McSWEENEY’S NEW RELEASE AND QUARTERLY COMBO SUBSCRIPTION

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This is the combo subscription for both McSweeney’s New Release Subscription and McSweeney’s Quarterly. For just the New Release Subscription, click here. For just the Quarterly, click here.

“There are few examples in publishing that equal the care and inventiveness McSweeney’s offers their readers—the industry at large should take note.”
—Bookends and Beginnings, Evanston, IL

Life is too short to worry about not having enough reading material. That’s why we’ve decided to combine two of our most popular long-standing subscriptions into one super-sized combo, bringing you no fewer than ten McSweeney’s publications—and one special tote—straight to your mailbox. You’ll get four issues of our ever-changing, always boundary-pushing, National Magazine Award-winning literary journal McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, PLUS the next six titles from our books division, sent prior to or upon publication and bundled with special letters of introduction from the authors themselves. On their own, these books and quarterlies can retail anywhere from $16 to $30, so this is truly a deal worth writing home about. And, like the cheesiest of infomercials, that’s not all! Combo subscribers will also be sent a beautiful green McSweeney’s tote immediately upon purchase.

Take a look at what you’ll have coming your way:

Penalties of June by John Brandon
The millennium is drawing to a close. Pratt, a young Floridian who’s just finished a prison sentence he both did and didn’t deserve, is looking to start a new life. But will he be able to shake his shady past?

Brimming with tension, action, wry dialogue, and unexpected pathos, Penalties of June is John Brandon’s sixth book published by McSweeney’s. With his distinct feel for the underbelly of his home state of Florida, Brandon takes readers into the forbidding corners of the Tampa Bay area—unsavory motels, secondhand shops, no-frills diners, and dubious used-car lots. Pratt navigates crime bosses and drug dealers on a perilous mission, his steed a trusty (if creaky) Chrysler LeBaron. Faced with an impossible choice, and the prospect of finally finding love after years behind bars, Pratt risks it all for a chance at making things right.

McSweeney’s 76: Aftershocks
McSweeney’s 76: Aftershocks is a collection of contemporary Syrian prose—short stories, novel excerpts, and plays—that chronicles the literal and metaphorical earthquakes that haunt the Syrian people. Guest-edited by acclaimed Syrian American journalist Alia Malek, and encompassing the work of eight Arabic translators and sixteen Syrian writers (some of which have never before been translated in English), these contributors write across diasporic and refugee experiences, as well as from inside present-day Syria. In these pages, skeletons fall in love, Damascus alleys become time portals, letters tucked in bullet wounds reanimate the dead, minarets gush blood, and photographs become more human than humans. The requisite actors in these stories, and in any conflict (and crime)—victim, killer, survivor—are blurred and intimate. Magical realism, the absurd, and the surreal course through these pages. These stories ask us to imagine the unimaginable. They ask not “what is real?” but rather “how can this be real?”

And then?
Keep an eye out for three more thrilling and innovative collections of the kind of cutting-edge literary content readers of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern have come to expect for over two decades. Plus, unforgettable works of fiction and nonfiction from McSweeney’s Publishing.

Praise for McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern

“A key barometer of the literary climate.”
—The New York Times

“The first bona fide literary movement in decades.”
—Slate

“Ever shape-shifting and ambitious, McSweeney’s has redefined what a literary institution can be. Their commitment to publishing strong, strange voices and stories from the periphery has always been an inspiration and I’m always excited to see what they’ll do next.”
—Catherine Lacey, McSweeney’s contributor and author of The Answers

“McSweeney’s is so much more than a magazine; it’s a vital part of our culture.”
—Geoff Dyer, McSweeney’s contributor and author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and Otherwise Known as the Human Condition

“Some magazines are comfort reads. We turn to them because we can almost predict, issue to issue, what and even who will appear in them. But others, like McSweeney’s, are challenge reads. They’re feverishly inventive, discomfortingly surprising, and therefore among the best reminders that we are actually alive. I love shouting at McSweeney’s, laughing with it, and rolling my eyes at myself while the magazine reads me like a deceptively perceptive carnival psychic.”
—John D’Agata, author of Halls of Fame and About a Mountain

“I’m incredibly grateful for the existence of McSweeney’s. Its embrace of world literature is completely unique, lucid, knowing, and indispensable.”
—Francisco Goldman, McSweeney’s contributor and acclaimed author of The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle and The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?



IMPORTANT LOGISTICAL INFORMATION: This is a one time combo price, all subscriptions to McSweeney’s Quarterly automatically renew after four issues, at 15% off the price of a regular sub (currently $80.75), while the McSweeney’s New Release Subscription renews after six issues at a price of $95. In the event of any future rate changes, we will notify you via email. If you’d like to cancel either subscription at any time prior to its auto-renewal, you can log in to your account and adjust your subscription settings. Or send an email to custservice@mcsweeneys.net with the subject lines “End Quarterly Renew,” “End New Release Renew,” or “End Combo Renew” depending on your desires. Refunds will be accepted only up until the first issue of your renewal is shipped. All subscriptions placed before February 1, 2025 will begin with McSweeney’s 76: Aftershocks, and Penalties of June. If you’d like to give the Quarterly Concern as a one-time gift, purchase a gift subscription here. Any subscription purchased with the “gift” option marked at checkout will not be enrolled in autorenew.

International shipping costs for the full ten-book combo subscription: $70