I’ve subscribed to the New Yorker since August of last year, and was only recently turned onto the Oxford American, so I come to both magazines from a relatively new place, and hopefully, a fresh perspective. Or maybe it’s a perspective that exits, but hasn’t been voiced. Or maybe I’m just late to the game. Anyway, if you’re familiar with the New Yorker, but not the Oxford American, I encourage you to sit down with the OA and compare. Which is exactly what I’m going to do here. Who will win in the end? Stay tuned…

I remember being smitten by the New Yorker for a long time. I’d read each issue cover to cover. I’d laugh at the cartoons and pass them over to my husband. He’d spend five minutes staring at the caption contest then say something witty. The first issue I blogged was August 28, 2006. I’d read Margaret Atwood’s poem “Secrets” and wanted to show it to every person I know. Of course, I couldn’t post the entire thing on my personal website, so I chose a few of my favorite lines, which probably didn’t do the piece justice. But that’s how the whole New Yorker thread started. Some issues, I’d find a lot to talk about, others I felt like tossing in the garbage. The Style issue, anyone? Bleh. Sorry. Just can’t get excited about it.

Still, the New Yorker is a great magazine. I still love the cartoons, and columnists like James Surowiecki, who almost always has something interesting to say about the economy. I admire the many articles written by Elizabeth Kolbert on the environment, and the profiles of people like Amory Lovins and Tom Monaghan. Fascinating! I’m primarily a fiction writer, however, and many weeks, I was left unimpressed by the stories published. They seemed very, well, lets say: self-conscious. Where were all the fresh, entertaining voices??

When I received three issues of the Oxford American, I looked at the covers and thought: D-AMN! I hope the contents are just as cool. I didn’t have to worry. I was sky-rocketed. Now, I know that landing a story in the New Yorker is considered the ultimate achievement, but I would be equally (more?) satisfied if I was accepted at the Oxford American. The fiction they publish is admirably original and engaging. Let’s take a look at a few:

From the Winter Reading Issue: “Mattress: A Timeline,” by Chris Bachelder, is a story about, yep, you guessed it, a mattress, which becomes a metaphor for the couple’s relationship. The story’s format is cool—a timeline, as the title indicates. Check out this excerpt:

“…she lets it slip that the mattress was pre-owned. I want to know: Who returns a mattress? Your aunt said the showroom guy said the original buyer said he couldn’t fit the bed up his stairs so he brought it back. No more than a few hours. But that’s always bothered me, that little missing link in the chain of ownership.”

Would you ever find something that fun in the New Yorker? Doubt it. Or how about “Nancy,” by Daniel Alarcón? This piece may be about a failed relationship, but the binding image is breasts. Breasts, breasts, everywhere. The woman in the story is an artist whose muse is the boob. Like the mattress in Bachelder’s story, the woman’s artwork (and it’s not just paintings or drawings, folks! There are breast pillows, too!) becomes the centerpiece of dysfunction. Read this excerpt:

“Nancy is an artist. Last year, she came home with her nipples pierced. I was told I could not touch them for six months, while they healed. She then proceeded to taunt me with images of her metallically adorned chest. They are my favorite breasts in the world, full and round, but as art they are less than inspiring. She has them pressed up against glass, distorted and medical in their indiscretion. They watched me while I worked. I listened to the radio and they listened too. For months, I shared a space with a section of my girlfriend’s body, rather than my girlfriend, who was in the habit of disappearing, who slept on the couch, who would leave before I woke, only a used coffee filter proving that she was even here. In the meantime, the house filled up with her breasts, like a strange roommate moving in unannounced in the early hours of morning.”

A bit too quirky, too risky, for the New Yorker? I think so. But the eccentricity works.

The fiction in issue 55, a more recent issue, excited me even more. There’s “Tollbooth Confidential” by Jack Pendarvis, which is fricking hilarious. Imagine a kid, a “tool,” in a tollbooth whose only mission is to deliver a brown-wrapped package to the correct person—a man in a Volvo station wagon. If he pulls it off, he makes two hundred dollars. But the kid can’t help wondering—what’s in the package? So he calls his friend Puddin’, and they open the package and discover hash. I’m sure you know what they did with the hash…

Then there is “A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling from the Pockets” by Kevin Brockmeier. After reading Brockmeier’s profile in the Winter Reading Issue, then this story, I’m a new fan. I plan on buying all of his books. In “A Fable…” a man buys a coat at a thrift store and starts finding slips of paper in the pockets. Prayers. Check this out:

“In the weeks that followed, he found thousands upon thousands more. Prayers for comfort and prayers for wealth. Prayers for love and prayers for good fortune. It seemed that at any one time half the people in the city were likely to be praying. Some of them were praying for things he could understand, even if he could not provide them, like the waitress who wanted some graceful way to back out of her wedding or the UPS driver who asked for a single night of unbroken sleep, while some were praying for things he could not even understand: Let the voice choose lunch this time. Either Amy Sussen of Amy Goodale. Nothing less than thirty percent. He walked past a ring of elementary-school students playing Duck, Duck, Goose and collected a dozen notes reading, Pick me, pick me, along with one that read, I wish you would kill Matthew Brantman…”

I think what draws me to these stories more than the work published in the New Yorker, is their entertainment value. They are fun. And they have literary merit. When you read these stories, you know the writers behind them are passionate, living people. Some of the work in the New Yorker feels dead. It lacks energy, spark. It’s too muddled in language, rather than storytelling. The Oxford American wins that battle.

One thing you should all know, however: The Oxford American is a regional magazine. It’s devoted to southern writers and writing. If you want to submit, you must be from the south, or have something to say about it. Despite this regional focus however, the contents often transcend these boundaries.

On that note, let’s get down the VOTES:

As I said above, the Oxford American wins for best fiction. 1 Point.

Articles pertaining to fiction, or the creative life? OA wins that one, too. 1 Point.

Poetry. With Margaret Atwood and Sharon Olds, the New Yorker gets my vote. 1 Point.

For journalistic merit, I have to give it to the New Yorker. In my experience thus far, they have a broader focus. 1 Point.

Commentary pieces: Another tough one. I love both. NY has people like James Surowiecki, while OA has Beth Ann Fennelly. Tie. 1 Point Each.

Editor’s Letter: NY doesn’t even have one. Gotta give it up to OA’s Marc Smirnoff. He’s always got something good to say. 1 Point.

Humor: NY has cartoons, and people like David Sedaris and Ian Frazier. 1 Point.

Special Issues: Both have a reading/fiction issue. The New Yorker has an Education issue, a Cartoon issue, an Anniversary issue, and a Style issue. What I know of the OA, they have a Music issue (award winning), and a Movie issue (which I’m anxiously awaiting), both of which seem to be ongoing, along with a few other specials issues that appear to be random. Of the NY special issues, not considering the fiction issue of either magazine, the Education is most interesting. The others I haven’t loved. I’ve only seen the Music issue from the OA, but I have to give this category to them. It came with a CD with 24 songs of stuff I’d never heard of and wouldn’t have thought to listen to EVER. Kudos OA. 1 Point.

Art: OA all the way. Completely blown away. 1 Point.

Cover: Again, OA. 1 Point.

So what does that give you?

The New Yorker: 5 Points
The Oxford American: 7 Points

Yep. The Oxford American bests the New Yorker.


Filed Under: The New Yorker, The Oxford American |