I view the Eggers/McSweeney's scene as a sort of literary pyramid scheme. It's organized around a central, charismatic salesman (Eggers) whose success is trumpeted as plan that the program "works." It's not just selling a product, but it's selling a lifestyle-vision: "you can do this, you can be successful, too, you can have all of this is you just do the program." It's organized around a lot of flashy gimmicks and trinkets designed to catch the buyer's eye -- books with ribbons bound into them, books that all have unique covers drawn by the writer, books that open in odd ways, etc. Notice that there are not any works of actual literary quality being published by McSweeney's Books (with the exception, possibly, of Eggers, but I personally can't stand his work). It's all this cutesy stuff, like the book about the man who fell in love with a lemon. How in the hell can anyone read crap like that? I don't think people ARE reading that crap -- instead, they are buying a dream of DIY literary success.

Read Ada Calhoun's piece, talking about how the charm and attraction of the McSweeney's set wore thin quite quicky.

Posted by: James on January 31, 2007 8:51 PM