Esquire's "most gripping story you will read this year."

Cool. My wife just calls it the shit I leave on the bathmat.

No wonder they hit it off so famously at the Nats games.

 

I am very much looking forward to reading the story. Esquire is one of my favorites and I'm way out of the demographic, being a woman and all. Good luck with the surgery, Jones.

 

I got my issue in the mail today and just finished reading it. Great fucking work, Jones.

Though I did check out the Jessica Simpson pics before reading your story.

The story on Don Wildman was good, too.

 

The last super-massive Esquire story I saw was C.J. Chivers' 18,000-word-ish narrative re-creation of the Beslan massacre...and that was one of the best stories I've ever read, and I read it in one sitting, and I know a few others who did, too. So: if it's as nearly as gripping as the cover-makers say, Jones, people will read it. Your modesty is refreshing, but don't let yourself believe that you're writing for the people on the New York-Shanghai flight.

 

Chivers's story was fantastic.
The B&N in my burg is still selling the Clooney cover Esquire.
I, for one, can't wait to read Jones's story.

 

Fortunately, Esquire is written not just for the well-off, but also for those of us who dig great writing. And, really, a subscription is like $10 a year.
If this is the story that "just about felled" Mr. Jones, I can't fucking wait.

 

I'm an Esquire subscriber. I just finished reading Jones' story, so I'm still on the come-down... but man-oh-my-God.

One of the best things I've ever read.

I'm a big fan of The Things They Carried... one of my all-time favorite reads... and I thought the parallelism between that and the title of Jones' piece was fantastic.

I read the Stories that Broke You thread, and when I realized this was "that story" it made me anxious to read it... did it all in one sitting.

Great fucking work.

 

Thanks guys, very much. I actually lost it on the radio yesterday, talking about it -- they had fathers of dead soldiers calling in, guys who had worked funeral detail -- and Jesus, the cracks you could hear in their voices, the pain of it... There's no way to insulate yourself from that. It's just been a heavy stretch. The kind words are appreciated.

 

Link to the NPR interview:

www.npr.org/blogs/talk/2008/04/honorable_transfers_1.html#commentSection

 

Good luck, Jones. Maybe we can get together afterward for a stack of pancreas.

 

Jones, did you channel the grave-digging story about JFK for this one? The lede reads similar. Tremendous work though.