Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney’s Humor Category (2004) is a collection of absurdist, satirical, and offbeat pieces drawn from the literary journal McSweeney’s. Edited by Dave Eggers, it gathers the most inventive and ridiculous contributions from the site’s humor section, showcasing a style that’s part parody, part cultural critique, and part gleeful nonsense.
The book features mock essays, fake letters, surreal monologues, and riffs on everything from historical figures to pop culture, written by a range of contributors who push humor into strange, clever, and unexpected places. Its comedy often plays with format as much as content—turning everyday structures like lists, memos, or instructions into vehicles for satire.
Irreverent and unpredictable, the collection reflects McSweeney’s distinct voice: literary, self-aware, and sharply funny, a snapshot of early-2000s American humor at its most experimental.
