PRICE $8.99 FOR YOUR EMMY® CONSIDERATION OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES Introducing The New Yorker JUNE 18, 2018 Crossword Puzzle

4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

13 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Evan Osnos on Kim and the Chinese example; Ann Kerr’s perspicacity; a life in songs; playing the normal guy; within the lines.

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS D. T. Max 18 Posts Modern A TV show for teens revolutionizes the form.

SHOUTS & MURMURS Ellis Weiner 23 We’re Sorry

THE DIGITAL AGE Louis Menand 24 Nowhere to Hide Privacy in the time of Big Data.

A REPORTER AT LARGE Adam Entous 30 The Enemy of My Enemy The U.S., Israel, and the Gulf states unite against Iran.

LETTER FROM THE FAROE ISLANDS Rebecca Mead 46 Meal Ticket Foodies fly in for boiled cod and fermented lamb.

FICTION Weike Wang 56 “Omakase”

THE CRITICS BOOKS Anthony Lane 64 A Bill Clinton–James Patterson collaboration. 69 Briefly Noted 1. Schmaltz, literally. George Packer 70 Ben Rhodes reflects on his years with Obama.

THE ART WORLD 2. Stud alternative. Peter Schjeldahl 74 Giacometti at the Guggenheim. 3. A 1928 Virginia Woolf

THE CURRENT CINEMA “biography.” Anthony Lane 76 “Hereditary.” 4. “A ludicrous invention,”

POEMS per Germaine Greer. Nick Flynn 52 “The King of Fire” Sarah Holland-Batt 61 “The Gurney”

COVER Do the rest of the puzzle, Christoph Niemann “Father’s Day Of ” and find a new one every week, at newyorker.com/crossword

DRAWINGS Julia Suits, Joe Dator, Barbara Smaller, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Drew Dernavich, Roz Chast, William Haefeli, Will McPhail, Maddie Dai, Bruce Eric Kaplan, David Sipress, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Emily Flake, Pia Guerra SPOTS Tamara Shopsin

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 1 CONTRIBUTORS

Lin-Manuel Miranda Rebecca Mead (“Meal Ticket,” p. 46) Louis Menand (“Nowhere to Hide,” p. 24), has been a staf writer since 1997. “My a staf writer since 2001, was awarded Life in Middlemarch” is her latest the National Humanities Medal by Pres- tha Bee Amy Schumer St. Vincent book. ident Obama in 2016.

Gloria Steinem Lynn Nottage Adam Entous (“The Enemy of My Weike Wang (Fiction, p. 56) is the au- Enemy,” p. 30) recently joined the thor of the novel “Chemistry,” which this magazine as a staf writer. Previously, year won the PEN/Hemingway Award -Nehisi Coates Patti Smith Leonard C he was a reporter for the Washing- and the Whiting Award in iction. ton Post. George Packer (Books, p. 70), a staf writer, Kenya Barris Jennifer Lawrence Evan Osnos (Comment, p. 13) writes is the author of “The Unwinding” and about politics and foreign afairs for seven other books. the magazine. His book “Age of Am- vid Attenborough Julia Louis-Dreyfus bition” won the 2014 National Book Sarah Holland-Batt (Poem, p. 61) most Award for noniction. recently published “The Hazards,” which won Australia’s 2016 Prime Min- ill Soloway Jonathan Safran Foer Sarah Larson (The Talk of the Town, ister’s Literary Award for poetry. p. 16) is a staf writer. Her column, Pod- cast Dept., appears weekly on new- Anthony Lane (Books, p. 64; The Cur- h Junot Díaz Siddhart yorker.com. rent Cinema, p. 76), a ilm critic for the magazine since 1993, published his writ- Nick Flynn (Poem, p. 52) will publish ings for The New Yorker in the 2003 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar his next poetry collection, “I Will De- collection “Nobody’s Perfect.” stroy You,” in 2019. D. T. Max (“Posts Modern,” p. 18) is a Christoph Niemann (Cover) is the au- staf writer and the author of “Every thor of “Conversations,” with Nicholas Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life Blechman, and “Souvenir.” of David Foster Wallace.”

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DISMISSING DISEASE compiled based on a systematic re- view of published studies of patients Lidija Haas, in her review of Poro- with post-treatment Lyme disease chista Khakpour’s book “Sick,” about syndrome or chronic Lyme disease, a woman sufering from so-called and of cases of adults with Lyme dis- chronic Lyme disease, equates a se- ease that were reported to the Cen- ries of anecdotes with rigorous scien- ters for Disease Control and Preven- tific research, and seems to completely tion between 2003 and 2005. Patients discount the possibility of psychoso- given diagnoses of chronic Lyme dis- matic disease (Books, June 4th & 11th). ease were more than twice as likely to But there are innumerable examples be women than those given diagno- of people whose mental conditions ses of either Lyme disease or post-treat- cause bodily pain, such as the immi- ment Lyme disease syndrome. This grants in Rachel Aviv’s article “The finding suggests that other illnesses Apathetic.” Haas implies that people with chronic symptoms and a female who exhibit a constellation of vague preponderance, such as fibromyalgia, symptoms and have never received a chronic-fatigue syndrome, and depres- diagnosis should get “creative treat- sion, may be misdiagnosed as chronic ment.” In the case of chronic Lyme Lyme disease, and that, as a result, disease, that would likely mean tak- many women may not be receiving ing antibiotics for months or years, appropriate treatment. which can have very serious, and even Eugene D. Shapiro, M.D. life-threatening, efects. Gary P. Wormser, M.D. Haas also makes the larger point 1New Haven, Conn. that women—especially women of color—are often disbelieved and dis- IN ADICHIE’S WORLD missed by medical professionals. This is indeed an immense problem. As I was reading Larissa MacFar- I have given diagnoses of neurolo- quhar’s Profile of the Nigerian author gical illnesses to many women who Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, I realized had previously been told—often by that it was more like a short story than multiple physicians—that their symp- like an article (“Writing Home,” June 4th toms were merely psychological. & 11th). Perhaps it was the continual However, I fear that basing the argu- use of “she” rather than “Adichie.” Per- ment of biased treatment on the ex- haps it was the feeling that I was in tremely shaky ground of “chronic the hands of an omniscient narrator Lyme disease” is doing a disservice to rather than a journalist, a narrator the roles that gender and race play who intimately knew the thoughts in medicine. and feelings of her main character. I Sami Saba, M.D. had no reason to doubt any of those Lenox Hill Hospital thoughts or feelings. I seemed to read New York City it faster, more like I would a good story. Perhaps it was appropriate to We regret that Haas, in her review of write a story about a novelist. It cer- “Sick,” mischaracterized our study of tainly worked for me. the relationship between gender and Gordon Korstange Lyme disease. The stated purpose of Saxtons River, Vt. the study was “to determine if the population of patients with chronic • Lyme disease difers from the popu- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, lations of patients with either Lyme address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited disease or post-Lyme disease syndrome for length and clarity, and may be published in by examining the sex of patients with any medium. We regret that owing to the volume these diagnoses.” Data on gender were of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. JUNE 13 – 19, 2018 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

Is each of us one person or, over the course of a lifetime, many? Tracy Letts, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama “August: Osage County,” takes on this existential riddle in “Mary Page Marlowe” (starting previews June 19, at Second Stage). The play charts the life of an Ohio accountant, moving back and forth through time, with six actresses playing the title character at diferent ages (clockwise, from left): Tatiana Maslany, Kellie Overbey, Blair Brown, Susan Pourfar, Emma Geer, and Mia Sinclair Jenness.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC 1 vinyl. In these powerful images, the geometric arranged into an “Ikebana Baby Rose.” Seeing ART patterns of a beaded garment have left inden- the artist’s hands manipulating the pictures on- tations on expanses of Frei Njootli’s bare skin, screen is most efective when the results are a underscoring the indelible trace of her heri- punch line, as when he tears into a postcard of “Bodys Isek Kingelez: tage on her life and her work.—Johanna Fateman a woman holding a cigarette, creating a white City Dreams” (Through June 22.) stream of smoke.—A.K.S. (Through June 23.) Museum of Modern Art The Congolese sculptor, who died in 2015, is the Wade Guyton Michelangelo Lovelace subject of a phenomenal exhibition, curated by Sarah Suzuki and wonderfully installed with Petzel Fort Gansevoort help from the German artist Carsten Höller. It CHELSEA Not since Bruce Nauman shot forty-ive CHELSEA Almost forty years after he started paint- presents scores of imaginary buildings and cit- hours of videotape in his New Mexico studio ing, in Cleveland, at the age of nineteen, Love- ies made mostly of cut and painted paper, card and screened it, in all its triumphant banality, lace makes his impressive New York début with stock, and plastics, with occasional urban detri- at the Dia Art Center, in 2002, has an Ameri- sixteen trenchant depictions of local life, from tus (used packaging, bottle caps, soda cans). In can artist so masterfully pulled back the veil on a P-Funk party and a political rally to an alle- shape, these “extreme maquettes,” as Kingelez the reality and the residue of his work. Look- gory of gun violence. Most of the images in- termed them, are variously tiered, towering, ser- ing for mystic truths? You won’t ind them in tegrate text (on billboards, church signs, and pentine, pinnate, inned, and scalloped. Colon- the eleven new paintings here, printed by ink- T-shirts) into teeming street scenes, suggest- nades and grand staircases abound, as do deco- jet on twelve-foot-high swaths of linen from ing an unexpected alliance of two other Ohio- rative grids of circles, stripes, diamonds, stars, iPhone photographs that Guyton took in his bred greats, Jenny Holzer and George Bellows. and loral motifs. Kingelez was a great and sub- space on the Bowery. The scale may be epic, Lovelace attended art school for a time, in the tle colorist, with a palette anchored by the red, but the subjects are antiheroic—portraits of a nineteen-eighties, but had to sideline his stud- yellow, and green of the national lag of Zaire— day-to-day process in which lunch is eaten, un- ies for inancial reasons, not the least of them he once said, “A building without color is like a stretched paintings lie piled on the loor, and fatherhood. He now supports his family as a naked person.” Kinships with craftwork, toys, trash cans wait to be emptied. It’s a strangely nurse’s aide, but he has never stopped making folk or outsider art, and bricolage inevitably beautiful meditation on the process of mak- art. The vibrant and prismatically structured suggest themselves, only to be plowed under by ing art, in which nothing and everything hap- acrylic-on-canvas works in “The Land” (the the rigor of an aesthetic as sophisticated as that pens.—A.K.S. (Through June 16.) show’s title and Cleveland’s nickname) bring to of Alexander Calder or Joseph Cornell.—Peter mind Charles Baudelaire’s classic description of Schjeldahl (Through Jan. 1, 2019.) a painter of modern life: “a kaleidoscope gifted Kensuke Koike with consciousness.”—A.K.S. (Through June 30.) “Huma Bhabha: Postmasters We Come in Peace” DOWNTOWN The Japanese artist, who is based in Rammellzee Venice, Italy, has his cake and eats it, too, taking Metropolitan Museum scissors to vintage postcards and photographs in Red Bull Studios Two monumental bronze igures—one eigh- winsome pocket-size works that feel nostalgic CHELSEA There’s more to the underground New teen feet long and prostrate, either in prayer or for the pre-digital age, but which he also ilms York legend than the graiti for which he’s best in fear, the other a twelve-foot-tall alien—pro- in process and uploads to social media. (In the known. Rammellzee, who died in 2010, at the age vide a triumphant coda to “Like Life,” the mu- gallery, the altered art works intermingle with of forty-nine, was a rapper, a sculptor, a perfor- seum’s deep dive into the history of polychrome their video documentation.) The cut-up pictures mance artist, and a philosopher, who lived in ac- sculpture at the Met Breuer. Both were cast from have an endearingly goofy, Surrealist bent. A cordance with an elaborate cosmology he called works that Bhabha made in her Poughkeepsie horse becomes an elephant with a collaged back “gothic futurism.” His tags began to appear on studio using lo-i materials. The standing ig- leg in lieu of a trunk; a blue-eyed infant is re- New York subways in the nineteen-seventies, ure was irst carved from Styrofoam and cork; the bronze version is inished in a pan-gender patina of pink, blue, and scorched earth, with a demonic face where it ought to have genitals AT THE GALLERIES and pink nipples on its buttocks. Graiti-like marks in red, green, and yellow licker at its Carroll Dunham is one of the best living heels. The supplicant, irst fashioned from un- ired clay, has outstretched hands extending American painters. He is also, almost from a shroud of black plastic, at once a burqa, defiantly, one of the weirdest. In his latest a body bag, and a collected bundle of trash. To- show, at the Gladstone gallery through gether, Bhabha’s characters fuse centuries of sculptural traditions with political and pop-cul- June 16, Dunham continues to wres- ture references—Rodin waylaid by Rastafarians, tle with his one true subject—painting in a dream of Samuel R. Delany’s.—Andrea K. itself—in Crayola-bright pictures of Scott (Through Oct. 28.) cavemen, going head to head in the wild in Greco-Roman-style combat. (“Mud Jeneen Frei Njootli Men,” shown here, is the only hint of Fierman détente.) Dunham’s male nudes are as DOWNTOWN Conceptual precision, chance, and anatomically, if cartoonishly, frank as his deeply personal references align rather magi- previous depictions of female bathers, cally in this spare show. On opening night, the artist, a member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First which challenged Gustave Courbet’s Nation, in Canada, staged an improvised perfor- “Origin of the World” to a duel. The mance in which baseball caps (customized with figures remain at once insistently flat horsehair, rickrack, porcupine quills, and other materials) served as both costumes and instru- (like the linen they’re made on) and al- ments. At one point, she dragged a veil of thin lusively dimensional, an antic update of chains hanging from one brim over a cymbal, Cézanne’s advice to “deal with nature by adding a silvery note to her ampliied voice. Now the hats adorn the walls as sculptures, alongside means of the cylinder, the sphere, and the CARROLL DUNHAM/COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NEW YORK AND BRUSSELS YORK NEW GALLERY, AND GLADSTONE THE ARTIST DUNHAM/COURTESY CARROLL —Andrea K. Scott © larger-than-life-size photographs printed on cone.”

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 5 “Great Gatsby” paper. A private-equity shark, IN THE PARK Kevin tries throwing cash on her desk, and when that doesn’t work he ofers something more in- triguing: advice on how to play the stock market and, perhaps, make a better life for her daughter. The moral lines are neatly drawn—suitable for crossing—in Anthony Giardina’s class-minded drama, part of a recent abundance of plays in which school admissions bring out the worst in people. Under Doug Hughes’s direction, for Manhattan Theatre Club, Giardina’s entry is all clashing perspectives, no soul or spontaneity; even the teen-age characters seem like points on an ethical matrix.—M.S. (Through July 8.)

The Fourth Wall A.R.T./New York Theatres A. R. Gurney dipped his toes in Ionesco-esque waters with this 1992 absurdist comedy, now un- evenly revived by Theatre Breaking Through Barriers (which features actors with disabilities) under Christopher Burris’s direction. The con- cept involves a woman named Peggy (Ann Marie Morelli), who expresses her existential-political crisis through interior design: she’s moved her living-room furniture to face a blank back wall, and suddenly people entering the space spout meta-commentaries on their own actions. Un- surprisingly, this annoys her husband, Roger (Nicholas Viselli), so he calls on a sophisticated friend (Pamela Sabaugh) and a theatre pro- fessor (Stephen Drabicki), who may be able to regulate the stream of addresses to the au- Typically a balmy summer treat, the Public’s Shakespeare in the Park dience. Occasionally, they all break into Cole series made national headlines last year with its Trumped-up “Julius Porter songs, which have endured better than Caesar.” Unless Roseanne Barr plays Desdemona, there likely won’t be a the now dated references to the Bush Admin- “Othello” istration that Gurney added in 2002 revisions. similar fracas surrounding this season’s first ofering, (through In the end, the show feels like an overextended June 24). But Ruben Santiago-Hudson’s production does retain at least joke in search of a punch line.—Elisabeth Vin- one element from the last go-round: Corey Stoll, who played Brutus and centelli (Through June 23.) returns as Iago, a diferent sort of troublemaker. In the title role is the Nigerian-British actor Chukwudi Iwuji, who appeared at the Delacorte The Great Leap —Michael Schulman in 2014, as Edgar in “King Lear.” Atlantic Stage 2 Lauren Yee’s ambitious new play toggles be- tween 1971 and 1989, Beijing and San Fran- and, while his street art has long since disap- a birthday party where the zingers tip into re- cisco. Linking them are Saul (Ned Eisenberg), peared, decades of his paintings on cardboard crimination and self-loathing, the play luxuriates an American college-basketball coach, and and canvas trace the evolution of his radical style: in campy theatrics while underscoring the costs his translator turned rival, Wen Chang (B. D. a deconstructive, aerosol-based update of the il- of marginalization—doubly so for Bernard (Mi- Wong). Stuck in the middle is the brash young luminated manuscript. The show, titled “Racing chael Benjamin Washington), the black charac- street-hoops whiz Manford (the one-note Tony for Thunder,” also includes an installation of ter whom someone calls “the queen of spades.” Aidan Vo), who rules the Chinatown courts in “Letter Racers,” from 1988-91—bright, menac- All the actors in Joe Mantello’s crowd-pleasing 1989 but has his eye on a bigger stage—and a ing found-object sculptures mounted on skate- production are openly gay, some of them famil- mysterious score to settle. Manford is inspired boards—and a battalion of “Garbage Gods,” the iar faces from TV, including Jim Parsons, An- by Yee’s own father, and she frames that personal armor-like costumes he began to design in the drew Rannells, and Matt Bomer. Their presence story against the Cultural Revolution and Tian- nineties. This vibrant retrospective allows Ram- is a marker of progress, of course, but distract- anmen Square. The director, Taibi Magar, deftly mellzee’s visionary Gesamtkunstwerk to orbit a ing when celebrity mugging takes over; as the handles the switches in time and setting, but too planet of art, music, and night life, without ever self-described “pockmarked Jew fairy,” Zachary often the writing has a mechanical, overly neat bringing it down to earth.—J.F. (Through Aug. 26.) Quinto stops the show cold with every wither- quality. Only Wen Chang’s character feels fully ing pronouncement. The actors who do listen leshed out, and Wong does him justice, subtly 1 to each other bring life to Crowley’s thorny suggesting the emotions raging under a carefully and funny script—particularly Robin De Jesús, controlled exterior.—E.V. (Through June 24.) THE THEATRE as the resident lamer, Emory, whose deiance shows glimmers of what would soon be called pride.—Michael Schulman (Through Aug. 11.) Secret Life of Humans The Boys in the Band 59E59 Booth Dan Cody’s Yacht The British playwright and director David Byrne Mart Crowley’s pathbreaking 1968 play is a presents what is essentially a battle of ideas be- fascinating document of New York gay life City Center Stage I tween Jacob Bronowski (Richard Delaney), the pre-Stonewall, and this iftieth-anniversary Cara (Kristen Bush) is an “incorruptible” En- mathematician and broadcaster who wrote and revival ofers much to contemplate about what’s glish teacher at a Massachusetts public school— narrated the deeply optimistic 1973 BBC series changed (anxious jokes about “Lily Law”) and at least according to Kevin (Rick Holmes), whose “The Ascent of Man,” and Yuval Noah Harari, the

what hasn’t (“All About Eve” references). Set at son, one of Cara’s students, just got an F on a author of the 2014 best-seller “Sapiens,” whose ALLISON FILICE BY ILLUSTRATION

