"The Atavist is to digital long-form journalism what the first season of 'Serial' was to podcasting: a pioneering force for compelling, in-depth storytelling in an age of sound bites, hot takes and clickbait." -- Laura Pearson - Chicago Tribune "The images awaiting you in the stories here, thanks to The Atavist, are the kind that hurl you out of your reading chair and into another realm." -- Susan Orlean, from the introduction "A mesmerizing collection, as lush and moving and full of astonishments as any I've read. It reflects the now-vital place of The Atavist in our literary firmament, a digital enterprise populated by some of the very best writers today, obsessed with the written word and new ways of telling stories. This is longform at its best, nonfiction mini-novellas that grip and cajole; rollick and surprise; illuminate and carry you on a journey to where truth and emotion are supersaturated, to where the gems glow in plain sight, there for the taking." -- Michael Paterniti "Love and Ruin is tightly packed with the kind of stories that stay in your mind for a long time-stories that come alive in the kind of hard, clean sentences I remembering marveling at as a teenager devouring the stories of Truman Capote and Lillian Ross for the first time." -- Nancy Jo Sales