Cultural Criticism

The Atlantic

In Search of the Book That Would Save Her Life, January 2025

An Institution That’s Been Broken for 200 Years, April 2023

The Most American Form of Architecture Isn’t Going Anywhere, June 2022

Whatever You Write, There You Are, April 2022

The Baffler

Girl Fight, April 2024

A Good Death, January 2023

Cold Comfort, February 2022

What Women Want, July 2020

Grift the Pain Away, February 2019

The Believer

A Review of Pages of Mourning, April 2024

BOMB

Gaining A Self: On Chelsea Bieker’s Godshot, April 2020

Signaling Through the Flames: On The Gulf by Belle Boggs, April 2019

Something Like Hope: On Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Friday Black, November 2018

A Bildungsroman Spy Novel: On Rosalie Knecht’s Who is Vera Kelly?, June 2018

Greed, Italian Style: On Nicola Lagioia’s Ferocity, October 2017

Bookforum

Heart-Shaped Box, January 2021

Columbia Magazine

Review: The Stone Home, April 2024

Review: The Liberators, January 2024

Review: Disruptions, September 2023

Gawker

‘The Crane Wife’ Only Has One Trick, July 2022

The Hairpin

Girlhood Against Convention: Why We Can’t Look Away, June 2016

Lapham’s Quarterly

Novel Transport, November 2021

LitHub

Marriage Isn’t the Only Plot for Love, February 2019

Why We Love—And Need to Leave Behind—Dead Girl Stories,  June 2018

How Grief Books by Mediums Harm the Living and the Dead, April 2017

In Praise of the New Aphorism, No Longer Just for Great Men, February 2017

Donald Trump’s Sentimental Journey to the Top, March 2016

The Los Angeles Times

Mortician, Heal Thyself, March 2022

The Nation

Can You Put a Dollar Amount on White Privilege?, July 2024

The New Republic

A Family Mystery, a Cancer Breakthrough, and a Sea of Uncertainty, July 2024

“The Book of Ayn” Trolls Us All, January 2024

Idra Novey Upends “Trump Country” Fables, April 2023

Which Side Are You On? Charts a Thorny Political Awakening, November 2022

The New York Review of Books

The Parent Trap, March 2024

NPR Books

‘Whale Fall' Centers the Push-and-Pull Between Dreams and Responsibilities, May 2024

'Women and Children First' is a Tale About How Actions and Choices Affect Others, May 2024

‘The Last Fire Season’ Describes What it Was Like to Live Through Calif.’s Wildfires, January 2024

‘The Fetishist’ Examines Racial and Sexual Politics, January 2024

In Booker-Winning 'Prophet Song,' the World Ends Slowly and Then All at Once, December 2023

‘Unearthing’ Couples the Natural World with the Meaning of Family, August 2023

‘To Name the Bigger Lie’ is an Investigation of the Nature of Truth, June 2023

‘A Living Remedy’ Tells a Story of Family, Class and a Daughter’s Grief, April 2023

‘Brutes’ Captures the Simultaneous Impatience and Mercurial Swing of Girlhood, February 2023

Deadwood Creator David Milch’s ‘Life’s Work’ Holds Lessons About Humanity and the Power of Art, September 2022

Emi Nietfeld is Done Reaching for Redemption in ‘Acceptance,’ August 2022

‘Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?’ Is a Grief Memoir That Shuns Sentimentality, June 2022

There’s No Redemption to Be Had in Chelsea Bieker’s ‘Heartbroke,’ April 2022

In 'Ancestor Trouble,' Maud Newton Wrestles with Her Family History, March 2022

A Sleeper-Agent-Pageant-Queen Exacts Revenge—and Finds Herself—in 'Monarch,' March 2022

In the Future of ‘Here Lies,’ the Mourning Can’t Bury Their Dead, March 2022

‘The Believer’ Approaches the Idea of ‘Certainty in the Absence of Knowledge,’ March 2022

‘Cost of Living’ Considers the Real Price of the U.S. Healthcare System, February 2022

A Grief Story and a Love Story Form the Backbone of ‘Lost & Found,’ January 2022

‘Gentrifier’ Crafts a Narrative About Detroit in Darkly Comic Vignettes, October 2021

Miriam Toews’ Latest Novel Offers Ardent, Funny Lessons in Staying and Fighting, October 2021

Writer With Bell’s Palsy Ponders How to Experience Joy When Expression Is Limited, October 2021

‘Seeing Ghosts’ Navigates the Melancholia of Loss—Of People, Places, and Identities,  August 2021

All Might Not End Too Well In Mona Awad’s New Novel, August 2021

‘The Kissing Bug’ Challenges Which Diseases Matter—And Why, June 2021

A Daughter Grieves Her Mom, And Finds Herself, In ‘Crying in H Mart,’ April 2021

In ‘Having And Being Had,’ Eula Biss Maps Capitalist Game Rules Without Breaking Them, September 2020

Slate

“Just Annie,” August 2024

The Washington Post

This Slow-Burning Mystery is Also a Potent Character Study, January 2025

An Art World Thriller Captures the Crippling Paranoia of Self-Doubt, December 2024

‘The Endless Refrain’ Asks: Do We Even Want New Music Anymore?, November 2024

‘Carrie Carolyn Coco’ is True Crime Through a Different Prism, July 2024

How Working for Joan Didion Changed an Aspiring Writer’s Life, June 2024

A Distinctly American Memoir for a Country Afraid of Its Own History, February 2024

An Athlete Desperate for Health Falls into a Fruit Craze, January 2024

It’s Time to Rethink Parole in the Age of Mass Incarceration, November 2023

‘The Body Keeps the Score’ offers uncertain science in the name of self-help. It’s not alone., August 2023 

Personal Essays

The Believer

A Brief History of the Word “Goombah,” April 2021

Catapult

Amid a Pandemic, Finding Rootedness in an Urban Forest, April 2020

The Threat Within: Harry Potter and the Cultural Baggage of Orphan Stories, June 2017

Don’t Cover Your Eyes, September 2016

The Cut

Mourning My Mother Through the Bags She Left Behind, May 2018

Hazlitt

Growing Up Emo, August 2017

LitHub

Keeping House to Stave Off Grief, September 2017

The New York Times Magazine

My Father Died Young. His Sisters Kept Me From Losing Him Entirely., February 2021

Pennsylvania Gazette

The Orphan Trap, January 2025

Real Life

Faded Pictures,  November 2017

Memetic Mori, December 2016

Reported Features and Interviews

The Baffler

Sick, Sad World: A Conversation with Edna Bonhomme, March 2025

Wards of God, December 2022

Abolishing the Prison of the Dead, November 2019

BOMB Magazine

The Big and the Small: Heather Radke Interviewed by Kristen Martin, November 2022

Hazlitt

‘Owning the Taint of Artistry’: An Interview with Leslie Jamison, September 2019

LitHub

Gregory Pardlo on Form, His Father, and Not Writing a Book About Race, April 2018

Phillip Lopate Revisits a 30-Year-Old Conversation with His Mother, January 2017

Interrogating Sentimentality with Leslie Jamison,  May 2016