6 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 take on the species is decidedly more skeptical. baritone Joshua Hopkins sing a crowd-pleasing motherhood, and provides space for each singer’s This cerebral concept assumes the leshly form of program of arias and duets from “Il Barbiere di distinct approach. Beforehand, in a new duo with a one-night stand between Bronowski’s (ictional) Siviglia,” “Gianni Schicchi,” “La Traviata,” and the crafty electronic composer Lea Bertucci, Ki- grandson, Jamie (Andrew Straford-Baker), and other works; the pianist Dan Saunders accom- dambi will respond on the ly to manipulated tape a university lecturer named Ava (Stella Taylor), panies them.—O.Z. (June 13 at 7.) recordings of her own voice.—S.S. (June 17 at 8.) who serves as the vehicle for Harari’s ideas. To- gether they discover a disturbing secret that Bronowski kept locked in his basement, which Modern Piano (+) “Time’s Arrow” makes a handy proxy for the worst horrors of hu- manity. There’s a lot going on for a ninety-min- Spectrum St. Paul’s Chapel ute play, and, though not every thread fully The parenthetical “plus” in the title is a nod to Julian Wachner, Trinity Wall Street’s industri- connects, Byrne’s stagecraft is arresting.—Rollo the talented Serbian pianist and composer Teo- ous director of music and the arts, credits a 1990 Romig (Through July 1.) dora Stepančić, whose monthly “Piano+” salons lecture by the Boston-based composer Marti Ep- provide the template for this ambitious recital se- stein with directing his attention toward Anton 1 ries. On opening night, Reinier van Houdt ofers Webern’s crystalline serialism. Returning the his authoritative interpretation of Michael Pisa- favor, Wachner is using this Webern-centric fes- CLASSICAL MUSIC ro’s contemplative “Green Hour, Grey Future,” tival to bring wider notice to Epstein’s splendidly and Tanner Porter sings original art songs that luminous music. Additional composers featured are by turns seductive and confessional. Other in the string of free concerts—performed by the New York Philharmonic: concerts this week feature Stepančić, her fellow- Trinity Choir, the new-music ensemble Novus pianist Hitomi Honda, and the duos Early Gray NY, and others—include Heinz Holliger, Chris- Concerts in the Parks and Righteous Girls; following weeks include topher Rouse, and Brahms, whose “German Re- Various locations performances by Blair McMillen, Jacob Rhode- quiem” shares the inal program with some of Performing alfresco in Van Cortlandt Park, Cen- beck, Ethan Iverson, and Dan Tepfer.—S.S. (June Webern’s grandest works.—S.S. (June 18-19, June tral Park, Cunningham Park, and Prospect Park, 14 at 7:30 and 9, June 16 at 6 and 8:30, June 17 at 3, 21, and June 23 at 1.) the orchestra plays a sequence of irresistible and June 19 at 7:30. Through July 1.) 1 dance numbers by Saint-Saëns, Bernstein, and two preteens from the company’s Very Young NIGHT LIFE Composers program. James Gaigan conducts “Lines of Light” Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” a raptur- Roulette Musicians and night-club proprietors lead com- ous evocation of four tales from “A Thousand plicated lives; it’s advisable to check in advance and One Nights.” The tour concludes with an Amirtha Kidambi, a vocalist and composer who to conrm engagements. indoor gig, at the Snug Harbor Cultural Cen- slips easily among disparate musical idioms, pre- ter, in Staten Island.—Oussama Zahr (June 12-15 sents the world première of a work inspired by at 8; June 17 at 3.) two visionary forebears: the medieval mystic Hil- Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, degard von Bingen and the experimental-jazz pa- and Dwight Yoakam triarch Muhal Richard Abrams. Developed in col- James Ilgenfritz laboration with the vocal improvisers Jean Carla Beacon Theatre Rodea, Anaïs Maviel, Emilie Lesbros, and Char- Dubbed the LSD Tour, this road show of The Stone at the New School maine Lee, the piece speaks of life, death, and twangy music veterans has at least one aspect Ilgenfritz, a bassist who has made invaluable contributions to New York’s new-music com- munity as a composer, improviser, collabora- THE SUMMER SEASON tor, and organizer, is the center of attention each night during this ive-concert residency. But, with characteristic magnanimity, he’ll share the spotlight with the Anagram Ensemble, the New Thread Quartet, and his bandmates in the high-voltage improvising trio Hypercolor, among numerous others—and that’s to say noth- ing of the promising débuts and premières at hand during this exciting engagement.—Steve Smith (June 12-16 at 8:30.)

New York City Opera: “Madama Butterfly” Bryant Park The city’s second opera company braves the eve- ning rush to stage an hour’s worth of excerpts from Puccini’s lyrical drama for the after-work crowd. On the park’s upper terrace, Brandie Sutton and Alex Richardson take the lead roles, and Kathryn Olander plays piano.—O.Z. (June 13 at 6.) Audra McDonald—a radiant singer, protean actor, and record-breaking winner Metropolitan Opera: of six Tony Awards—has a voice that defies categorization. It possesses the Summer Recital Series pealing tone and pure upper register of Broadway’s more classically inclined Brooklyn Bridge Park sopranos, and the fullness and emotional punch of its brassiest belters. She Much like your typical New Yorker, the Met opens Caramoor’s summer season, in Katonah, N.Y., on June 16 with a concert heads straight for the city’s parks as soon as of American standards, accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s. On the summer hits. Throughout June, the compa- following afternoon, the composer and percussionist Andy Akiho joins the ny’s free outdoor concert series will take it to all ive boroughs. In Brooklyn, the soprano La- orchestral collective the Knights to play his “Fantasy for Steel Pans and Or- —Oussama Zahr ILLUSTRATION BY GOLDEN COSMOS BY ILLUSTRATION tonia Moore, the tenor Mario Chang, and the chestra,” which has the sweep and specificity of a film score.

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 7 that is truly hallucinatory: the degree to Eddie Palmieri Salsa Orchestra ing in grandiose productions; his upcoming re- which its headliners are keyed to the sounds lease, “Heaven and Earth,” the follow-up to his coming out of contemporary Nashville. Al- Sony Hall sprawling calling card, “The Epic,” is similarly though all three resided in Music City at A giant of música Latina, the pianist, composer, ambitious, and socially conscious. Drawing on some point in their careers, their intimate arranger, and bandleader Eddie Palmieri has the inclusive spirit of seventies soul jazz and relationships with genres like the blues spent the past six decades fusing idiomatic mu- utilizing massed strings, vocals, and a contin- (Williams), folk (Earle), and rock (Yoakam) sical sources from Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the gent of eclectic improvisers, Washington cre- have transcended geography and invited a Caribbean with modern jazz, producing imagina- ates his efect by painting with sweeping brush- variety of listeners into honky-tonks. It’s tive and inexorably propulsive sounds in the pro- strokes.—S.F. (June 15.) not an overstatement to say that each bears cess. A formidable improviser himself, Palmieri some responsibility for the “alternative” sets the tone for his razor-sharp, rhythmically ef- part of the term “alt-country,” even if there fervescent ensemble.—Steve Futterman (June 14.) The Magnetic Fields remains plenty of the mythology of the South and the West in their collective cat- Apollo Theatre alogue of tunes about outlaws, highways, Jack DeJohnette, Ravi Coltrane, Stephin Merritt has built a devoted fan base for and complicated love.—K. Leander Williams and Matthew Garrison his band the Magnetic Fields by sheer force of (June 13.) will. He’s always been a pop outlier; his voice, Shapeshifter Lab an afectingly nasalized baritone, is particu- The transcendent spirit of John Coltrane binds larly out of step with the current age of talent- METZ the trio of his saxophonist son Ravi, the electric competition-driven exuberance. His melodies, bassist Garrison (the scion of Jimmy Garrison, however—a signiicant number of which have Liberty Belle the bassist in Coltrane’s classic quartet of the been delivered in multiple-album song cycles— This three-piece rock outit from Toronto sixties), and DeJohnette, a prodigious modern are so richly crafted that their catchiness is se- constructs songs out of heavy slabs of noise, drummer and bandleader indelibly inluenced ductive. Last year, the band released “50 Song but, as with marble, it’s the crystalline de- by Coltrane (and who, in 1966, sat in on a gig Memoir,” a ive-disk package of autobiograph- tails—the raucous drums anchoring the gui- with the icon).—S.F. (June 15.) ical material that contained a tune for each of tar distortion, the textures animating their the irst ifty years of Merritt’s life—some sweet, wall of sound—that hold your attention. some arsenic-laced, others jokey, all revealing. They’re at their most visceral when expe- Kamasi Washington The group settles in at the Apollo for two nights, rienced live, and this performance, on New with an elaborate staging of the work which is York City’s popular party riverboat (no “rock Forest Hills Stadium part concert, part theatre.—K.L.W. (June 15-16.) the boat” jokes, please), is one of a kind, in- In another lifetime, the saxophonist Washing- deed.—K.L.W. (June 14.) ton might have been a ilm director specializ- Ethan Iverson and Ron Carter Mezzrow JAZZ, SWING, AND IMPROV With older jazz giants leaving us with unfortu- nate regularity, it must be quite a charge for the historically minded pianist Iverson (late of the Bad Plus) to collaborate with surviving heroes. Here he duets with the masterly bassist Carter, whose work with Miles Davis and on the re- ported two-thousand-plus recordings he’s con- tributed to has made him a living legend.—S.F. (June 15-17.)

New York Night Train Soul Clap & Dance-Off with Shopping Elsewhere The d.j. Jonathan Toubin’s taste in vintage soul music on vinyl (45 r.p.m. platters, exclusively) has carried this regular dance party and con- test for the better part of a decade, but his live music selections are equally notable. Since the festivities moved to Elsewhere, in January, he has hosted the rapper Kool Keith and also the Sun Ra Arkestra. This event imports the excel- lent U.K. trio Shopping, in which Rachel Aggs’s jagged, minimalist guitar cuts across the kind of danceably sparse rhythms pioneered by punkish innovators like Gang of Four and Pylon. Their chants can be political without getting speciic. The mantra at the end of “The Hype,” last year’s single, is still timely: “Don’t believe. Ask ques- Music is the ultimate lingua franca for Marc Ribot y los Cubanos Postizos— tions.”—K.L.W. (June 16.) debates about authenticity and cultural appropriation be damned. Twenty years 1 ago, Ribot, the guitarist, noise-scene star, and Tom Waits sideman, convened some friends to jam on the tunes of Arsenio Rodriguez, the blind Cuban DANCE fingerpicker whose innovations paved the way for the mambo. He ended up with two sleeper-hit albums of loungey music that encourages bailando. The American Ballet Theatre all-star band (Brad Jones, E. J. Rodriguez, Anthony Coleman) is back together Metropolitan Opera House for one big night at Le Poisson Rouge, on June 17, with the addition of the Audiences never tire of “Romeo and Juliet,”

Cuban drummer Horacio (El Negro) Hernandez.—K. Leander Williams Shakespeare’s tale of teen-age lovers in Re- BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

8 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 1 CONTEMPORARY DANCE MOVIES

American Animals Bart Layton’s movie tells a true story, more or less, with an emphasis on the stories that the characters tell themselves, and the inevitable trouble that ensues. The story begins in 2003, in Lexington, Kentucky, where Spencer (Barry Keoghan) and his friend Warren (Evan Peters), students at Transylvania University, decide to steal a precious copy of Audubon’s “Birds of America” and a rare edition of Darwin from the college library. Their planning, hopelessly lawed, is further weakened by two new recruits, Eric (Jared Abrahamson) and Chas (Blake Jen- ner), and, as for the old-guy disguises that they wear for the heist, all you can do is laugh. The ilm, which kicks of in a lurry of visual tricks and narrative switchbacks, grows plainer in the later stages, and its concluding mood is sur- prisingly sad; these kids, who yearned to be something special, turned out to be anything but.—Anthony Lane (In wide release.)

Compared with the feast of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre’s First Reformed Paul Schrader’s latest movie is one of his most ultra-popular winter encampment, its summer season, which runs June agonized. Ethan Hawke plays Reverend Toller, 13-17 at the David H. Koch Theatre, is barely a snack, but there is a who, after the loss of a son and the wrecking of new item on the menu. It’s “EN,” by Jessica Lang, a prolific choreogra- a marriage, has washed up in Albany County, New York. He has a drinking problem, no vis- pher whose thoughtful craftsmanship is rarely enlivened by a strongly ible friends, a beautiful old church to preside individual voice. More reliably exciting is “Members Don’t Get Weary,” over, and a scattering of worshippers. One of the maiden choreographic efort for the company by the star dancer them, a pregnant woman named Mary (Amanda Seyfried), asks him to counsel her husband, Mi- Jamar Roberts, which débuted in December and returns this weekend. chael (Philip Ettinger), an ecoterrorist. Toller, A persuasively personal response to the rhythmic fervor of Coltrane to his surprise and ours, is drawn to Michael’s recordings, it’s a nice surprise.—Brian Seibert cause. Schrader’s insistence on his characters’ self-denial, and even self-chastisement, feels both brave and cussed, and his story is equipped with a stripped-down style to match. The result naissance Verona, or of its lustrous score, by Savion Glover and Marcus Gilmore has the air of an endurance test, and it might be Prokoiev. A.B.T.’s version, by Kenneth Mac- wise to get in shape with the aid of Ingmar Berg- Millan, is more than half a century old, but MetroTech Commons man and Robert Bresson beforehand. With Ce- it continues to make its point with its violent The BAM R. & B. Festival rarely programs danc- dric Kyles, as the pastor of a megachurch.—A.L. street scenes, ardent pas de deux, and tear- ers, but Glover, the tap god, has always been (Reviewed in our issue of 5/21/18.) (In wide release.) inducing resolution. Misty Copeland, who more of a musician anyway, better appreciated irst danced Juliet in 2015, returns to the role in a purely musical context. Best of all is to hear on June 12 and for the June 16 matinée. Devon him in percussive conversation, and Gilmore, How to Talk to Girls at Parties Teuscher and Stella Abrera will dance Juliet an innovative drummer and a sensitive listener, A silly if sprightly enterprise, adapted by John at the June 13 matinée and on June 14, respec- should make an excellent interlocutor. The two Cameron Mitchell (who directed) and Philippa tively. Teuscher is a thrilling actress; Abrera, men have at least one thing in common: both Goslett from a story by Neil Gaiman. Alex a touching and pure dancer. Teuscher will be have performed with Gilmore’s grandfather, the Sharp, who won a Tony for “The Curious In- partnered by a new Romeo, Aran Bell, only great jazz drummer Roy Haynes.—B.S. (June 14.) cident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” plays nineteen years old and in the corps de ballet; Enn, a high-school kid in a London suburb in many will remember him as an eleven-year- 1977. Nothing ever seems to happen there, so old boy in the movie “First Position.”—Marina River to River Festival the arrival of a group of brightly clad outsiders Harss (June 11-16.) is cause for bewildered celebration. The new- Various locations comers hail not just from another town, it turns Over the course of this annual festival of free, out, but from outer space, and one of them, Zan Philadanco! mostly outdoor performances, casual passersby (Elle Fanning), is befriended by Enn. Some on the streets of downtown New York are treated of the alien designs are indebted to “A Clock- Joyce Theatre to the wild imaginations of select experimental work Orange,” but Mitchell’s movie is tame and The dancers of this venerable Philadel- dance-theatre artists. On June 15-17, the chore- toothless by comparison, with only mild hints phia-based group are uncommonly adapt- ographer Catherine Galasso presents the latest of the orgiastic; it’s hard to distinguish between able and spirited. It’s too bad that their reper- installment in her project based on Boccaccio’s what is and isn’t meant to be funny. Still, Sharp tory so often diminishes them. For this visit, “Decameron,” “Of Granite and Glass,” imagined makes an endearing hero, ably assisted by Ruth the program tilts political. “New Fruit,” by as a series of nonlinear tableaux. Cori Oling- Wilson and a surprisingly punkish Nicole Kid- the never-subtle Christopher L. Huggins, house’s “Grandma,” a melancholy, absurdist re- man.—A.L. (6/4 & 11/18) (In limited release and features a simulated lynching and good times lection on Middle America, takes place at the streaming.) curtailed by gunshot. “A Movement for Five,” studios of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Coun- by Dawn Marie Bazemore, is more abstract, cil. In “Silent::Partner,” Enrico D. Wey explores aestheticizing the predicament of the Cen- collective memory as represented by monuments Not a Pretty Picture tral Park Five with striking designs. The tone like the statue of George Washington in front In her courageous and ingenious irst feature, is maudlin, but lashes of rawness occasion- of Federal Hall. Check lmcc.net for dates and from 1975, the director Martha Coolidge dra-

