To show just how strange and eccentric a magazine needs to be to get published and read, Esquire is pushing the limits of taste, or maybe of journalism, or maybe of some quality I haven’t yet discovered, by publishing a fictionalized account of the last days of Heath Ledger’s life.  In other words, a short story.  The story, by Lisa Taddeo, is as much an example of how much bad writing comes out of creative writing programs these days, as well as how much confusing journalism comes out of major magazines.  A note at the beginning of the story states:

To write a conceivable chronicle of Heath Ledger’s final days, writer Lisa Taddeo visited the actor’s neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination. The result is what we call reported fiction.

New York Magazine takes Esquire to task for this and has a bunch of their friends critique the story, in a rather ridiculous way.