McSweeney's Issue 64: The Audio Issue

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern #64

by Claire Boyle (Editor), Jason Reynolds (Contributor), Renee Gladman (Contributor)

Combining art, fiction, audio, and a slew of unclassifiable print objects in a custom box, McSweeney’s 64 is a riotous exploration of audiovisual storytelling, coproduced with Radiotopia from PRX (home to genius, independent audio creators including Song Exploder, Criminal, Ear Hustle, and more). Each piece in the issue establishes its own relationship between audio and print—the contributor’s unique experiment in weaving the mediums.

Included are Rion Amilcar Scott with a short fiction piece featuring two alternative audio endings; Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Kate Soper with a transhumanist, interactive software upload; DeafBlind poet John Lee Clark on the limits of accessibility; Claudia Dey, Jason Reynolds, Renee Gladman, Sharon Mashihi, and more taking us on audio tours of our own homes; Aliya Pabani with a radio drama whose plot is complicated by a 24” x 30” illustrated poster; Ian Chillag with an absurdist, interactive phone tree; James T. Green, Catherine Lacey, and This American Life’s Sean Cole with voicemail dispatches to the editor; and so, so much more.

Genres: Short Stories

100 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 2021

Reviews

[Paul Dembina · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting use of audio to supplement usual text (in various formats)

Some worked better than others. My favourites were ClearVoice, Annals of Minimalism and Clinical Judgment

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phenomenal package, but so much of the material outside the package made things more difficult rather than easier. I liked the pieces that really bright together the audio and the artifact. Some of the pieces that had minimal artifact failed to keep my attention.

[Sree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Appreciate what they tried here. Definitely a departure from their usual fare and format. Unfortunately, though, the content I most enjoyed was in the main book. The audio, while interesting, wasn’t quite as seamless to navigate as I had imagined.

[Niklas Larsson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bloated and mostly boring.
The interesting experiments:
Kidzworks, Get On Board, and clearvoice

Genuinely good: Douteflower, Speculation, N

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderfully inventive experiment. I particularly enjoyed all the hidden phone numbers that led to more audio treats. The voice mails to the editor were great. The stories were a little more experimental than usual but that seemed fitting to the medium. This one was really worth the wait!

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic marriage of print and audio with unexpected results

[Timons Esaias · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a big fan of McSweeney's, and have been a subscriber since the second issue. The first issue is the only one not on my shelf. But I've been bad about actually reading the issues, cover to cover. I'm trying to be more systematic now, and have read 32 of the issues as of this moment.

I've been putting off the review of this edition, though, because I greatly admired the invention, cleverness and intent of The Audio Issue, but also found it to be more cleverness than effectiveness. Today I'm deciding to just go with that as the core of my review.

This boxed edition is certainly one of the wilder entries in the series. It contains 11 different parts, including a listing of the parts and how to use them. But there is also a website so that you may listen to the audio part, and a phone number to an answering service with fictional messages. This is also an especially thought-provoking issue (especially John Lee Clark's essay "Against Access"), which I think was the impetus for doing this project. They get full points for that.

This was co-produced with Radiotopia, and the audio elements are presented in a style that is sometimes radio play, sometimes audio book, sometimes in between, which certainly has an audience. This was one of the problems for me, because I find radio drama and audio books to be too slow, most of the time. I find myself opening the mail, cleaning the kitchen, playing solitaire...

I also felt that many of the pieces were a bit thin, depending on the unusual presentation rather than the content. I loved that they tried a graphic story that scrolled through a lantern box (which so reminds me of the scroll boxes of Northern Dynasty Paintings), and I liked the drawing, but the piece itself was just an effect.

The only piece that stuck with me was "Percy and the Fire Plums" by Rion Amilcar Scott. The Internet tells me he is doing interesting work, and I'm not surprised. I will be investigating him further.

My reaction, as I said, is very mixed. Nothing was bad, just thin. And even the thin pieces had their moments, and the accumulated moments, and accumulated provoked thoughts, added up to a worthwhile experience. I'm glad they gave this experiment a try; I'm glad it made them focus on access; I'm amused. But for reading experience, it's three stars for me. For cleverness and imagination, five. I'm settling on a reluctant four stars.

[Jim Lang · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really appreciate McSweeney’s trying something new with this audio issue, and am always going to be happy opening a box of treasures, but the sad truth is that I found a lot of the stuff here gimmicky and a little precious. I’m not an audiobook fan though, and so was never going to be the target for this particular project. Amazing design, once again…