Longreads

A team of ranchers in South Dakota are using holistic management techniques to regenerate our ailing grasslands and fight climate change Dusk in Western South Dakota. A half-hour ago,…

Something was killing Hmong men in their sleep, and no one could figure out what it was. There was no obvious cause of death. None of them had been sick, physically. The men weren't clustered all that tightly, geographically speaking. They were united by dislocation from Laos and a shared culture, but little else. Even House would have been stumped. Doctors gave the problem a name, the kind that reeks of defeat, a dragon label on the edge of the known medical world: Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome. SUNDS. It didn't do much in terms of diagnosis or treatment, but it was easier to track the periodic conferences dedicated to understanding the problem.

This piece is an excerpt from "My Mother's Lover," the story of a World War II love affair and the efforts of two families to learn about the mysterious man who has brought…