The United States of McSweeney's: Ten Years of Lucky Mistakes and Accidental Classics

by Nick Hornby (Editor), Eli Horowitz (Editor), K. Kvashay-Boyle

Since 1998, McSweeney's 'Quarterly Concern' has been emerging from various kitchens, attics and an old laundromat roughly four times a year - or definitely at least three. Almost 100,000 stories have been submitted, usually in manila envelopes. Approximately 400 of those stories were selected for publication. This title presents eighteen of them.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Essays, Anthologies

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Nicholas Peter John Hornby is an English writer and lyricist. He is best known for his memoir Fever Pitch (1992) and novels High Fidelity and About a Boy, all of which were adapted into feature films. Hornby's work frequently touches upon music, sport, and the aimless and obsessive natures of his protagonists. His books have sold more than 5 million copies worldwide as of 2018. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, Hornby was named the 29th most influential person in British culture. He has received two Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay nominations for An Education (2009), and Brooklyn (2015).

Reviews

[Sam Quixote · Rating 2 out of 5]

And so McSweeney's is 10 years old (or was in 2009, it's now 11 years old) and they celebrate with (yet another) "Best Of" collection. This is the fifth (there may be more) "Best Of McSweeneys" books to come out in the last 5 years and, ironically, it's a collection of stories that aren't really the best that McSweeney's offers.

Most of the offerings in this book have been reprinted before in previous "Best Of" books by McSweeneys - at least 5 stories appear in "Best Of Vol 2", so this collection is uninspired at best. And then from Nick Hornby's intro (he's the editor) he says that he hasn't read most of McSweeney's, he just buys them and puts them on a shelf. Great, an editor who hasn't even bothered to read the issues! Hornby also mentions that since most of McSweeney's are like ornaments, this book was meant as a normal book to be read as normal. Well, if he's at all familiar with McSweeney's (and that statement says to me that he isn't), he'll know that nearly all of the issues are regular hard and paperback books. Occasionally you'll get something like the newspaper issue, or the junk mail issue, but on the whole they're just regular books so there's really no excuse for not reading them as such.

Hornby gripes aside, what's inside? There are a couple of highlights - AM Homes' "Do Not Disturb" is about a marriage enduring the wife's cancer battle and is mesmerising. Homes is a tremendous writer. Tom Bissell's "God Lives in St Petersburg" is a haunting tale of lost souls in a village in Uzbekistan. Ismet Prcic's "Porcus Omnivorous" is an excellent story of a man who escaped war in the Slavic states only to encounter his enemies once again in America. And that's about it really. There are a whole lot more but they aren't really that great.

What about "The Mysterious Stranger" by Joyce Carol Oates (McSweeney's 21), "The Flying Machine" by Marc Bojanowski (22), "The Guy Who Kept Meeting Himself" by Ryan Boudinot (28), "It's Nice When Someone is Excited To Hear From You" by Brian Blaise (29), "Diamond Aces" by Carson Mells (30), "Survivor" by Douglas Coupland (31), "Raw Water" by Wells Tower (32), "The Wreck of the Beverley B" by TC Boyle (34), or "Alarm" by Roy Jacobsen (35)? With Hornby choosing mostly stories that have appeared in previous Best of McSweeney's books, this book just feels like a lazy effort.

I would direct readers keen to discover McSweeney's to avoid "Best Of" compilations and just dive right in. Pick up the latest issue. It'll give you the full flavour of what McSweeney's is all about and is ten times better than reprinted stories from years gone by. So avoid this book, it's really not that great, but McSweeney's really is a great publication and I heartily point you toward their latest issue - onwards!

[Koen Crolla · Rating 2 out of 5]

If books had ingredient lists, this one's would just read ``pretension (from concentrate)''.

[Aim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Would like to give an extra .5 purely based off the fact that I liked one story. I feel like rather than any story itself being interesting, the structure of the stories seemed more important when choosing these collections. Honestly, each story had a tinge of depression to it which obviously was not that great for my mental state haha. The starting two stories were interesting and thats what made me read the rest of them.

[Anneke Visser-van Dijken · Rating 1 out of 5]

Na een paar verhalen gelezen te hebben waar ik niets mee kon, heb ik hem terug in de kast gezet.

[N. · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5 - Like everything I've read by McSweeney's, I liked some stories and some I didn't. I probably enjoyed it more than longtime McSweeney's readers because I'm new to the periodical so all of the stories were new to me. My absolute favorite is "The Ceiling" by Kevin Brockmeier and I love everything Roddy Doyle writes so his story "I Understand" barely fell second.

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some stories were very good, some were very strange and some were so stylised they were dull and I didn't bother finishing them. The ones near the start were generally good, but it went downhill for the second half.

[Dana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very diverse, funny and entertaining ... !

[Oana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Drăguțe, nimic memorabil.

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Guess they're used to being rewarded for mediocrity. Iowa writers' workshop!

[Tiredstars · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dunno; I enjoyed it I guess? It seemed better than the other McSweeney's anthology that I part-read. I didn't finish it in less than three months though, so it can't have exactly filled me with enthusiasm.
Lots of lonely, isolated or deluded people, lots of people dying, not much joy, love or success.
Maybe it is just short stories I don't get on with.