Top Fives of 2022: Stories
This week I’m counting down my favorite works of arts and entertainment in 2022. Here’s what I’ve done so far:
Monday: Movies/stage shows
Tuesday: TV
Wednesday: Books
Thursday: Music
Today: Stories!
I read hundreds of pieces of narrative journalism (maybe thousands?) every year, from 500-word gems in the local paper to long sprawling 12-hour podcasts. Not only that, this work is what a lot of my friends do for a living. So I just now decided that I’m going to give you two lists of stories: One by my friends and one by other folks. All 10 of these stories are special, but just know that I could’ve picked 100 and they would’ve all been great.
Stories by friends
Bronwen Dickey’s brilliant piece in the New York Times Magazine is about so many things: the tragic MOVE bombing in Philadelphia in 1985, the use of human bones as museum pieces and teaching aids, the interplay between science and politics and law enforcement. But at its core it is the story of a little girl named Tree Dotson, and how nearly everyone in her life—and after her death—failed her at every step. Bronwen pulls off the incredibly difficult feat of walking readers through a complex narrative, holding wrongdoers accountable, and at the same time keeping that little girl close to the story’s heart.
Chris Jones and Michael J. Mooney tag-teamed a revealing profile of Siegfried & Roy, the magic act that was the toast of Vegas until Roy was bitten by one of their tigers in 2003. Magic is about wanting to believe, and among other things, this story is about how Siegfried and Roy wanted to believe they had real control over 400-pound beasts that were born to kill. It was the one illusion they couldn’t pull off. The last of their animals live in a garden behind a hotel on the Strip called the Mirage.
Maggie Haberman is the most polarizing reporter on the Donald Trump beat—she has broken countless stories about him, despite an army of adversaries who think she’s somehow in the tank for Trump. Michael Kruse profiled Haberman and found a reporter perfectly matched to this particular beat—obsessive, relentless, willing to give up (almost) everything to get the story. The kicker is one of the saddest paragraphs I read all year.
There’s an insanely difficult bike trail in Utah called The Whole Enchilada. It’s meant to be ridden downhill, and it’s so hard that only the most skilled riders can complete it. Then a biker named Braydon Bringhurst decided he’d try to ride it uphill. Kim Cross is one of the finest outdoors writers in America, and her profile of Bringhurst goes deeper than most—it focuses on how he had to build himself up mentally as well as physically to make the climb.
The most entertaining newsletter in my inbox is Jeremy Markovich’s North Carolina Rabbit Hole, which digs into strange and obscure stories from the Tar Heel State. The Rabbit Hole is so consistently good that I had a hard time picking just one story to highlight, but in the end I went with his piece about one woman’s epic struggle to keep her FART license plate. Like so many of his best stories, it grew from a silly tidbit into something smarter and deeper.
Other stories I loved this year
Sam Anderson of the New York Times is my current reporter crush—I set aside everything else I’m doing whenever he has a new story out. So when he wrote about his lifelong struggle with his weight—a subject I know a little something about—it felt like he was writing directly to me. It’ll feel like that to you, too, even if your struggle is something else altogether. There’s a deep theme in here about the essence of a human being, and how losing or gaining weight doesn’t change that, but this story rang bells for me in nearly every paragraph. I’ll never forget his response when a well-meaning friend teases Sam about gaining a few pounds: “I chuckled, but in a complicated key.”
Evan Ratliff was kind enough to interview me for the Longform Podcast a few years back, so I can vouch for him as a nice guy. But he’s also a brilliant reporter and storyteller, and his podcast PERSONA had me captivated from beginning to end. It’s the story of a scam that fooled everyone from bankers to politicians to the Aga Khan, and made tens of millions of dollars—maybe more—for the scammers. Ratliff went all over the world to report this story and track the scam to its originator … although the deeper he goes, the more complicated the story gets. It’s riveting.
My favorite kind of story is one where someone who has been through a big event looks back on it, with distance and perspective, and thinks about how they’ve changed. Seth Wickersham did exactly that with his profile of Andrew Luck, the superstar NFL quarterback who walked away from the game after a series of injuries—even though he wasn’t sure he was ready. Like so many people who pursue a single goal so single-mindedly, Luck still isn’t quite sure what to do with himself, and it’s fascinating to watch him work it out through Wickersham’s words.
I don’t watch much pro wrestling anymore—I mainly follow it through recaps and YouTube clips. But when a wrestling match or an angle works, there’s not much better. My favorite wrestling writer is J.J. McGee, who tells his stories in a blend of text and GIFs that show how closely he watches and how much he understands the stories great wrestlers can tell. His breakdown of the gimmick match between Sami Zayn and Johnny Knoxville is a master class on how the whole thing works, and why wrestling can be such a beautiful thing despite all its flaws. I love reading the work of people who love what they write about. J.J. loves wrestling, and when I read him, I love it again, too.
Amanda Petrusich of the New Yorker is another writer I’ll set aside everything to read. Her profile of Metallica as the band moves into its fifth decade is about so many things: The prolonged life of heavy metal, the culture and values behind it, and how music (even brutal, aggressive music) can be a vessel to process anger and grief. There’s a real beauty in Metallica’s best work, and there’s a real beauty to this story as well.
Now it’s your turn: What stories did you enjoy the most this year? Drop your picks in the comments.
I have one more list to send you—my favorite work of my own this year. I’ll get that up in the next day or two. Enjoy these last moments of 2022, everyone …
The same issue of the Atlantic with the Jones/Mooney story has an infuriating story about how the criminal justice system is so broken. Both are amazing articles
So much good stuff you've highlighted (and Kim Cross is amazing, you're right), but here's one story that blew away everything else I read this year: Juliet Macur, in the NYT magazine, writing about a young Afghan soccer player, and her desperate attempt to escape the country when the Taliban took over again. Tommy, I don't think I breathed for the last 20 minutes reading this. The detail, the emotion, soooo good!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/31/sports/soccer/afghanistan-soccer-escape.html