This Week in Essays
A weekly roundup of essays we’re reading online!
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Posts Tagged: GQ
Nothing Gets Solved: Talking with Kevin Nguyen
Kevin Nguyen discusses his debut novel, NEW WAVES.
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This Week in Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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On Self-Reliance: Frank Ocean as Emersonian Hero
As Emerson recognizes, someone who couldn’t care less about how they come across is all the more charismatic and convincing.
...moreThe Amazing Fashion Week Adventures of Michael Chabon and Son
For GQ, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon applies his discerning eye to a subject close to his heart: his fashion-obsessed son: He would lay out its components, making a kind of flat self-portrait on the bedroom floor—oxford shirt tucked inside of cotton sport coat, extra-slim pants (with the adjustable elastic straps inside the waistband stretched to […]
...moreNo Lights, No Camera
Mitch Moxley took a trip to the North Korean Film Festival; reporting for GQ, he riffs on how the event was a script in itself: Afterward, outside in the afternoon sun, Hong politely poses for photos with a few fans. When I ask through Miss P whether the actress still makes movies, Hong laughs quietly and says […]
...moreA Proper Fake
Wells Towers gives GQ yet another essay. His subject this time? The most prolific counterfeiter in American history, Frank Bourassa: Frank’s self-image may be described as not merely healthy but hyperpituitary. When I asked him where he found the lunatic gumption not only to enter into the risky business of counterfeiting but to do so […]
...moreA Wild Hunt
Wells Tower went on an elephant hunt, and then wrote about it for GQ: The indescribable thought sensation was not this, but some tiny part of it was sort of like this: Before I saw the elephant get shot, I understood that there was life, and there was its cessation. But now I understand there […]
...moreWhen the Writer Becomes the Written About
When I write a story about someone else, I keep me, myself and I, out of it….But a few years back, I wrote about someone else and did belong in the story; I was an undeniable part of it. While writing his latest book, Joshua Prager found himself in one of those strange instances when […]
...more“So Are You Helpless, Tragic, or Stupid?”
You may remember, from when it was featured on Longform.org, Vanessa Veselka’s GQ essay “The Truck Stop Killer,” about her life as a teenage hitchhiker and her narrow escape from a man who might have been a serial killer. Now, for the American Reader, Veselka pulls back for a more analytical take on the subject of road […]
...morePussy Riot Jailhouse Interview
“We couldn’t even imagine that the authorities would be so dumb that they would actually legitimize our influence by arresting us. Sure, Tsentr E tried to intimidate us by tailing us constantly. But unlike Putin, we’re not chickenshit—so we didn’t stop performing.” GQ interviews two of the three members of Pussy Riot. Corresponding by way […]
...morePutin Scares Pants Off Condé Nast, Gawker Saves Day
Did you know that GQ recently published a groundbreaking story which questions “the official line” on the 1999 bombings — supposedly committed by Chechen rebels — that Vladimir Putin used as a springboard to put himself in charge of Russia for the last decade? Did you know that the article uses an on-the-record source to […]
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