John Jeremiah Sullivan Explores the World of Massage
For this weekend’s read, we’re in a throwback mood and recommending John Jeremiah Sullivan’s 2012 piece for the New York Times Magazine, “My Multiday Massage-a-thon.” In the piece, Sullivan, the author of the 2011 essay collection Pulphead and contributor to publications such as The Paris Review and GQ, first declares himself something of a massage...
The Real Lolita
Here at Broad Street we love reading about the true-life stories that have inspired some of our favorite fiction. That’s why we recommend a recent piece over at Hazlitt investigating the 1948 abduction of Sally Horner, a New Jersey fifth-grader whose kidnapping at the hands of Frank La Salle, along with the trip Horner made...
Reading About Misery
by Carla Dominguez Misery lit is a strange genre. The term, ostensibly coined by The Bookseller magazine in the late 2000s, is used to describe biographical literature mostly concerned with the protagonists’ triumph over personal trauma or abuse. Although misery lit as a genre encompasses many types of traumatic stories, the most common storyline is about someone’s life as a child: children with...
Colonial Williamsburg, History and Unreality
by Matthew Phipps Recently I paid a visit to Colonial Williamsburg, the former seat of state and colonial government that sits, in its current form—partially preserved, partially reconstructed, peopled by re-enactors in bulky period dress—halfway down the Virginia Peninsula, between the tidal flows of the James and York Rivers. While I had never been to...
The Tune of True Stories
True stories come in all forms. From Elizabethan murder ballads to rap songs, music has been a font of stories drawn from real life. But how much does truth really matter when it comes to songs? First, there’s the question of narrative itself. For example, Nick Cave, front man for Australian alternative-rock band the Bad Seeds, has moved...