ILLUSTRATION BY STEFANO PIETRAMALA STEFANO BY ILLUSTRATION ally cut through.—Brian Seibert (June 12-17.) locations.—M.H. (June 15-24.) matizes events from her own life that took place

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 9 in 1962, when she was a sixteen-year-old prep- jeweller (Mindy Kaling), a pickpocket (Awkwa- Thandie Newton, and Joonas Suotamo, as Chew- school student. She was raped by a friend at a ina), and a fashion designer (Helena Bonham bacca.—A.L. (6/4 & 11/18) (In wide release.) party in New York, and the movie reconstructs Carter). Their criminal artistry is so reined and the actions of that night as well as incidents lead- so reliable that they seem all but superheroic, ing up to and following the attack. It includes rendering the grand set piece in the Metropoli- Upgrade Coolidge’s onscreen discussions with Michele tan Museum anticlimactic—yet the subsequent Several clever twists can’t ill the hollowness Manenti, who plays the character of Martha, and decrescendo regains solid footing. The director, of this low-key sci-i thriller. Logan Marshall- Jim Carrington, who plays the rapist. Manenti Gary Ross (who co-wrote the script with Olivia Green stars as Grey Trace, a customizer of clas- (as a title card states and as she herself says) Milch), brings some visual swing to match the sic cars in an unspeciied future with self-driv- was also a victim of rape; in working to reën- actresses’ rify energy, which far surpasses the ing vehicles. He and his wife, Asha (Melanie act Coolidge’s experiences by way of agonizing movie’s dramatic interest.—R.B. (In wide release.) Vallejo), an executive at a high-tech company, psychodrama, she reëxamines her own. In the are waylaid by a band of criminals; she is mur- documentary framework, both women confront dered and he is wounded, leaving him a quad- mores of the time that shamed and blamed vic- Solo: A Star Wars Story riplegic. A reclusive tech mogul (Harrison Gil- tims. Scenes set at school and in the city evoke On the principle that no character in the distant bertson) ofers Grey an experimental chip-like Hollywood melodramas, horror ilms, and com- galaxy is unworthy of exploration, Ron How- implant that will restore his mobility. Grey edies, as if correcting commercial distortions of ard’s new ilm trawls through the history of Han inds that the implant, which is endowed with women’s perspectives.—Richard Brody (Anthology Solo (Alden Ehrenreich). We encounter him extraordinary computing power, speaks to him Film Archives, June 16, and streaming.) irst on the planet Corellia, where he toils in and responds to his commands, and he recruits near-servitude and pledges his afections to Qi’ra it to help ind his wife’s killers—but it also turns (Emilia Clarke), although his anguish, when he Grey into an unwilling killing machine. The con- Ocean’s 8 escapes and leaves her behind, doesn’t seem too trivances and clichés multiply as the action gets With a cast of luminaries converging gleefully in overwhelming. Indeed, the whole movie has an gorier, without ever illuminating Grey’s alien- this comedic crime reboot, there’s delight in the air of unimpassioned moderation, Han’s deep- ating experience; the movie hammers home a ohand moments that lead to the central heist— est ardor being reserved for the Millennium simplistically technophobic message even as it of a heavily guarded necklace, from the neck of an Falcon, which he wins from Lando Calrissian sets up a sequel. Written and directed by Leigh actress (Anne Hathaway), during the Met Gala. (Donald Glover). There’s a nicely breakneck Whannell.—R.B. (In wide release.) Sandra Bullock stars as Debbie Ocean, the late sequence aboard a speeding train, and some of Danny’s sister, who, upon her release from prison the dialogue, by Lawrence Kasdan and his son 1 for a previous scam, quickly gets back into action, Jonathan, has a dry snap that recalls the growl- reuniting with her former partners in crime (Cate ing era of Harrison Ford, yet the story, adding READINGS AND TALKS Blanchett and Sarah Paulson) and recruiting new little to our grasp of Solo’s character, feels sur- collaborators, including a hacker (Rihanna), a plus to requirements. With Woody Harrelson, Mark Kelly and Samantha Bee 92nd Street Y IN REVIVAL Kelly, a retired astronaut and U.S. Navy cap- tain, is the husband of Gabrielle Gifords, the former U.S. representative who was shot during a campaign stop in Arizona in 2011. Kelly sits down with Bee, the comedian and host of TBS’s “Full Frontal,” for a discussion of the current po- litical climate and the reanimated gun-control debate that has followed the recent spate of school shootings. Gifords will ofer opening remarks.—K. Leander Williams (June 14 at 8.)

Edwidge Danticat Brooklyn Public Library Individuals moving between worlds inhabit many stories by the Haitian-American writer Danticat. Immigration concerns will likely be at the forefront when she gives this season’s “Message from the Library,” a biannual address in which noted igures relect on issues import- ant to local communities.—K.L.W. (June 17 at 7.)

Rachel Cusk Greenlight Bookstore In “Outline” and “Transit,” the irst two parts of Cusk’s acclaimed trilogy, the U.K.-based novelist and sometime memoirist constructs fragmented The retrospective of Luchino Visconti’s features at Film Society of Lincoln texts from the oral histories gathered up by Faye, the writer at the center of the narrative. In this Center includes a new print of “Ludwig,” his grand and melancholy 1973 magazine, Judith Thurman wrote that Faye’s ind- bio-pic about the King of Bavaria (Helmut Berger), whose reckless pursuit ings are “exquisitely attuned to the ways in which of aesthetic and sensual pleasure cost him his throne. (Ludwig’s patronage of humans victimize one another.” The New Yorker staf writer Alexandra Schwartz joins Cusk to dis- Richard Wagner—played by Trevor Howard—provides conflict and music; cuss “Kudos,” the inal book in the trilogy, which his construction of palaces provides splendid sets.) Romy Schneider co-stars, was released in May.—K.L.W. (June 18 at 7:30.) as Ludwig’s confidante Princess Elisabeth of Austria. The film was severely 1 shortened for its release and wasn’t restored to Visconti’s nearly four-hour cut For more reviews, visit

until 1980, after his death. It screens June 16 and June 22-28.—Richard Brody newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town AGFA COURTESY

10 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 1 are craft cocktails, listed on a card tucked TABLES FOR TWO tweely into a pocket inside the menu, as though it’s a library book; tiny portions Legacy Records of crudo; and a seven-dollar bread plate Hell’s Kitchen with rosemary lardo. I hoped the San The other day, while walking to the far Daniele prosciutto topped with fresh west side of midtown Manhattan, I found shaved horseradish would taste like BAR TAB myself humming Bruce Springsteen’s being let in on a secret (“Bet you’d never “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.” No one, not guess these two things go so well to- Vol de Nuit even Springsteen himself, has ever been gether!”), but it was more akin to a game West Village able to say what a “Tenth Avenue freeze- of Telephone. An appealingly enormous, At the start of summer in New York, the spend- thrift Europhile, unable to aford a transatlan- out” is, exactly, but it felt like a itting rectangular raviolo, with a line of meaty tic voyage, can reach, on foot, several airy pa- anthem for venturing past Ninth, where morels, peas, and chervil down its mid- tios with echoes of Provence. One, dripping the bars and bodegas have long seemed dle, brought to mind a high-rise, as on in verdure, is that of the cocktail and oyster lounge Maison Premiere, in Williamsburg. like the last signs of civilization before theme as a Mickey Mouse pancake at Another is this Belgian beer bar of Washing- uncharted tumbleweed territory. Great Disneyland. ton Square Park, where thirsty travellers cra- change is afoot, however, as the Hudson Among the entrées—heritage chicken, dle goblets of Chimay and Delirium Tremens drawn straight from the tap. Its name, borrowed Yards redevelopment project forges grilled branzino, spring lamb—the only from a novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry set at ahead. Ambitious skyscrapers have been surprise was the duck for two. The whole the dawn of commercial aviation, translates to built, if not yet illed, and more are under dry-aged bird—its honey-lacquered skin Night Flight, suggesting, along with the Trap- pist ales on ofer, a red-eye into a land of pas- construction. Banks and management- nearly blackened and coated in fennel toral retreat and deep history. A few weeks ago, consulting irms are moving in. seeds and chili lakes, glittering like a two men seeking a Continental illusion hopped On the ground loor and mezzanine Judith Leiber clutch—was presented around the bar like backpackers on a lightning tour. They spent two minutes at the counter or- of Henry Hall, an upmarket apartment tableside, then whisked away to be carved dering, two minutes on wooden stools by the building between Tenth and Eleventh and plated. The breast was served in windows waiting for their beers to be pulled, where a recording studio once stood, striking wedges, each with strata of crispy and the rest of the afternoon at an outside table surrounded by white walls of brick and plaster there’s even a restaurant: Legacy Records, skin, luscious fat, and tender meat, as rich that evoked a village in le Midi. “Ohn hon hon,” the latest from the hospitality group be- and gamy as foie gras. But where were one intoned, in imitation of a French gufaw, as hind the hot spots Charlie Bird and the legs? Because their lavor is “super he took a sip of his Duvel Green, which had a tall head and which he described approvingly Pasquale Jones, in SoHo and Nolita, re- funky,” a waiter explained, they’re not as a “baker’s picnic.” A waiter brought French spectively. Though its ailiations have usually served; we were welcome to try fries—hot, salty, and greasy, like a sunbathing made it a genuinely buzzy destination, them if we liked. We did. Signiicantly German trying to stir up his melanin on the Riviera. A third man joined them, ordered a anyone expecting the same cool factor humbler, they fell apart into messy shreds, Palm Belgian amber (dry, efervescent, shades may be disappointed: both the building but were no less delicious. In a huge, of sienna), and pointed to a diferent Teutonic and the dining room have the sprawling, cushy booth nearby, three heavily coifed signiier on his friend’s upper lip—“You’ve got a little bit of a Hitler ’stache.” The friend licked swanky, but slightly sterile vibe of a luxury women posed for a series of selies. At away the square of foam. They all agreed that hotel in a blander city. another table, an investment banker the day’s simulation was a success. “There’s an The food, which is vaguely Italian, ordered the duck for two, for one. (517 Antifa bar in Berlin I really like,” one said, ad- miring the courtyard. “It has a similar setup.” reads like a careful primer on current W. 38th St. Entrées $35-$80.) (148 W. 4th St. 212-982-3388.)

PHOTOGRAPH BY ZACHARY ZAVISLAK FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE JOOST BY ILLUSTRATION YORKER; THE NEW FOR ZAVISLAK ZACHARY BY PHOTOGRAPH trends, well executed if obligatory. There —Hannah Goldield —Neima Jahromi

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COMMENT Year’s Day, when, in a speech, Kim ex- its founding, in 1948, solidified its power KIM’S CHINESE LESSONS pressed a desire to “alleviate the ten- by insulating the country from foreign sions.” South Korea’s President, Moon ideas and exposure. The Kims main- n the city of Pyongyang, the sanctum Jae-in, seized on the overture, first at tained control by promoting the illu- Isanctorum of the Workers’ Party of the Olympic Games and then in April, sion that, even in poverty, North Korea Korea, there are changes afoot that would when he walked hand in hand with Kim was a “socialist paradise.” As North Korea have vexed Stalin. Repression has not across the fortified border between their crawled out of famine, China’s leaders dimmed, but, to indulge the aspirations countries. By May, the United States suggested a solution from their history. of the young North Korean élite, a class and North Korea were preparing, halt- In the late nineteen-seventies, the po- known to foreigners as “Pyonghattan,” ingly, for a summit that Trump described litical mayhem of the Communist Party the government has permitted the odd as a “get-to-know-you situation.” had left China with a per-capita income yoga class, squash court, and sushi bar. But Kim’s push to end his country’s a third that of sub-Saharan Africa. When In Chinese-made taxis, which have pro- isolation didn’t begin on New Year’s Day. Deng Xiaoping came to power, in 1978, liferated since 2013, the meter starts at a As the reforms in Pyongyang make vivid, he shifted China’s focus from “class dollar, an exorbitant sum for the average Kim is under growing pressure to raise struggle” to “economic development,” worker in the countryside, but unremark- the living standards of the population. sparking an economic rebirth under a able for residents of the capital. The driv- In his attempt to unleash the economy system that became known as “social- ers pay a fee to the state and keep the and hold on to his dictatorship, he seems ism with Chinese characteristics.” profits, in one of many quasi-capitalist to be taking a lesson from China’s Com- Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong accommodations that the government munist Party: change, or die. Un, was unconvinced. He experimented has adopted in recent years to defuse de- Until recently, North Korea largely halfheartedly with “special economic mands for a more modern life. avoided Chinese lessons. The Kim dy- zones” before settling on a “military-first” North Korea is on the cusp of the nasty, which has ruled the nation since policy, which prioritized defense spend- largest step yet in its budding, fitful en- ing. Kim Jong Il died in 2011, and his gagement with the outside world. Kim heir faced a perilous fact: the national Jong Un and Donald Trump’s bid for myth was failing. Foreign TV shows and history, the nuclear summit, is expected movies, smuggled in from China on to take place on June 12th, at Singa- DVDs, flash drives, and cell phones, were pore’s five-star Capella Hotel, on a tiny spreading fast, allowing North Koreans island overlooking the Singapore Strait. to see just how far they had fallen of the Once home to pirates who ambushed pace of the world. Kim promised that passing ships, the island was known, in the people would “never have to tighten Malay, as Pulau Belakang Mati, or the their belts again,” and set about giving Island Where Death Lurks Behind. In them more economic control. In 2013, he 1972, it was designated a tourism site stepped beyond the “military first” man- and, fortunately for the summit, renamed tra to proclaim a policy of “dual prog- Sentosa, which means peace and tran- ress,” which gave equal weight to the de- quillity. The story of how the two na- velopment of nuclear weapons and to tions reached this point, just months the economy. The government encour- after threatening each other with nu- aged students and businessmen to visit clear war, is often framed as a cascade China and “learn from the Chinese.”

