Nell Boeschenstein, writing almost seven years after her prophylactic mastectomy, examines how breasts — whether real or fake, attached to or removed from their original owner — carry an overabundance of personal and cultural meaning.
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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Nell Boeschenstein, Hannah Giorgis, David Davis, Chris Randle, and Kelly Conaboy.
Breast Implants, Beyond Real and Fake
Nell Boeschenstein reflects on the culturally fraught discourse around post-mastectomy reconstruction.
Longreads Best of 2018: All of Our No. 1 Story Picks
Here’s every story that was chosen as No. 1 in our weekly Top 5 email.
These Are the Locals Who Get The Story of Charlottesville Right
The historians, activists, reporters, and columnists who tell the complicated and ever-changing story of their own community.
Twelve Longreads for Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin was born March 25, 1942 and died Thursday, August 16, 2018.
A Song for Aretha
A Song for Aretha When I am frustrated with my generation it is often because we have a willful disregard for what has come before. Aretha seems a prime example of this. Those hats are the hats of black churches. That weight and those breasts are a body that has aged. That hometown is family […]
A Song for Aretha
A Song for Aretha When I am frustrated with my generation it is often because we have a willful disregard for what has come before. Aretha seems a prime example of this. Those hats are the hats of black churches. That weight and those breasts are a body that has aged. That hometown is family […]
Since I am not married and because my parents are loving and kind, my mother has borne the brunt of my physical and emotional caretaking these past few months as I struggled with decision-making and the eventual decision’s realities. She’s the one who has heard me most often respond to the question, “Do you want […]
Alexander Chee's Top 5 Longreads of 2011: #Fiction and #Nonfiction
Alexander Chee is the author of the novels Edinburgh and the forthcoming The Queen of the Night. (See more on his Longreads page.) *** My Top Fiction Longreads for 2011: • Mary Gaitskill’s “The Other Place”, The New Yorker, Feb. 11, 2011: Beautiful, seemingly casual, smart and terrifying, it is the story of a man worried […]

