This week, I wanted to share five more stories about what it means to disappear—either against your will or by your own volition.
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Posted inFiction, Quotes
Angela Carter on Myth and Deception in Hollywood
Angela Carter’s short story “The Merchant of Shadows” first appeared in The London Review of Books in 1989. Set in Hollywood, the narrator is a young, male student conducting research on a famed but mysterious director. The story bends and twists, ricocheting between dark comedy, deep camp, and Carter’s signature surreal, Gothic sensibility. Carter was an ardent fan […]
Posted inFiction, Quotes
How Michael Cunningham Writes About the Pains, Pleasures, and Psychedelia of Childhood
Michael Cunningham’s short story “White Angel” (The New Yorker; paywalled) is a vibrant masterpiece in miniature about two young brothers in suburban Cleveland pursuing the promises and pleasures of the sixties. Told through the eyes of 9-year-old Robert, the story travels an elegant curve – from the wonder, joy, and power imbalance of the brothers’ […]
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2016: Essays & Criticism
We asked a few writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here, the best in essays and criticism.
Posted inFiction, First Chapters, Story
An Ode to du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca,’ by Rachel Pastan
“Sometimes a book that is wonderful and well-told and riveting is overlooked. I believe this is the case with Rachel Pastan’s Alena.”
Posted inNonfiction
Truther Love
Uncovering the dating habits of conspiracy theorists and the challenges they face.
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Little Government in the Big Woods
Melissa Gilbert’s lost bid for Congress and the forgotten political history of ‘Little House on the Prairie.’
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Fiction and Revolution
At the time, the stories we read seemed to me a means to an end, grueling exercises for the tender muscles of my developing Arabic. Only more recently have I wondered what it might feel like to read them as someone living under the Assad regime. A story, at its best, can make us feel less […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
This Better and Truer History
On memory, therapy, and cats in the dryer: A discussion with J.M. Coetzee
Posted inFeature, Fiction
Desperate Characters
An excerpt from the 1970 novel by Paula Fox: Status-conscious Sophie and Otto Bentwood attend a dinner party in Brooklyn Heights in the late sixties, shortly after Sophie sustains a bite on her hand from a stray cat.
