STEPHEN DIXON
RETURNS.
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A while ago, on this very site, Stephen Dixon said that "you're not a writer today unless you write a trilogy." That was just after McSweeney's released I., which was intended to be the first third of such a thing (his Fellowship of the Ring, basically). Four years later, Dixon's trilogy has become a crisp and pithy diptych—End of I.,
which we've just released, is I.'s single, definitive sequel (it's his Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, maybe, or his O'Reilly Factor for Kids). So he's broken his own rule, since he's surely one of the finest writers we have today—it's hard to think of a more ambitious, or more industrious, author. Jonathan Lethem called him "one of the great secret masters," and J. Robert Lennon warned that "You have to go into a Dixon book the way you'd go into a game of strip poker: ready to end up naked"; both men admitted they'd borrow his words in a heartbeat. End of I. shows Dixon at the top of his game: breathtakingly intelligent and brutally aware. And for I., it's an expansion and an enhancement—the two books belong together, so we're including a copy of I. with every End of I., at no extra charge. We've also brought back the Daniel Clowes design of the first book for the new one, albeit inside out—I.'s cover includes a fine-looking I-shaped die-cut exposing a portrait of Dixon; End of I. brings that interior image into the open, with a die-cut at its side. Dixon is busting out. To make this clear, we'll show both to you:
You can get these two together right here, and you can read a bit of End of I. below.
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THE BREAKUP.
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They rarely discussed; they just agreed and did. One or the other of them: "Dinner tonight?"—"You bet." "Like to go to a movie?"—"Sure, name the time." "Drop by, I'll be in all day"—"I'm on my way." "I'd like to stay home alone tonight if you don't mind"—"Me? Has it ever been a problem? I'll talk to you tomorrow." "I know it's late but I'm feeling lonely for you. Can I come over?"—"Of course." Then: "I'm afraid I'm tied up tonight, so maybe another time." "What? How come?" "I'm busy, that's what I'm saying." "I know, but since when, and doing what?" "Something." "You mean 'someone.' A man?" "Okay; yes." "I expect it isn't business." "No, it isn't." "But where and how did this all take place?" "It just has; I'm sorry. But call me, all right?" "For what?" "Who knows what can happen, or won't. We'll see." So he called: "I'm afraid," she said, "it's more serious than I thought." "You mean with this other man?" "You know that's what I was saying." "I didn't; I don't. First we were seeing each other almost every day or night. Then you hit me with this in a matter of days." "Like I said, or intimated: it just happened; somebody I met. I can't quite explain it; boom, and everything changed. I didn't want to hurt you, obviously I have, and you can't know how terrible I feel about that." "So we're not going to see each other again?" "In the way we did, I don't see how." "Screw you, then," and he hung up.
He showed up at her door that night. "How'd you get in the building?" "Is anybody with you?" "I asked you a question." "Rang a whole bunch of bells." "That's unfair to my neighbors." "Don't worry, the bells were all for the top floors. And right now you think I care about your neighbors?" She wouldn't let him in. "Then come out to the
hallway so we don't have to talk through the door." "I don't want you to make a scene." "I won't." He did. She went back into her apartment, locked the door. He put his ear to the door, didn't hear any talking, said "So you're alone. Just let me in or come out to the hallway again or meet me for coffee someplace and I absolutely promise this time not to raise my voice or do or say anything even remotely unreasonable." She didn't answer. He knocked, rang the bell, said her name several times, went home and called and called and she finally picked up the phone and said "Please stop calling me. We said everything we needed to in the hallway and any further discussion of the matter isn't going to change things." "You don't have to tell me that. I know I'm only making it worse. But the truth is, it can't be worse. I feel miserable. Worse than miserable, whatever the word for it is. I want to see you. I want it to be like it was. I want it to be even more than that. I want to live with you, marry you, have a baby with you." "You said all that in the hallway and I'll say again what I said then: 'Don't be absurd.' It's even more unquestionably the wrong time to propose such things." "And if I'd have said it before—not in the
hallway or this call but before you met this new guy?" "It would have been way premature." "Go way-premature yourself, you bastard." "Oh? And now you're going to hang up?" He hung up.
He went to her building the next night.
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OTHER McSWEENEY'S FEATURES:
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Stephen Dixon Returns
Warnings I've Tried to Sneak Into the Fine Print at the Bottom of Your TV Screen By Dan Kennedy
Notes on "Sweet Child O' Mine," as Delivered to Axl Rose by His Editor By John Moe
An Open Letter to James Randi Regarding His "One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge" By Jennifer Dziura
Godzilla's Journal By Sean Hewlett
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