“When your great-grandparents grew up in Stalin’s terror-famine, your grandparents in the Holocaust, and your parents in a straddle between totalitarianism and democracy, you grew up confused about pain.”
family
An Ode to Kraft Dinner, Food of Troubled Times
“While the world has continued to change, Kraft’s product has remained the same, somehow evading inflation at one or two dollars per box.”
No Way to Live
“As Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass declares a state of emergency on housing, residents like Sarah Fay live on the brink of being unhoused.”
Hungry Ghosts
“I think of all the hurts she can never outlive — the ghosts that can never be satisfied, no matter how much of herself she feeds to them.”
Too Wild to Love
“A multigenerational Texas family leaves the state for a new life on the East Coast.”
10 Years After Sandy Hook, a Family Finds Bits of Joy Amid Shards of Pain
“To Hensel, one of the big things about marking 10 years, is making it 10 years.”
‘Exposed as the Mother Who Cannot Weave’: Grace Loh Prasad on Family and Community
In a recent essay, Grace Loh Prasad muses on motherhood, the bond of family, and finding community.
The Orca and the Spider: On Motherhood, Loss, and Community
“Try as I might, there is no material stronger than kinship.”
Departures
“Tang tells the heartbreaking story of one woman, Daisy, who’s given up so much. Sadly, it’s the story for so many.”
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, our editors recommend stories by Bushra Seddique, Simon van Zuylen-Wood, Laura Mauldin, Kathryn Miles, and Lucas Mann.