Daniel Gumbiner

At 28 years old, Eli "Berg" Koenigsberg has never encountered a challenge he couldn't push through, until a head injury leaves him with lingering headaches and a weakness for opiates. Berg moves to a remote Northern California town, seeking space and time to recover, but soon finds himself breaking into homes in search of pills. Addled by addiction and chronic pain, Berg meets Alejandro, a reclusive, master boatbuilder, and begins to see a path forward. Alejandro offers Berg honest labor, but more than this, he offers him a new approach to his suffering, a template for survival amid intense pain. Nurtured by his friendship with Alejandro and aided, too, by the comradeship of many in Talinas, Berg begins to return to himself. Written in gleaming prose, this is a story about resilience, community, and what it takes to win back your soul.

The Boatbuilder

Dave Eggers

Claire Boyle

Coming this October, the 68th issue of our National Magazine Award-winning McSweeney's Quarterly features stories of duplicity and deception, double lives and secret histories, waiting for you underneath a cover by Italian artist Daniele Castellano (inspired by the Roman god Janus depicting duality in its many forms). Inside, readers will find an essay by Alejandro Zambra on soccer sadness; an epic, time-bending short story from Carmen Maria Machado; and new work from National Book Award finalist Lisa Ko. Like all editions of McSweeney's, this issue includes work from established contemporary talents (Catherine Lacey, Andrew Martin, Laura van den Berg) alongside fresh emerging voices (Stephanie Ullmann, Hallie Gayle). Readers will find new translations of Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo and Italian novelist Andrea Bajani, and a little diamond of flash fiction by James Yeh. Compiled by visiting editor Daniel Gumbiner, McSweeney's Issue 68 offers a host of delights and surprises, from some of the world's best writers. Always changing, each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned (there have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head), but always brings you the very best in new literary fiction.

Daniel Gumbiner

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