Our Imaginary Brother Only Watches PBS
How one family schemed to be the best TV-watchers in America.
Personal Histories
A collection of 14 issues
The Low Road
Not everyone who breaks your heart is a monster. And not everyone who wounds you deserves to be wounded in return.
The Limousine
Prom is a big night for many teenagers, full of firsts. First corsage. First big dance. Never mind first time in a limo—with disastrous results.
The Books
A couple’s decision to combine bookshelves supplies a series of revelations.
The Gambler
In which the novelist and magician Tim O’Brien makes the author disappear, and a family funeral puts a father’s sleight of hand on full display.
The Art of Swimming
Three near-drownings elucidate the wisdom of a 17th-century guide to swimming safety and technique.
Dear Daughter, Your Mom
Drawing inspiration from those who went before, and those still to come, in the waitress wars.
A Country’s Width
Years go by easier when there are 2,000 miles separating a father and son. Then an American flag turns up in your lap.
The Illuminated
A family that relies on the satisfactions of the logical—calculus, physics, chemistry—finds itself haunted by ghosts.
Grandpa
Passing the summer days in North Carolina’s low country often meant sitting on the porch with Grandpa and his radio. Today, it doesn’t take much to go back there.
A Lifetime’s One Regret
Does hindsight improve with age? People, ages five to 60, name their life's biggest mistake and what they learned.
Our Hallow’s Eve
When dementia gets its grip on a father who always loved slasher movies, a daughter struggles to hold on—if only to the ghost of recognition.
Once Upon a Time in the Middle East
Driving from Lebanon toward Syria, across the Saudi Arabian desert to Dammam, in a taxi among the refugees of Beirut—quickly becomes the Wild West.
The Works and Days of Elena Shvarts
A literary gumshoe visits St. Petersburg to track down the so-called “ninja of Russian verse,” Elena Shvarts, who died in 2010 leaving almost nothing behind.