IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.
We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.
A writer for Grey’s Anatomy who was found to be lying about her cancer explains what happened.
(The Ankler, 36 mins reading time)
Her wife left her, family members disowned her and she’s no longer allowed to see the children she helped rear for several years. She fills her day taking long walks and talking to her therapist. And she’s sitting down with me, the reporter who first broke the story about her lies, to tell her story. This time, she says, a real one. Because there is nothing else she can do.
Sally Rooney writes about Ulysses.
(The Paris Review, approx 38 mins reading time)
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that very soon after the publication of Ulysses, critics started to speculate that the novel as a form might be dying. In 1925, the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote of the “decline of the novel,” comparing the genre to a “vast but finite quarry.” “When the quarry is worked out,” he warned, “talent, however great, can achieve nothing.” A few years later, in 1930, Walter Benjamin wrote of the “crisis of the novel.”
Reuters investigates claims that the Nigerian military ran a secret mass abortion programme during the war against Boko Haram.
(Reuters, approx 29 mins reading time)
The existence of the army-run abortion programme hasn’t been previously reported. The campaign relied on deception and physical force against women who were kept in military custody for days or weeks. Three soldiers and a guard said they commonly assured women, who often were debilitated from captivity in the bush, that the pills and injections given to them were to restore their health and fight diseases such as malaria.
Composer Adrian Sutton (War Horse) was recently given a devastating diagnosis of incurable cancer. Here, he writes about what it has taught him.
(The Guardian, approx 7 mins reading time)
This question of music’s perceived value – and one’s personal contribution to the mountain of music already available – vexes me somewhat. Over 100,000 new tracks are uploaded to Spotify every day. That’s quite a hurricane to shout into with any confidence, especially if you’re a composer just starting out. But shout you must, with your own voice, while honing your own craft.
A lovely look at when The Cure came to play the RDS in 1989.
(Where’s Grandad, approx 5 mins reading time)
It had been hot all week. On Monday 10 July 1989 I was woken by powerful sunshine. “Five days to go” I thought to myself. The Cure were playing in the RDS the following Saturday and I couldn’t wait. I had been to a handful of concerts before but this was the big one. For the previous two months I had been playing Disintegration every night. My favourite way to absorb it was via headphones as I drifted off to sleep.
Two men go missing in separate parts of the US during the pandemic.
(The New York Times, approx 21 mins reading time)
A few days later, Isaac called his mother. He wanted her to know he was safe and asked to talk with his young siblings, both of whom adored their big brother. He was in Hawaii, he said, but he still wouldn’t elaborate. Ms. Danian’s mind raced. Whom was he with? Had he joined a cult? How could she talk him into coming home?
…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…
The legendary Janet Malcolm writes about a murder trial in 2009, when a woman was accused of organising a hitman to kill her husband.
(The New Yorker, approx 97 mins reading time)
The fourth week of the trial had produced an arresting illustration of the malleability of trial evidence. During a police search of Borukhova’s apartment, an audiotape had been found and seized. It was a garbled, fragmentary, almost inaudible recording of a conversation between Borukhova and Mallayev, speaking in Bukhori and Russian. The conversation had taken place in May of 2007—five months before the murder.
Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.
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