Susan Doherty

When Rachel met handsome Irish widower Lorcan it was a whirlwind romance. Her family back in New Zealand thought it would never last. But it did, and they were so happy. Bringing up two children hadn’t been in her life plan, but it had become her joy, and she was as proud of them as if they were her own. Their little family wasn’t quite the same as everyone else’s, but it was beautiful, it was happy, it was home. Until now. Because when Lorcan’s life is taken in a tragic accident, it feels like Rachel’s world has died with him.

Imani Perry’s Audible Original A Dangerously High Threshold for Pain tells the dramatic story of her ongoing struggle with lupus—an autoimmune disease that attacks multiple organ systems—and what we can all learn from those who are grappling with chronic illness. It’s a powerful and poetic story that evokes the works of Susan Sontag, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Audre Lorde.

In this 1983 short story - the only short story Morrison ever wrote - we meet Twyla and Roberta, who have known each other since they were eight years old and spent four months together as roommates in St. Bonaventure shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only later to find each other again at a diner, a grocery store, and again at a protest. Seemingly at opposite ends of every problem, and at each other's throats each time they meet, the two women still cannot deny the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them.