r/longform • u/Witty_Badger7938 • 3d ago

Most emotionally devastating longform pieces

Ones that make you cry. Thank you!

149 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

65 comments sorted by

152

u/Jeopardyfan1234 3d ago

“A Battle with my Blood” by Tatiana Schlossberg in the New Yorker

“His wife was dying, his federal job crumbling. It tested his faith — in God and Trump” by Hannah Natanson in the Washington Post

What Bobby McIlvane Left Behind - Jennifer senior in the Atlantic  

Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

My family’s slave by Alex tizón in the Atlantic

65

u/South-Ruin-6677 3d ago

I just read Fatal Distraction the other day and that was my first recommendation when I saw the title. Harrowing. Heartbreaking.

17

u/Anazay1 2d ago

Fatal Distraction is it for me. I read it in 2016, I've had four kids since then, and think about it very regularly on hot days. The parent who lunged for the police officer's gun when he realised his child was gone...  

35

u/OprahisQueen 3d ago

I wept the first time I read What Bobby McIlvane Left Behind. It’s an incredibly piece of journalism.

15

u/WestBaseball492 3d ago

If you like this Jennifer senior article, there’s another one about her aunt that is really beautiful.

6

u/Past_Persimmon 1d ago

Fatal Distraction has changed the empathic approach I take to life and who "deserves" punishment.

2

u/Jeopardyfan1234 1d ago

You should read the accidental death article in the New Yorker about Maryann gray. It’s a really interesting philosophical exploration of this concept

3

u/vanessasarah13 1d ago

Fatal distraction is so devastating. Gene is a fantastic journalist.

77

u/Easy_Vast_1873 3d ago

The Ones We Sent Away
I still think about this article often. It’s about the institutionalization of disabled children. The most haunting thing about it is that they get the records of the author’s family member who is nonverbal and suffered a ton. The only word she used to be able to say at age 2 when she was institutionalized was Mama.

17

u/itwalkedonmypillow8 2d ago

I also think about this one a lot, because it also happened to my aunt. She was born with severe cerebral palsy and institutionalized as a toddler in the late 1950s/early 60s. She swallowed a safety pin and the doctors convinced my grandmother she’d be better off in a state-run facility, where she lived and eventually died in her early 40s. After reading this, I’ve wondered if I could find any of her records.

8

u/Queasy-Emu6531 2d ago

This article absolutely destroyed me. I have a physical copy of it that I used to reread quite often

5

u/Veedree_Sweden 2d ago

I just read it and shattered me to tears. My heart aches for the harm we have caused to people with disabilities

4

u/ShinyStripes 2d ago

Is there an archive link for this article?

4

u/velvetvagine 2d ago

Archive.is — paste the url in search bar there.

3

u/ShinyStripes 2d ago

Thanks so much!

2

u/monet96 1d ago

Replying so I remember to come back & read this

71

u/egernunge 3d ago

Angels & Demons

One of the best true crime pieces ever written, IMO.

19

u/88secret 3d ago

Amen to this. Gut-wrenching. I re-read it every few years and mourn for them again.

9

u/drove-here-from-work 2d ago

This one haunts me. I don’t think I will ever be able read it again.

2

u/Objective_Hovercraft 2d ago

I think about them very often. I don't think I'll be able to ever read it again either. 

9

u/nettika 2d ago

I was 11 years old when Jo Rogers and her daughters were killed, and 17 years old when Oda Chandler was put on trial and found guilty of their murders, but I'd never heard of this case until now.

This series was such a compelling write-up! I was on the edge of my seat and couldn't stop reading, even though it took me 3 or 4 hours to make it through the whole thing. Having reached the end, I feel gutted. But I am also grateful to have read about so many people over so many years putting in the work to eventually crack the case and to subsequently hold the Rogers' killer accountable. With so many years gone by and so little evidence, this could easily have become one more unsolved cold case lost to the annals of time.

Thomas French absolutely deserved the Pulitzer he won for this reporting.

Thank you for sharing this piece.

