family
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We Who Leave
I could not bring myself to talk about losing my last living grandparent, because talking about her would mean talking about the literal and figurative ocean between where I come from and where I am now.
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A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
McBride has said that she wants this book to be read fast, letting it wash over you, but the struggle to make sense and to fill in the unsaid is hard to resist.
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Survivors
The history of the whole world can be told as the stories of conquerors and the conquered—the former consumed with thoughts of destiny and tyranny, the latter knowing only the persistence of time and the pure grit of bodies.
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Against Everything
The mountains of Alabama are small mountains—foothills, really—but they are mine like a sports team is mine—like a football game (which I have for so long been near but have not really, really seen) is mine—as in the phrase “We…
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In My Clothes
My cousin and I are in matching dresses with purple buttons, lavender yarn in our braids. Our mothers take us to Sears Portrait Studio, where we sit together in front of a marbled blue sky. I’m into it, all of…
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My Nixon Years
For me, although the decade would also give us disco and Norman Lear sitcoms and my absolute favorite bell-bottomed striped green pantsuit, the 70s were all about Nixon…
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Paternalia
The truth is you didn’t want to disappear, but you were already disappearing. Your skin burned clean away, your body no longer recognizable without the flip chart at the foot of your hospital bed.
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Conversations With Writers Braver Than Me: Samantha Irby
Sari Botton sits down with humorist Samantha Irby to talk sex, family conflicts, and the creative freedom of being an orphan.
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Songs of Our Lives: Dead Kennedys’ “Chemical Warfare”
I had no idea who Saddam Hussein was—or what band had just made that big, big noise—but I was sure of one thing: I was pissed off.
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Nobody Likes Mansfield Park
You think your mom was a harsh critic? Slate published an excerpt of criticism about Mansfield Park from Jane Austen’s friends and family. Austen compiled the criticism in an 8-page document, which just shows that even successful novelists are insecure.
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Here Everything Is Possible
My mother died suddenly at a dining room table, in the middle of a wonderful meal, surrounded by a large, extended family that loved her. One minute she was completely immersed in the world—talking, laughing, eating—and the next minute she…
