My Mother’s Murder
Leah Carroll assembles the details surrounding her mother’s murder at the hands of organized crime, after her mother mysteriously disappeared in 1984, when Leah was four years old.
‘The Kids Think I’m a Shoe’
Stan Smith had a respectable, if not forgettable tennis career, but his sneakers have brought him much more success than he could have ever imagined.
Fat in Every Language
Being fat in America is nothing like being fat abroad.
Cat Marnell is Still Alive
An insightful profile of Cat Marnell, author of the new memoir, How to Murder Your Life, a writer and beauty editor perhaps best known for the self-destructive tendencies that cost her various high-profile jobs and landed her frequently in rehab. Author Emily Gould casts Marnell as more together than many give her credit for, and relatively healthy—at least in her ability to keep rebounding from relapses, and writing about it all cogently and compellingly.
Russia: Life After Trust
Michael Idov, who’d returned to his native Russia for work a few years ago, recalls the culture of cynicism and sense of hopeless defeat under a deceitful, immovable “hybrid regime…an autocratic one that retains the façade of a democracy.” He suggests Americans take note, as we may be headed in that direction ourselves.
America Is Still the Future
Sullivan reflects back on his time as a foreigner in the U.S. and how he learned to embrace the country’s flaws and virtues during his journey of becoming a citizen.
Considering the Novel in the Age of Obama
Have “postmodern” and “postwar” have become outmoded as classifications for novels? Lorentzen suggests it’s more useful to look at trends in fiction relative to the administration they were released under. During Obama’s, he says, novelists looked to answer questions of authenticity. During Trump’s, he anticipates dystopian narratives.
The Young Trump
“There were three campaign managers. There was only one son-in-law.” A look at how Ivanka Trump’s husband, real estate developer Jared Kushner, became one of Donald Trump’s closest advisers — and what it means for both of them over the next four years.
Can a Gun Victim and a Gun Advocate Change Each Other’s Minds?
Gun advocates and victims of gun violence meet together to participate in a “story exchange” in which they pair up to share personal stories, and then tell their partner’s story in the first person in front of the group. The process, organized by Narrative 4, is supposed to engender “transformative empathy,” to get two people with opposing points of views to understand the other side.
Truth, Lies, and Videotape
When writer Kelly Luce spends a week in a women’s detention center in Japan for a crime she didn’t commit, she learns about the difference between perception and reality, and what justice and punishment mean in a country known for honor and low crime.