The Longreads Blog

Scientists are trying to uncover why some people are better able to recover from trauma than others:

After Ebaugh crawled up the rocky riverbank, a truck driver picked her up, took her to a nearby convenience store and bought her a cup of hot tea. Police, when they arrived, were sympathetic and patient. The doctor at the hospital, she says, treated her like a daughter. A close friend took her in for a time. And her family offered reassurance and emotional support. ‘For the first month, I almost had to tell people to stop coming because I was so surrounded by friends and community,’ she says.

Studies of many kinds of trauma have shown that social support is a strong buffer against PTSD and other psychological problems. James Coan, a psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, has done a series of experiments in which women lie in an fMRI scanner and see ‘threat cues’ on a screen. They are told that between 4 and 10 seconds later, they may receive a small electric shock on the ankle. The cue triggers sensory arousal and activates brain regions associated with fear and anxiety, but when the women hold the hands of their husbands2 or friends3, these responses diminish.

Social interactions are complex and involve many brain circuits and chemicals; no one knows exactly why they provide relief.

“Stress: The Roots of Resilience.” — Virginia Hughes, Nature

More from Nature

Top 5 Longreads of the Week: Texas MonthlyVanity Fair,Outside MagazineNarrativelyThe New York Review of Books, fiction from The New Yorker, plus a guest pick from Catherine Kustanczy.

Meeting the man behind Violentacrez, the Reddit persona responsible for forums filled with racist and pornographic content like “Creepshots” and “Jailbait”:

When I called Brutsch that Wednesday afternoon and told him I knew who he was, I was a little taken aback by how calm he remained during our intense but civil hour-long conversation. I had figured that a man whose hobby was saying horrible shit just to screw with people online would rise to some new horrible level when conditions on the ground actually called for it. Instead he pleaded with me in an affectless monotone not to reveal his name.

‘My wife is disabled. I got a home and a mortgage, and if this hits the fan, I believe this will affect negatively on my employment,’ he said. ‘I do my job, go home watch TV, and go on the internet. I just like riling people up in my spare time.’

“Unmasking The Biggest Troll on the Web.” — Adrian Chen, Gawker

More by Chen

The first in a two-part series deconstructing the case against Michael Morton, who was convicted in 1987 of killing his wife but has maintained his innocence:

Michael was breathing hard. ‘Is my son okay?’ he asked.

‘He’s fine,’ Boutwell said. ‘He’s at the neighbors’.’

‘How about my wife?’

The sheriff was matter-of-fact. ‘She’s dead,’ he replied.

Boutwell led Michael into the kitchen and introduced him to Sergeant Don Wood, the case’s lead investigator. ‘We have to ask you a few questions before we can get your son,’ Boutwell told him. Dazed, Michael took a seat at the kitchen table. He had shown no reaction to the news of Christine’s death, and as he sat across from the two lawmen, he tried to make sense of what was happening around him. Sheriff’s deputies brushed past him, opening drawers and rifling through cabinets. He could see the light of a camera flash exploding again and again in the master bedroom as a police photographer documented what Michael realized must have been the place where Christine was killed. He could hear officers entering and exiting his house, exchanging small talk. Someone dumped a bag of ice into the kitchen sink and stuck Cokes in it. Cigarette smoke hung in the air.

“The Innocent Man, Part One.” — Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly

More Texas Monthly

The Longreads Membership: What You're Paying For, and Why We're Doing It

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By now you’ve probably seen our Longreads Member Picks—a mix of outstanding magazine stories, book chapters and more from the best writers and publishers in the world.

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[Fiction] An aunt recalls how she met her husband. (From Mo Yan, 2012 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.)

‘If you want to know why I married Hao Dashou, I have to start with the frogs. Some old friends got together for dinner on the night I announced my retirement, and I wound up drunk – I hadn’t drunk much, less than a bowlful, but it was cheap liquor. Xie Xiaoque, the son of the restaurant owner, Xie Baizhua, one of those sweet-potato kids of the ‘63 famine, took out a bottle of ultra-strong Wuliangye – to honour me, he said – but it was counterfeit, and my head was reeling. Everyone at the table was wobbly, barely able to stand, and Xie Xiaoque himself foamed at the mouth till his eyes rolled up into his head.’

“Frogs.” — Mo Yan, Granta

More from Granta

Longreads Member Exclusive: How the Light Gets In

Our latest Exclusive comes from author Elissa Schappell, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and co-founder and editor at large of Tin House, which is where she published “How the Light Gets In”—a story about a life changed by seizures. See it here.

p.s. You can support Longreads—and get more exclusives like this—by becoming a member.

“The Beautiful Game.” — Patrick Symmes, Outside

More by Symmes

[Fiction] A father uses his lottery winnings for an extravagant birthday party for his teenage daughter:

September 3rd: Having just turned forty, have resolved to embark on grand project of writing every day in this new black book just got at OfficeMax. Exciting to think how in one year, at rate of one page/day, will have written three hundred and sixty-five pages, and what a picture of life and times then available for kids & grandkids, even greatgrandkids, whoever, all are welcome (!) to see how life really was/is now. Because what do we know of other times really? How clothes smelled and carriages sounded? Will future people know, for example, about sound of airplanes going over at night, since airplanes by that time passé? Will future people know sometimes cats fought in night? Because by that time some chemical invented to make cats not fight? Last night dreamed of two demons having sex and found it was only two cats fighting outside window. Will future people be aware of concept of ‘demons’? Will they find our belief in ‘demons’ quaint? Will ‘windows’ even exist? Interesting to future generations that even sophisticated college grad like me sometimes woke in cold sweat, thinking of demons, believing one possibly under bed? Anyway, what the heck, am not planning on writing encyclopedia, if any future person is reading this, if you want to know what a ‘demon’ was, go look it up, in something called an encyclopedia, if you even still have those!

Am getting off track, due to tired, due to those fighting cats.

“The Semplica-Girl Diaries.” — George Saunders, The New Yorker

More by George Saunders

Those Summers, These Days

A woman who grew up near her grandmother’s farm with a large extended family recalls her childhood, and how things will be different for her children and their children as her family shrinks. (A Best American Essays 2012 notable essay):

This shift is evident in our family.  Counting spouses and not counting our cousins’ kids, I have 17 aunts and uncles and 22 cousins on my side of the family, and Brandon has ten aunts and uncles and 16 cousins on his side.  On the other hand, my three kids have two uncles and an aunt on my side, with hopes of cousins, someday, and an aunt and uncle and two cousins on my husband’s side.  And that’s it.  Our family is gradually shrinking.

As more families choose to have two or fewer children, the population is beginning to plateau.  I don’t know what that means economically, but I know for me it means a growing void.  As our family ages and our grandparents pass away, there will come a time when the large extended family will no longer get together for every holiday; with the patriarchs and matriarchs alive only in our jokes and memories, we will eventually begin to celebrate special occasions with our more immediate family.  Fifty of my grandma’s descendants attended her 80th birthday party.  Today, celebrating my dad’s birthday with just his offspring would include five children and three grandchildren.

“Those Summers, These Days.” — Sarah M. Wells, Ascent