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS of sudden events, which started on New North Korea will never simply import

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 13 China’s system, and Pyongyang is wary nounced his decision to direct “all eforts” weaponry for some level of growth, and of Beijing’s influence. But, in recent years, toward “economic construction.” John each will be trying to set the price. as President Xi Jinping has intensified Delury, of Yonsei University, in Seoul, The outcome will rest largely on political control, the Chinese model has said, “It’s impossible not to hear echoes Kim’s conception of his own path to po- become easier for Pyongyang to adapt. of Deng.” He added, “Kim is breaking litical survival. At thirty-four, he stands “Xi Jinping has narrowed the gap be- North Korea out of some of its ruts.” to rule his country for decades, and the tween the configuration of their system How far that spirit will extend at the ever-rising expectations of his people and what Kim wants: No more collec- summit is diicult to predict. A conceiv- will pose a greater threat to him over tive leadership. No more term limits. No able outcome would be a joint statement time. “His current situation of total state particular stigma attached to sending that establishes the ultimate goal of re- control is not sustainable,” Abigail Grace, your comrade-in-arms to jail,” Daniel moving nuclear weapons from North who was, until last month, an Asia ad- Russel, the vice-president of the Asia Korea, in return for assurances against viser at the National Security Council, Society Policy Institute, said recently. By an American attack and steps toward a said. “It’s entirely possible that Kim Jong 2017, nearly half of North Koreans were peace treaty that would, at last, end the Un has recognized that, on a five-to- involved in some form of private enter- Korean War. Kim’s goal is, of course, to ten-year time horizon, trouble could prise—driving, selling noodles, renting insure the survival of his state. Having arise.” As in China, forty years ago, North out spare bedrooms. South Korea’s in- developed the security of a nuclear Korea’s leadership knows that it cannot telligence service estimates that the weapon, he has turned to the economy, stand still. Kim may well follow Chi- North’s private sector is comparable in but it can thrive only if he achieves re- na’s course of moving carefully but per- size to those of Hungary and Poland lief from sanctions and gains access to sistently, in order to, as the Party elder shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. the kind of foreign capital that aided Chi- Chen Yun put it at the time, “cross the This spring, in a moment reminiscent na’s awakening. In efect, Kim and Trump river by feeling for the stones.” of China’s 1978 declarations, Kim an- will be negotiating a swap: some level of —Evan Osnos

DEPT. OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS dent from “the greater Middle East” to after baseball. They were scrimmaging RELATIONS pursue a Ph.D. in liberal arts at U.C.L.A. and rubbed elbows a bit, you could say.” Their first student, from Lebanon, will Kerr began the seminar with reflec- arrive this fall. “Some people still want tions on her first year in Lebanon. She to come to our country, thankfully,” Kerr sat under a map of the Middle East. “I told a visitor. got this bee in my bonnet to study A slight octogenarian with bright eyes abroad,” she said. “I boarded a Dutch and a gray bob, Kerr conceived of her freighter: seventeen-day voyage to Bei- few hours before game three of the Perceptions seminar after 9/11. Her stu- rut from New York. The only place we A N.B.A. finals, last week, when the dents converse with Fulbright scholars stopped was Casablanca. I heard Arabic Golden State Warriors took a three-to- stationed around the world, and, these for the first time. I heard the call to prayer. zero series lead over the Cleveland Cav- days, “try not to talk about Trump—be- So magical. I got pulled in, and I still aliers, Ann Kerr gave the final talk of cause everyone is kind of on the same feel the same way.” She passed around a the semester for a U.C.L.A. seminar page about him: he’s a clown who shouldn’t photo of her roommates, “two Palestin- called Perceptions of the U.S. Abroad: be President of this great country.” ians, one Lebanese, one Iraqi, and Ann Discussions with Fulbright Scholars. For their final class, Kerr’s students Zwicker, from Santa Monica.” Kerr is the director of Southern Cali- read a chapter from her book and the Describing the period after her hus- fornia’s Fulbright Visiting Scholar Pro- prologue to “One Family’s Response to gram, the author of “Come with Me Terrorism: A Daughter’s Memoir,” writ- from Lebanon: An American Family ten by her daughter, Susan Kerr van de Odyssey,” and the mother of, as she likes Ven, which begins, “Back in the good to say, “two Ph.D.s, an M.B.A., and an old days, when terrorism was still at a N.B.A.,” the latter being the Golden nuisance level, my father used to sup- State Warriors head coach, Steve Kerr. plement the family income by writing Ann studied in Lebanon in the fifties, disaster scenarios for Middle East watch- and later married Malcolm Kerr—a ers in the U.S. government.” A few cop- Middle East scholar at U.C.L.A. and ies sit in Kerr’s oice, whose walls are the president of an American univer- covered with art and photos of her kids. sity in Lebanon—who was assassinated She told stories about each child, even- in 1984, outside his oice in Beirut, by tually pointing to a newspaper clipping members of what became Hezbollah. showing Steve, then playing for the Spurs, Last fall, after “long family discussions” guarded by Michael Jordan. She recalled about how to use a financial settlement, her son’s time with the Bulls. “Steve got the Kerrs created a scholarship for a stu- a little cross when Michael came back Ann Kerr and Steve Kerr

14 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 band’s murder, Kerr said, “In the Middle probably under some clothes somewhere. packed with tchotchkes and bric-a-brac East, the tradition of grieving is similar There are more important things.” and strange instruments that Merritt has to the Jewish tradition. Everybody sits 1—Charles Bethea found at antique shops and flea markets. around and visits. You don’t say much. Merritt’s partner, José Zayas, a theatre Pass the cofee. And then have a period TAKING STOCK director, had the idea for overhead pro- of commemoration.” She went on, “We FIFTY SONGS jections that tie the fifty songs together didn’t do all that. But we stayed in the with the selection of a hundred or so of Middle East. I just felt very comfortable his collectibles onstage. there.” Kerr moved to Egypt, reprising a Theatre is a departure for the Mag- teaching job at the American University netic Fields, an ensemble with roots in in Cairo. At the time, Steve was playing Harvard, where Gonson and two other basketball at the University of Arizona. original members were students in the “So a couple nights after the assassina- “ ’m used to sitting where I can fiddle late eighties; Merritt was at the Har- tion, his whole team wore black arm- Iwith the climate controls,” Stephin vard Extension School. “We had two bands. Tucson kind of adopted him as Merritt, the fifty-three-year-old song- or three simple rules” for staging the their son.” writer and composer, said the other day memoir, Gonson noted, as she sped Daanish Izhar, a global-studies major from the back seat of a Subaru Forester through the Holland Tunnel. “Please from Pakistan, raised his hand. “I’m belonging to Claudia Gonson, his Mag- don’t make Stephin have an epileptic sorry,” he said. “You mean Steve Kerr?” netic Fields bandmate and longtime fit,” with strobe lights, was one. “Don’t The class laughed. “Oh, my God.” manager. She was chaufeuring Merritt, use smoke so that he has an asthma at- Ann said, “Sounds like you’re a fan?” who had taught her to drive almost thir- tack” was another. And don’t aggravate “A huge fan,” Izhar said. ty-five years ago, and who is best known the artist’s hyperacusis, a hearing dis- Ann talked about her son. “It’s nice for the 1999 album “69 Love Songs.” order in which ordinary sounds can be that he uses his role to speak out on so- They were headed to a theatrical-prop painful, and the reason that Merritt cial issues. He most recently spoke out house in Rahway, New Jersey, to unpack switched from guitar to ukulele and on the N.F.L. players kneeling. Kneel- materials for a staged production of “50 Gonson from drums to piano. Onstage, ing is a sign of respect.” She added, “It’s Song Memoir,” Merritt’s most recent his three-sided town-house model will silly Trump won’t bring the Eagles to work, coming to the Apollo Theatre, in serve to sonically insulate Merritt from the White House.” (Last Tuesday, Golden Harlem, on June 15th. the other musicians. State’s Stephen Curry and Cleveland’s Merritt blew on his tea. They have At the prop house, propNspoon, the LeBron James said that their teams would had the same cafeine routine since the pair were met by their production man- decline a potential post-championship mid-nineties: Merritt, who generally ager. Merritt slowly uncrated the show’s visit. Three days later, Trump disinvited sleeps till the late morning, will have objects. There was a coatrack made from both teams.) green tea to wake up, while Gonson, an oar, a fish-shaped watering can, a Izhar agreed. After a few students dis- who is a morning person, drinks cham- Nativity scene ( Joseph and Mary are cussed their national identities, he raised omile to calm down. “Until we meet in headless), and a toy dog named Dave. his hand again. “I was raised in a small the middle,” Gonson said. There was a lidless percussion box with town in Pakistan,” he said. “I started learn- “Could there be a little bit of air?” a kid’s xylophone and noisemakers and ing English in middle school, and be- Merritt asked. He always wears clothes shakers that Merritt and Gonson had cause I was good at sports I got to go to in brown hues, to simplify wardrobe bought at the Toys R Us in Framing- a big boarding school.” He went on, “No choices. “The word I use is ‘parame- ham, Massachusetts, in the late eight- matter where you are in Pakistan, you ask ters,’” Gonson said. ies, and used in their early recordings. someone for a cigarette and they give it “Can you turn the music up or of?” Merritt’s childhood was peripatetic. to you. In America, if I ask ten people he asked. “I have a problem with music “When I was twenty-two, my mother maybe one will ofer.” He’d quit smok- I can only barely hear. It makes it im- and I sat down and figured out that we ing. “Still,” he said, “I hope I can stay here.” possible for me to follow a conversation.” had lived in thirty-three places,” he said. Later that evening, at Kerr’s hilltop The notion to do a fifty-song mem- His mother was a Buddhist seeker who home in L.A., she prepared pasta and oir to commemorate his fiftieth birth- sometimes lived on communes. “She was watched the N.B.A. finals with a few day—one song for each year—came from known to go of to Hawaii and other ex- guests. She kept an eye on Klay Thomp- Bob Hurwitz, until last year the head of otic places for Buddhist stuf,” he said. son, her favorite player, “because he’s Nonesuch Records, Merritt’s label. Hur- He grew up not knowing his father, a understated.” She also ofered advice. witz also had the idea of staging the mu- folk-rock singer named Scott Fagan. One “I’m no basketball aficionado,” she said, sical memoir, and introduced Merritt to night, when he was in his early twenties, “But Draymond shouldn’t be taking Joseph V. Melillo, the executive producer Merritt found his father’s album in a re- those three-pointers.” After the War- of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. They cord store in Boston and got so excited riors won, she went to her closet to look decided to re-create onstage a version of that he locked his keys in the car with for an N.B.A. championship ring given the upstate town house where the com- the engine running and had to call Gon- to her when Steve was on the Bulls. She poser spends half his time and does most son to come get him. He was staring at couldn’t find it. Shrugging, she said, “It’s of his work, and where every room is the cover when she arrived. “The face of

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 15 his father, which looked exactly like Ste- frequented by longshoremen and dock- this Mel Brooks musical?,’ you take a phin’s face, was huge on the record,” she workers. He wore a mint-green linen deep breath and say, ‘Yes, we can, honey,’ recalled. However, his dad’s voice was shirt and his graying beard was full but and you pack a bag of chisels and hand closer to David Bowie’s—nothing like tidy—a style that the diagram of fa- planes,” he said. He saw “Young Fran- his son’s velvety baritone. cial-hair configurations in his book “Pad- kenstein” twenty-five times. “I am a very “I have repressed this memory,” Mer- dle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fun- big fan of Megan’s work in musical com- ritt said. damentals for Delicious Living” might edy,” he said. “She can rip it, and then After Merritt became famous, his fa- categorize as the Tracker. He drank a she can snap it, and then she wraps it ther invited him to a screening of a doc- rye whiskey, neat. Near him, amid an- up with a bow, and shoves it straight up umentary about his former manager, cient nautical doodads and figurines of your keister.” He giggled. During the Doc Pomus, at Lincoln Center. They the Marx Brothers, was a framed pho- day, he’d ride his bike from Manhattan went out for Chinese food afterward. tograph of cast and crew from the movie to Red Hook and work on the canoe. Finally, out of the crate, Merritt lifted “Hearts Beat Loud,” out last week, in Once or twice a week, he and a friend Hootie, a somewhat battered but resil- which Oferman stars. He plays a strug- would go to Sunny’s for a beer, or to ient stufed owl from the early sixties, gling record-store owner (beard style: hear some bluegrass. “So Red Hook also clad in earth tones. He seemed Mr. Natural) who forms a band with his could not have been a more romantic particularly fond of it. The bird was teen-age daughter (Kiersey Clemons) setting, coming in,” he said. reminiscent of Glumpet, an owl his the summer before she leaves for col- “Hearts Beat Loud” is Oferman’s great-grandmother had crocheted for lege. Sunny’s plays itself. Ted Danson, first starring role. An Illinois native and him when he was a child. back behind the bar, plays its proprietor. a veteran of the Chicago theatre scene— Gingerly holding Hootie, Merritt The writers of “Hearts Beat Loud,” he appeared in David Cromer’s produc- said, “He will need work after the show Marc Basch and Brett Haley, whose film tion of “Adding Machine”—he is per- in Toronto,” where the production will “The Hero” Oferman appeared in last haps best known for playing the ornery, conclude at the end of June. “Touring is year, wrote the part for him. “They sent mustachioed breakfast enthusiast Ron hard on an owl, especially one from 1962.” me the script and I said, ‘This is un- Swanson, on “Parks and Recreation,” a 1—John Seabrook canny, you guys,’” Oferman said. “I built character who inspired intense fandom. my first canoe in a shop on the pier over (And tattoos.) He’s grateful for that, he THE PICTURES here,” he said, gesturing west. (He has said. “And at the same time I’m prob- FULLY REALIZED since built many canoes.) “The shop ably equally grateful that the world is had the Statue of Liberty out the win- still allowing me to get acting jobs,” dow. And Baked, the cofee shop where some not entirely Swansonesque. On I hear the song”—his character hears “Fargo,” he plays a breakfast enthusiast his band’s song playing in a café, and (with “a C. Everett Koop beard, which freaks out with head-bobbing zeal— is just hilarious”) who also has serious “and Sunny’s were my spots.” dramatic moments. On “Curb Your En- n a recent briny Tuesday afternoon Oferman and Mullally live in Los thusiasm”—in which Danson plays him- Onear the Red Hook waterfront, Angeles. His Red Hook days were in self—Oferman has played Cody, “the Nick Oferman, the actor, woodworker, 2007, when Mullally was co-starring in stage manager of Lin-Manuel Miran- author, comedian, and enthusiastic hus- “Young Frankenstein” on Broadway. da’s fatwa musical, in which F. Murray band of Megan Mullally, sat in a curved “Sometimes when your wife says, ‘Hey, Abraham plays the ayatollah.” red banquette at Sunny’s, a local bar once can we move to New York so I can do Oferman, like Mullally, is a proud self-described character actor. In col- lege, he said, he realized that, instead of pursuing the path of Tom Cruise, “it was a lot more fun to play his villains, or the guy inventing his James Bond- technology car, or his meth dealer.” One of the pleasures of Cromer’s “Adding Machine,” he said, was that veteran char- acter actors got to star. “It was like the characters of Jerry and Retta, on ‘Parks and Rec’—these character performers who had never gotten to have a solo. And suddenly it’s their show, and they’re destroying the audience.” In “Hearts Beat Loud,” Oferman’s character is a rumpled, Wilco-loving widower who smokes in his record shop “O.K., now walk forward casually.” and makes earnest pronouncements about Manhattan children attended a tea party footage is eleven thousand feet, with a in the penthouse suite at the Mark Hotel, rack rate of seventy-five thousand dol- on East Seventy-seventh Street, to road lars a night, an industrious six-year-old test the hotel’s new coloring book, “The was seated inside a canvas tepee. “I col- Colorful Mark.” It was created by the ored the hat brown, which is my third- fashion illustrator Jean-Philippe Del- favorite color,” he said, brandishing a homme, and includes elaborate line drawing of a figure in sunglasses talking drawings of what a marketing employee on a cell phone. “He’s calling his boss to for the hotel called “all the normal Mark tell him he’s in the hotel,” he added. activities”—a blowout at Frédéric Fek- Nearby, a little girl with pink-and-pur- kai, a pedicab ride to Bergdorf ’s to find ple hair ran up and down the stairs, as a dress for the Met Gala. Fekkai himself watched with admiration. “I like coloring when I’m bored, and “She has her own Instagram account,” I like it more than math at school,” Gray her mother said. Neville, age eight, said, sitting at a table A third-grade girl in a plaid Spence on the terrace. She was at the party with uniform who didn’t feel like coloring her mother, the makeup artist Gucci (“I have a hundred million coloring Nick Oferman Westman. “And from my old apartment books at home”) approached a mem- I used to draw the view sometimes.” ber of the hotel’s staf. “If Justin Bie- music. Oferman was moved when he The party was oicially hosted by ber, Maroon Five, or Selena Gomez read the script. “For the first time, I was several teen-age girls who are used to stays here, please call me,” she said. going to play a fully realized normal guy,” seeing their parents’ names in the so- Around 7 p.m., Wendi Deng, who he said. “I didn’t have to swing an axe. I ciety columns. “My mom texted me used to be married to Rupert Mur- didn’t have to wrestle a bear.” He said and told me I was doing this,” Colette doch, led her two daughters, hosts of that after shooting scenes with Clem- Rohatyn, a Spence freshman and the the party, who wore giant backpacks ons, or with Toni Collette, who plays his daughter of the gallery owner Jeanne over sundresses, toward the exit. A lit- landlord and love interest, “I would say, Greenberg Rohatyn, said. “I like to stay tle boy in a golf shirt flailed when his ‘You guys, I’ve never gotten to do this! home, so she probably thought any- mother said it was time to go. “You I’m just a vulnerable guy trying to get thing that got me out of the house said there’d be goody bags!” he wailed. this woman to kiss me, or trying to get would be a win-win.” “Well, there aren’t,” she told him. my daughter to think I’m cool.’ I was “I still color in my room to relax,” “But there should have been.” giddy like a freshman at prom.” Charlotte Callender, a freshman at On the roof, a few guests lingered Tone Balzano Johansen, the widow Trinity and the daughter of the pro- as the lights from the nearby Carlyle of the bar’s founder, Sunny Balzano, ducer Colin Callender, said. Hotel started glowing in the dusk. Renee came by to say hello. “I used to love coloring at Serafina,” Rockefeller, an art consultant, leaned “Back at the scene of the crime,” Rohatyn went on, referring to an Upper forward to look at the work of Luna Oferman said. East Side restaurant. “They used to Thurman-Busson, five, whose finger- “I’m so honored,” Johansen said, smil- have a box of crayons just for me. But nails were painted in multiple hues. ing. She opened a door, revealing an when I went back a couple of years ago, Luna lives in the hotel, Eloise style, alley, an old wagon wheel, and a pinken- when I was thirteen, they must have with her father, the financier Arpad ing sky. Harbor breezes wafted in. thought I was too old, so I had to ask Busson, when she’s not with her mother, “You’re a generous proprietor,” Ofer- for them.” At fifteen, she associates col- Uma Thurman. man said. oring with a simpler time. “It was be- “I really like that you gave the dog 1—Sarah Larson fore we had phones, so when you ran two diferent-colored ears,” Rockefel- out of things to talk about at dinner ler said. DEPT. OF HOOPLA you could play tic-tac-toe or color.” “I’m moving,” the girl said, picking CRAYONS UP Painting and coloring books emerged up her coloring book and walking away. at the end of the nineteenth century. Apple Rockefeller and Caroline Cal- Educators believed that, in addition to lender, juniors at Brearley, and the old- exposing people to art, the books helped est of the party’s hosts, were anxious to enhance cognitive abilities and improve get started on their homework. technical skills. The popularization of “Junior year is the worst,” Rocke- the crayon, in the nineteen-thirties, feller said. “But if you just do things aybe it’s not a coincidence that, brought the pastime to a wider audi- one step at a time and don’t think too Mat a time when so many public ence. About five years ago, adult col- much, you can get through it and not figures seem to be having trouble stay- oring books, marketed as “mindfulness” stress out.” ing within the lines, coloring books have tools, became hugely popular; in 2016, “Maybe that’s why we still need col- made a comeback. They are entering a fourteen million of them were sold. oring books,” Callender said. baroque phase. The other day, thirty-odd In the Mark penthouse, whose square —Bob Morris

