Longreads

[Essays and Criticism] A child's isolating illness:

"Isabel was asleep in the recovery room, motionless, innocent. Teri and I kissed her hands and her forehead and wept through the moment that divided our life into before and after. Before was now and forever foreclosed, while after was spreading out, like an exploding twinkle star, into a dark universe of pain."

[Essays and Criticism] Notes from one of the best writers in Cleveland on how he makes a living:

"This is my life: I work the graveyard shift for a beverage distributor outside Cleveland, Ohio. Thirty hours a week I'm making the world safe for carbonated refreshment. Or at least three counties of it."

Imam Salahuddin Muhammad could hardly miss Shahed Hussain when he first appeared three years ago at his mosque in the dilapidated town of Newburgh, just 60 miles up the Hudson River from New…