The Five Families of Feces
On the cutthroat dealings of the porta-potty business.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "The Veil"
A lover's death sends an artist into increasing spirals.
Horse Girl
A horse lover visits Chincoteague Island to investigate a transcendent childhood love.
The New Generation of LA Rap Is Changing Everything
Reimagining the sound and slang of Los Angeles.
The Late, Great Stephen Colbert
Discussions of character with the Late Show host.
David Grann is a staff writer for the New Yorker. His new book is The White Darkness.
“I do think in life, and in reporting, that reckoning with failure is a part of the process. And reckoning with your own limitations. I think that’s probably the arc and change I have made as I get older. Just as O’Shea doesn’t get the squid, failure is such an integral part of life and what you make of it. Too often we’re always focused on the success side, and I don’t always think the successes teach us as much as the journey and having things elude us. ... I'm being completely honest, I look at every story I've ever written as a failure. Because I always have some model, some perfect ideal, that I want to try to reach.”
Thanks to MailChimp and Pitt Writers for sponsoring this week's episode.
Secrets & Wives
A single working mom begins a whirlwind romance with a man named Martin Lewis, then discovers that Martin Lewis doesn’t exist. A story that picks up where GoodFellas left off.
Death and Valor on an American Warship Doomed by its Own Navy
An investigation into the crash of the USS Fitzgerald.
Google Invades
Boomtown San Francisco, as seen from the Google Bus.
It Looked Like Another Kremlin Assassination. Was It?
"It is one thing for you to get a correct image, and it is another thing for me to spoil my life."
His Side of the Story
Nathan Phillips wants to talk about Covington.
The Circus Singer and the Godfather of Soul
Lost in the woods with James Brown’s ghost.
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She Says James Brown Raped Her
She also says someone murdered him. Others share her suspicions.
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Was James Brown's Wife Murdered?
An old notebook holds the clues.
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Fifteen Questions Surrounding James Brown's Death
The Godfather of Soul has been dead for 12 years, but the questions have not been put to rest.
A Filthy History of New York
When New Yorkers lived knee-deep in trash.
A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions
Dan Mallory, who writes under the name A. J. Finn, went to No. 1 with his debut thriller, The Woman in the Window. His life contains even stranger twists.
In Search of Emiliano Sala
He was on a flight bound for the English Premier League. Then he was gone.
News To Me
What the author learned about himself from Jill Abramson’s Merchants of Truth.
The Family Business That Put Nashville Hot Chicken on the Map
An African-American-owned restaurant began making the spicy dish eighty years ago. Now it’s a viral sensation. Who’s getting the big money?
Inside the Takedown That Put Carlos Ghosn in Jail
He never saw it coming.
How SoundCloud Rap Took Everything
The trendy DIY teen hip-hop genre went from a goofy punch line to the preposterously lucrative engine driving a whole new golden age in the music biz. But, wow, is it messy.
The Deported Americans
More than 600,000 U.S.-born children of undocumented parents live in Mexico. What happens when you return to a country you’ve never known?
The Desperado
The story of Edward Averill, a blind man with one foot who robbed a bank in Austin, Texas.
Fiction Pick of the Week: "Hex"
The aftermath of divorcing a witch.
You Know the Lorena Bobbitt Story. But Not All of It.
A profile of Lorena Bobbitt.
Taken: How Police Departments Make Millions by Seizing Property
In South Carolina, civil forfeiture targets black people’s money most of all, exclusive investigative data shows.
Oceans 7
Pat Gallant-Charette is 68. She’s on a quest to beat marathon swimming’s globe-spanning challenge.
