In this oral history, a former sheepherder describes the loneliness and medical hardship he experienced while tending sheep in California’s Central Valley.
Search results
Forever Yesterday: Peering Inside My Mom’s Fading Mind
Kevin Sampsell bears witness to the ways in which Alzheimer’s has been pulling his mother back in time, and taking over her life.
Leave Them Alone! A Reading List On Celebrity and Privacy
Why do we feel like we own celebrities—not just their art or their products, but their images and their personal lives?
Unprepared: The Difficulty of Getting a Prescription for a Drug That Effectively Prevents HIV Infection
When Spenser Mestel tries to get a prescription for Truvada in Iowa City, he discovers that medical breakthroughs are only one small part of HIV prevention.
Late in Life, Thoreau Became a Serious Darwinist
But he died before he could finish his book on natural history. As Emerson put it, Thoreau “depart[ed] out of Nature before… he has been really shown to his peers for what he is.”
Snow, Death and Politics
While snowed in on the West Coast, Frances Badalamenti grapples alone with her father’s death on the other side of what feels like a dying country.
On Being Fat
Sara Benincasa’s essay “Why Am I So Fat?” was one of our top five reads last week, and with good reason — it was honest and cutting in all the right ways. It was brash and unapologetic and funny as hell (and also suggests that perhaps Fader was slightly premature in declaring, earlier this year, that […]
Youth From Every Quarter
A teacher at an elite boarding school confronts her own confused leap up the ladder of class privilege.
The Boy With the Coin-Filled Cellophane Cigarette Wrapper, and Me
Meeting an apparently less fortunate child in her daughter’s kindergarten class transports Amber Leventry back to her own painful youth.
The Case for More Female Cops
Nearly nine out of ten cops are men. Sarah Smarsh discusses the police force’s gender problem and a Wichita woman’s efforts inside the criminal justice system that failed her.
