Japan’s Rent-a-Family Industry
People who are short on relatives can hire a husband, a mother, a grandson. The resulting relationships can be more real than you would expect.
Hear Elif Batuman discuss this article on the Longform Podcast
Longform Best of 2018
Top Ten
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Trapped by the ‘Walmart of Heroin’
A Philadelphia neighborhood is the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast. Addicts come from all over, and many never leave.
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Trashed: Inside the Deadly World of Private Garbage Collection
“We know we down in this shithole together.”
Hear Kiera Feldman discuss this article on the Longform Podcast
4
How an Ex-Cop Rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and Stole Millions
Jerome Jacobson and his network of mobsters, psychics, strip club owners, and drug traffickers won almost every prize for 12 years, until the FBI launched Operation ‘Final Answer.’
5
Blood Will Tell
The murder of Mickey Bryan stunned her small Texas town. Then her husband was charged with killing her. Did he do it, or had there been a terrible mistake?
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Tribes
Generations of the writer’s family experience the “romantic delusions and hazardous fortunes” of San Francisco.
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What Do We Owe Her Now?
As a high school student, Amber Wyatt reported her rape. Few believed her. Her hometown turned against her. The authorities failed her. Twelve years later, a classmate of hers went back to figure out what happened.
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How an Aspiring 'It' Girl Tricked New York's Party People
“Anna looked at the soul of New York and recognized that if you distract people with shiny objects, with large wads of cash, with the indicia of wealth, if you show them the money, they will be virtually unable to see anything else. And the thing was: It was so easy.”
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Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis
The answer to the disparity in death rates has everything to do with the lived experience of being a black woman in America.
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Improbable Cause
One mysterious death, then another, and another—all in the same house. The first two written off as a tragic coincidence, until the third shattered doubts.
