In the midst of the Syrian Civil War, three grown siblings attempt to fulfill their father’s final wish. The journey is dangerous, but that’s no surprise; nowadays, death is always hard work.
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Sam Lipsyte on ‘Mental Archery,’ the Quest for Certainty, and Where All the Money Went
“It’s difficult to say what you really think. You’re too aware of the traps, the dead ends, the cul-de-sacs of utterance: all the ways we let cliché steer us in a certain direction, force us to say not quite what we mean…”
They Wanted Her Body
Thinking of Qandeel Baloch’s murder as an honor killing doesn’t capture the whole truth. She was silenced for revealing men’s hypocrisy.
The Day New York Rose Up Against the Nazis On the Hudson
In 1935, a group of New York communists boarded a German luxury liner during a lavish sending-off party attended by celebrities, Rockefellers, and Roosevelts. Their goal: capture the swastika.
The Silence of Women
Women who spoke too angrily or too publicly were punished in cruel and unusual ways.
‘In a Marriage, You Grow Around Each Other’: An Interview with Tessa Hadley
Tessa Hadley on gaining the sense of authority she needed to write fiction, the authors whose work opens the door for her to write, and the way we are formed by our connections with other people.
A Mysterious Crack Appears: Past Trauma and Future Doom Meet in “Friday Black”
In Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s fantastical short story collection, the strangest fantasy of all is that people try to act morally in a corrupt world.
On Subtlety
What’s so great about having things spelled out clearly?
The Horse Was a Lie (The Horse Is Here With Us Now)
In Mario Chard’s “Land of Fire,” was it the truth or a lie that killed the migrants in the desert? And what if that’s the wrong question? What if we say it was a horse?
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from C.J. Chivers, Sheelah Kolhatkar, Libby Copeland, Amanda Petrusich, and Bryan Menegus.