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 17 many hidden layers, and the producers ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS wanted viewers to uncover them all. The characters, some of them played by local teen-agers, all had Instagram POSTS MODERN accounts, and, like real people’s, the posts ofered insights into the charac- An innovative teen drama advances, minute by minute, on your social-media feed. ters’ pasts and their hopes for the fu- ture. Collectively, the video clips, pho- BY D. T. MAX tographs, and comments imbued the characters with a depth that not even flashbacks provide in conventional TV. Soon after the first, six-minute clip of “skam” appeared on Facebook Watch, I developed a theory about several of the characters: long before April 24th, it seemed, Megan, a member of the school’s dance troupe, had stolen a boy named Marlon from her friend Abby, another dancer; Abby, in revenge, had shut Megan out of her life, and as a result Megan had quit the troupe. The only hint that the clip itself had ofered about the girls’ relationship was a moment of Megan’s gaze lingering on Abby as she swept by with the other dancers. To decode the implications of this split-second image, I needed to do what we often do these days after meet- ing interesting strangers at a party: I scoured the characters’ social-media ac- counts. “skam” is a kind of detective show, rewarding the viewer who is a skilled online stalker. Scrutiny of Abby’s Instagram posts suggested that she had scrubbed her account of traces of her friendship with Megan. But, as often happens with ac- tual teen-agers, she had been inexpert he first installment of the teen “dropping” on Facebook Watch, the so- in rewriting her history, forgetting to Tdrama “skam Austin” popped up cial network’s entertainment portal, in delete a video. It showed the two girls on Facebook almost without warning, accordance with the action of the show. happily taking on the “mannequin chal- on April 24th, at 3:40 p.m. Central Stan- If a couple got into a fight in school at lenge”—recording themselves suddenly dard Time. No advertising preceded it. 12:40 p.m. on a Monday, the clip showed freezing up and holding a tricky pose. No interviews with the actors or the up on the platform at exactly that time, Culturally attuned viewers would re- director accompanied its début, and the creating the uncanny impression that call that such videos became a viral clip had no production credits. It was you were watching something that was sensation at the end of 2016. This meant as if the footage were just another up- actually happening. If the producers that the rupture had occurred some- date in your Facebook feed. The show— posted a clip showing a student getting time after that date. an American version of the Norwegian dressed for a party on a Saturday night, As with all Internet products, once phenomenon “skam,” whose title means many young viewers would be doing you establish a connection to “skam” “shame”—did not take the form of con- the same thing. it’s very hard to sever it. Facebook and ventional episodes. Viewers were in- The substance of the show wasn’t Instagram send viewers constant re- stead ofered an array of scenes, of vary- that diferent from “Riverdale”: it ofered minders to log back in and stay up to ing lengths, shot in and around a high the usual roundelay of broken hearts, date: “abby_tafy just posted a photo”; school in Texas’s capital. One clip was bruised feelings, and hookups. Teens “Skam Austin posted a new episode two minutes long; another was eight. kissed. They zoned out in class. They on Facebook Watch.” (These messages These fragments began sporadically shared earbuds. But “skam Austin” had appeared on my phone’s lock screen next to announcements of my daugh- “SKAM” is a kind of detective show, encouraging viewers to be skilled online stalkers. ter’s Instagram posts about our family’s

18 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY R. KIKUO JOHNSON puppy.) The notices help viewers keep vices. The average teen-ager spends al- being heard, and that what they’re see- abreast of the basic story, but to get most nine hours a day consuming media ing is true—or close enough—experi- maximum pleasure from “skam” you online, and sends or receives more than ence “skam” less as an alternative re- must constantly burrow into the latest a hundred text messages. ality than as an extension of their own Instagram Stories or screenshots of There is a clear creative opportunity lives. By inserting a story so skillfully texts. Internet viewing is always as in this shift away from the network into our digital domains, and keeping much about what everyone else is model. What if all these seemingly dis- us endlessly tethered to that story, watching and thinking as about what parate activities and digital platforms “skam” may be the future of TV. you’re watching and thinking—schol- could be marshalled into a single nar- ars talk about the medium’s “emotional rative—a Gesamtkunstwerk for the In- n April, a few days before the first contagion.” And “skam” is addictive ternet age? Would it make the old-fash- Iclip was posted, I met Julie Andem, in precisely the same way that social ioned television episode seem as antique the Norwegian creator of “skam,” at a media can be addictive. If you miss out as black-and-white TV did once color café in Austin, across the street from on too many details, you’ll feel as if sets appeared? The time seems right her production oice. Facebook Watch you’d been demoted to sitting alone in for an experiment like “skam.” In an had relocated her from Oslo to over- the school cafeteria. era of short attention spans, it can seem see the American production, and she The fictional social media of “skam atavistic to watch a half-hour series, let was still writing and directing new Austin” soon generated real social alone binge-watch it. “Engagement” is scenes. A key reason that “skam” felt media—fervid discussion on every- the key metric for the online indus- fresh to viewers, she told me, was that thing from Tumblr to Twitter. For an try—advertisers want to pay for how its clips are shot very shortly before obsessed viewer, there’s no limit to the often you like, post, and click, rather they air. Among other things, this ap- amount of time that can be spent on than for how long you passively watch— proach allowed Andem to take into “skam Austin” fan pages. The Inter- and “skam,” with its clifhangers and account fan feedback and contempo- net, by leaving you feeling uniquely its multiple entry points, is designed to rary events. After the show started, a alone, paradoxically encourages human inspire passionate engagement. Fidji character posted that he wanted tick- interaction. Megan and Marlon im- Simo, the head of Facebook Watch, ets for an upcoming Kendrick Lamar mediately became the cynosure of le- told me, “‘skam’ was just the perfect concert in Austin. Lamar performed gions of online commenters, many of fit for the kind of content we wanted in the city on May 18th,and the story whom assessed the couple as if they to do more of.” Indeed, Facebook, which that day revolved around the concert. were real. One poster wrote, “Not to has been losing young users to You- To heighten the sense that “skam” is get too deep and personal here, but I Tube and Snapchat, needs such pro- unspooling in real time, Andem adopts had an exchange with a friend who also gramming to attract them. And what visual techniques that mimic the lat- happens to be an ex, and it made me better way to advertise Facebook than est fads on social media. One of the think of Marlon and Meg, and I hadn’t by creating a show in which all the characters posted a makeup tutorial realized it until today. It might be why characters use Facebook? that looks just like those currently pop- I have such red flags about them.” She Two weeks into the series, a five- ular on YouTube. The timeliness of the asked if anyone else felt the same way. minute clip introduced the heartthrob characters’ status updates can be un- Soon afterward, another poster wrote, of the football team. The first gif of settling. On the day of the recent school “Relaaaaaaaaaaate.” him appeared online before the clip shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, two char- Conventional TV is a one-way street: finished. By the end of the day, one acters put up distraught Instagram you sit in front of a screen and watch poster had put up twenty-two images posts. One of them posted a map of an episode. Just as you must be static in extracted from the footage. I happened Texas with a heart over Santa Fe and order to finish watching it, the program to be watching the clip drop that day the caption “Why tf does this keep itself is static: it had to be written, filmed, with the Facebook Watch social-media happening?” (Audience members re- and edited to a conventional length. It staf, and even they seemed surprised sponded with emotion: “Because we represents a producer’s best guess about by the barrage of fan activity it sparked. live in a country that thinks owning a what will interest you (and, when there Depending on your point of view, gun is far more important than the are commercials, an advertiser’s best “skam” is either ingenious or cynical lives of innocent kids”; “We need to guess about what viewers like you will in the ways it rewards audience en- stand together and fight until real buy). The model proved stable for more gagement: if you follow the Instagram change happens!”) than fifty years, but it has crumbled in accounts of the characters, they will Andem had come to the café with the age of YouTube, Facebook, and Twit- sometimes follow you back. With her social-media director, Mari Mag- ter. According to a recent Nielsen re- “skam,” you’re not only an integral part nus, a fellow-Norwegian, who plays a port, millennials spend twenty-seven of the spectacle; you’re also a producer. crucial role in the show’s production. per cent less time watching TV pro- The show’s creators monitor fan com- Andem shoots the main show; Mag- grams (including streaming ones) than mentary and sometimes respond to it nus shoots the Instagram Stories—col- do older viewers. Every day, YouTube by changing plot details on the fly. lages of video, text, and photographs— has an average of five billion views, more Viewers, teased by Facebook and the that play of Andem’s scripts. Magnus than a billion of them from mobile de- creators into believing that they are also posts comments on Instagram in

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 19 the guises of the characters. (“It is a bit executive, told me. So the network asked the start of a new one. As Andem puts creepy,” Andem has said of this ven- Andem and Magnus to talk with Nor- it, “Everything’s exciting and scary.” triloquism.) Dressed in black tops and wegian girls between the ages of sixteen She captures this intensity with her pants, the two women looked like Eu- and eighteen and find out what they heightened filming style: claustropho- ropean tourists on their way to Marfa, longed to watch. Within eight months, bic closeups of teens arguing on video but they had been in Austin since Oc- Andem and Magnus had amassed sev- chat; streaky, slow-motion pans of friends tober, doing very little besides work- eral hundred interviews, and identified dancing at a party. ing on the show. the need for a show that helped teens In Austin, Andem had been re- Simon Fuller, the creator of “Amer- feel less overwhelmed and isolated. searching teen life in Texas, trying “to ican Idol,” who bought the English- They thought that it would be for- understand why Americans are the way language rights to “skam” tifying for teen-agers to they are.” (Most Norwegian teens, Mag- in 2016 and then partnered witness fictional young peo- nus noted, simply go to school and go with Facebook Watch, told ple navigating the treach- home, whereas American teens are end- me that he had made the erous waters of social life lessly involved in after-school activi- deal because he was im- and social media—and sur- ties.) As in Norway, the Austin story pressed by Andem’s sensi- viving them. lines had been shaped, to some extent, bility. “To be honest with The Internet component by conversations with teens. In an at- you, I couldn’t see past of “skam,” Andem said, had tempt to find nonprofessional actors, Julie,” he told me. Andem, efectively been repurposed “skam Austin” had scouted talent at who until now has worked from shows for preteens local skate parks and high schools. only in Norway, seems to that she had helped develop Fourteen hundred kids showed up for have little interest in Hol- for NRK. But the audiences an audition at the casting agent’s oice, lywood fame. The executive producer of those shows had been too young to and Andem saw half of them herself. of the original “skam” told me that participate fully in an online realm. She warmed the candidates up with Andem was unusually gifted at direct- (Oicially, Facebook and Instagram are improv games. “Everything they im- ing young people. When I asked Andem of limits to users younger than thir- provise yields information about who about this, she said, “Yes, I probably teen.) The older audience for “skam” they are,” she pointed out. “That’s part have an instinct, but I’m not aware of could efortlessly integrate the show of the study of who American teens what I do.” She noted, “As soon as you into the unfurling drama of their on- are.” She favors teens who volunteer start to comment on your own work, line lives. their thoughts on the script. If some- then some of the magic of the story Andem and her colleagues knew one tells her, “I wouldn’t say this line,” goes away. Audiences want their own that teens spent time on the Internet, she changes it. experience.” Her deflections were con- in part, because they could discover Andem wants the dialogue on sistent with how “skam” feels: a viewer things there that their parents didn’t “skam” to feel raw and unscripted. She experiences the show less as the vision want them to see. So when “skam” films rehearsals, because a less polished of a single auteur than as a vision in- débuted on NRK’s Web site, in Sep- take often strikes her as the best. And tended for a single viewer. tember, 2015, it arrived without adver- she is excited by the dramatic novel- I had expected Andem to tell me tising or publicity. “We were terrified ties of the multi-platform format. She about her struggle to create the per- they would hear their mothers say that spoke of a moment in the middle of fect digital entertainment—or about NRK had recently made an awesome the Norwegian show’s second season, an insatiable corporation’s desire to show for young people,” Andem ex- when an ethereal young woman named commandeer eyeballs. Instead, she said plained to Rushprint, a Norwegian film Noora was waiting for a call or a text that “skam” had begun at the Norwe- magazine. The ploy worked: teens found from William, a young man with whom gian public-television network NRK, “skam” by word of mouth. By the end she was having a relationship. They had which is essentially the BBC of Nor- of Season 2, ninety-eight per cent of had a fight, and she hadn’t heard from way, where she was working in the chil- Norwegian teens between fifteen and him since. This was fairly conventional dren’s division. Before making a show, nineteen knew about the show—more dramatic material, but with scenes being producers in the division conduct in- than knew about “Game of Thrones.” posted in real time, Andem said, Noo- depth interviews of their target audi- It helped that “skam” was a fast- ra’s predicament felt agonizing. In an ence. “They try to find the need, and paced, sexually explicit drama about era of instant gratification and total then they make something to meet that the turbulent lives of aluent sixteen- information, frustration turns out to need,” Andem explained. The tech- year-olds at an Oslo high school, and be one of the most powerful sources nique had been pioneered in Silicon that it dealt with pivotal issues in teen of drama. For about a week, William Valley, to help techies figure out what life: coming out, sexual assault, ethnic kept silent—no clip dropped. Andem devices were missing from our lives. discrimination. But the true secret of recalled that other employees in the NRK had noticed that its program- the show’s success was that it was mostly NRK oices were “just sitting there, ming wasn’t reaching older teen girls. “It about how it feels to be in high school— refreshing the ‘skam’ page” on their had lost them to YouTube and Netflix,” when a social gafe feels like the end computer screens. She and Magnus Marianne Furevold-Boland, an NRK of the world, and a first kiss feels like took further advantage of the moment

20 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 after noticing, in the comments sec- shuttling among YouTube and Insta- viewers were doing by following them. tion of the show’s Web site, a young gram and Facebook Messenger. A teen- The Internet has a possessive impera- woman’s lament: “I can’t concentrate on age “skam” fan named Daniel Mo was tive—you want to grab what you see my exam until William has answered.” at first mystified by the show’s struc- before it disappears—and many “skam” Andem and Magnus transferred these tural complexity, given that its story posters had aligned themselves with words to one of Noora’s friends, who lines could have been told the old-fash- particular characters, as if choosing typed them during a group chat with ioned way. Mo said, “I remember ask- sides in a football game. One chose Noora. Scripted drama had morphed ing myself, ‘Is this really necessary?’ Kelsey. A second wrote, “Megan to- into real drama, and then morphed And the answer is yes.” One day, he re- tally represented me when hot guys back into fictional drama. alized that he was giving “likes” to posts walk in front of me.” Another declared, “skam” ran for four seasons, and be- by “skam” characters, just as he did to “Jo’s still my fave.” A fourth announced, came a worldwide phenomenon. Four posts by close friends. Because “skam” “Grace is my current mood.” thousand fan fictions were written about flowed seamlessly into his social-media Andem had told me that she enjoys the characters. France, Germany, and accounts, his sudden awareness of a watching soap operas, and I suspected Italy produced their own versions of character’s troubles often caught him that the ugly personal history between the show. On Weibo, the Chinese coun- of guard, and he was genuinely moved. Megan and Abby would not be for- terpart to YouTube, subtitled clips of Mo responded to my question on a gotten. I wasn’t disappointed. A fur- the Norwegian “skam” were viewed a Wednesday at 10 p.m.—a time when ther interrogation of Megan’s Insta- hundred and eighty million times. teen-agers tend to be on their phones. gram account revealed that, on New “skam Austin” was thirteen days old, Year’s Day, 2018, she had posted an raditionally, the television screen has and twelve scenes had dropped, which image of a sunset captioned with the Tnot been something that you com- amounted to about seventy-six min- words “They say time heals all wounds municate with; it’s like a professor lec- utes of footage. The audience had met but how can it when you’re so hurt”; a turing. Your smartphone is a friend who the four girls who, along with Megan, post nine days later promised, “This is has your ear. You gossip, plan, and hang formed the core of the ensemble, and going to be my year.” out with it. It is axiomatic that the way had watched them flirt, quarrel, hug, After “skam Austin” launched, forty- we tell stories changes as new technol- and dis. (Sarah Heyward, a television one Instagram posts by Megan became ogy emerges; the rise of the novel would writer who worked on “Girls,” had been public. A selfie that she had taken in have been impossible without cheap paper collaborating with Andem on the front of a mirror included, on a wall in and movable type. But it’s also true that scripts.) The characters spent a lot of the background, an old photograph of a story is responsive to the environment time with their noses nearly touching her in a dance leotard. I was initially con- in which it’s told. Ghost stories gain en- portable screens, trying to make sense fused by the post’s date—October 10, ergy from lambent campfire; a roman- of their world, which is exactly what 2017—because Facebook Watch didn’t tic kiss becomes more intense when it is flickering on the gigantic screen of a darkened movie theatre. Almost since the start of the smart- phone era, film and TV producers have been trying to figure out how to capi- talize on our new habit of jumping from one screen to the next. At first, many of these eforts felt like tricks. In 2006, a video blog called lonelygirl15 featured an ordinary-seeming teen-ager who posted regular updates about her life on YouTube and interacted with her fans on her MySpace page. The teen-ager was later revealed to be an actress; the events were fictional. In 2000, “Big Brother,” a reality show on CBS, in which roommates conspire against one another, was supplemented with streaming footage of the contes- tants, but it seemed to be an after- thought, like the outtakes included on the DVD of a film. With “skam,” the multi-platform approach feels organic—after all, the characters themselves are constantly “Hey, remember a few days ago, when all this was unacceptable?” announce that it had acquired “skam” Marlon were real. Another poster ex- menters treated her as just another fan: until about a week afterward. Looking plained to him that “skam” was a show. “yes i love skam too omg,” a poster further, I could see that the two girls’ Drake.301 said he knew that, but he called N.UEaO wrote. Hofman told accounts included posts that had sup- seemed to think that he was watching me, “It’s about injecting our work into posedly appeared in the summer of reality TV. “Are they really a couple?” the right places, seamlessly.” 2016. I thought about how thrilled Mag- he asked. A user named its_ayliin set The show is structurally so dazzling nus and Andem must have been when him straight: “These accounts & posts that it’s possible to overlook the fact they realized that, because Facebook are only for the purpose of the show, that it also represents an advance in in- owns Instagram, “skam” characters they aren’t real life.” vasive corporate entertainment. During could now have fake Instagram histo- the week of Kendrick Lamar’s concert, ries that went back years. or people who find the digital hop- his songs accompanied one slow- In a scene that dropped on the day Fscotch of “skam” too frenetic, the motion shot after another, and Me- that Megan’s account became public, clips are packaged into compilations at gan’s Instagram account posted a pho- she video-chatted with a friend who the end of each week. More closely re- tograph of Marlon with the caption had been with Marlon at another sembling ordinary TV “episodes,” they “damn.”—the title of Lamar’s 2017 schoolmate’s house. “We left hours include credits, theme music, and Face- album. Like so many Internet creations, ago,” the friend told Megan. Later, book Watch’s logo. Within two and a “skam” seems liberatory in its clever- Megan asked Marlon where he’d been, half weeks of the launch of “skam Aus- ness, but, like the latest killer app, its and he claimed that he’d just left the tin,” the first compilation had accumu- ultimate purpose is to make money. schoolmate’s house. Megan suspected lated 7.4 million views. Individual clips Andem acknowledged that “skam” that Marlon was secretly hooking up were averaging around a hundred and was trying to manipulate viewers for with Abby. So did viewers. “Anyone fifty thousand views. These numbers maximum engagement, but she has else think Marlon is cheating?” one seemed impressive—recently, the sea- insisted that she is not making it in poster asked, garnering fifty-four likes son première of “Riverdale” attracted order to become rich. Her aim, she and thirty-four comments. only 2.3 million viewers—but they may said, is to help American teens feel Fans soon noticed that, on Marlon’s be misleading, since Facebook defines less alone. “I think that it’s maybe more Instagram account, a comment from a “view” as someone looking at a video important for the teens here, because Abby had appeared at the bottom of for at least three seconds. Facebook can it feels like they are even more depen- one of his posts: “call me.” What did easily tabulate how many viewers are dent than Norwegian teens,” she told this mean? Screenshots of Abby’s com- watching an entire clip and how many me. Since moving to Texas, she said, ment spread across social media. are quickly clicking away, but it guards she had been surprised to discover Minutes later, another clip appeared such information closely. I kept asking how much time American teens spend on Facebook Watch, which showed for these numbers, but Facebook exec- with their parents. Megan opening her Instagram feed utives declined to provide them. True to its roots in public television, and clicking on the post from Marlon. During the show’s second week, I “skam” attempts to educate its audi- She saw Abby’s comment and did met with its social-strategy manager, ence, and its primary theme is that, if a double take. She anxiously looked Michael Hofman, who, with a razor- you keep trying, things will come out through Abby’s Instagram account, fade haircut and joggers, looked young all right in the end. In the Norwegian then tried to call Marlon, but was sent enough to be Marlon’s best friend. I version, the girl who is slut-shamed for to voice mail. She returned to Marlon’s had the impression that an online fan kissing someone else’s boyfriend faces account. Abby’s comment had van- community for “skam” had emerged down her tormentors. A young man ished! Who had deleted it? Abby or spontaneously, but Hofman told me who attempts to suppress his homo- Marlon was the only possibility. The that he had carefully guided the process, sexuality winds up accepting himself. clip closed in on Megan’s face: you could in part by creating Facebook groups And since the U.S. version seems to see her drawing the same conclusion. and Instagram pages to encourage in- echo most of the Norwegian show’s Viewers checked the fake Insta- teractivity. Facebook Watch, I learned, broad plot points—as did iterations in gram account en masse, and discov- had generated some of the gifs on the France, Germany, and Italy—some- ered that Abby’s comment had indeed Instagram fan page; a young female fan thing similar is likely to happen in Aus- disappeared. on Instagram, who had posted a pho- tin. Predicting how much “skam Aus- Ideally, the “skam” viewer experi- tograph of herself with “skam” scrawled tin” will deviate from the original is a enced this sequence on two screens— across her chest in hot-pink lipstick, major source of engagement on fan one opened to Facebook and the other was a paid “influencer.” sites, but, whatever the variations, the to Instagram. It was a bit of drama that Most fans didn’t seem to be both- show’s message will be the same: shame seemed designed expressly for digital ered by such tactics—the influencer’s is transitory; growth is lasting. “Teen- savants. Some viewers had clearly been photograph received twelve hundred agers need to build their self-esteem left behind. “Why’d you delete @abby_ likes on the “skam” fan page. The In- so that they are capable of being their tafy’s comment?” one poster asked, stagram page of Pameluft, another paid own individuals, and making decisions receiving thirty-three likes. A poster influencer, noted that her posts about on their own,” Andem said. “And ‘skam’ named drake.301 asked if Megan and “skam” were “sponsored,” yet com- inspires young people to do that.” 

22 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 many found hurtful, did things that SHOUTS & MURMURS many thought inappropriate, posted things that many considered somewhat racist. And, yes, other mistakes were made. The pistol-whipping episode— he felt bad about that. We all did. That incident in the restaurant, with the chafing dish of flaming cherries jubi- lee and the business writer from the Times? There was no excuse for that. That’s why we’re coming clean. We want you to know that we know that we cheated on certain emissions tests. We sourced our lettuce from provid- ers who, epidemiologists now tell us, were not vetted as scrupulously as they could have been, or at all. And then came the spam, the fake news, the bots, the manipulation of our platform by the Russians, and other things we ourselves didn’t really do but were done somehow, by someone. Peo- ple began to believe things that weren’t literally true. It afected elections in our country and in other countries. There were riots. Governments fell. Political prisoners were executed en masse. It was a bad “look.” Did we know that our smart speaker was secretly recording your family’s conversations and forwarding Danish translations of them to WikiLeaks? Probably not. Did we know that our facial-recognition software could be spoofed by someone wearing a rubber WE’RE SORRY King Kong mask? We do now. And so we’re going to fix things. BY ELLIS WEINER We’re instituting a new culture—a cul- ture of listening, and of telling you that we’re listening, and of keeping you in- e know. We messed up. consin, was evicted from their homes. formed about our new culture. We’re WWe had your trust, your loyalty, Why? Maybe because we cared too implementing a policy of enhanced your Social Security numbers . . . and much. Maybe because our field repre- background checks, so you can be confi- now we’ve lost all that. Somehow, we sentatives were driven to succeed, to dent that the employee who sulks or forgot what really matters. maximize profits, to meet or exceed snaps at you or harasses you has a bach- Is it enough to say we’re sorry? We target sales numbers by any means nec- elor’s degree or better. We’re writing new don’t think so. Because we want to make essary. If that meant sitting down with algorithms to make sure that the news things right. And that starts with ad- clients, negotiating with clients, ab- items you see in your feed are at least mitting to what we did—owning it— ducting clients from their places of partly a hundred per cent true. We’re even when it wasn’t entirely our fault, employment, drugging clients, and eliminating target sales goals for local because nothing really happened. confining clients to this or that motel branch managers and announcing a pol- So, yes, accounts were created that in the New Mexico desert until they icy of paying bonuses only for perfor- perhaps should not have been, in the saw things our way, why, then, that’s mance that exceeds a certain minimum. names of customers who perhaps were what somebody caused to happen. We’re doing all this and more be- unaware of them, or of us. Incorrect Does it really matter who? Of course cause we want to win back your trust. fees were charged. Credit ratings were it does. And the answer is our C.E.O. If we can’t win back your trust, then we’ll improperly annihilated. People got He was so notoriously colorful and de- make every efort to at least win back sick, pets died in transit, and the en- monstrative and vindictive that he cre- your business. Is that too much to ask?

LUCI GUTIÉRREZ LUCI tire population of Green Valley, Wis- ated a bad culture. He said things that We don’t think so. O.K.? Please? 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 23 is to know don’t know. When it came THE DIGITAL AGE out that the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal information of more than fifty million NOWHERE TO HIDE Facebook users and ofered it to cli- ents, including the Trump campaign, Why do we care about privacy? the Times’ lead consumer-technology writer published a column titled “I BY LOUIS MENAND Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes.” He was astonished at how much of his per- sonal data Facebook had stored and the long list of companies it had been sold to. Somehow, he had never thought to look into this before. How did he think Facebook became a five-hundred- and-sixty-billion-dollar company? It did so by devising the most successful system ever for compiling and purvey- ing consumer data. And data security wasn’t even an issue: Cambridge Analytica didn’t hack anyone. An academic researcher posted an online survey and invited people to participate by downloading an app. The app gave the researcher access not just to personal information in the partici- pants’ Facebook accounts (which Face- book allows) but to the personal infor- mation of all their “friends” (which Facebook allowed at the time). Cam- bridge Analytica, which hired the re- searcher, was thus able to collect the personal data of Facebook users who had never downloaded the app. Face- book at first refused to characterize this as a security breach—all the informa- tion was legally accessed, although it was not supposed to be sold—and con- tinues to insist that it has no plans to he reason you’ve been receiving a might be storing our clicks or what provide recompense. Tsteady stream of privacy-policy they’re doing with our personal infor- Cambridge Analytica isn’t the only updates from online services, some of mation. It is weird, at first, when our threat to digital privacy. The Supreme which you may have forgotten you ever devices seem to “know” where we live Court is set to decide the fate of Timo- subscribed to, is that the European or how old we are or what books we thy Carpenter, who, in 2014, was con- Union just enacted the General Data like or which brand of toothpaste we victed of participating in a series of armed Protection Regulation, which gives use. Then we grow to expect this fa- robberies on the basis, in part, of records users greater control over the informa- miliarity, and even to like it. It makes obtained by the police from his cell-phone tion that online companies collect about the online world seem customized for company. These showed the location of them. Since the Internet is a global us, and it cuts down on the time we the cell-phone towers his calls were medium, many companies now need need to map the route home or order routed through, and that information to adhere to the E.U. regulation. something new to read. The machine placed him near the scenes of the crimes. How many of us are going to take anticipates what we want. Carpenter was sentenced to a hundred the time to scroll through the new pol- But, as it has become apparent in and sixteen years in prison. The Court icies and change our data settings, the past year, we don’t really know who is being asked to rule on whether the though? We sign up to get the service, is seeing our data or how they’re using collection of the cell-phone company’s but we don’t give much thought to who it. Even the people whose business it records violated his constitutional rights. The government’s position (argued Amid ever-evolving technologies, the law is always playing catch-up. before the Court last fall by Michael

24 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY SEB AGRESTI Dreeben, a Deputy Solicitor General, trolleys and buses. The broadcasts to think. “The right of privacy,” Doug- who is currently assisting the Mueller were mostly music, with some com- las concluded, “is a powerful deter- investigation) relies on what is known mercials and announcements, and were rent to any one who would control as the third-party doctrine. Police can- not loud enough to prevent riders men’s minds.” not listen in on your phone conversa- from talking to one another. On the Douglas did not coin the phrase “the tions without a warrant. But since Car- other hand, riders could not not hear right to be let alone.” It appears in one penter knowingly revealed his location them. Complaints were received, and of the most famous law-review articles to a third party, his cell-phone service a survey was duly commissioned. The ever written, “The Right to Privacy,” provider, that information—called meta- survey found that ninety-two per cent by Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, data—is not protected. It can be ob- of bus and trolley riders did not have published in the Harvard Law Review tained with a court order, equivalent to a a problem with the broadcasts. So in 1890. (Warren and Brandeis took it subpoena, which is served on the pro- they continued. from an 1879 treatise on tort law.) And vider, not the customer. The third-party Two customers, however, chose to “The Right to Privacy” is where Sarah doctrine dates from a 1979 case, Smith v. take a stand. They were Franklin Pol- Igo begins “The Known Citizen” (Har- Maryland, and it has been used to ob- lak and Guy Martin, and they happened vard), her mighty efort to tell the story tain, for example, suspects’ bank records. to be lawyers. These gentlemen sued of modern America as a story of anx- The third-party doctrine is what made the city. Being compelled to listen to ieties about privacy. legal the use of a pen register, a device a radio program not of their choosing Igo’s first book, “The Averaged that records all outgoing and incoming on a public bus, they maintained, rep- American,” was a well-received study of calls, on the phones of Donald Trump’s resented an unlawful deprivation of how twentieth-century social research- lawyer Michael Cohen. Rather more liberty under the Constitution. The ers created the idea of a “mass public.” consequentially, it was the legal justifi- case made it all the way to the United Her new efort has to be mighty be- cation for the National Security Agen- States Supreme Court. cause, as she admits at the start, pri- cy’s collection of metadata for all the The Court handed down its deci- vacy is a protean concept—“elastic” incoming and outgoing calls of every sion in 1952. A bus, it said, is not like is the term she uses—and, once you person in the United States between 2001 a home. It is a public space, and in a start looking for it, it pops up almost and 2015. You “gave” that information to public space the public interest pre- everywhere. Every new technologi- your phone service, just as you gave your vails. As long as the city government cal, legal, and cultural development credit-card company information about has the comfort, safety, and convenience seems to have prompted someone to where and when you bought your last of its riders at heart, it can run its trans- worry about the imminent death of iced latte and how much you paid for it. portation system any way it wants. Pol- privacy. In the nineteenth century, The government can obtain that infor- lak and Martin had no more right to people were shocked by the intro- mation with minimal judicial oversight. demand quiet on the bus than they had duction of postcards, which invited Meanwhile, of course, Alexa is lis- to tell the driver where to stop. strangers to read your mail. Mail was tening. Last month, an Oregon cou- The vote was 7–1. One Justice, Felix supposed to be private. ple’s domestic conversation (about hard- Frankfurter, recused himself. Frank- The Muzak case is not in Igo’s book, wood floors, they said) was recorded furter explained that his own aversion but plenty else is. She takes on tele- by Echo, Amazon’s “smart speaker” for to Muzak was so visceral—“my feel- graphy, telephony, instantaneous pho- the home, which sent it as an audio file ings are so strongly engaged as a vic- tography (snapshots), dactyloscopy to one of the husband’s employees. Am- tim,” he wrote—that he was incapable (fingerprinting), Social Security num- azon called the event “an extremely rare of attaining the degree of disinterest- bers, suburbanization, the Minnesota occurrence”—that is, not a systemic se- edness necessary to render a judgment. Multiphasic Personality Inventory, curity issue. (This posture is pretty much Felix Frank- Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, The good that is said to sit at the furter in a nutshell.) abortion rights, gay liberation, human- nexus of these developments in tech- The lone dissenter was William O. subject research, the Family Educa- nology, commerce, and the law is pri- Douglas. Douglas was a judicial ren- tional Rights and Privacy Act, “60 vacy. “It’s private!” kids are always yell- egade, with little concern for prece- Minutes,” Betty Ford, the 1973 PBS ing at their parents and siblings, which dent. “We write,” he began his dis- documentary “An American Family,” suggests that there is something pri- sent, “on a clean slate.” Finding no the Starr Report, the memoir craze, mal about the need for privacy, for se- rule, he provided one. Freedom was blogging, and social media. Igo is an crecy, for hiding places and personal the issue, he explained, and “the be- intelligent interpreter of the facts, and space. These are things we seem to ginning of all freedom” is “the right her intelligence frequently leads her want. But do we have a right to them? to be let alone”—that is, the right to to the conclusion that “privacy” lacks privacy. To Douglas, more was at stake any stable significance. Privacy is as- n 1948, the District of Columbia, than annoying background music. sociated with liberty, but it is also as- Iin an arrangement with Muzak, the Forcing people to listen to the radio, sociated with privilege (private roads company that sells background music he said, is a step on the road to total- and private sales), with confidential- for stores and hotel lobbies, began itarianism. If you can tell people what ity (private conversations), with non- piping radio broadcasts into the city’s to listen to, you can tell people what conformity and dissent, with shame

