McSweeney’s 49: Cover Stories

Description

Ever wanted to know Meg Wolitzer‘s take on J.D. Salinger? How about Anthony Marra‘s rendition of The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe? There’s tons of fun takes in this 2017 edition of the McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern — “thirteen stories, all told, featuring stunning illustrations by the award-winning design outfit Aesthetic Apparatus, and guest art directed by legendary album-cover designers Gary Burden and Jenice Heo of R. Twerk & Co.”

More details:
• The Babysitter – Emily Raboteau (covering Some Women by Alice Munro)
• The Lottery, Redux – Megan Mayhew Bergman (covering The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
• The Tell-Tale Heart – Anthony Marra (covering The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe)
• Falling Faintly – Jess Walter (covering The Dead by James Joyce
• Once – Lauren Groff (covering Wants by Grace Paley)
• Men On Bikes – Roxane Gay (covering Rape Fantasies by Margaret Atwood)
• Company – Namwali Serpell (covering Company by Samuel Beckett)
• And So On – Kiese Laymon (covering Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway)
• If You’re Happy And You Know It – Meg Wolitzer (covering A Perfect Day For Bananafish by J.D. Salinger)
• The Argentine Ant – T.C. Boyle (covering The Argentine Ant by Italo Calvino)
• One Hour, Every Seven Years – Alice Sola Kim (covering All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury)
• Sleepy – Chris Abani (covering Sleepy by Anton Chekhov)
• The Yellow Wallpaper – Tom Drury (covering The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman)

PLUS:
• Letters from Wajahat Ali, Nick Jaina, Robin Terrell, Kimberly Harrington, Mary Miller, Rick Moody, Will Butler, and Ariel S. Winter.
• Selected excerpts from Gary Burden’s autobiography Nobody Knows and Patrick Cottrell’s debut novel Sorry to Disrupt the Peace.
• Monologue by Kevin Moffett, excerpted from the Organist podcast, from McSweeney’s and KCRW.

POEMS:
“The Metaphor Program” by Brian Turner
“Poem for Keats” by Matthew Zapruder
“Having a Coke with You” by Rebecca Lindenberg
“Roofers,” “Suspense,” and “A Nickel on Top of a Penny” by Stephanie Burt
“Poem on the Occasion of Weekly Staff Meeting” by Matthew Zapruder