Victor LaValle reads ‘Long Distance,’ an essay about the ‘most loving relationship’ of his early twenties – conducted solely by telephone – and on having sex in a new body, after losing 155 pounds.
Click on the player below to listen to Victor LaValle read his essay ‘Long Distance’. It is about the ‘most loving relationship’ of his early twenties – conducted solely by telephone – and on having sex in a new body, after losing 155 pounds.
Photograph © Alyssa Loh
‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘Our battle is between those trapped inside the institutions of modern American life (our economic and political systems in particular) and those who manipulate such institutions for their own profit.’
‘They couldn’t put their finger on exactly what it was they craved, but they knew it was very different to what they had.’
Fiction by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes.
‘We decided then to tell each other exactly how a typical fuck played out in our marriages. We couldn’t believe we’d never done this before.’
Fiction by Miranda July.
‘Whatever porn is or is not, like dance it is rooted in the body.’
Saskia Vogel on the relationship between dance and pornography.
‘The eye wants to see its fill, the I wants to see how it feels.’
Saskia Vogel on the foundational stories of pornography.
‘Can a literary magazine put writing of this sort to the political use it clearly requires?’
