Living in Tracy Chapman’s House
February 03, 2026 at 12:12AMFor two decades, Jill Lepore has been The New Yorker‘s history writer par excellence, examining the nooks and crannies of the past, complicating our relationships with American myth and fact. (Tellingly, the magazine tasked her with detailing a century of editorial arguments for its hundredth anniversary, a vanishingly rare assignment at a publication with an allergy to covering itself.) What a pleasure, then, to see Lepore explore a transformative corner of her own personal history: her time in a communal house in Somerville, Massachusetts, just after the songwriter behind “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” moved out.
No one was who they meant to be, not yet, anyway. We were embryos, stem cells, brain stems of our future selves, wet behind the ears, wet all over. We lived in muddled, uncertain, thrilling, and dizzying chaos, slamming doors, crying into pillows, pondering the possibilities of turnips and menstrual cups and macrobiotics and Audre Lorde. One chapter of our lives had ended, but the next chapter hadn’t begun, and none of us were sure what we wanted, only that we wanted it, longed for it, were desperate for it. I’ve been told that it’s the work of young adulthood to learn that you are in charge of your own life. Easier said than done, but for sure wackier and more fun in a house with a bunch of other misfits, especially if at least one person knows how to make a decent frittata, though it can be a little tricky figuring out how to take charge of your life if you’re trying to do it in the shadow of Tracy Chapman.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2026/02/02/tracy-chapman-house-massachusetts/
via IFTTT
Watch