Synopses & Reviews
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 other talents, both established and upcoming. The journal is committed to finding new voices, publishing work of gifted but underappreciated writers, and pushing the literary form forward at all times. Each issue of McSweeney's is markedly different from its predecessors in design and editorial focus.
Synopsis
McSweeney's 26 comes in three parts: two small, oblong books of stories by writers large and small (John Brandon, Amanda Davis, Uzodinma Iweala, and eight more), set in regions near and far (Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Spain, Arkansas), and a third book, Where to Invade Next, edited by Stephen Elliott and inspired by actual Pentagon documents, which seeks to give a picture of just how our government could create a rationale for its next round of wars. Read them one at a time, or all at once, but know that this ones got it all--whirlwind visions of the world of today, and dead-serious essays about which parts of it the United States might soon be confronting.