This week, we’re sharing stories from Jayson Greene, Theresa Breuer, Christa Parravani, Alexandra Kimball, and Casey Taylor.

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1. ‘The Unthinkable Has Happened’

Jayson Greene | Vulture | April 10, 2019 | 20 minutes (5,233 words)

Jayson Greene recounts the tragic day his 2-year-old daughter, Greta, was struck unconscious by a brick that fell from a windowsill and rushed to the hospital. An excerpt from Greene’s memoir, Once More We Saw Stars.

2. Inside the First Afghan Women’s Ascent of Mount Noshaq

Theresa Breuer | Outside | April 8, 2019 | 24 minutes (6,241 words)

“In July, a group of Afghan women set out to climb 24,580-foot Mount Noshaq, their country’s highest mountain. No Afghan woman had ever reached the summit, and many challenges stood in their way, from hostile Afghan men who think that women shouldn’t exercise, to the terrorist attack in a district near the peak two days before the climb began.”

3. Life and Death in West Virginia

Christa Parravani | Guernica Magazine | April 5, 2019 | 20 minutes (5,203 words)

“I’m in a haunted place, in my home and in my body.”

4. The Loneliness of Infertility

Alexandra Kimball | The Walrus | April 8, 2019 | 17 minutes (4,318 words)

“[I]n framing infertile women as problematic consumers of technology that they despise, many contemporary feminists ignore the actual experience, the meat and pain, of infertility. They ignore the grief.”

5. How To Lose Everything And Get Some Of It Back

Casey Taylor | Deadspin | April 8, 2019 | 17 minutes (4,289 words)

The story of Daniel “Gus” Gerard, a promising late 1970s basketball star whose love affair with cocaine and booze cost him not only his career, but his kids and his marriage. Why? He was really just a lanky kid with thick glasses who really wanted to belong.