Life as a mob boss’s girlfriend: By the early 1990s, Stanley began to crack under the years of control and psychological domination. She and Bulger were arguing constantly, sometimes violently, at home and in public. Once, at a wedding party, Teresa was approached by Bulger’s partner, Flemmi, who said, ‘Teresa, I know you and Jimmy […]
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Musician Jim White on Knoxville, and how Cormac McCarthy saved his life: In my left coat pocket is a dog-eared copy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel Suttree, which happens to be set here in Knoxville way back in the ’50s. I’m not much of a planner, so to some extent or another (depending on your take […]
One man’s quest to reshape the online porn industry through the “.xxx” top-level domain: The resistance to Lawley, whatever its merits, has the ring of desperation. ICM arrived at a moment of crisis for commercial porn. After enabling several boom years, the Internet has brought many smut marketers to their knees. Rampant freebies on “tube” […]
Eradicating urban poverty was a priority for Obama when he was running for president in 2008, but it has not become a focus for the president during his first term. A look at what still needs to be addressed, and the neighborhood of Roseland, where Obama got his political start: The reason for this shift […]
Yesterday My Daughter Emigrated
A father in Spain laments the lack of a future for his daughter in their home country: Like many young people her age, my daughter was caught by surprise upon completion of her professional training. In the spring she returned to Spain with the intention of looking for a job here — it didn’t really […]
Mary Gaitskill Recommends Saul Bellow
recommendedreading: Vol. 8, No. 3 EDITOR’S NOTE Years ago I had a conversation with a friend comparing John Updike and Saul Bellow. At the time I liked Updike a little better, but she said something on Bellow’s side that nearly changed my mind on the spot. “Updike sees,” she said. “He sees the world and […]
‘My Body Stopped Speaking to Me’: The First-Person Account of a Near-Death Experience
Our recent Longreads Member Pick by National Magazine Award winner Andrew Corsello from GQ is now free for everyone. Special thanks to our Longreads Members for helping bring these stories to you—if you’re not a member, join us here. “My Body Stopped Speaking to Me,” is a personal story about Corsello’s near-death experience, first published […]
‘He’s Our Baby’: What Happens When a Child Is Placed in Foster Care
“Who should get to keep a child: the parents who nurse and tend him, or the parents who brought him into the world?”
On Muppets & Merchandise: How Jim Henson Turned His Art into a Business
“He viewed money as energy, the energy that makes concrete things happen out of worthy ideas.”
