Older people

Going to Extremes

By Harper’s Magazine, on February 7, 2019

In sickness, only: on mercy killings, and the crisis in our health care system Read More

Going to Extremes

By Ann Neumann,

When Philip Benight awoke on January 26, 2017, he saw a bright glow. “Son of a bitch, there is a light,” he thought. He hoped it meant he had died.…

Running to the Grave

By Barbara Ehrenreich,

By Barbara Ehrenreich, from Natural Causes, which will be published next month by Twelve. Ehrenreich is the author of more than a dozen books, including Nickel and Dimed (Henry Holt).…

DeLisle, Mississippi

By Jesmyn Ward,

When I was six, a pit bull tried to rip out my throat. I was walking down my parents’ oystershell driveway when the dog attacked me, probably because another dog,…

“Don’t Touch My Medicare!”

By Trudy Lieberman,

On a brilliantly sunny afternoon last October, twenty-eight New Yorkers — some clutching walkers, others in wheelchairs — crammed into a tiny space at the back of Manhattan’s East Side…

Untitled

By Max Whittaker,

The End of Retirement

By Jessica Bruder,

On Thanksgiving Day of 2010, Linda May sat alone in a trailer in New River, Arizona. At sixty, the silver-haired grandmother lacked electricity and running water. She couldn’t find work.…

The View from 86

By Malcolm Cowley,

By Malcolm Cowley, from a December 20, 1984, letter to Peter Braestrup, editor of Wilson Quarterly. Best known for his literary criticism, Cowley died in 1989. The Long Voyage: Selected…

Two elders seated

Art by Jayne Holsinger,

Weak end 4a

Art by Christine Weber,

Age is wasted on the young

By Harper’s Staff,

From the Archive

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Going to Extremes

Going to Extremes

Running to the Grave

DeLisle, Mississippi

“Don’t Touch My Medicare!”

Untitled

The End of Retirement

The View from 86

Two elders seated

Weak end 4a

Age is wasted on the young

April 2004