This week, our editors recommend longreads by Benjamin Wofford, Josh Dzieza, Evan Osnos, Alice Wong & Ed Yong, and Dan Kois.
death
Posted inEditor's Pick
What the Racist Massacre in Buffalo Stole From One Family
An intimate portrait of the family of Celestine Chaney in the days after she and nine other Black people were shot and killed by a white supremacist at Tops Friendly Market. Chaney had just one child, a son named Wayne: Wayne was dissatisfied by the answers the country offered. The stagnation of gun control efforts […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Pandemic Tragedy in Guayaquil
In this harrowing read for The New Yorker, Daniel Alarcón paints a grim picture of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, which endured one of the world’s most lethal outbreaks of COVID-19. In Guayaquil, on any given day before the pandemic, there might have been thirty to fifty people whose deaths had to be accounted for, whose […]
Posted inQuotes
What Death Means to Love and What Love Means to Death
“But perhaps it’s neither here nor there how we think about death. Perhaps the work that must be done is in how we think about life.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Under the Wheel
“I have always been drawn to stories about people who try to escape — escape their neighborhoods, their families, their histories — and who instead become what they were running from.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
‘My Sincere Condolences’
Inside the struggles and heartaches of FEMA’s massive COVID funeral assistance program.
Posted inEditor's Pick
“I Feel Like a Survivor”: Inside the Funeral Industry’s 2021 National Convention
“After a busy year, morticians let loose at their annual gathering in Nashville.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Vaccine Tore Her Family Apart. Could a Death Bring Them Back Together?
“Laurel Haught moved out of her own home to escape her unvaccinated daughter. Now they are facing a funeral, the coming holidays and the divide splitting many American families.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
They Executed People for the State of South Carolina. For Some, It Nearly Destroyed Them.
“The tools of death could next be electric volts, bullets or a drug cocktail. Regardless of the method, executions are likely to return to South Carolina. When they do, state workers will again be the ones tasked with handling the weapons — and the consequences.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Great Beyond
“While it is not new for technology to mediate our relationship to death, the interactivity and public-ness of in-memoriam profiles is distinctly novel.”