McSweeney’s Issue 81 (McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern)

Step inside the stunningly illustrated bugs-at-dusk pages of McSweeney’s 81 to devour a portfolio of paintings by Pulitzer Prize winner and national treasure Percival Everett; new stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa, Ashley Nelson Levy, Sam Munson, and Shruti Swamy; a queer Dracula comic by Michael DeForge; and an essay by octogenarian Suzanne Rhodenbaugh in which the story of her life is told in devastatingly brief, decade-long increments; alongside letters by Katie Peterson, Susanna Kwan, Simon Han, and so much more.

In this issue, there are swans, mermaids, a Frankenstein with daddy issues, poorly adjusted angels, the afterlife told from three different angles, the gig economy, collage theory, meme theory, murdered uncles, stillbirths, the Berlin wall, Florentine fleur-de-lis, Gypsy camps in Switzerland, bikini lines, the Chicago Seven, treehouses, and the draft. The iridescent worlds of this issue are manifold and teeming. Flip open the gorgeous cover illustrated by Sean Lewis and start reading.

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern began in 1998 as a literary journal that published only works rejected by other magazines. That rule was soon abandoned, and since then McSweeney’s has attracted some of the finest writers in the world, from George Saunders and Lydia Davis, to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and David Foster Wallace. Recent issues have featured work by Tommy Orange, Hanif Abdurraqib, Lisa Taddeo, Mimi Lok, and Lesley Nneka Arimah. At the same time, the journal continues to be a major home for new and unpublished writers; we’re committed to publishing exciting fiction regardless of pedigree.