McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales | review by Rafe McGregor
TimothyMcSweeney’s Quarterly Concern is an award-winning American literary journalthat was founded by award-winning and bestselling author Dave Eggers in SanFrancisco in 1998. Eggers has a long and varied bibliography, but is probablybest known for A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, a memoirpublished in 2000. More important than any of this is the fact that McSweeney’swas StephenTheaker’s inspiration for TQF, which he launched with John Greenwood in Birminghamin 2004. As regular readers of TQF (but probably not McSweeney’s) will know,Stephen’s secondary goal (after keep it going)was to catch McSweeny’s up, which he achievedin 2011. At the moment, TQF is in the lead – but only just – with seven-sevenissues to McSweeney’s seventy-six. The next issue of McSweeney’s,which is due in February, will see a new editor, novelist and academic RitaBullwinkel, take the helm. One of the features that distinguishes McSweeney’sfrom other literary journals is Eggers’ novel approach to editing andproduction:
McSweeney’s Quarterly Concerncontinues to publish on a roughly quarterly schedule, and each issue ismarkedly different from its predecessors in terms of design and editorialfocus. Some are in boxes, others come with a CD, still others are bound with agiant rubber band, and perhaps someday an issue will be made of glass.
Why the hell not!
The inspiration for TQF is not just any old McSweeney’s,but issue ten, McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, which wasguest edited by champion of genre fiction Michael Chabon and published in February2003 (a little over a year before the launch of TQF). It is easy to see why…froma garish cover borrowed from the October 1940 issue of Red Star Mystery Magazineto Chabon himself as editor to four hundred and eighty pages’ worth of twenty stories,some great illustrations, and contributors that include: Michael Crichton,Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Nick Hornby, Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and MichaelMoorcock. I’ve no idea how deep McSweeney’s pockets are, but one wouldbe hard-pressed to compile this kind of lineup with literally unlimitedresources. Most of the tales don’t disappoint regardless of the stature oftheir authors and I agree with Stephen that this is one of – if not the –best collections of short fiction ever published for pulp fiction fans.
My favourite tale is the first, Jim Shephard’s ‘Tedford andthe Megalodon’. As a sharkstory enthusiast, I wondered how much of the visual horror and signaturesuspense would be retained in the short story format (on which note the illustration,by Howard Chaykin, is a perfect accompaniment, breathtaking without being a spoiler).Simply stated, neither the horror nor the suspense are lost and the lastsentence is one of the most chilling conclusions to a narrative I’ve ever read,all the more remarkable because it is not unexpected. Honourable mentions aboveand beyond Shephard’s illustrious peers go to Hornby, for ‘Otherwise Pandemonium’;Kelly Link, one of the pioneersof the New Weird, for ‘Catskin’; and Moorcock, for ‘The Case of the NaziCanary’. Moorcock’s contribution is an outing for his occult detective, SirSeaton Begg, AKA the other Baker Street detective, Sexton Blake. King’scontribution, ‘The Tale of Gray Dick’ features Roland Deschain, protagonist of TheDark Tower series, although as I’ve only read the first two books, I’m notsure where it fits chronologically (he is already missing some fingers, if thathelps anyone work it out). I was only disappointed twice: Eggers’ contributionis, to my mind, out of sync with the rest, too slow and too long, and I foundEllison’s contribution insubstantial and just not very funny (assuming the aimwas comedy). McSweeney’s #10 is now out of print (along with the rest ofthe first thirteen issues), but used copies remain available from the usualvendors and are, at the time of writing, still relatively cheap (the upper endof the range I saw was £20, postage excluded).
Having set such an incredibly high bar, has TQF ever comeclose? No doubt I’m biased because it featured one of my RoderickLangham stories, but I don’t think TQF#50,which was published in January 2015, was too far off. Aside from the elevenstories in three hundred and twenty-four pages, which include a few of mypersonal favourites, I very much enjoyed its showcasing of so many of themagazine’s regular contributors, including several whose collaboration withStephen and John predates my own (which began with a single and somewhat scantreview in TQF#23in 2008). That said, I have particularly high hopes for TQF#80, which is dueshortly. The last page of McSweeney’s #10, the source of my quote above,states that (only) fifty-six issues were planned. When McSweeney’s #56 waspublished in 2019, the (true) goal was revealed as one hundred and fifty-six. Perhapswhen that issue is published, it will be two hundred and fifty-six. Let’s hopethat day comes and that, as Stephen puts it, both McSweeney’s and TQF keep going.
