McSweeney's Issue 69(2022)

Aimee BenderMichael ChabonCarol Emshwiller

Just in time for the holidays, the sixty-ninth issue of our National Magazine Award-winning McSweeney's Quarterly is a gift to adventurous readers. Featuring an irresistible mix of original fiction from daring new voices and beloved favorites, this issue is certain to delight one and all.

Often hilarious and always surprising, these are tales of contemporary life flipped and twisted, skewed and skewered. Inside this supermarket pulp-inspired paperback featuring cover art by Benjamin Marra , readers will find a novelette about a sex co-op by Lydia Conklin ; a relato about Veracruz dockworkers by Fernanda Melchor ; a story about an eccentric childhood neighbor by Julie Hecht ; speculative fiction about mothers and daughters in the apocalypse by Siqi Liu ; a shocking tale of baby bath time by Zach Williams ; a DeafBlind remix of an ancient Indian fable by John Lee Clark ; an encounter with your dimmer, more winsome doppelgänger by Yohanca Delgado ; and much more.

Not only that, we've gathered for you painfully new fiction about feral "glamping" trips ( Max Delsohn ) and mysterious deep-fakers ( Mikkel Rosengaard ), ghoulish bachelorette parties ( Mel Kassel ) and obstreperous crank-yankers ( Evan James )--all topped off by an extended post-breakup stay at your nearest fast-food joint ( Leila Renee ). Prepare to be entertained by letters from Ikechukwu Ufomadu , April Ayers Lawson , Anelise Chen , Bianca Giaever , and Ricardo Frasso Jaramillo ; drift away to a trash-strewn island in a full-color psychedelic comic by Connor Willumsen.

Compiled by visiting editor James Yeh , McSweeney's 69 is a vast topography of literary thrills and spills that you'll return to again and again. Ever changing, each issue of the quarterly is completely redesigned (there have been hardcovers and paperbacks, an issue with two spines, an issue with a magnetic binding, an issue that looked like a bundle of junk mail, and an issue that looked like a sweaty human head), but always brings you the very best in new literary fiction.