Longreads

CRESCENT LAKE, Ore.—My father taught me how to throw a baseball and divide big numbers in my head and build a life where I’d be home in time to eat dinner with my kid most nights. He…

"Ok," I said to my daughter as she bent over her afternoon bowl of Cinnamon Life. "What's going on with you and J.?" J. is the ringleader of a group of third-graders at her camp—a position…

A candlelight vigil in Minneapolis for the victims of gay bullying. © Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Minneapolis Star Tribune/ZUMApress.com Every morning, Brittany Geldert stepped off the bus and…

I'VE NEVER BEEN MUCH for guidebooks, so when trying to get my bearings in a strange American city, I normally start by asking the cabdriver or hotel clerk some silly question regarding the latest…

Jerry Sandusky was arrested Nov. 5, above, and charged with the sexual abuse of eight boys. STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — A critical break in the investigation of Jerry Sandusky came via a posting…

Possibly the best living American essayist and probably the most influential, Didion has always maintained that she doesn’t know what she’s thinking until she writes it down. Yet over the past decade, she’s been writing down more about her own life than ever before. If you want to know about her upbringing, readWhere I Was From, about the delusions of her California pioneer ancestors. If you want to know how she feels about the sudden 2003 death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, you can readThe Year of Magical Thinking,her stark but openhearted account of emotional dislocation. And if you want to know how she feels about the drawn-out death of her adopted daughter, Quintana Roo, two years later at the age of 39, you can order her new memoir, Blue Nights, on Amazon.

6 June 2011 I had my corner. Right across the street, beside the subway stairs. Where the office men come up early with their crisp hats and their stiff collars, with their…

A stop-and-frisk during a ride-along with the Newburgh police.(Photo: Joseph Rodriguez) One morning earlier this month, just before sunrise, a silent convoy of SUVs streamed into the tiny, troubled…

He grew up the middle of three brothers. By his 25th birthday, he was the only one left. Brett, the youngest, killed himself in December 2005, two months before he turned 20. His depression could appear with a stunning swiftness. On that final night, he talked of forgiveness and the future. And then, like the flipping of a switch, something changed. The oldest, Beau, struggled for years with depression. In the final few months of his life, mounting problems pulled him into a downward spiral. His family tried to help, but nothing could keep him from slipping farther into darkness. Four years after his brother's death, Beau told his stepfather that Brett, who had shot himself in the head, had done it wrong. Days later, he went up to the attic of his family's home and shot himself in the chest.