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Esquire Classic Issues Topics Contributors Sign In Subscribe Latest Issue Latest Issue April 2024 Preview FEATURES EVERY THING MEANS SOME THING WHAT IT’S LIKE BEING ROBERT DOWNEY JR. By RYAN D’AGOSTINO blueprint HOW A BLACK MAN GRIEVES FEATURES Angling for the Big Fish That Breaks Hearts By David Coggins View Issue Now The Big Bite Our weekly selection of stories from our archives that reflect what’s going on now. NEW AMERICAN WRITERS July 1992 My Mother’s Lover With absolutely no respect for propriety, but with raw tenderness, a son tells the story of his mother’s wildest, most secret night By VINCE PASSARO POLITICS July 1973 Foremothers Half a score years ago, Kate and Ti-Grace and Marilyn and Susan brought forth an ungrateful nation By Sara Davidson FEATURES OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2020 RACISM KILLED MY MOTHER Pittsburgh has been hyped as our most livable city—if you’re white, that is. My mom’s story how she lived, and how she died—offers proof that if you’re a Black women, it’s one of the worst cities in America. By DAMON YOUNG ULTIMATE FITNESS May 1987 The Keys to Mastery It may seem mysterious and unattainable, but knowing the basic principles of mastery can bring it within your reach By JOHN POPPY ULTIMATE FITNESS May 1987 Mastery: Taking It Home Its principles can be applied to anything in life that involves learning—even love By GEORGE LEONARD Esky Essential DOCUMENTARY February 1987 Mother Nature’s Army Guerrilla warfare comes to the American forest By Joe Kane Esquire Goes to the Movies The best of the best Articles October 1964 Mrs. Kennedy at the Moment Should she redecorate the nation? Preside over the April-in-Paris Ball? Marry Adlai Stevenson? Advice comes from every quarter, as the lady recedes quietly from public view By Gloria Steinem Features May 2015 The Friend His wife was just thirty-four. They had two little girls. The cancer was everywhere, and the parts of dying that nobody talks about were about to start. His best friend came to help out for a couple weeks. And he never left. By MATTHEW TEAGUE FICTION March 2001 Memento Mori Two brothers had an idea for a story. One brother turned it into the most original movie of the spring, Memento. The other wrote this short story. By JONATHAN NOLAN Features September 12, 1978 The Ballad of the Urban Cowboy: America’s Search for True Grit In these anxious days, some Americans have turned to God; others, to gurus. But more and more turn to the cowboy hat By Aaron Latham NOVELETTE November 1958 Breakfast at Tiffany’s Whenever Holly Golightly left a man—as she did often—she left him bewildered; for although she was a girl of small character she had a lot of personality. By TRUMAN CAPOTE The Literary Life FEATURES July 1962 Mary McCarthyism The lady is pretty and nice and smart. Smarter than you are, probably. The pretty lady is smiling at you. What do you think she’s thinking. . . . By Brock Brower THE LITERARY LIFE January 1991 The Highbrow Days and Downtown Nights of Erroll McDonald There’s not a club in New York that the maverick editor hasn’t crashed, including the most exclusive one of all—publishing By Vince Passaro Features May 1990 Beckett’s Last Act The writer slipped imperceptibly into the hereafter, leaving behind a life as oblique as any of his plays By LAURENCE BERGREEN And All That Jazz PERSONALITIES December 1966 The Sophistication of Duke Ellington ... Unshaken through a lifetime of one-night stands, from Atlantic City to Xanadu By GEORGE FRAZIER FEATURES November 1997 The Silence of Thelonious Monk Was it music I heard or love’s faint echo in the stillness left by Monk’s departure? By John Edgar Wideman THE GOLDEN AGE OF JAZZ January 1959 Time Past Manners and morals at Minton’s, 1941: the setting for a revolution By RALPH ELLISON 16-PAGE JAZZ FEATURE January 1957 Jazz Millionaire A cloudburst of blues at Randalls Island jazz festival (preceding page) symbolizes the message of these sixteen pages: photo studies of the jazz scene in general, textual inspection of one man in particular, Norman Granz, first man to make a fortune out of jazz By LEONARD FEATHER PROFILES March 1961 Ornette Coleman: Biggest Noise in Jazz He’s not in a cutting contest By NAT HENTOFF True Crime FEATURES April 10, 1979 Murder in Wyeth Country Bucolic Chester County, Pennsylvania: Beneath the charm, there lurked a network of thievery that led to rape and to killing By James Wooten HOLLYWOOD August 1973 The Corpse as Big as the Ritz A mystery starring Sarah Miles, Burt Reynolds and the legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald, in which life imitates Monday Night at the Movies By Ron Rosenbaum Features February 1998 Whistling in the Dark You may think O.J. Simpson killed his wife. But does that mean you can’t be friends? By CELIA FARBER FEATURES June 1990 A Case of Wife Murder Charles Stuart’s hunger for a new life meant doing something wicked to the one he had By JOHN SEDGWICK FEATURES March 2000 My Favorite Teacher Sometimes, role models do bad things. Very bad things. By Robert Kurson This American Life Features April 1998 Long Live the Career Smoker Smokers don’t need our pity, as the legions of lawyers lining up to sue big tobacco assert. They don’t need the lawsuits, either. In fact, they deserve our praise. An argument in the form of a story. By DAVID EGGERS FEATURES April 1972 The Death of a Man in the Middle Requiem for Ruben Salazar By William J. Drummond Features October 1979 The Girl from Gold’s Gym She’s getting stronger and stronger and stronger By Eve Babitz FEATURES March 1998 Bad Luck on an Otherwise Fine Night One evening, Matt Shaunfield overdosed on heroin and died. In the past two years, as many as ten more kids in Plano, Texas, have died for their love of the drug. This had never happened to Plano. It also had never happened to Austin or Orlando or Boulder or any of the other places in America designed to keep harm away. By CHARLES BOWDEN PROFILES March 1999 Please Leave David Ho Alone Not long ago, the brilliant doctor had AIDS on the ropes, and the world tried to make him a celebrity. Now the virus counterattacks. A little peace and quiet, if you don’t mind. By Alec Wilkinson You Must Remember This the lives of men October 1999 Confessions of a Big Brother How much anger can a boy contain? An excerpt from Esquire’s forthcoming book Brothers. By Scott Raab At Play June 1986 Pregame Jitters Panic rises in the hearts of the unchosen By John Sayles FEATURES December 1992 You Must At West Point, there are only four acceptable answers: yes, sir; no, sir; sir, I do not understand; and no excuse, sir. It is a place where it is not a matter of if you can By JAMES SALTER WOMEN WE LOVE September 1987 What Is It About Anjelica Huston? We asked nine men to comment By Articles June 1976 Mel Brooks Says This Is the Funniest Man in the World Ladies and germs, direct from Las Vegas ... Harry Ritz! By Harry Stein Enter a Search Unlock every article Esquire ever published Subscribe Sign In Every Article. Every Page. Every issue of Esquire ever published. 1933 to today. Welcome Issues Topics Contributors Search Support Newsletter Sign In Subscribe Esquire ©2024 Hearst Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Notice Your California Privacy Rights CCPA Requests Interest-Based Ads Terms of...