This week, we’re sharing stories from Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi; Robin Hemley; David Gauvey Herbert; Ian Parker; and Meghan Daum.
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1. Fight the Ship: Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed By Its Own Navy
T. Christian Miller, Megan Rose, and Robert Faturechi | ProPublica | February 6, 2019 | 71 minutes (17,829 words)
When a cargo ship plowed into the USS Fitzgerald, it tore a hole in the destroyer as big as a tractor trailer; seven sailors ultimately died. A cargo ship should be hard to miss, so how did it happen?
2. Mr. Chen’s Mountain
Robin Hemley | Pacific Standard | February 4, 2019 | 25 minutes (6,283 words)
“The story of a Chinese billionaire who moved back home, setting his mansion down in the middle of his economically depressed ancestral village.”
3. The Five Families of Feces
David Gauvey Herbert | New York Magazine | February 6, 2019 | 14 minutes (3,575 words)
A look at the cutthroat porta-potty business in New York City, which is surprisingly filled with all kinds of dirty drama.
4. A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions
Ian Parker | The New Yorker | February 4, 2019 | 47 minutes (11,957 words)
A profile of a scam artist: Before Dan Mallory wrote a New York Times best-selling novel, he rose through the ranks of the publishing industry by creating a series of fabrications about his life and deceiving colleagues.
5. My Life at 47 Is Back to What It Was Like at 27
Meghan Daum | Medium | February 6, 2019 | 12 minutes (3,060 words)
“I’m talking about my situational set point, the version of myself that inevitably swings back into the foreground even if I’ve managed to pretend to be another kind of person for a period of time.”
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