“I think a lot about how to map the scale of our own lives against the scale of existence.” –Kathyrn Schulz
Not long after Kathryn Schulz fell in love with the woman she would marry, her beloved father died. Now she’s written a memoir, Lost & Found, in which she shares these deeply personal stories and expands them into a consideration of the ways that loss and discovery and joy and grief affect, and intermingle in, all of our lives. In our Book Dreams conversation with Kathryn, we discuss everything from the jaw-droppingly fascinating childhood of Kathryn’s father, to the surprisingly rich history–and all-too-often overlooked complexity–of the word “and,” to the meaning that scarcity bestows on life.
Kathryn Schulz has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and a National Magazine Award for “The Really Big One,” an article about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Her memoir Lost & Found grew out of a piece called “Losing Streak,” which was originally published in The New Yorker and later anthologized in The Best American Essays. Her other essays and reporting have appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Food Writing. Kathryn is also the author of the bestselling book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin.
Lost & Found
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, Vogue, Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, BuzzFeed, Esquire, Chicago Review of Books, Town & Country, Electric Lit, The Rumpus, Lit Hub, The Week
“Our lives do indeed deserve and reward the kind of honest, gentle, brilliant scrutiny Schulz brings to bear on her own life. The book is profound and beautiful.” —Marilynne Robinson, author of Housekeeping and Gilead
“Kathryn Schulz has a singular way of turning a familiar idea around and around until it becomes cosmic, geological, wondrous. In Lost & Found she turns a memoir of love and death into an exploration of the way chance becomes fate and grief intertwines with gratitude. To read her is to be quietly amazed at hidden depths and histories—as if you were to discover a map of a continent written in the palm of your hand.” —Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror
