What do you think?
Rate this book
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Issue 3, Summer-Fall 1999: "Timothy McSweeney's Windfall Republic"
"Windfall Republic"
Jason Adams, Arthur Bradford, Dean F. Curry, Jason De Joux, Camden Joy, Jonathan Lethem, Paul Maliszewski, Denise O'Mara, Morgan Phillips, Christopher P. Riley-Zaliniev, Rodney Rothman, David Shields, Sarah Vowell, Colleen Werthmann Main Steve Amick, Zev Borow, Judy Budnitz, Paul Collins, Ana Marie Cox, Dave Eggers (as Lucy Thomas), Ken Foster, Gary Greenberg, Brian Greene, Kirsten Haas, Jim Hanas, Aleksandar Hemon, Brent Hoff, Cynthia Kaplan, Komar and Melamid, J. Robert Lennon, Dr. Randy Lewis, Magnus Mills, Rick Moody, Christina Nunez, Mark O'Donnell, Tracy Olssen, T. Z. Parsa, A. G. Pasquella, Todd Pruzan, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Edwin Rozic, Christopher Sorrentino, Saul Steinberg, David Steinhardt, Dr. Jeff Turner, Tom Tomorrow, Dr. Fritz Vollrath, John Warner, E. Weinberger, Lawrence Weschler
Jason Adams, Arthur Bradford, Dean F. Curry, Jason De Joux, Camden Joy, Jonathan Lethem, Paul Maliszewski, Denise O'Mara, Morgan Phillips, Christopher P. Riley-Zaliniev, Rodney Rothman, David Shields, Sarah Vowell, Colleen Werthmann Main Steve Amick, Zev Borow, Judy Budnitz, Paul Collins, Ana Marie Cox, Dave Eggers (as Lucy Thomas), Ken Foster, Gary Greenberg, Brian Greene, Kirsten Haas, Jim Hanas, Aleksandar Hemon, Brent Hoff, Cynthia Kaplan, Komar and Melamid, J. Robert Lennon, Dr. Randy Lewis, Magnus Mills, Rick Moody, Christina Nunez, Mark O'Donnell, Tracy Olssen, T. Z. Parsa, A. G. Pasquella, Todd Pruzan, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Edwin Rozic, Christopher Sorrentino, Saul Steinberg, David Steinhardt, Dr. Jeff Turner, Tom Tomorrow, Dr. Fritz Vollrath, John Warner, E. Weinberger, Lawrence Weschler
- GenresFiction
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
3 people are currently reading
91 people want to read
About the author
Dave Eggers
348 books9,409 followersDave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He is best known for his 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is also the founder of several notable literary and philanthropic ventures, including the literary journal Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, the literacy project 826 Valencia, and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness. Additionally, he founded ScholarMatch, a program that connects donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in numerous prestigious publications, including The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times Magazine.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 20, 2022
A lot more of these were good. Still some clunkers but overall a good issue.
June 27, 2024
Yes, there's a use of the word "grimace" in this volume, and a use of the illiterate expression "honing in" (though it's in a direct quote, which can be justification), but still I encourage you to find a copy and explore the thing.
This was my first subscription copy of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, after I found the second volume on a bookstore rack. I read bits of it the month it came, and it was influential, but distractions pulled me away. Older and wiser now, I am systematically reading all the issues, cover to cover.
This issue, like the previous one, has the manic squeezing of text into nooks and crannies everywhere, making the reading an adventure. There's a David Foster Wallace flash fiction on the spine, for crying out loud. This is cleverness-as-virtue, and imagination as an inside joke. It works for me.
Let me start with the article "Banvard's Folly. (Or, How Do You Lose a Three-Mile Painting?)". In the bio of this issue we are told that Paul Collins is working on a book entitled Loser: A Brief History of Noble Failures, and that this article is a chapter in it. Two years later, when the book actually came out, it was entitled Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck. It's about one of those huge paintings that were popular long ago, which were displayed in huge barns or specially built structures. If you've seen the Cyclorama at Gettysburg, you've seen one.
Because I knew a couple of these huge works of art, I paid special attention to this story, which is labeled, in tiny print, a "true story" but which reads like fiction the whole time. Not too long ago I was reading another article that was also in a McSweeney's and bought the book, because it, too, was fascinating. So, go ye and find this issue of McSweeney's and find Collins's book, too.
The front matter of this early volume is three pages of tiny print, and ridiculous as all get out. It makes the masthead, subscription information and submission guidelines a stitch to read. Submission margins are to be one inch all around "unless your piece is about animals who do funny things, in which case the margins should be one-half inch on all sides except the bottom, the margin for which should be two inches." The Letters section includes such correspondents as David Shields, Jonathan Lethem, Sarah Vowell and Camden Joy; and I realized as I read it that this was an artform all its own.
