Read: The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit

I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. This feature, published on GQ's website, is an example of what an excellent journalist can do with the right story. The best feature article I've read in a couple years, easily. A remarkable story, told with skill. 

Click Here to Read the Article at GQ

A list of cool details Michael Finkel got in the article

1. Despite living outdoors, Chris is pale because his campsite is perpetually in the shade.
2. At some point in the 1990s, Chris said "hi" to a hiker who walked past him in the woods.
3. Chris hardly has any eyebrows.
4. Chris's diet in the woods, judging from his trash: "a five-pound tub that once held Marshmallow Fluff, an empty box of Devil Dogs, peanut butter, Cheetos, honey, graham crackers, Cool Whip, tuna fish, coffee, Tater Tots, pudding, soda, El Monterey spicy jalapeño chimichangas, and on and on and on."
5. When asked how long he had been in the woods, Chris responded by asking how long ago the Chernobyl disaster was. 

A list of things Christopher Knight stole (partial)

1. Marshmallows
2. Underwear
3. Rudyard Kipling 
4. Spraypaint
5. A bedframe, mattress and box spring

A list of the best quotes in the article

1. "Culturally my family is old Yankee," Chris said. "We're not emotionally bleeding all over each other. We're not touchy-feely. Stoicism is expected."
2. "I suspect," he wrote, "more damage has been done to my sanity in jail, in months; than years, decades, in the woods."
3. "I don't think I'll be a spokesman for the Asperger's telethon. Do they still do telethons? I hate Jerry Lewis."
4. "Cooking is too kind a word for what I did," Chris told me.
5. "They will be playing Lynyrd Skynyrd songs in a thousand years," he proclaimed.
6. "You should have seen me in my twenties," he boasted. "I was lord of the woods. I ruled the land I walked upon. I was tough and clever."

A list of questions left unanswered

1. Why doesn't Finkel spend more time addressing the Asperger's diagnosis that Chris received in jail? It's the only flaw in this article. 
2. Why did it take so long to catch Chris? The residents relate decades of burglaries. No one formed a neighborhood watch? No one thought to install alarms before 2014?
3. Why was Chris never reported missing? Are his family all as strange as him?
4. What made Chris's fear of discovery outweigh his fear of death, to the point where he refused to light fires in the winter?
5. And the most obvious: why did he do it in the first place?

A list of user comments on the story

1. "Maine. I see another Stephen King novel in the making."
2. "Does no one think it odd that a man with no human contact felt the need to steal deodorant?"
3. "If I were an editor, I would offer this guy an ongoing gig for a commentary of what he sees now."
4. "What the author fails to mention with his ever quirky tongue, and I spoke with him on the phone as he asked me about the affect of owning a camp very near to the illustrious Hermit's former home, is that the site of dear old Chris' lair is a disgusting mess of latrine, garbage, broken bottles, and filth - 26 years of it.  What dear old Chris should be ordered to do by the courts, in lieu of prison time, is clean up his mess."
5. " he is way too well coiffed to be a real hermit living away from people."
6. "This man was the only person on Earth who was truly FREE"
7. "He wasn't truly free if he relied on other people who worked to pay for their goods."