McSweeney's Issue 51

Man I’m glad Mcsweenys is back they killed number 51!

Issue 51 is a short, fat issue, with excellent artwork, the "51" itself being a space station drawn by Jesse Jacobs. The issue features 15 stories along with one graphic essay, one photojournal, and one nonfiction account. It feels like a return to form, an aesthetically "quieter" issue focused solely on jampacking as much strong content as possible (400+ pages' worth).It features two of the strongest stories they've ever published, from LaToya Watkins and Nathaniel Minton, who turn in two absolute stunners. Their stories buoy the entire collection, though there are also excellent pieces by Nick Arvin, Chris Dennis, R.J. Vogt, and Michael Andreasen. There are a handful of failures, care of Nadja Spiegelman, Ernie Wang, and Iacopo Barison, but they're thankfully very short.Individually:Nick Arvin: 8. A story of crescendoing conflict. Thirteen interviewees show up for an interview as a blizzard strikes and the company receptionist flees. The interviewees get locked in the foyer as the receptionist has her own dilemmas. The conflicts keep on coming for all parties involved.Chris Dennis: 8. An affecting, poignantly matter-of-fact story of a Turkish father and son in Detroit. The father—gay, distant, nostalgic—gives little guidance to the son, who’s left to figure out adolescence on his own. Revelations come out of nowhere. Powerful and unique style.Mia McKenzie: 5. A suicidal, homicidal bankteller crushes on a frequent customer, and goes on a cockamamie quest to kill Betty White in order to have her. Very beholden to modern conventions and forced absurdity but still redeems itself with enough driving momentum.R.J. Vogt: 7. Nonfiction account of working at a newspaper through Myanmar’s transition into democracy. Main focus is on the country’s continued state-sponsored genocide of the Rohingya people and the censorship enforced by the military even in the budding democracy. ’s called being at the right place at an interesting time.Iacopo Barison: 1. Stupid exercise in telling more/telling less. One is the tiniest short short, the other is a slightly longer, though still entirely pointless, short short. Neither are redeeming nor interesting.Merrill Feitell: 7. Photojournal of pinballing between familial responsibility and personal exploration, as the author drives and drives and drives, accepting and shirking adulthood with her dog in tow.Etgar Keret: 7. Pretty good, semicharming story about a (developmentally disabled?) 50-year-old man who still lives with and takes care of his mother. She infantilizes him; he infantilizes her. He wins the lottery and hides the ticket, scared of a life different from the one he knows.LaToya Watkins: 10. Wow. Extremely poignant, direct, immediate vernacular account of a former black horse wrangler, now trapped in suburbia and a dead-end marriage, who’s visited by an escaped horse. Nails the voice and the pathos; exceptionally strong.Laura Adamczyk: 4. Very boring story about three sisters who take a trip with their dad over summer. While it’s true and accurate to family dynamics and adolescence, it’s not interesting nor enjoyable. The obligatory middle-school story of the issue.Armonía Somers: 5. Metaphor fable about marriage being like a train ride. A woman and a man court and get married and die over the course of a train voyage, time being entirely mercurial. Just a metaphor and nothing more.Nadja Spiegelman: 0. Nothing. Short short about crass mermaids, ends before it begins.Michael Andreasen: 7. Humor piece detailing a baptismal script for a bizarre, horrifying religion. It’s actually funny and entertaining to read without overstaying its welcome. It feels like a highlight from McSweeney’s Internet Tendency humor page.Emma Hooper: 4. A mellifluous storypoem about a young man who levitates upon hearing music. His mother brings him to the attention of the local church, who tries to sensationalize his experience as a miracle. And then the story…doesn’t know where to go or what to do with itself. Interesting idea, singular style, botched execution.Jeffrey Wilson & Armin Ozdic: 7. Powerful graphic essay of bureaucratic villainy. Has too much of an agenda to have any nuance, but the story does highlight an infuriating powerlessness.Ernie Wang: 2. Oof. A man moves to Florida and gets a job at Walt Disney World, in order to be with and support his terminally ill arithmophile lover. Poorly written, poorly developed, unfunny, but most glaringly, it overrelies on sympathy towards a martyr character instead of developing characters a reader would naturally be sympathetic towards. Amateur hour.Nathaniel Minton: 9. Wow, part II. A story unlike any I’ve ever read. A young boy kills another boy and sets off a string of revenge killings that eventually swallows an entire town. Sort of. There’s also a long bit about the surgeon tasked with saving these townspeople’s lives reminiscing about his childhood. Minton’s story exists in its own temporal and stylistic galaxy, and is both entertaining and horrifying. Somewhat like Patrick deWitt? Or Jesse Ball, sort of? A treat, anyhow.Hadley Moore: 6. This story would be much better if it was much shorter. It’s a story that magnifies the quotidian, with a man going over and over in his mind the small failures leading to the dissolution of his marriage. Most of it is borne out of confusion, and the story is perfect at nailing the small ways we double-guess ourselves and our partners. However, it’s twice as long as it needs to be (there’re two funerals for one character, in a good summary of the story’s redundancy), and loses its impact as it lingers on. If the author’s intention was to highlight the repetitive nature of these patterns, it should have been more explicit. As is, it seems just unedited.Xavier Navarro Aquino: 6. Yeah, ’s okay. A cut-rate Junot Diaz. A disobedient older brother gets into cockfighting as his younger brother tries to soothe his mother and dying father. Good enough, shouldn't have been the last story.

As usual, a great selection of writing from McSweeney's.