The Week’s Best Longreads: The Daily Beast Picks for April 14, 2012

The Daily Beast picks the best journalism from around the Web this week. By David Sessions.

The Big Book Chris Jones, Esquire Robert Caro has spent 38 years writing the biography of one man. The fourth volume of that work, like its three predecessors a giant achievement and certain bestseller, is about to be published. But Caro is not done.

Why Noah Went to the Woods Mark Sundeen, OutsideHe was a proud Marine who survived three brutal tours in Iraq and had plans to redeploy with the National Guard. But when 30-year-old Noah Pippin vanished inside Montana’s remote Bob Marshall Wilderness, he left behind a trail of haunting secrets—and a mystery that may never be solved.

The DisconnectNathan Heller, The New YorkerWhy are so many Americans living by themselves?

The Camorra Never Sleeps William Langewiesche, Vanity FairFor years before they caught him, the Italian police had no idea that Paolo Di Lauro was one of Naples’s most powerful crime bosses, running a drug and counterfeit-goods empire—and responsible for a peace his turf had rarely known. Now they long for the days when he was in charge.

The Crisis in American WalkingTom Vanderbilt, SlateHow we got off the pedestrian path.

The Devil in Deryl Dedmon Tony Dokoupil, NewsweekIn a parking lot in Mississippi, he killed a black man with his truck. He's in jail for a hate crime—but his black friends disagree.

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