McSweeney's Issue 22 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern)

McSweeney's Publishing, 2007. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good/No Dust Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" Three volumes bound in red pictorial boards. A nice example of the McSweeney book design. McSweeney's Issue 22 is a three-part exercise in inspired restriction of author, of content, and of form. In section one, poets (yes poets!) including Mary Karr, Denis Johnson, C. D. Wright, and D. C. Berman initiate poet-chains, picking a poem of their own and one by another poet. The next poet will then do the same, and then again, and again, and so on. In section two, Fitzgerald (yes F. Scott Fitzgerald!) provides a list of unused story premises first cataloged in The Crack-Up; his mission is completed by writers like Diane Williams and Nick Flynn. In section three, finally, the president of France's (yes France!) legendary Oulipians offers a rare glimpse into his group's current experiments with linguistic constraint. Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.