Welcome back to The Weekend Press! Today, Liel Leibowitz remembers when Pulitzer Prize winners were deserving. Charles Koch reflects on the things he did wrong. Suzy Weiss asks: Would you travel to Korea for a new face? Two drinks with America’s reigning queen of crime writing, Patricia Cornwell. And much more!
But first: A Mother’s Day weekend special.
These days, so much of the discourse about when, whether, and how a young woman should have kids is focused on the first few years of their children’s lives. We’re obsessed with babies: how cute they are, how much work they are, how they completely reshape a mother’s life. But Larissa Phillips wants to remind both sides of the mommy wars as well as prospective parents: The baby phase doesn’t last long.
Before she became a mother, she writes, she was also obsessed with how the early years might consume her—but when she was six months’ pregnant with her first child, an older colleague told her about going to lunch with her adult son, and Larissa had a sudden realization. “This baby right here that was not yet born—he, too, would grow up and become an adult. And then what? Would we go out for lunch? Would he turn out just like me, someone who loved reading? Would we be close?”
Now, she has two grown kids, and her essay today is an ode to them—to the experience of watching them shed the skins of childhood, and become a daughter she can ask for advice and go traveling with, and a son who likes to talk philosophy with her and, yes, go out for lunch.
“Have kids,” writes Larissa. “Not because they are so cute and hilarious when they are babies—which they are—but because of what comes after the baby years.”
The thing is, you never, ever stop loving your child—even if they’re not with you anymore. On the eve of Mother’s Day, we’re glad to share the words of a woman for whom the day will be bittersweet.
Danielle Crittenden’s daughter Miranda died suddenly in her sleep, at age 32, just over two years ago. “Some grieving parents find purpose in organizing memorial causes for their late children: marathons, charities, scholarships,” writes Danielle today. “I understand the impulse.”
But when she and her husband thought about how they wanted to honor Miranda, they concluded that “her memorial should be what she’d been: a living thing.” They wanted to plant a garden, but there was a catch: The Orthodox cemetery where they’d buried her body—within three days of her death, per Jewish custom—wouldn’t let them. And so they made an unusual decision: They’d exhume her body, and find another home for it.
“Painful as the situation was, I imagined Miranda finding it all absurdly funny,” writes Danielle in her account of this strange time, re-creating her daughter’s voice: “What were you thinking?! Burying me off a highway among these Orthodox Jews?”
After the Pulitzers were awarded on Monday, Liel Leibowitz found himself reflecting on the prize’s recent winners—a slew of like-minded opinion writers, a woke rapper, people he thinks were chosen more for their politics than their work. In this week’s Things Worth Remembering, he reflects on the work of Jimmy Breslin, who won the award 40 years ago, and truly deserved it. Because he was the kind of journalist who, when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, didn’t try for an interview with the First Lady but rather spent his day with a man paid $3.01 an hour to dig graves.
Charles Koch is one of the richest men on Earth, and the co-CEO of the second-biggest company in America, Koch Industries, which was founded by his father. But success wasn’t handed to him on a silver platter. “My father, Fred, had no intention of allowing me and my brothers to grow up to be ‘country club bums,’ ” he writes in this week’s Ancient Wisdom. “Starting at age 6, I spent my afternoons and weekends feeding animals, shoveling manure, and milking cows on the family farm.” His essay today is about the things that taught him so much more than his privilege: his mistakes.
Patricia Cornwell is the queen of crime thrillers; she’s sold over 120 million books worldwide, landed 29 novels on The New York Times bestseller list, and this year her most beloved character, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, got her own television show on Amazon Prime. But this past week, she released a very different kind of book: a memoir. Zac Bissonnette caught up with her for two drinks, to talk about her humble beginnings, her unlikely friendship with Ruth Graham—and why you should never write a biography of someone you’ve known forever.
Second Thought
Would you travel to Korea for a new face? That’s what Ben Kawaller did. “It was the worst pain I’ve ever had in my life,” Ben told Suzy Weiss this week, of a procedure that apparently involved 150 needles, is illegal in America, and cost almost $5,000. “It felt like my skin was being slowly peeled off.” So, was it worth it? Ben tells all in the latest episode of Second Thought. He, Suzy, and her co-host Dan Ahdoot also chatted about how “gay” became “queer,” the highs and lows of the Met Gala, the end of Spirit Airlines, and why nobody knows how to behave in public anymore.
Listen to the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or watch the YouTube vid below. And if you want to keep up to date with everything Suzy does, don’t miss her newsletter!
Knock, Knock, It’s Cupid!
A new batch of ads from single Free Pressers is live on our site. Click here to meet a “recovering attorney” living between Pittsburgh and South Carolina; a bachelorette in New Jersey getting a PhD in political extremism and authoritarianism; or an AI policy adviser who’s lived in Estonia and likes making jewelry. Your special someone could be just one email away! If you’d like to take a chance at Free Press love, write a paragraph that defines you, your age, where you live, and what you’re looking for, and send it over to Cupid@TheFP.com.
Earlier this week, Suzy Weiss sat down with the “MAGA girlfriend” of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and Kat Rosenfield wrote about the bestseller designed for the millennial feminists who hate tradwives. Catch up with their excellent essays, and more:
How should you spend your weekend? For a Gen Z scoop, we asked our producer and host Rafaela Siewert for her recommendations.
🐀 Watch. . . this very short documentary about New York City rats. Yes, rats! From Rat Czar Halloween costumes to the rise of Rat Daddy on TikTok, it’s clear we can’t look away from the Big Apple’s unofficial mascot. In 14 minutes, this doc takes you into the world of rat enthusiasts, rat hunters, rat walking tours, and rat obsessives. It’s a treat.
🪲 Then Watch. . . a zany, silly, and bizarre short film about bug romance—as in, grasshoppers (and other critters) navigating love and life. Behold: Bug Diner by Phoebe Jane Hart. (NSFW, thanks to the stop-motion animated bug sex.)
🎧 Listen. . . to some of the best audio storytelling: WNYC’s Dolly Parton’s America, about the queen of country; The New York Times’ The Jungle Prince, about the peculiar “royal family of Oudh” in New Delhi; and BBC’s I’m Not a Monster, about an American mom and a UK teen who joined ISIS. These are some oldies from the past few years, but they really capture the art of audio storytelling.
🇸🇾🇰🇷 Eat. . . Syrian/Korean fusion. If you’re in NYC, head to SYKO, which is owned by two brothers-in-law—one Syrian, the other, you guessed it, Korean. Delicious, affordable, and highly unique. I recommend the labandu, beef shawarma hotteok, and bulgogi kimbap!
Last but not least, feast your eyes on what our art director Clara Grusq says was the best outfit from Monday’s Met Gala: Chase Infiniti wearing Thom Browne.
That’s all, folks! Have a great weekend.
