, made to look like an AOL free-trial CD, I would wholeheartedly give issue #17 five stars.

A Holiday Gift Pack
McSweeney's has been "pushing the envelope" since at least issue 4, which came out as a collection of pamphlets. The last issue had a comb, and this comes with a helpful sticker letting the reader understand that this incoherent mass is designed to look like a bunch of junk that comes in the mail. The sight gags are sometimes quite funny (the holiday sausage catalog was rich), and some of the other items were definitely worth reading. One envelope began with a spam form letter, exhorting the reader to pay close attention to the Nigerian email writer's favorite story, and then the next 30 pages covered a well written story about a tragedy on the North Shore of Chicago. I couldn't grasp how the spoof, Yeti Researcher, a send up of a humdrum academic journal, was any funnier than your typical middling social scientific journal that contains real career-advancing crap. My package definitely did not contain a DVD. On the McSweeney's web site, it states "Please note that the debut issue of Wholphin will be included with Issue 18 of McSweeney's"

Best issue of McSweeney's
I find most issues of McSweeney's unbearable-- the stories a pain to read, the gimmicks self-indulging and vain, and a putrid hipster aura oozing out of the copyright page and whereever David Eggers can manage to squeeze it into the margins. When I saw this issue, though, I was fascinated with the prospect of creating such an absurd pile of mail. Three years later I finally ordered a copy and I was not disappointed. There really are a lot of brilliantly creative minds at McSweeney's, for all its failings, and in this issue someone's fantastic pipe dream of an idea was realized. The gags are funny, each piece of mail brings new surprises, and while I am reluctant to spoil it, the very scientific-looking Yeti Researcher journal immersed me so completely I was wondering whether it was real, and the story in the Nigerian scam letter was so good that I went out and preordered the full version from Amazon. This issue is everything the packaging promises, and well worth the price. Buy it as a present for yourself, or for anyone you know who would appreciate such a quirky fantasy.