McSweeney's 43

Charles Baxter, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, T.C. Boyle, Noor Elashi, Catherine Lacy, William Wheeler, McSweeney’s 43 (San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2013)


Baxter - McSweeneys 43
It probably isn’t quite fair to list a literary magazine as a book, but McSweeney’s is becoming so unconventional in the publication of its quarterly magazine, that each volume truly does look like a book. And each is a treasure of short stories that simply are not available from other sources. I remember when the Atlantic Monthly and the New Yorker brought first rate short fiction to our homes every month. Those journals still publish a trickle of short stories, but to get the latest from new writers, there is no contemporary equal to McSweeney’s. I’ve become addicted to the publication and look forward to each quarter’s offerings.

This quarter was no disappointment. The rich variety of stories offered a bit of something for everyone. It is always a joy to reach the end of a book wishing that there is more and that is how I felt when I finished the first volume.

And there is more! There was a bonus volume of new sotries from South Sudan. I’ll write more about that later.