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A nice mix of short stories, photo art, letters to the editor, and previews of coming stories from the good folks at McSweeney’s. There were no home runs this go around but the overall quality is pretty good, and these were my favorites:In Search of a Better Ending by Annesha MithaThe Asylum by Julie HechtThe Famous Writer’s Ashes by Carlea Holl-JensenLetters to the editor from Rufi Thorpe, probably my favorite of all, and makes me want to read one of her books.And last but certainly not least,
Almost every story was totally engrossing, although there were a few duds. I didn't understand the photo story and one section just felt like ads for other books. The formatting drove me nuts, especially the silver pages. But I appreciated being able to read the first half of the cliffhangers on their website and finish them in the book. They were all great. Overall, a solid issue.
This volume is one of the best I’ve read from McSweeney’s. How have I been unaware of Julie Hecht until now? Ridiculous.
One of the better collections, on the whole, that they've put out in a while. It only loses a star because while the design choice was an intriguing one (each section is cut to a different trim size, but everything is bound together), in practice it makes for an issue that gets beat up a bit more easily than one would hope. Particularly loved the photography and the ACLU excerpts, in addition to the conclusions of the cliffhangers from two issues ago!
Fantastic Issue. In particular I loved The End of the Party, the first letter about chasing the armadillo, and the Cliffhangers. My only complaint about the issue is the style of binding. The pages being different sized caused a considerable amount of wear on the different sections and lost me for the photo piece. In all, a solid issue.
I wasn’t able to read issue #59 but I did encounter Gabriel Bump’s To Buffalo Eastward (that was first published in this issue) in The Best American Short Stories 2021 edited by Jesmyn Ward. It was a fascinating read very much like Denis Johnson’s work. So if you liked it you might want to look at Johnson. Great read! I haven’t finished the BASS 2021 collection but so far so good.
This was a new experience for me for Read Harder - "Read an edition of a literary magazine" - I bought the physical one, and I've read a ton of McSweeney's on the website, but reading the full thing was really lovely. I liked every single piece.