Joe Guppy is a writer, actor and psychotherapist living in Seattle. Thirty-five years ago, he was 23 years old and a mental patient. He spent 10 weeks in a mental hospital and another 10 weeks in a halfway house after Atabrine, an old-school malaria medication, gave him visions that he was living in hell and […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
‘Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?’
Cartoonist Roz Chast’s illustrated memoir on the final years of her parents’ lives. It’s no accident that most consumer ads are pitched to people in their 20s and 30s. For one thing, they are less likely to have gone through the transformative process of cleaning out their deceased parents’ stuff. Once you go through that, […]
Posted inNonfiction
When Mary Martin Was the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up
In the 1950s, a musical adaptation of J. M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ starring Mary Martin became a sensation, attracting the fourth biggest audience of all time for a scripted TV show when a live production was broadcast on NBC.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Interview: Kiera Feldman on Oral Roberts, God and Journalism
In our latest Longreads Exclusive, Kiera Feldman and Tulsa-based magazine This Land Press went deep into the downfall of the Oral Roberts family dynasty—how Richard Roberts went from heir to the televangelist’s empire, to stripped from his role at Oral Roberts University. Feldman, a Brooklyn-based journalist, and This Land Press have worked together before—her story […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
Why Do So Many People Pretend to Be Native American?
On Iron Eyes Cody and “the tribe of the Wannabe.”
Posted inQuotes
What Happened When We Discovered What Mattered
“Besides nearly killing me, college taught me several things. Namely, that external identity mattered. Being black mattered. It determined where to get off the Boston subway without receiving a baseball bat to the head. Being the biracial child of a single, white mother determined which whites would beg me, breezily to integrate certain spaces and […]
Posted inBooks, Fiction, First Chapters, Story
'Friendship': The Full First Chapter from Emily Gould's New Novel
Emily Gould | Friendship | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | July 2014 | 8 minutes (1,893 words) Below is the opening chapter of Friendship, the new novel by Emily Gould, who we’ve featured often on Longreads in the past. Thanks to Gould and FSG for sharing it with the Longreads community. You can purchase the full book from […]
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Yes, All Women Part II: A Reading List of Stories Written By Women
My last Yes, All Women reading list was a hit with the Longreads community, so here’s part two. Enjoy 20 pieces by fantastic women writers. 1. “When You’re Unemployed.” (Jessica Goldstein, The Hairpin, June 2014) “The first thing to go is the caring…You develop a routine: changing out of sleeping leggings and into daytime leggings.” […]