I also read Chris Sorrentino's "The Organ Grinder" back in 1999, when I first possessed this volume, and I think the combined amusement and distraction overwhelmed me at that point. I put #3 on the shelf, and didn't get back to it until recently. The remainder of this madcap volume did not disappoint. There are serialized stories (serialized within the volume), there's a "Note about the Type" at the end that turns into a short story that has to be continued into earlier pages. There are two blank pages just before the Note labeled Complaints. (And yes, it immediately reminded me of Laurence Sterne.) There are fake advertisements. There's an interview about physics. There's a discussion of growing spider silk in goats. There's the fraught tale of Santa Claus's son, and the mistake he made going back home for a visit.
There is one of my favorite story titles: Lucy Thomas's "This Story Is Small Because I Am Not Sure It Is Good" which is particularly effective when printed, as it is here, in something like 9pt type, with the story text at half that size.
In sum, this early volume typifies the phenomenon of McSweeney's As Adventure.
I vote yes.
This was my first subscription copy of McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, after I found the second volume on a bookstore rack. I read bits of it the month it came, and it was influential, but distractions pulled me away. Older and wiser now, I am systematically reading all the issues, cover to cover.
This issue, like the previous one, has the manic squeezing of text into nooks and crannies everywhere, making the reading an adventure. There's a David Foster Wallace flash fiction on the spine, for crying out loud. This is cleverness-as-virtue, and imagination as an inside joke. It works for me.
Let me start with the article "Banvard's Folly. (Or, How Do You Lose a Three-Mile Painting?)". In the bio of this issue we are told that Paul Collins is working on a book entitled Loser: A Brief History of Noble Failures, and that this article is a chapter in it. Two years later, when the book actually came out, it was entitled Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, Famous Anonymity, and Rotten Luck. It's about one of those huge paintings that were popular long ago, which were displayed in huge barns or specially built structures. If you've seen the Cyclorama at Gettysburg, you've seen one.
Because I knew a couple of these huge works of art, I paid special attention to this story, which is labeled, in tiny print, a "true story" but which reads like fiction the whole time. Not too long ago I was reading another article that was also in a McSweeney's and bought the book, because it, too, was fascinating. So, go ye and find this issue of McSweeney's and find Collins's book, too.
The front matter of this early volume is three pages of tiny print, and ridiculous as all get out. It makes the masthead, subscription information and submission guidelines a stitch to read. Submission margins are to be one inch all around "unless your piece is about animals who do funny things, in which case the margins should be one-half inch on all sides except the bottom, the margin for which should be two inches." The Letters section includes such correspondents as David Shields, Jonathan Lethem, Sarah Vowell and Camden Joy; and I realized as I read it that this was an artform all its own.
I also read Chris Sorrentino's "The Organ Grinder" back in 1999, when I first possessed this volume, and I think the combined amusement and distraction overwhelmed me at that point. I put #3 on the shelf, and didn't get back to it until recently. The remainder of this madcap volume did not disappoint. There are serialized stories (serialized within the volume), there's a "Note about the Type" at the end that turns into a short story that has to be continued into earlier pages. There are two blank pages just before the Note labeled Complaints. (And yes, it immediately reminded me of Laurence Sterne.) There are fake advertisements. There's an interview about physics. There's a discussion of growing spider silk in goats. There's the fraught tale of Santa Claus's son, and the mistake he made going back home for a visit.
There is one of my favorite story titles: Lucy Thomas's "This Story Is Small Because I Am Not Sure It Is Good" which is particularly effective when printed, as it is here, in something like 9pt type, with the story text at half that size.
In sum, this early volume typifies the phenomenon of McSweeney's As Adventure.
I vote yes.
December 9, 2013
I recently wrote a short thing about Dave Eggers and then realized that I hadn't rated or reviewed the many issues of McSweeney's I've read. The early issues were especially influential and inspiring to me. This was the first issue I ever saw and it was amazing and even mind-blowing. I was focusing a lot of funny but weird writing at the time (mostly short stories) and I thought: These are my people!
August 31, 2012
Best part: A Note about the Text
Worst part: the lack of female contributors. seriously. there were only like 4.
Worst part: the lack of female contributors. seriously. there were only like 4.
April 15, 2016
Pretty good collection overall, I enjoy especially the snark and quirkiness that is beginning to define McSweeney's at this point in their history.
May 24, 2016
The Unabomber story alone makes it worth picking up.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews