McSweeney's Issue 51

Issue 51 features eighteen brand-new stories so compelling that you'll read through the night and far into the next day, until your boss calls and warns you that you're on thin ice, buddy, and better get to the office right the {expletive} now-but we swear it's well worth it.

There are high-stakes cock fights and incredibly ill-conceived murder plots, forays into booger-eating and wisdom from gruff old mermaids, church officials dressed as tortoises and ape urine-filled squirt guns, all under the same sumptuous hardcover roof, illustrated by Jesse Jacobs. Plus: splendid splendid new writing from Nadja Spiegelman, Claire Vaye Watkins, Etgar Keret, Mia McKenzie, Lawrence Weschler, Emma Hooper; a comic about one family's experience fighting the Detroit eviction machine; a photo essay that spans the length and width of the United States; an insider exclusive about censorship within the Myanmar Times by journalist RJ Vogt; and oh so much more.