Five classic stories from Epic Magazine you should read
A sumo wrestler and a magazine writer sail off to tell extraordinary true stories
Good stories are hard to come by. When they do eventually come your way, an epiphany more powerful than the enigmatic apparition of Jesus himself takes over you. It makes you sit up straight during storytime, turn the radio volume up or cancel out any white noise at a party while concentrating on the tales of that person who looks like he was resurrected last Tuesday after finding the lost city of Z — and for a brief moment you think: that can’t be true.
True stories can be better — and at times stranger — than fiction. In fiction, there are so many guidelines that help you orchestrate this grand craft. Tropes have been the norm and the story structure — the hero’s journey, Chekhov’s gun, the duality of both the protagonist and antagonist — is as true as it is expected. Almost to the point that if a story didn’t follow these techniques then it didn’t meet our expectations.
Nonfiction doesn’t follow. It’s as wild and free-roaming as life itself. There’s a mystical element behind true stories that turn us into believers with one foot still in the realm of reality. Lifts are heads into the clouds and bury our feet in the soil, toes intertwined with roots, and has us wondering “what the hell just happened?”
Irrational exuberance.
But where to begin with this long-form journalism — creative nonfiction — narrative journocòmo se llama? How to dive into this world and be sure that the several thousands of words ahead will be worth your time? Well, Epic Magazine is a good place to start.
Here are 5 stories that have become classics.
The Rise and Fall of the Silk Road
Originally published in Wired — and its most ambitious piece in their inventory splitting into two parts with enough content to make out a small, nonfiction novella— writer Joshuah Bearman follows Ross Ulbricht, a 29-year-old whiz kid who became “disenchanted” with his materials science and engineering scholarship program at Penn State to follow a new interest: economics. He made an online alter ego, Dread Pirate Roberts, and became the kingpin of the Silk Road, the deep web’s equivalent to Amazon in clandestine and illegal trade.
The Silk Road features intriguing characters from agents of the DEA and FBI to close acquaintances of both Ulbricht and his online persona DPR. As Ulbricht starts to rack in millions, a national manhunt ensues, and a story told in a way that keeps you guessing who’s going to do what next.
Pipino Gentleman thief
Dive into the canals of ancient Venice, where a professional burglar flourishes in the art of stealing art. Vicenzo Pipino, who looks like a man out at sea for many years, with sunburnt, leather-rough skin and seasoned eyes, but donned in the finest of Italian attire, has garnished the surname of the Gentleman Thief. As agile as an alley cat and cunning as a hawk, he climbs the towers of Venice and enters through crevices into the homes of the wealthy, taking their most prized possessions.
Told from the perspective of those who know the story the most, Pipino and his everlasting rival police detective Antonio Palmosi, it’s a classic tale of cat and mouse, sheriff and bandit, Tom Hanks and Leonardo Dicaprio from that one movie.
What Goes Up
“If you looked up into the Phoenix sky in the 1970s and saw a helicopter, it was most likely Jerry Foster.” A cowboy galloping through clouds, not only was he a pioneer in aiding the police find bad guys and missing people with his helicopter skills, he was one of the first to venture out into a new frontier of live news by strapping a camera on his rig. Foster set the norm of live airborne television.
The only story of this list that isn’t written by one of the two founders of Epic Magazine, Jack Hitt takes us throughout the life of Foster. From the rebel years of his youth to living the high life with celebrities, it’s a tale of an average American with the fiery desire to live life to the fullest.
La Vida Robot
When Carl Hayden high school won a national underwater robotics championship in which MIT college students were also competing, no one could believe it. But jaws dropped once they found out that the four winners were undocumented, Mexican immigrants.
Written by Joshuah Davis, this story was later turned into a book and then a movie. It’s a tale of dream-seeking courage, of fighting against all odds, and of four teenagers venturing into a world they thought had no place for them.
Argo
The year is 1979. The Iranian Revolution has risen and settled. The Pahlavi dynasty under Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi comes to a crumbling end and in its place, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini establishes an Islamic Republic. Argo tells the story of the CIA’s attempts at rescuing the six American diplomats who had avoided capture and hid for more than two months. Oh yeah, and Ben Affleck made a movie about it. I heard it did well.
