McSweeney’s Issue 22 – Various Artists
NF

For sale: a Rare and Exceptional tri-fold hardcover edition, first printing of McSweeney’s Issue 22 by Nick Flynn, Denis Johnson, C. D. Wright, and others with no dust jacket as issued. First Edition unstated, 2007 McSweeney’s Books. First Printing with no subsequent printing.

The book is in Near Fine condition with clean, bright boards, strong title gilt on a straight spine, clean page blocks, no spine tilt, strong spine ends, mild edge wear and lightly rounded corners. The interior of the book is in Near Fine condition with no marks, inscriptions, or other signs of ownership inside. Inside the hardcover binder are three paperback volumes with magnetic binders.

No dust jacket as issued.

McSweeney’s Issue 22 is a three-part exercise in inspired restriction — of author, of content, and of form. In section one, 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 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 legendary Oulipians offers a rare glimpse into his group’s current experiments with linguistic constraint.