After more than two years of silence, while McSweeney's transitioned to being non-profit, raised money through donations and advertising, and had to sell off its beloved Believer Magazine, many thought McSweeney's Quarterly Concern was dead. But out came issue 49, a star-studded collection of contemporary writers providing new versions of classic short stories by famous writers. Issue 49 also marks the last time Dave Eggers is listed as McSweeney's Editor, and the first and only time McSweeney's contained third-party advertising.
I seem to recall that the original design for this issue was for it to mimic a box set of vinyl records with the stories in individual booklets made to look like record albums. No doubt that proved too costly and they pared back to this square paperback with front and back covers much in the style of The Beatle's Sgt.Pepper, with the inspirational artists on the front and the actual ones on the back. The letters in the Letters section are almost all about music, and there's excerpts from the autobiography of record cover artist, Gary Burden (also the creative director for the issue's cover), all of which is line with the box set idea.
The stories are uniformly good ranging from simply retelling the original in modern voice, to placing the key events in new settings, to using the original idea as a beginning point and going off in a new direction. I particularly remember Emily Raboteau's take on Alice Munro's "Some Women," Megan Mayhew Bergman's version of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," and T.C. Boyle's remake of "The Agentine Ant," by Italo Calvino. Some of the stories inspired me to read the original version. The issue also includes poetry covers, a teaser excerpt from Patty Yumi Cottrell's (now Patrick Cottrell's) book, "Sorry To Disrupt the Peace," an introduction by Mr. Eggers explaining the issue's concept and lamenting society's backward step with the Trump presidency, and clever little snippets throughout comparing great speeches from history with the tweets of D. J. Trump. ( )

One of my favorite McSweeney's elements over the years has been their cover stories, in which they have contemporary writers cover classics. So I really looked forward to a whole issue of them! A few of them (Megan Mayhew Bergman's cover of "The Lottery" and Anthony Marra's of "The Tell-Tale Heart") were definitely what I wanted; most of the others didn't tickle my fancy much. But a great idea. ( )

McSweeney’s is back after a hiatus caused by financial difficulties, and what a nice edition this is. The concept is that writers ‘cover’ short stories from others the way musicians sometimes cover songs. There is quite a variety here, and I found it interesting to look up the original stories to fully appreciate the creativity and approach each author took in their versions. My favorites:

- The Tell-Tale Heart, Anthony Marra’s version of E.A. Poe’s story of the same name
- Falling Faintly, Jess Walter’s version of ‘The Dead’ by James Joyce
- Once, Lauren Groff’s version of ‘Wants’ by Grace Paley
- If You’re Happy and You Know It, Meg Wolitzer’s version of ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ by J.D. Salinger
- The Argentine Ant, T.C. Boyle’s version of Italo Calvino’s story of the same name

As in past editions, the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section at the beginning has many clever submissions and is well worth reading. There are also sidebars with great speeches from history compared to the tweets of Donald Trump, and, wisely, Eggers shows restraint and avoids selecting Trump’s angrier and less coherent tweets. Smart, sophisticated, and clever. ( )