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Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: Matt Might, ThePostGame, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, fiction from Roxane Gay, plus a guest pick from Mike Dang.
[Fiction, 2012 Pen/O. Henry Winner] A son recalls an exiled life with his father, mother, and a maid:
“At the Magda Marina, he spent his time sunbathing and reading fat books: one on the Suez Crisis, one a biography of our late king, with his portrait on the cover. Whenever Father acquired a new book on our country—the country my parents had fled, the country I had never seen, yet continued to think of as my own—he would immediately finger the index pages.
“‘Baba, who are you looking for?’ I once asked.
“He shook his head and said, ‘No one.’
“But later I, too, searched the indexes. It felt like pure imitation. It was not until I encountered my father’s name—Kamal Pasha el-Alfi—that I realized what I was looking for.”
Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: Matt Might, ThePostGame, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, fiction from Roxane Gay, plus a guest pick from Mike Dang.
[Fiction] A widow settles into her new life, which includes bird-watching in Central Park:
“After her husband died, Marjorie took up hobbies, lots of them, just to see what stuck. She went on a cruise for widows and widowers, which was awful for everyone except the people who hadn’t really loved their spouses to begin with. She took up knitting, which made her fingers hurt, and modern dance for seniors, which made the rest of her body hurt, too. Most of all, Marjorie enjoyed birding, which didn’t seem like a hobby at all, but like agreeing to be more observant. She’d always been good at paying attention.”
[Fiction] A baby’s arrival stirs up difficult memories:
I sat with the baby in the living room, setting her on a clean blanket. When I tired of watching her, I stretched out, resting my hand on her stomach. I fell asleep with the baby staring at me, her eyes wide open.
In the morning, my boyfriend kicked my foot with his heavy work boot. ‘What the fuck is this?’
I sat up quickly, holding a finger to my lips. I stood and pulled him into the bedroom. ‘Anna Lisa brought the baby last night. She can’t take care of her anymore.’
[Fiction] The pressure of exams and college acceptances, and the decisions that stem from it:
In the first quarter of sophomore year, Cindy got an A-minus in Chemistry, and Paul Takahashi caught up to her. We liked Paul okay, but once he’d won the top spot, we had trouble maintaining our good feelings toward him. By the midway point of second quarter, most of us had added him to our Mono Wish List.
This wasn’t ill will; it was a calculation of survival. Sometimes late at night, writing a paper or studying for an exam, we reflected that if Dmitri Alexandrov should fall ill or slip into a months-long depression, his grades would suffer and we’d move up in the class ranking. We imagined the same thing happening to Cindy and Paul, and to everyone else who was ranked above us. Occasionally, we imagined it happening to our closest friends.
[Fiction] A baby’s arrival stirs up difficult memories:
“I sat with the baby in the living room, setting her on a clean blanket. When I tired of watching her, I stretched out, resting my hand on her stomach. I fell asleep with the baby staring at me, her eyes wide open.
“In the morning, my boyfriend kicked my foot with his heavy work boot. ‘What the fuck is this?’
“I sat up quickly, holding a finger to my lips. I stood and pulled him into the bedroom. ‘Anna Lisa brought the baby last night. She can’t take care of her anymore.'”
[Fiction] The pressure of exams and college acceptances, and the decisions that stem from it:
“In the first quarter of sophomore year, Cindy got an A-minus in Chemistry, and Paul Takahashi caught up to her. We liked Paul okay, but once he’d won the top spot, we had trouble maintaining our good feelings toward him. By the midway point of second quarter, most of us had added him to our Mono Wish List.
“This wasn’t ill will; it was a calculation of survival. Sometimes late at night, writing a paper or studying for an exam, we reflected that if Dmitri Alexandrov should fall ill or slip into a months-long depression, his grades would suffer and we’d move up in the class ranking. We imagined the same thing happening to Cindy and Paul, and to everyone else who was ranked above us. Occasionally, we imagined it happening to our closest friends.”
Top 5 #Longreads of the Week: The New Yorker, This Land Press, The New York Times, GQ, New York Magazine, a fiction pick from Five Chapters, plus a guest pick from Ester Bloom.
[Fiction] The lifelong impact of brief friendships. A woman meets three friends in college who have special gifts:
Charles voice is controlled mortification. You fainted, he says.
One of the girls holds my hand. You totally did, she agrees.
Where are the birds? I say.
They disappeared when you fainted, the other Earring Girl says.
Her face is replaced by a mall paramedic demanding know what year it is, who is president, what my husband’s name is, what my name is.
My husband’s name is Ian, I say.
It is the wrong answer; their faces make this clear.
[Fiction] The lifelong impact of brief friendships. A woman meets three friends in college who have special gifts:
“Charles voice is controlled mortification. You fainted, he says.
“One of the girls holds my hand. You totally did, she agrees.
“Where are the birds? I say.
“They disappeared when you fainted, the other Earring Girl says.
“Her face is replaced by a mall paramedic demanding know what year it is, who is president, what my husband’s name is, what my name is.
“My husband’s name is Ian, I say.
“It is the wrong answer; their faces make this clear.”
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