Month: August 2014

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in Harper’s and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. For me the Great Plains have a releasing effect. . . . Human effort is seen there in all its pitiful futility.  — Thomas Hart Benton LATE ONE afternoon in the winter of 1987, a pair of academics named… Continue reading Broken Heartland

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in GQ and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. THE LAST TIME Alan Greenspan spoke openly to the press was in 1987, soon after he was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve. Ever since, when Greenspan speaks to reporters, he keeps it off the record and behind closed… Continue reading Greenspan Takes a Bath

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in Esquire and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. THERE’S ONE STORY that says the whole thing. It was 1995, in the summer. Dick Cheney and a couple guys were on horseback in Yellowstone, clomping down a trail toward the river, heading for a fishing hole. It was… Continue reading Dick & Don Go to War

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in New York and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. SOMETIMES Dean Walcott disappears. He’ll be sitting on the sofa, watching his boys play, their shouts and giggles slicing the air, when suddenly the scent of blood washes over him and the day goes black. “All of a… Continue reading The Lost Battalion

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in GQ and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. A FEW WEEKS AGO, I went to see Colin Powell in his office. The room was tiny and the light dim. An Asian lamp on his desk cast a faint glow onto the walls, and the shades of his… Continue reading Casualty of War

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. LATE ON THE MORNING of April 3, the expedition ship Alucia rocked violently on the South Atlantic Ocean in the middle of a squall. On the aft deck, the crew huddled together in rain slickers… Continue reading The Deepest End

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in GQ and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. TOM COBURN DOESN’T CARE about the midterm elections. Sure, he’s a senator. Sure, he’s a Republican. And sure, that means his party lost control of both houses of Congress last fall and will be out of power until at least… Continue reading Dr. No

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in GQ and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. Wil S. Hylton is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and the author of Vanished. His complete archive is available on Longform.

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in Esquire and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. YOU ARE SOMETHING like nothing else. That much has always been clear, not least of all to yourself. When you look in the mirror, you see huge blue saucer eyes, empty and blinking on a wide-open face, a flat… Continue reading The Master

LONGFORM REPRINTS This article originally appeared in Harper’s and is reprinted on Longform by permission of the author. WHEN DAVID HANNAH walked into a small office on the second floor of the Moberly Correctional Facility in Moberly, Missouri, last fall, carrying his belly like a hundred-pound sack of sand, the staff knew him well enough not to worry… Continue reading Sick on the Inside