Search Results for: GQ

A Profile for #BachelorNation

Photo: ABC

Last January, the massively talented Taffy Brodesser-Akner profiled Chris Harrison, the longtime host of The Bachelor, for GQ. The brilliance of a Brodesser-Akner profile is in the way she treats her subjects: with steadfast humanity, even (and especially) in situations where a lesser writer might mock or ever so slightly sneer. Which is not to say that she sacrifices an ounce of humor in her refusal to condescend; the piece is often hilarious, but honestly so.  To borrow a phrase from Bachelor parlance, she’s there for the right reasons. Anyway, as The Bachelor enters its 20th season, the time seems right to revisit her profile. A brief taste:

Later, when Chris and I meet up with Gwen for salad—amicable, amicable—she tells me that he was born knowing exactly what to say and how to say it. I can’t attest to how far back this skill of his stretches, but I can confirm that he’s still got it. Chris Harrison is one of the smoothest motherfuckers I’ve ever met. On-screen he is able to do something that I believe men are generally not wired for: He can sit there and listen to a woman, allow her to emote and cry, and never interrupt, never try to shut her down or clean her up. Sure, it’s good television to let the tears flow, but still, it’s rare to find a man who can allow himself to allow it. When it’s time to ask a contestant to leave, his face is the face you want: lips mashed mournfully together, eyebrows up, big sigh.

Even off-camera, he speaks in crisp sentences. He doesn’t stumble. He doesn’t stammer. You should see my interview transcript; it came back from the transcriber as if it had already been edited. Gwen says Harrison is just as he appears on TV, “but funnier. People don’t realize how funny he is.”

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Longreads Best of 2015: Under-Recognized Stories

We asked all of our contributors to Longreads Best of 2015 to tell us about a story they felt deserved more recognition in 2015. Here they are. Read more…

Longreads Best of 2015: Arts & Culture

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in arts and culture writing.

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Shannon Proudfoot
Senior writer with Sportsnet magazine

The Late, Great Stephen Colbert (Joel Lovell, GQ)

Stephen Colbert has pulled off the rare feat of being a public figure for the better part of a decade while keeping his true self almost entirely obscured behind a braying façade. Here, with such uncommon intelligence, sensitivity and nuance, Joel Lovell shows us who’s been under there the whole time. The writer is very present in the story, sifting through the meaning of what he finds and tugging us along behind him through reporting and writing that starts out rollicking and then turns surprisingly raw and emotional. But Lovell never gets in his own way or turns self-indulgent; that’s a tough thing to pull off. The word I kept coming back to in thinking about this story was “humane”—it just feels so complex and wise, and unexpectedly aching, buoyed with perfect, telling details and effortlessly excellent writing. Read more…

Longreads Best of 2015: Crime Reporting

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in crime reporting.

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Chris Vogel
Articles Editor at Boston magazine.

The Great Cocaine Treasure Hunt (Daniel Riley, GQ)

This is easily one of my favorite stories of the year, regardless of genre. Sure it has buried treasure, 70 pounds of cocaine, and a questionable undercover sting in the Caribbean, but it’s also a tale about the power of story and good story telling. I’m pretty sure I emailed Riley’s opener to more people this year than any other, which starts like the seductive thrum of a GTO:

Good Goddamn, the way Julian told that story. It was the sort of story that imbued the mind with possibility. That lingered like campfire smoke in a sweater.

But it wasn’t just the particulars of the story—Julian burying the million-dollar stash of coral-white cocaine he’d found washed up on the beach in Culebra—that captured Rodney Hyden’s imagination. It was the sounds of the story—the slithering South Carolina accent, the whistly snicker at parts that weren’t funny to anyone but Julian. And the picture of the storyteller, too. The silver hair down around Julian’s shoulders, the big Gandalf beard distracting from his slight frame, the bare feet, and always that Mason jar of wine that kept bottoming out and filling right back up again.

I mean, c’mon. Read more…

Longreads Best of 2015: Essays & Criticism

We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in specific categories. Here, the best in essays and criticism. Read more…

Longreads Best of 2015: Our 10 Most Popular Exclusives of the Year

This year marked Longreads’ first full year producing original stories with many of our favorite writers. We also published exclusives in partnership with other publishers—and all of these stories were funded by Longreads Members, with a match from WordPress.com

We are thankful for Members’ continued support, which makes these stories possible. Join today. If you contribute $50 a year or more we’ll send you a special Longreads tote bag. 

Below are the 10 most popular exclusives we published this year. You can see all of our stories here Read more…

Speed-Dating in Shanghai: Finding a Mate at the ‘Love and Marriage Expo’

The Panda and The Bear - 3 by Andrew Baldacchino (CC BY-SA 2.0)

As a 23-year-old only child from a working-class family from Shanghai, I am in no rush to find a girlfriend. But marriage at a young age in China is considered the norm right now. My parents certainly think it should be. Since I got a job, they’ve now and then asked me euphemistically, “Do you have a direction?” By “direction,” they mean a girlfriend—one with whom I’m in a stable and serious relationship, and can bring home to visit at the Chinese New Year.

My mother didn’t force me to go to the matchup event. She just hinted that I should—every time we talked on the phone. “Nothing wrong with just having a look,” she told me. So here I was, dressed decently, and looking at a huge noticeboard, on which I saw my picture alongside hundreds of others, and below it the words:

Name: Mr. Huang
Education: Master’s degree
Birthdate: March 1992
Yearly salary: …

I’m listed on the wall for buyers.

I had filled in my yearly salary when I’d registered online—it’s a required question, along with those about your height, weight, zodiac sign, and whether you have a property or own a car. But I didn’t expect they would make rows and rows of “wanted” posters for every participant with his or her salary visible to every passer-by.

At Quartz, Zheping Huang navigates the highly competitive sea of red tables in search of wife at the Love and Marriage Expo in Shanghai, China.

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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

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A Halloween Weekend Reading List

Photo: Allen

Boo! Read these stories about the scariest weekend of the year while getting over your candy hangovers.

1. “I Was a Halloween Costume Model.” (Freddie Campion, GQ October 2015)

Looking to make a little extra money, our anonymous hero answered a Craigslist ad.

2. “The Husband Stitch.” (Carmen Maria Machado, Granta, October 2014)

A sexy, spooky take on the tale of the woman with a ribbon around her neck. Read more…

The Most Haunted Road in America

Greetings from Clinton Road, N.J.
Illustrations by Matt Lubchansky

Taffy Brodesser-Akner | Atlas Obscura | October 2015 | 20 minutes (4,944 words)

Atlas ObscuraOur latest Exclusive is a new story by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, co-funded by Longreads Members and published by Atlas Obscura.

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In a part of New Jersey where snakes slither slowly across a road, still coiled and yet somehow still moving; in a part of New Jersey where an insect that looks like a miniaturized bat sits on your windshield, menacing you while you make a sound that doesn’t sound quite like you from inside your car; in a part of New Jersey with a disproportionate amount of road kill in an already highly populated-by-road kill state; in a part of New Jersey where your phone cannot, will not pick up any kind of signal; here, in West Milford, in the county of Passaic, lies Clinton Road, a 10-mile stretch of haunted highway. Read more…