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.
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The Secret to Every Episode of 'Maury,' in Three Acts
“Producers think of every Maury segment as a three-act play. Tiffany’s suspicions were the subject of Act I. ‘We haven’t had sex in over a month,’ she complained. Harrison-Hall turned to us with her mouth open and we yelled, ‘Ohhhhh!’ Tiffany’s neighbor, Candice, rose from the front row to say she’d seen women entering Cornelius’s […]
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The Last Hike of David Gimelfarb
On August 11, 2009, 28-year-old David Gimelfarb disappeared while hiking in Costa Rica’s Rincón de la Vieja National Park. His remains have never been found. His parents have spent more than $300,000 searching for him and are still holding out hope: “‘We believe David is alive,’ said Roma, 66, his eyes searching mine to gauge […]
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When 772 Pitches Isn’t Enough
Via Travelreads: Chris Jones on the unique culture of Japanese baseball and 16-year-old pitching phenom Tomohiro Anraku, seen as “a real-life Sidd Finch, his story so impossible that he’s been spoken about only in whispers or exclamations”: “There has been talk in America that Anraku’s arm had been destroyed weeks earlier, in April, stripped of […]
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Lap Dogs of the Press
A 2006 essay by White House reporter Helen Thomas, who died Saturday at 92, on how the press failed to do its job in the run-up to the Iraq war. She recalls one exchange with former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan: “‘Did we invade those countries?’ “At that point McClellan called on another reporter. […]
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Black & Blue
Damien Echols spent 18 years on death row as part of the “West Memphis Three” before being freed in 2011. He’s now adjusting to domestic life in Salem, Mass.: “Lucia Coale and her husband, Ed Schutte, found out about their new neighbors back in September, not long after Davis and Echols had signed the papers […]
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The Night Tony Soprano Disappeared
An excerpt from Brett Martin’s book Difficult Men. Sopranos creator and show runner David Chase and actor James Gandolfini were talented, complicated, and, at times, difficult men who created an iconic TV show: “The massive job was made possible at least in part by creating a world in which other people managed the rest of […]
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I Packed My Knives & Went: Aboard the Top Chef Cruise
The author on his experience aboard the “Top Chef Cruise” and seeing former “chef’testants”: “There were also live Quickfires. There were two of these a night, and they were always packed to the gills. Audience volunteers joined chefs onstage for challenges familiar to anyone that’s watched the show. The MC was shaky, and the whole […]
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Long Night at ‘Today’
Turmoil at NBC’s “Today” show: How the dismissal of Ann Curry set off a chain of events that led to a ratings slump and now questions about Matt Lauer’s future: “The producers of Today are employing every trick they know to rebuild the family’s chemistry, retooling the set, fiddling with the mix of stories, going […]
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Brief Encounter with the Household Gods
[Fiction] A daughter talks about her father and his favorite TV Show: “It’s the political woman who’s responsible for his new phase. I see him watching her on her TV show. With her husband & her kids, she’s traveling around her totally backward state. My dad loves that show. He gets all excited because sometimes […]