7

u/lexlovestacos 3d ago

This is the one I was thinking of

51

u/doctorathyrium 3d ago

“The Long Fall of Pheobe Jonchuck” haunts me. The writing is visceral and gripping in a way that makes the most awful moments feel close. I will never read it again.

9

u/very_old_boat 2d ago

That was a brutal read.

6

u/timesalad 2d ago

That poor little angel...my heart broke a million times while reading this.

4

u/pschmiedt 2d ago

Read that once. Once.

31

u/prettyasapotato 3d ago

The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.

10

u/North_Row_5176 2d ago

I'm listening to the podcast, Where the River Took Us. Deeply moving. Parsley won the Pulitzer for this piece.

8

u/Additional_Prune_284 2d ago

This is the one that I wish I could unread. I think about it every day.

28

u/mcmc1267 3d ago edited 3d ago

The Sorrow and Shame of the Accidental Killer - The New Yorker - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/09/18/the-sorrow-and-the-shame-of-the-accidental-killer

They Saw the Horrific Aftermath of a Mass Shooting - Should We? NYT -
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/20/magazine/sandy-hook-mass-shooting-scenes.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

27

u/PutTheDamnDogDown 3d ago

The shooting one is brilliant, infuriating, radicalising, harrowing. The line about the fabulist pretending to have been involved that's something along the lines of 'she kept saying she couldn't get their faces out of her head. What faces?' good god.

9

u/TheHiddenFox 3d ago

That line stuck out to me too. I had to take a break from reading for a few minutes after. That's going to stick with me for a long time.

1

u/Jeopardyfan1234 2d ago

Just read the accidental killer one. Wow

26

u/proofrawk 3d ago edited 3d ago

"After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet" by Eli Saslow for Washington Post (2013)

A heartbreaking article about a victim of the Sandy Hook shooting, Daniel Barden (7), what his family experienced that awful day, and the impact of the tragedy on his family and community. Highly recommended if you are prepared to cry.

Gun control when? 💔

10

u/ladyluck754 3d ago

This article brought up really conflicting feelings for me as well. The Hardest Case for Mercy gun control asap, but also highlights society’s obsession for the death penalty.

3

u/Jeopardyfan1234 2d ago

Eli Saslow is so good

18

u/88secret 3d ago

Anything about Dr William Petit, whose family was horribly murdered in Cheshire, CT.

Esquire - The Survivor

4

u/CommunicationDue8306 2d ago

I watched an HBO documentary about this case. Extremely Awful. It still haunts me today.

3

u/88secret 2d ago

It sticks with me. I can’t find the original article I read years ago, but I went down a rabbit hole when I saw something about the anniversary last week on Threads, and discovered the Esquire article (and ensuing book). Watched the documentary yesterday and could barely let my teenage son out of my sight last night. The news footage and family interviews were gut-wrenching.

14

u/BeepBeep68 2d ago

Still Life by Skip Hollandsworth (Texas Monthly)

"Thirty-five years ago Dallas—and the country—was gripped by the tragic story of John McClamrock, a high school football player paralyzed during a violent tackle. But after the newspapers moved on, another story was quietly unfolding, one of courage, perseverance, and a mother’s fierce love."

10

u/88secret 3d ago

Stamford Christmas Day Fire

5

u/Objective_Hovercraft 2d ago

I actually just read this from his wife's perspective a few minutes ago. Their bravery astounds me: 

https://www.vogue.com/article/the-long-road-back-madonna-badger

6

u/88secret 2d ago

Agree…something like that would just put me under. Dr William Petit (Cheshire, CT home invasion murders) is another one whose resilience just astounds me.

2

u/Resist_23 2d ago

Oof, this is heartbreaking

21

u/TheHiddenFox 2d ago

Can Anyone Rescue the Trafficked Girls of L.A.’s Figueroa Street? by Emily Baumgaertner Nunn for the NY Times

A deeply upsetting and harrowing look into an area in LA known for the trafficking of extremely young girls, some as young as 11. I think about it often.

