McSweeney’s Quarterly has a reputation for being imaginative and capricious, with issues having previously been delivered as hardcover books, newspapers, and bundles of mail, as well as in other less conventional formats.
The most recent issue, “The Make-Believers”, was guest-edited by cartoonist Thi Bui and novelist Vu Tran, and aims to capture the disparate nature of the Vietnamese diaspora.
It arrives in a cigar box illustrated by Bui, containing a number of booklets of stories, essays, and illustrations on the theme of Vietnamese identity.
In speaking to The Verge about the production of the issue, Thi Bui and Vu Tran said the idea for the issue was conceived on a hilltop in Marin County, with Dave Eggers (the founder of McSweeney’s) offering the pair the opportunity to take over an issue of the journal.
While the issue coincidentally appeared at a time which marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War, the guest editors insisted the timing was a coincidence, and that they were “flying by the seat of [their] pants” in putting the issue together.