A roundup of stories from our week together at Catapult.
Our data-loving columnist Angela Chen writes about learning to trust therapy—even in the absence of empirical evidence.
Hannah Rae Armstrong travels to the town of Arlit, Niger where a French energy company mines uranium, leaving radioactive waste material around the town.
This essay by Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza on memory, history, and family is a must-read for your weekend:
“While not American in the way my mother envisioned, I am more American than anything else. More American than survivor; more American than lesbian. And only in the United States could the series of events—meetings, marriages, admissions—that frame my life have taken place.”
The Catapult staff is reading really, really good books right now and wants to tell you about them.
A fascinating look at addiction, AA, and the writing life by Tasha Kerry Smith.
This essay by David Frey on helping his father move into a nursing home is sure to have you feeling lots of feelings.
A moving essay by Laura Zera on travel and the strangers we meet along the way:
“I’m judging him as if he’s chickening out—not from life, but from being a father. As if there’s a death protocol he’s not following, an exit strategy that isn’t agony.”
Noah Cho reflects on the story of how his mother and father first met and fell in love: “She revealed her affection for him while also noting his otherness.”
And finally, we couldn’t be more excited to announce that Exes by Max Winter is out now! In conversation with Matt Sumell, Winter discusses Providence, H. P. Lovecraft’s tombstone, and the fifteen years it took to write his debut novel:
“Human time is neither straight nor shapeless; it is instead like coral: whorled, fragile, and, in the end, ordered. And made out of skeletons. Every story is a ghost story, just as every story is a mystery. All fiction is historical fiction and horror is not a genre.”