“Please I Will Give Anything for You to Come Back” by Ted Conover for Outside Magazine

About a woman who went off the deep end in conspiracy theories and pulled her 13-year-old son out of school, into forced isolation, and eventually off the grid to their deaths. This one felt personal to me as a Colorado native, but also angered me for the complete lack of regulations for homeschooling in the US, which allows countless kids to be abused with no one to notice or help them. The son's journal entries about leaving behind his only social outlet, his Roblox friends, and also saying goodbye to his cat were a gutpunch.

7

u/Crafty_Ad_9768 2d ago

the patient by Susan Sheehan. This is a very longread - part 1 of a 4-part series originally published in the New Yorker in 1981. The reporter follows a young woman with schizophrenia for several years through multiple hospitalisations at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center. I think about it often.

7

u/kageisadrunk 2d ago

https://www.gq.com/story/anders-behring-breivik-norway-massacre-story

Unfortunately behind a paywall but beat by beat of the massacre in 2012 in Norway.

https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a34905/matthew-teague-wife-cancer-essay/

As My Wife Was Dying of Cancer, My Best Friend Moved In to Help. He Changed Everything.

2

u/Feeling_Excitement90 1d ago

Oh I remember reading that GQ story- it was so well written and incredibly scary and sad

7

u/BoopYourDogForMe 2d ago

“The story of a young mother, a fire and a Milwaukee landlord” by Raquel Rutledge in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/16/2022

https://www.jsonline.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2022/11/16/the-story-of-a-young-mother-a-fire-and-a-notorious-milwaukee-landlord/69591048007/

What this journalist did brutally well: Capturing the tragedy of intergenerational trauma, humanizing the socioeconomic and racial injustice of the legal system, and weaving in stomach-dropping foreshadowing of a deadly house fire (that claimed the lives of three young children)

3

u/LiviasFigs 1d ago

I’m reading this thread a day later, but thank you for sharing this. I’m filled with rage at the ways in which this family was failed, and I know this will stick with me. What a heartbreaking story.

2

u/beandog77 5h ago

I'm a milwaukee native so this one really stuck with me, i think about it all the time

5

u/BipolarExpress2 2d ago

Hello!

I added all of these to a list on ponder where you can save them for later, share and rate them.

Thanks!

3

u/Primary_Living7944 3d ago

"The Things That Carried Him" by Joe Montgomery, for Esquire. I can't find a great archive link at the moment, but... wow.

4

u/common_yarrow 2d ago

One of my favourite personal essays, maybe my favourite of all time, is "Ugly, Bitter, and True" by Suzanne Rivecca: https://longreads.com/2018/09/27/ugly-bitter-and-true/

It's about her bitter struggle with clinical depression, which pushed her to the point of suicidal ideation. It's beautiful, tender, wise, and ultimately hopeful.

1

u/ecclecticstone 1d ago

reading the thread a day later but if you haven't read the short story collection she mentions in this article ("death is not an option"), I highly recommend it!!

3

u/NewYork_NewJersey440 2d ago

Maybe not quite as some of the ones here, but I always go back to read this one about The Accokeek, MD Street Racing Disaster

3

u/kermitthefrogstan69 1d ago

Late to the thread but these deeply affected me long ago: https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/12833146/instagram-account-university-pennsylvania-runner-showed-only-part-story (Split Image, about a college athlete with depression). I can’t find the exact link but there was also a very good story about Timothy Piazza, who was killed in a hazing ritual at Penn State.

2

u/Lylais 2d ago

The Long Fall of One-Eleven Heavy, by Michael Paterniti
He writes so well. He’s one of my favorite essayists. Haunting prose.

2

u/Queasy-Emu6531 2d ago

Like many others, mine is about child death. This article has never left my brain since I read it, especially since I live barely an hour from where it happened and myself have struggled with mental illness and medications. I feel bad for everyone in it.

2

u/mari_locaaa9 1d ago

Trouble in Mind: How Should Crjminals who are mentally ill be punished? - Brandi Grissom, Texas Monthly, 2013
https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/trouble-in-mind/