McSweeney's #27

Plunging straight into the grayish, faintly understood area of the art world that involves oddly drawn objects coupled with uncertainly spelled text, McSweeney's 27 brings together a previously uncategorized cadre of pithy draftsmen, genius doodlers, and fine-artistic cartoonists, and buffets them with essays examining just what it is that these people are doing and why the world should know about it. With work by Jim Shepard, Stephen King, Art Spiegelman, David Shrigley, Tucker Nichols, and many others, and stories by a wide variety of excellent writers.


Table of Contents

The Quarterly:

Larry Smith – Tight Like That
In the old days, when he worked for Dutch Schultz and palled around sometimes with Vincent Coll, there were dozens of women all named Kate.

Jim Shepard – Classical Scenes of Farewell
As a child who could barely hold myself upright without tottering, I was steeped in my mother’s sense that our tumbledown farm was serried about and tumid with devils.

Ashlee Adams – Bird Feed
Nurse Ox called up at the house that night to say that my Grandma Martin’s lungs had tuckered and then petered out.

Liz Mandrell – Sod Turned Spring
There was an old woman in a Cardinals hat waiting at the Sky-Vu gate. A car pulled in next to her, and she leaned down to look inside.

Mike Jollett – The Crack
Margaret and I stared at the General Major for a long time. He'd found the French Navy-issue blazer in Margaret's garage, and it made him look ridiculous.

Stephen King – A Very Tight Place
Curtis Johnson rode his bike five miles every morning.


PLUS

“Lots of Things Like This,” an Art Show Catalogue

Art Spiegelman Sketchbook