The easy life of The New Yorker fiction editor

Though I whacked around the Atlantic in yesterday's post, I have to say this for the magazine, at least for its fiction issue: they are willing to showcase young (or career-beginning) writers, unlike, say The New Yorker, which now rarely if ever publishes anyone but the well established. (How hard could it be to be The New Yorker fiction editor? Your submission pile consists of the best fiction by the best writers in the world and the best novels, from which you can excerpt anything your heart desires?) Yesterday I mentioned one story from an unknown (to me) writer that I liked (A Simple Case), and another today: Hopefulness, by Ryan Mecklenberg, about a strange, troubled man who of all things runs the neighborhood watch in what seems to be a decent working-class neighborhood in some Midwestern suburb, and he takes his job way too seriously. Story swirls with disturbing undercurrents, broken marriages, a scary neighborhood kid in prison, an abandoned home gradually being looted and stripped. The narrator seems unaware that others see him as a maniac, obsessed with the rules and order - but he also seems unaware that they care for him in some sweet way, they see his distress and they want to ease his pain. The story has the dark humor of George Saunders, but there's a richness as well, a sense of community - reminds me a little of Virgin Suicides and That Night, but darker, too - a very promising writer. Another story - about conjoined twins (Spinal Hinge) is well written, but can't we put this topic to rest? There's an endless fascination with conjoined twins (and with literary doubles, I'm guilty of that fascination), but haven't there been at least two novels on this topic already? Isn't it really a form of sensationalism?