'Everybody is a suspect'

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Hi 👋 

Welcome back to The Lazy Reader, where we curate some of the best longform writing from across the Web ✨

Reading went a bit slower last week. I don’t know why, but I felt like I was a bit out of it and my head just wasn’t in it as much as I needed it to be. I also found it extra hard to focus on the page. Tiktok defeated me last week. Have to lock in and get my doomscrolling in check.

Hope last week was better for you, and hope this coming one treats you kindly!

If you missed the previous newsletter, here are some choice picks:

• The Atlantic A Sea Story

• Mother Jones The Unflinching Courage of Taylor Cadle

• The Verge I grew up with Alex Pretti

As with last week, please let me know what you think of the list this week by voting in the poll below.

Happy reading and see you again next Monday!

PS - Thanks to 1440 Media and The Deep View for sponsoring this week’s newsletter! Please, please do consider clicking their ad links below. It’s free, really easy, and helps me out a ton.

As usual, The Atavist delivers a deeply emotional story, well-reported and well-told, that will stick with you for a long time. This one is written by Evan Ratliff, too, so you already know.

This piece follows an orphan woman who chases down the dark and heartbreaking history of her family. Her life is bisected by one chance encounter and one seemingly innocuous question, and she goes down a path that she couldn’t—and didn’t—return from. Not to jump the gun here but the story ends with bleak banality; the woman is trapped in her obsession with her past and it feels like she’s wasted so many years hacking away at something that won’t ever give.

I don’t want to spoil this story for you. Suffice it to say that there are many twists and turns here, so much so that it sometimes reads like a fiction piece with a plot that was set up really well by the author. Characterization was so well-rounded and deep, making it really easy to feel for the woman at the center of all of this.

What’s crazy is that all of these actually happened. I know there’s a tired adage about reality being stranger than fiction, and this one definitely bears that out. It might even be a bit too on-the-nose.

The Goon Squad | Harper’s Magazine, $

I’ll start with my gripe: Throughout the story, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this is one of those essays that tries way too hard to intellectualize, rationalize, or otherwise wrangle an emergent element of culture. Every older generation tries to do it to the one that’s set to replace it, and this piece just sustains that trend. Definitely not a nice taste to have lingering in your mouth as you go through what could be near 10,000 words about masturbation.

I understand that there is a need to critically assess these cultural trends. But that feels more like the purview of academics, not journalists. But what do I know.

All of that said, I think the writer pulls things together extremely well toward the end. At some point it becomes way more than just about gooning. I want to say that I wish the piece went more in that direction instead of wasting all those words on dissecting the current gooniverse, but I’m not sure it would have felt satisfying any other way.

A Killer Among Them | MacLean’s, Free

MacLean’s has shaped up to become a truly an incredible discovery for me. In many ways, this piece is reminiscent of the classic longform story—and I have to say that that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s bad mostly because it goes off on tangents to explore personal history after personal history, and it’s easy to get lost in the weeds there a bit. But I think it nevertheless delivers a narrative that easily keeps you hooked and invested in these women, their families, their communities; and enraged at how it’s clearly so easy for so many things to go wrong for women minorities in Canada.

If You Are Reading This it is Because I’m Dead: Here’s What I Want to Tell You About how to Live | The Guardian, Free

This essay went triple-platinum on my feeds last week, and I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it, too. It’s short but really heartfelt. Before moving on to the next life, the author lays out some words of wisdom, some sage advice for us as individual people and us as a society. It’s beautiful, in a way, but also sad to see how the world has become so broken and so content in its brokenness.

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This is one of those crime stories that grabs hold of you from the first sentence and doesn’t let go. Interestingly, the writer was able to stretch it out into however many thousands of words this is without any of the tangents feeling unnecessary or slow. I guess that speaks to how truly bonkers this case is, but also how tightly this piece was written and how intelligently it was structured out.

I really recommend that you read through. I won’t say much more about the story itself so you experience all of its twists and turns as purely as possible.

I will say, though, that it’s really refreshing to read these well-produced longform stories from smaller outlets, with editorial boards that are unlikely to have come from the big, legacy publications. There’s just a certain level of stiffness with articles from those papers, and it’s nice to see a great longform piece be more loose with its prose.

In the “Wild West” of Outpatient Vascular Care, Doctors Can Reap Huge Payments as Patients Risk Life and Limb | ProPublica, Free

As someone who writes in the biotech/pharma/medicine space, it surprises me to see just how many people unquestioningly trust doctors. And I may just be biased here, but it’s painfully obvious that many of them are very self-absorbed and selfish. I guess that’s why none of this was surprising to me.

But that doesn’t make any of it less appalling, though. The greed here is so bare-faced and carried out at extreme risk to patients. What’s scary, though, is that I’m not sure this investigation—which is great, btw, with incredible reporting and writing—will actually change anything. Medicine is so frustratingly insular that way.

The Widow and the Murderer: A Friendship Born of Tragedy | The Guardian, Free

Great premise, but I’d be lying if I said that this story sort of got lost in the weeds for me. Granted, I think that’s heavily because of my personal sensibilities. This piece feels, in many spots, like it’s excoriating rebellions. And I can understand that to a certain degree, but I think now more than ever, we’re being forced to reckon with the limitations (I’d say futility) of peaceful protests. We’ve seen just how ineffective screaming on the streets on the streets is, so maybe insisting on nonviolence isn’t the best look.

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Thanks for reading! Please, please reach out if you have feedback, suggestions, or questions. Alternatively, you can fill out this super quick survey form. I promise it won’t even take five minutes of your time, and it’ll be a HUGE help!

ALSO: I know some of the stories I recommend might be behind paywalls, and maybe I can help you with access to those. Send me a message and let’s see what we can do 😊

Until next Monday! 👋