On the trial of Joseph Hall, who murdered his neo-Nazi father when he was 10 years old. (For more background on the story, see Natasha Vargas-Cooper’s Feb. 2013 piece.) Did an atmosphere of hate drive Joseph to kill? Did his stepmother? Or was it his childish misreading of a TV show? Or a complicated amalgam […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
The Battle for Picasso’s Mind
[NSFW] Tom Braden launched CNN’s political talk show Crossfire and inspired the father figure on the TV show Eight Is Enough. In the 1950s, Braden also launched a CIA mission to use modern art to fight communism: Braden’s operation was a success. One of the world’s most famous and influential painters, Gerhard Richter, would later […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
In Conversation: Antonin Scalia
The Supreme Court justice on his legacy, gay rights, his belief in the Devil, and the TV show “Duck Dynasty”: “Maybe the world is spinning toward a wider acceptance of homosexual rights, and here’s Scalia, standing athwart it. At least standing athwart it as a constitutional entitlement. But I have never been custodian of my […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
Falling: Love and Marriage in a Conservative Indian Family
“Indians don’t ‘fall,’ Debie. We don’t marry by accident. We choose.”
Posted inBooks, First Chapters, Nonfiction
The Magical Stranger: A Son’s Journey Into His Father’s Life
Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words) Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Interview: Simon Rich on Guilt, Humor Writing, and Being the Worst Person Ever
“I’m certainly as revolting and privileged and narcissistic as any of the hipsters described in my book, if not more so. I mean, there’s nobody worse than me.”
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
Interview: Caitlin Moran on the Working Class, Masturbation, and Writing a Novel
“I’m very much a bitch-gotta-pay-rent girl. I worked my way up from the ghetto and I think women should be paid for their great ideas.”
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Call It Rape
Margot Singer | The Normal School | 2012 | 23 minutes (5,683 words) The Normal SchoolThanks to Margot Singer and The Normal School for sharing this story with the Longreads community.Subscribe to The Normal School * * * Still life with man and gun Three girls are smoking on the back porch of their high […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
One Thing We'll Miss About Blockbuster
“The death of Blockbuster is the death of the employee favorite shelf. With Netflix and Hulu and Amazon having rightfully eclipsed video rental stores, the recommendation is now largely accomplished by algorithm. If you didn’t agree with my taste in movies, there was definitely another employee you would agree with. There was someone for every […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Secret to a Successful Career, According to Cyndi Lauper's Makeup Artist
“It was for a new singer and it was for an Italian TV show called Popcorn, which was a music show. So they rented a flat and I walk in the next morning, and there’s this huge king-sized bed. And there’s Lou Albano and these other wrestlers and Cyndi and her mom. And I’m like, […]
