In this personal essay, Molly Jong Fast considers her famous parents’ and grandparents’ tendencies toward infidelity, and how she is still affected, as an adult child.
The New York Review of Books
My Great Grandfather the Bundist
Writer and artist Molly Crabapple tells the story of her late great grandfather, self-taught artist Sam Rothbort, and of the Bund, the revolutionary anti-Zionist Jewish political party he joined in Vilna in 1898.
Defined by Want
Three meals a day don’t erase the scars of a childhood marked by hunger, violence, and loneliness.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Pamela Colloff, Amanda Fortini, Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, Ira Glass, and Linda Holmes.
What Is New York City Without Its Historic Buildings?
A city loses its life-force when it loses its historic buildings.
The High Cost of Becoming a Writer as a Single Mom
Stephanie Land endured poverty, loneliness, and more to pursue her dream of being a writer.
Portrait of the Artist as a Single Mom
In this personal essay, created with support from the non-profit Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Stephanie Land chronicles her struggle to support herself and her two daughters while attending college and trying to make a living as a writer.
The Memoirist’s Dilemma
Fourteen years after her memoir about about her father’s death was released, novelist Aminatta Forna still deals with after-effects, both good and bad.
The Afterlife of a Memoir
Novelist Aminatta Forna writes about the lingering effects, fourteen years later, of having written a memoir, The Devil That Danced on the Water, about the political hanging of her father in Sierra Leone.
Robert B. Silvers, Editor of The New York Review of Books: 1929-2017
“I believe in the writer—the writer, above all.”