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 25 and embarrassment, with the deviant times.) Eight years later, Griswold was ment that every citizen carry an I.D. and the taboo (Igo does not go there), a key precedent in another case about card seems un-American, but we all and with subterfuge and concealment. reproductive rights, Roe v. Wade. “The memorize our Social Security numbers Sometimes, as in Douglas’s dissent, right to privacy,” the Court said in that and recite the last four digits pretty privacy functions as a kind of default case, “is broad enough to encompass a much any time we’re asked. right when an injury has been inflicted woman’s decision whether or not to A lot of people considered reports and no other right seems to suit the terminate her pregnancy.” about which videos Clarence Thomas case. Douglas got a second crack at ap- rented to be relevant to the question plying his theory of privacy as a con- go notes that often privacy is sim- of whether he was qualified to sit on stitutional right in 1965, in the case of Iply a weapon that comes to hand in the Supreme Court, and a lot of peo- Griswold v. Connecticut. At issue was social combat. People invoke their right ple hoped that someone would leak a Connecticut law that made the use to privacy when it serves their inter- Donald Trump’s income-tax returns. of contraception a crime. “Specific guar- ests. This is obviously true of “fruit of But many of the same people were in- antees in the Bill of Rights,” Douglas the poisonous tree” arguments, as when dignant about the publication of the wrote for the Court, “have penumbras, defendants ask the court to throw out Starr Report, on the Oval Oice sex- formed by emanations from those guar- evidence obtained in an unauthorized capades of Bill Clinton. Sex is sup- antees that help give them life and sub- search. But it’s also true when celebri- posed to be private. stance.” The right to privacy was formed ties complain that their privacy is being Privacy has value, in other words, out of such emanations. invaded by photographers and gossip and, as Igo points out, sometimes the What places contraception beyond columnists. Reporters intrude on pri- value is realized by hoarding it and the state’s police powers—its right to vacy in the name of the public’s “right sometimes it’s realized by cashing it pass laws to protect the health and wel- to know,” and are outraged when asked out. Once, it was thought that gay peo- fare of its citizens? The answer, Doug- to reveal their sources. ple were better of keeping their sexu- las said, is something that predates the People are inconsistent about the ality secret. Then it was decided that Constitution: the institution of mar- kind of exposure they’ll tolerate. We they were better of making their sex- riage. “Marriage is a coming together don’t like to be fingerprinted by gov- uality public, and, almost overnight, for better or for worse, hopefully en- ernment agencies, a practice we asso- privacy became a sign of hypocrisy. during, and intimate to the degree of ciate with mug shots and state surveil- In the nineteen-seventies and eight- being sacred,” he wrote. It is beyond lance, but we happily hand our ies, people began making themselves politics and even beyond law. (Doug- thumbprints over to Apple, which does famous, and sometimes wealthy, by ex- las, incidentally, was married four God knows what with them. A require- posing their and other people’s lives on television and in books. Some of these glimpses into private life were stage- managed, like the TV show “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” Some were exposés, like many of the books and programs about the Kennedys. And some, like “An American Family,” the PBS documentary about the Loud family, were both revealing and self- promoting. But reality shows and con- fessional memoirs did not mark the death of privacy. On the contrary, they confirmed how valuable a commodity privacy is.

rivacy is especially valuable to crim- Pinals. The same Fourth Amend- ment rights that prohibit the govern- ment from entering your home and listening to your conversations with- out a warrant also protect people en- gaged in illegal activities. Figuring out when law enforcement is crossing the line in getting the goods on criminal suspects has been an unending job for the courts. “I’m at that point in my life when I don’t want my parents to tell The job is unending because tech- me what to do but I still want to blame them for it.” nology is always changing. The govern- ment now has many methods besides Olmstead. Charles Katz lived in an tapping into your phone wire—you apartment house on Sunset Boulevard, probably don’t even have a phone wire— in Los Angeles. Almost every day, he for finding out what you’re up to. How walked down the street to a bank of far the constitutional right to privacy three telephone booths, entered one of can be made to stretch is the subject them, and made a long-distance call. of Cyrus Farivar’s lively history of re- Katz was a handicapper; he was call- cent Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, ing his bookie, in Massachusetts. He “Habeas Data: Privacy vs. the Rise of had been making his living this way Surveillance Tech” (Melville House). for thirty years. DID! Warren and Brandeis’s article on To catch him, the F.B.I. placed mi- privacy, back in 1890, said nothing crophones on top of two of the phone Special about the Constitution. It argued that booths and put an “Out of Order” sign commemorative a right to privacy is inherent in the on the third. After recording Katz for edition on common law, and generated various six days, agents arrested him and ob- “privacy torts,” such as the disclosure tained a warrant to search his apart- newsstands now of private facts or the unauthorized ment, where they found ample evi- use of someone’s name or likeness. Igo dence of gambling. The question before is a bit dismissive of “The Right to the Supreme Court was whether the Privacy.” She calls it “a strategy for re- use of microphones on the phone establishing proper social boundaries booths violated Katz’s Fourth Amend- and regulating public morality”—an ment rights. attempt by the privileged to keep un- The Fourth Amendment had al- wanted photographs and salacious ways been understood in terms of tres- gossip out of the newspapers by threat- pass. It prohibits the government from ening legal action. And it is true that violating the sanctity of private prop- privacy, like many civil rights, can serve erty—a home or an oice—without a as a protection for property owners warrant. But Katz was not in a home and the status quo generally. But in- or an oice. He was in a public space. side “The Right to Privacy” was a time It may have seemed wrong for the F.B.I. bomb, and, almost forty years later, it to listen in on his conversations with- CEREMONY went of. out a warrant, but it was hard, under Roy Olmstead was a big-time Se- existing jurisprudence, to explain why attle bootlegger who was convicted of it was unconstitutional. conspiracy to violate the Prohibition The Court found a fix. Persuaded Act, in part on the basis of evidence by Katz’s attorney, Harvey Schneider, gathered through government wire- and by a young lawyer clerking for Jus- taps. In Olmstead v. United States, de- tice Potter Stewart, Laurence Tribe cided in 1928, the Supreme Court (now a well-known Harvard law pro- airmed the conviction. But Louis fessor), it changed its interpretation of Elton, Oprah ... and more Brandeis was now an Associate Justice the Fourth Amendment. The right to on the Court, and he filed a dissent. privacy does not attach to property, Brandeis argued that because the gov- the Court now said; it attaches to per- ernment had broken the law—wire- sons. Charles Katz carried that right tapping was a crime in the state of with him, and whatever he did “with PLUS Washington—the evidence gained from a reasonable expectation of privacy” the wiretap should have been excluded the government was barred from eaves- at Olmstead’s trial. His rights had been dropping on. violated. “The right to be let alone,” Katz became a key precedent in Brandeis wrote, is “the most compre- Fourth Amendment cases. Intuitively, hensive of rights, and the right most the reasoning appears sound. If it is valued by civilized men.” Those are, of unconstitutional to tap a telephone course, the sentiments that William O. without a warrant, it seems obvious Douglas echoed twenty-four years later that using a microphone to record a in the Muzak case. phone conversation (in Katz’s case, half Brandeis’s opinion in Olmstead is of a conversation) should also be un- one of those dissents which outlive the constitutional. But there are two prob- decision. And, in 1967, in Katz v. United lems at the heart of Katz. The first is States, the Supreme Court overturned the distinction between a microphone

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 27 and an ear. If Katz had spoken loudly is not on the agreement with the rental age, almost all transactions are recorded enough to be overheard by agents company? Last month, the Supreme somewhere, and almost any informa- standing outside the phone booth, his Court, in a unanimous decision, said tion worth keeping private involves a words could have been used as evi- yes. And as Anthony Amsterdam, a third party. Most of us store more in dence against him in a court of law. In law professor who argued, and won, the cloud than in lockboxes. It does efect, the microphone was just a pros- the famous death-penalty case Furman v. not make sense to constrain the tech- thetic device, an extension of the agents’ Georgia, in 1972, has pointed out, peo- nological capacities of law enforcement ears. It was not hearing diferently; it ple’s reasonable expectations are eas- just because the technology allows it was only hearing better. ily altered. to work more eiciently, but those ca- As Farivar shows us, technology If people are told by the government pacities can also lead to a society whose continually poses problems of this or by a service provider that their be- citizens have nowhere to hide. kind. Take the case of Jones v. United havior is being monitored, the expec- And, even if its applications are States, in which police attached a tation of privacy instantly becomes un- brought up to date, the Fourth Amend- G.P.S. tracking device to the Jeep of reasonable. Twenty years ago, for ment is good only against the govern- Antoine Jones, who was suspected of example, citizens could assume that ment. Restricting a corporation’s use being a drug dealer, and followed his they were not being photographed of personal data requires a legislative movements for four weeks. The Su- when they walked down the street. act, and Congress is a barely function- preme Court found that the use of Today, there are thirty thousand closed- ing body. As for the Trump Adminis- the device violated Jones’s right to pri- circuit surveillance cameras on the tration, it seems indiferent to any rights vacy. Theoretically, the police could streets of Chicago alone. A cop can except those which are enumerated in have trailed Jones’s Jeep in a car or a theoretically match up a face on the the Second Amendment or which helicopter, or posted oicers along street with a mug shot; with facial-rec- might protect the President and his every road in the area, and the evi- ognition technology, the CCTV sys- henchmen. There is also the extraor- dence they gathered would have been tem does it automatically. dinary economic power of the tech in- admissible. The tracking device only Police now have license-plate read- dustry, a major engine of growth whose improved law-enforcement eiciency. ers, which are mounted on squad cars enormous cash reserves make legal set- Why did it trigger the Fourth Amend- and use optical-character-recogni- tlements low-impact capital events. ment? In the majority opinion, by An- tion technology to record license-plate Igo does what historians do: she tonin Scalia, the Court reverted to the numbers. Farivar says that the city of shows us that although we may feel trespass theory: it was the physical Oakland collects forty-eight thou- that the threat to privacy today is un- trespass onto Jones’s property, his Jeep, sand license-plate numbers a day. precedented, every generation has felt that required a warrant. What concerns him is not that li- that way since the introduction of the In another case, Kyllo v. United cense plates are being read but that postcard. The government is doing States, police used a thermal-imaging they are being read and recorded by what it has always done, which is to device to monitor the apartment of a machine. We don’t object when a conduct surveillance of individuals and one Danny Lee Kyllo. The device re- cop checks a license-plate number groups it suspects of presenting a dan- corded an unusual amount of heat ra- against a list in a notebook. We con- ger to society. And commercial media diating from the walls and the roof. are doing what they have always done, Police used this information to obtain which is to use consumer information a search warrant, and discovered that to sell advertising. Of course Facebook Kyllo was operating a marijuana farm does this. So do CBS and People. in his apartment. The Supreme Court ruled that evidence gained from a ther- hat makes us feel powerless mal device cannot be used to get a Wtoday is the scale. Fifty years warrant—even though an oicer on ago, the government could not have the sidewalk who noticed the heat collected the metadata for every phone could have used his observations to call in a fourteen-year period. The tech- obtain one, and the thermal device sider that good police work, a way to nology did not exist (or would have simply allowed detectives to “feel” the identify traic-ticket scolaws and been prohibitively expensive). Radio heat at a distance. to find stolen cars. The fact that the and television enabled advertisers to The other problem in Katz is the cop has been replaced by a robot can come right into your living room, but “reasonable expectation of privacy” summon up images of “1984.” But you the reach of online industries is vaster standard. Again, the rule seems sensi- could argue that the robot is just way by many orders of magnitude. Last ble. People assume that when they are more eicient. month, the season finale of CBS’s most talking inside a phone booth they are Farivar, in short, is correct that popular show, “The Big Bang The- not being monitored. But who gets to among the many things the tech in- ory,” had roughly fifteen million view- claim an expectation of privacy and dustry has disrupted is Fourth Amend- ers, and People reaches an estimated where is not self-evident. Can a per- ment jurisprudence. The law is con- forty-one million readers a week. Those son driving a rented car whose name stantly playing catch-up. In the digital are tiny numbers. Facebook has 2.2

28 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 billion active monthly users. Google processes 3.5 billion searches every day. “The twin imperatives of corporate profit and national security,” Igo says, militate against greater privacy protec- tions. A classic contest between them played out in the wake of the San Ber- nardino massacre. In 2015, Syed Riz- wan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a mar- ried couple, killed fourteen people and wounded twenty-two in that terrorist attack. Farook and Malik died in a shoot-out with police, who retrieved an iPhone carried by Farook. When the National Security Agency was un- able to unlock the device, the F.B.I. asked Apple to do it. Apple refused, on the ground that its business would sufer if customers knew that third parties could hack into their phones. The government accused Apple of marketing to criminals, and sued. The case was in the courts when the F.B.I. found someone to sell it a •• tool that unlocked the phone, and the lawsuit was dropped. Three media com- panies subsequently sued under the ment cases; all ten of the plaintifs case, said it was: liberty. This means Freedom of Information Act to com- were criminals. We want their rights the freedom to choose what to do with pel the government to reveal the iden- to be observed, but we also want them your body, or who can see your per- tity of the person or the firm that sold locked up. sonal information, or who can mon- the F.B.I. the unlocking tool, but last On the commercial side, are the itor your movements and record your fall a federal judge ruled that the in- trade-ofs equivalent? The market-the- calls—who gets to surveil your life formation was classified as a matter of ory expectation is that if there is de- and on what grounds. national security. How a public agency mand for greater privacy then compe- As we are learning, the danger of got something a private corporation tition will arise to ofer it. Services like data collection by online companies is was trying to keep a secret is a secret. Signal and WhatsApp already do this. not that they will use it to try to sell This is the world we are living in. Consumers will, of course, have to bal- you stuf. The danger is that that in- The question about national secu- ance privacy with convenience. The formation can so easily fall into the rity and personal convenience is always: question is: Can they really? The Gen- hands of parties whose motives are At what price? What do we have to eral Data Protection Regulation went much less benign. A government, for give up? On the criminal-justice side, into efect on May 25th, and privacy- example. A typical reaction to worries law enforcement is in an arms race with advocacy groups in Europe are already about the police listening to your phone lawbreakers. Timothy Carpenter was filing lawsuits claiming that the policy conversations is the one Gary Hart had allegedly able to orchestrate an armed- updates circulated by companies like when it was suggested that reporters robbery gang in two states because he Facebook and Google are not in com- might tail him to see if he was having had a cell phone; the law makes it dii- pliance. How can you ever be sure who afairs: “You’d be bored.” They were cult for police to learn how he used it. is eating your cookies? not, as it turned out. We all may un- Thanks to lobbying by the National Possibly the discussion is using the derestimate our susceptibility to per- Rifle Association, federal law prohib- wrong vocabulary. “Privacy” is an odd secution. “We were just talking about its the National Tracing Center from name for the good that is being threat- hardwood floors!” we say. But author- using a searchable database to identify ened by commercial exploitation and ities who feel emboldened by the prom- the owners of guns seized at crime state surveillance. Privacy implies “It’s ise of a Presidential pardon or by a Jus- scenes. Whose privacy is being pro- nobody’s business,” and that is not re- tice Department that looks the other tected there? ally what Roe v. Wade is about, or way may feel less inhibited about in- Most citizens feel glad for privacy what the E.U. regulations are about, vading the spaces of people who be- protections like the one in Griswold, or even what Katz and Carpenter are long to groups that the government but are less invested in protections like about. The real issue is the one that has singled out as unpatriotic or un- the one in Katz. In “Habeas Data,” Pollak and Martin, in their suit against desirable. And we now have a govern- Farivar analyzes ten Fourth Amend- the District of Columbia in the Muzak ment that does that. 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 29 A REPORTER AT LARGE THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY How Donald Trump, Israel, and the Gulf states plan to ight Iran— and leave the Palestinians and the Obama years behind.

BY ADAM ENTOUS

n the afternoon of December 14, the political capacity to open the door roar. Not everyone close to Obama re- 2016, Ron Dermer, Israel’s Am- to diplomatic relations with China. gretted the epithet. One of the Presi- O bassador to the United States, Dennis Ross, an adviser on Middle dent’s top aides told another, “The only rode from his Embassy to the White Eastern afairs during Obama’s first problem with the quote was that it House to attend a Hanukkah party. The term, frequently told the President and wasn’t strong enough. It should have Obama Administration was in its final members of the national-security team been ‘chickenshit motherfucker.’” By days, and among the guests were some that there were two Netanyahus—the the spring of 2015, after Netanyahu de- of the President’s most ardent Jewish “strategic Bibi,” who was willing to make livered a theatrical speech to Congress supporters, who were there to bid him concessions, and the “political Bibi,” condemning the Iran nuclear deal, farewell. But Dermer, like Prime Min- who pursued his immediate electoral Obama was “oicially done pretend- ister Benjamin Netanyahu, did not share interest. Ross made the point so often ing,” Rhodes said. their sense of loss. For the Israeli lead- that, during one exchange in the Oval An era seemed to be ending. The 1993 ership, the Trump Presidency could not Oice, Obama stopped him with a palm Oslo Accords and subsequent negotia- come soon enough. in front of his face: he had heard enough. tions had raised hopes among Palestin- Netanyahu believed that Barack Over time, Obama and his advisers ians that they would get a state com- Obama had “no special feeling” for the came to believe that Netanyahu had prising Gaza, the West Bank, and, as Jewish state, as one of his aides once been playing them, occasionally feign- a capital, some part of East Jerusalem. put it, and he resented Obama’s argu- ing interest in a two-state solution while But after years of settlement building, ment that Israel’s treatment of the Pal- expanding settlements in the West Bank, a second intifada, instability through- estinians was a violation of basic human thus making the creation of a viable Pal- out the region, and the rise of absolut- rights and an obstacle to security, not estinian state increasingly diicult to ism on both sides, a paralyzing mistrust least for Israel itself. He also believed conceive. By Obama’s second term, took hold. Although around half of Is- that Obama’s attempt to foster a kind his aides no longer bothered to mask raelis and Palestinians still want two of balance of power between Saudi their frustration with the Israelis. “They states, neither side believes the other Arabia and Iran in the Middle East were never sincere in their commitment will move forward in good faith. was naïve, and that it underestimated to peace,” Benjamin Rhodes, one of Late in Obama’s second term, Sec- the depth of Iran’s malign intentions Obama’s closest foreign-policy advisers, retary of State John Kerry brought to throughout the region. told me. “They used us as cover, to make the White House a stack of maps of Obama was hardly anti-Israel. His it look like they were in a peace process. the West Bank that were prepared by Administration had provided the coun- They were running a play, killing time, the State Department and vetted by try with immense military and intelli- waiting out the Administration.” U.S. intelligence agencies. Kerry spread gence support. He had also protected The relationship between Obama out the maps on a large cofee table. Netanyahu in the United Nations Se- and Netanyahu grew more poisonous As Frank Lowenstein, one of Kerry’s curity Council, when, in 2011, he is- every year. In 2012, Obama’s team sus- top advisers, put it to me, the maps al- sued his only veto, blocking a resolu- pected that the Israeli leadership backed lowed him to see “the forest for the tion condemning Jewish settlement Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign. trees.” When the settlement zones, the building. And Obama opposed eforts Tensions between Susan Rice, Obama’s illegal outposts, and the other areas of by the Palestinians to join the Inter- national-security adviser, and Ron Der- limits to Palestinian development were national Criminal Court, after Net- mer were so fierce that they never met consolidated, they covered almost sixty anyahu shouted over the telephone to alone. The Administration became con- per cent of the West Bank. “It looked the President’s advisers that “this is a vinced that Netanyahu, after years of like a brain tumor,” an oicial who at- nuclear warhead aimed at my crotch!” threatening to use force against Iran, tended the session told me. “No mat- (Netanyahu’s oice disputes the Amer- was bluing, that he was really trying ter what metric you’re using—existing ican account of the call.) to goad the Americans into taking a blocs, new settlements, illegal out- Some of Netanyahu’s supporters be- harder line and even launching strikes posts—you’re confronting the end of lieved that the Prime Minister bore of their own. One of Obama’s advis- the two-state solution.” comparison to Richard Nixon, whose ers was quoted as calling Netanyahu a Mahmoud Abbas, the President of anti-Communist credentials gave him “chickenshit,” causing a diplomatic up- the Palestinian Authority, had lost all

30 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 Trump’s team appears unfazed by the feeling among Palestinians that they are being cast aside.

ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER JAÉN THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 31 faith in the Administration’s eforts. showed that Obama and his team were cember, 2016, Egypt, on behalf of the “You’ve been telling me to wait, and tell- secretly orchestrating the U.N. resolu- Palestinians, began circulating among ing me to wait, and telling me to wait,” tions—a charge that the Americans Security Council members a draft set- a former oicial recalled Abbas saying later denied. Just after Trump’s elec- tlements resolution, causing alarm in to Kerry during one particularly tense tion victory, Dermer expressed his anx- the Prime Minister’s oice in Jerusa- exchange. “You can’t deliver the Israelis.” ieties about a possible resolution to lem. After consulting with Netanyahu, In late September, 2016, Obama flew Vice-President Joe Biden and told Dermer called Kushner and told him to Israel for the funeral of Shimon Peres, Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief of that the Obama Administration was the former Prime Minister, who shared staf, “Don’t go to the U.N. It will force leading the eforts at the United Na- the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Yasir us into a confrontation. It will force tions. Dermer asked for the transition Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin for his part us to reach out to the other side.” The team’s help in blunting the work of the in the Oslo Accords. The signs of a “other side,” in this case, was the Pres- sitting President. shifting political climate were clear. ident-elect. (McDonough declined to This was an audacious move, par- Abbas attended the funeral, but he comment, but oicials close to him dis- ticularly for a client state. The Presi- wasn’t acknowledged by any of the Is- puted Dermer’s account.) dent-elect customarily follows the prin- raeli leaders in their remarks. After the The Israelis already had ties to the ciple known as “one President at a time.” service, veterans of the negotiations gath- Trump family: Netanyahu had a long Obama’s aides thought of the U.N. set- ered on the terrace of the King David friendship with Charles Kushner, the tlements resolution as largely symbolic, Hotel, in Jerusalem, for an impromptu father of Ivanka Trump’s husband, Jared but Netanyahu behaved as though Is- lunch. Martin Indyk, the former U.S. Kushner. In recent years, the Kushners, rael were in mortal danger. He feared special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian ne- Orthodox Jews who made their for- that a second, more far-reaching reso- gotiations, told the group, “This is the tune in the real-estate business and hold lution setting out the parameters of a wake for the Oslo process.” conservative views on Israel, have do- Palestinian state would soon reach the When Obama and the American nated large sums of money to Israeli Security Council. The Israelis found delegation arrived back in the U.S., causes and charities, including tens of the Trump circle easy to persuade. Trump they learned that the Israeli govern- thousands of dollars to a yeshiva in the and his closest advisers shared Net- ment had approved the building of a Beit El settlement, in the West Bank. anyahu’s antipathy toward Obama. new settlement in the West Bank. A When Netanyahu visited the Kushners They had no government or diplomatic top Obama adviser said that the move at their home in New Jersey, he some- experience, and were eager to please amounted to an unmistakable “F.U.” times stayed overnight and slept in Jar- their staunchly pro-Israel and pro- And so, unlike the melancholy well- ed’s bedroom, while Jared was relegated Likud base. American and Israeli oicials wishers who shouted “We love you, Mr. to the basement. told me that the Israeli government’s President!” to Obama at the White Dermer, who grew up in a political use of its intelligence capabilities to pit House Hanukkah party, Dermer saw family in Miami Beach and moved to the President-elect against the sitting the election of Donald Trump as an Israel in 1996, recalled accompanying President had no modern precedent. opportunity. Trump’s team promised a Netanyahu to Trump Tower, in New What’s more, Trump and his team markedly more compliant policy where York, in the early aughts for a meeting seemed more trusting of a foreign leader Israel was concerned. Later that day, with Donald Trump. Dermer and Trump and his intelligence than they were of Dermer went to another Hanukkah met again in 2014, at an alumni dinner the President of the United States and party, where he was far more welcome, at the Wharton School of Business. American intelligence agencies. just down Pennsylvania Avenue, at the Dermer, who had become Ambassador Under pressure from Netanyahu Trump International Hotel. As Der- to the U.S. the year before, gave a speech and Trump, Egypt withdrew its spon- mer told me, “We saw light at the end in which he said that he had chosen sorship of the resolution, but four other of the tunnel.” Wharton after reading Trump’s book Security Council members picked it “The Art of the Deal.” “If you were up and pushed for a vote. Kushner had he Israelis did have one lingering going to make a career in business, asked Obama’s aides for a “heads-up” Tfear. They worried that, before Wharton was the place to go,” Trump if a resolution was in the works, so Obama left oice, his Administration wrote. Dermer did not stint on flattery. when he heard a vote was coming he would attempt to punish them at the “Mr. Trump, I wanted to be your ap- felt that the Trump team had been de- U.N. Security Council. Israeli spy agen- prentice,” he said, referring to Trump’s ceived. As Obama was making his final cies had picked up on discussions about reality-TV show. In March, 2016, Der- moves at the United Nations, Kush- possible Security Council resolutions, mer was introduced to Jared Kushner ner told aides, “They had their turn. ranging from a condemnation of set- by Gary Ginsberg, an executive at Time- They failed. Why are they trying to tlements to a measure that would en- Warner who had helped write speeches make our job harder on the way out?” shrine in international law so-called for Netanyahu. Dermer and Kushner Kushner called Michael Flynn, the “final status” parameters, locking in stayed in close touch throughout the choice for national-security adviser, Obama’s position on the two-state solu- campaign and the transition. and Steve Bannon, Trump’s strategic tion. Israeli oicials say that intelli- These relationships paid of during adviser. Bannon had grown so fond of gence reports submitted to Netanyahu the U.N. battle and beyond. In late De- Dermer that he sometimes referred to

32 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 him as “my wingman.” The decision sands of years, and I, Donald Trump, now Trump believed the opposite— was made to press Security Council am not going to continue to add to the that Iran was the principal enemy in members to delay the ballot or defeat already outrageous investment of tril- the region and that the nuclear pact the resolution. Flynn got of the phone lions of dollars in a region that breeds showed weakness, and only fuelled Ira- with Kushner and told aides that this and funds terrorists against America nian expansionism. Before the Inau- was Trump’s “No. 1 priority.” while we starve our infrastructure in- guration, Netanyahu had taken the The Trump transition team proved vestments at home!’” bold step of quietly dispatching Yossi woefully unprepared to carry out its task, With Obama finally out of the way, Cohen, the head of Mossad, Israel’s scrambling just to get telephone num- Netanyahu could concentrate on get- foreign-intelligence agency, to Wash- bers for the ambassadors and foreign ting the Trump team to embrace his ington. Cohen briefed Flynn on the ministers they’d need to lobby. Flynn grand strategy for transforming the di- Iranian threat, in an attempt to insure did know how to find one of them: rection of Middle Eastern politics. His that the two governments would be Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassa- overarching ambition was to diminish closely aligned in their approach. (In- dor. (Flynn and Kislyak had been in the Palestinian cause as a focus of world telligence veterans said that Cohen’s contact, including during the transi- attention and to form a coalition with visit was a breach of protocol.) tion, and their communications later Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Trump did not exactly scour the U.S. became a focus of the investigation un- Emirates to combat Iran, which had diplomatic corps to staf his foreign- dertaken by Robert Mueller, the spe- long supported Hezbollah in Lebanon policy team, and Netanyahu had every cial counsel, into Russian meddling in and Hamas in Gaza and had taken reason to believe that the central figures the 2016 election. The F.B.I. had been strategic advantage of the American in the new Administration had a “spe- monitoring Kislyak’s communications folly in Iraq and the war in Syria. cial feeling” for Israel. Trump put Jared as part of its routine surveillance of Obama had not been at all naïve Kushner in putative charge of Middle foreign spies and diplomats.) But even about Iran’s behavior, but he felt that East policy. The choice for Ambassador that connection didn’t help. Instead of the nuclear agreement would limit to Israel was David Friedman, a bank- issuing a veto, Obama abstained. The its power. Trying to topple the Iranian ruptcy lawyer from Long Island who settlements resolution passed, with sup- regime seemed to Obama dangerously held right-wing views on the Middle port from the Russians. A second res- in line with previous adventures in the East and contributed money in support olution never materialized. Middle East, in which dreams of dem- of the same West Bank settlement as A few weeks after Trump’s Inaugu- ocratic revolution backed by force the Kushners. The chief envoy to the ration, Dermer and other Israeli oi- ended in nightmare. What’s more, region would be Jason Greenblatt, a cials visited the White House to share Obama was wary of eforts by the Sau- graduate of Yeshiva University and an a summary of Israel’s intelligence doc- dis, who were hardly champions of de- attorney who worked for the Trump Or- umenting the alleged role of Obama mocracy and human rights, to pull him ganization. Netanyahu could be confi- Administration oicials in the settle- deeper into regional conflicts. dent that Trump would look out for his ments resolution. The Israelis also pro- But the Israelis, the Gulf states, and interests and share his opposition to vided the Americans, through “intelli- gence channels,” with some of their underlying intelligence reports on the U.S. role. (Israeli oicials said that their intelligence on the Obama Adminis- tration’s alleged activities was not based on direct spying on the Americans. The United States spies on Israel, but Israel claims that it doesn’t spy on the United States. U.S. oicials dispute that claim and consider Israel to be one of the United States’ biggest counterintelli- gence threats.) Trump had run for oice as a non- interventionist, with the slogan “Amer- ica First.” “He quite honestly had very little interest in meddling in the Mid- dle East in general and very little in- terest from a philosophical point of view,” a Trump confidant told me. As far as Trump was concerned, “all of this was an annoyance.” He went on, “ ‘The Sunnis, the Shias, the Jews, the Pales- tinians have been doing this for thou- “Which version of yourself was the one who sabotaged the relationship?” ington, was asked whether his govern- ment would have problems with the proposed sale, he was noncommittal, according to former U.S. oicials. He told his American counterparts that the Israelis wanted the opportunity to discuss the matter directly with the Emiratis, to find out how they intended to use the American aircraft. Sandra Charles, a former George H.W. Bush Administration oicial who was doing consulting work at the time for M.B.Z., agreed to convey the request about a possible meeting. As part of her work with the U.A.E., Charles’s firm provided assistance to Jamal S. Al-Su- waidi, an Emirati academic who, in 1994, was setting up a government- backed think tank in Abu Dhabi called the Emirates Center for Strategic Stud- ies and Research. The center was es- tablished “for scientific research and studies on social, economic, and polit- ical issues,” but it became a conduit for contacts with Israel. Charles knew Is- •• sacharof from earlier meetings, in which they discussed the political dynamics in the Gulf region. Suwaidi was already Obama’s policies in the region. Even to Kushner during the campaign by planning to visit Washington, and before Trump entered the White House, Thomas Barrack, a Lebanese-American Charles arranged for him to meet with Israeli oicials talked about having more billionaire who was raising money for Issacharof at a private oice. “This was influence and a freer hand than ever be- Trump and was friendly with Otaiba’s all done of the record, unoicially,” a fore. Dermer had planned to return to father. Barrack knew that Kushner was former oicial recalled, so that the Is- Israel in 2017, but he agreed to remain already working closely with Dermer, raelis and the Emiratis could say, “The in place as Ambassador to help Net- and he thought Trump’s team needed meeting never happened.” It wasn’t a anyahu capitalize on the turn of events. to hear the Gulf Arab perspective. one-of encounter. Israeli and Emirati On Inauguration Day, State De- Traditionally, Gulf leaders frowned oicials didn’t agree on the Palestinian partment buses carried members of the on contact with Israeli government oi- issue, but they shared a perspective on diplomatic corps to the Capitol. The cials, but Otaiba’s boss, Mohammed the emerging Iranian threat, which was ambassadors in attendance had radi- bin Zayed, the crown prince of Abu becoming a bigger priority for leaders cally diferent perspectives on the in- Dhabi, the most politically important in both countries. Later, Prime Minis- coming Administration. The French of the emirates, took a diferent view. ter Yitzhak Rabin told the Clinton Ad- Ambassador, Gérard Araud, had tweeted Bin Zayed, known as M.B.Z., believed ministration that he would not object after the election, “A world is collaps- that the Gulf states and Israel shared to the F-16 sale. Former U.S. oicials ing before our eyes. Vertigo.” The pres- a common enemy: Iran. Like Net- said that the Israeli decision built a sense ence of Kislyak took some observers anyahu, M.B.Z. considered Iran to be of trust between Israel and the U.A.E. by surprise. One of the European am- the primary threat to his country. M.B.Z. wanted to modernize his bassadors at the ceremony said to Kis- The secret relationship between Is- small military so that it could defend lyak, “You are the most important am- rael and the U.A.E. can be traced back itself against Iran and other threats. bassador here today!” Kislyak smiled to a series of meetings in a nondescript During the negotiations, he learned and gestured at Ron Dermer. Actually, oice in Washington, D.C., after the that the F-16s would contain Israeli Kislyak said, “he is the most important signing of the Oslo Accords. Early in technology. Some Arab leaders would ambassador here today.” Bill Clinton’s first term, the U.A.E. have rejected such a deal. M.B.Z. didn’t wanted to buy advanced F-16 fighter care. “The Emiratis wanted everything here was one other Middle Eastern aircraft from the U.S., but American the Israelis had,” a former Clinton Ad- Tambassador who had extraordi- and Emirati oicials were concerned ministration oicial who was involved nary access to the new President’s team: that Israel would protest. When Jer- in the negotiations said. Yousef Al Otaiba, of the United Arab emy Issacharof, an Israeli diplomat With M.B.Z.’s blessing, Suwaidi Emirates. Otaiba had been introduced working out of the Embassy in Wash- started bringing delegations of influen-

34 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 tial American Jews to Abu Dhabi to leaders to meet with him publicly. If John Kerry, Clinton’s successor at meet with Emirati oicials. A senior the Arabs agreed, Netanyahu told Clin- the State Department, had tried to re- Emirati leader attended one of the first ton, “it would show the people of Is- start peace talks between Israel and the sessions, more than twenty years ago, rael that there might be some benefit Palestinians, but, when the negotia- according to a former American oi- for Israel from the normalization of re- tions collapsed, in 2014, Netanyahu cial, who recalled him saying some- lations,” the American oicial said. asked Isaac Molho, one of his most thing that shocked the Jewish leaders A few weeks later, Obama flew to trusted advisers, to concentrate on fos- in the room: “I can envision us being Riyadh to meet with King Abdullah tering political contacts with Arab in the trenches with Israel fighting bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, who had, in states. Netanyahu wanted to move re- against Iran.” They assumed that he 2002, proposed broad Arab recognition lations with the U.A.E. and Saudi Ara- was telling them what he thought they of Israel in return for a withdrawal from bia beyond the secret channels. wanted to hear, but the oicial said that, all territory occupied since 1967. Obama King Abdullah died in January, 2015, for Emirati leaders like M.B.Z., “it’s suggested that Abdullah’s proposal, at the age of ninety, making way for the old adage: the enemy of my enemy known as the Arab Peace Initiative, other Saudi leaders, including the is my friend.” might revive talks among the Israelis, twenty-nine-year-old Mohammad bin From those preliminary contacts the Palestinians, and Arab countries, Salman, who later became crown prince. and others, an intelligence-sharing re- only two of which, Egypt and Jordan, M.B.S., as he is known, shared M.B.Z.’s lationship emerged, U.S. oicials said. recognized the Jewish state. When views on Iran and a less ideological ap- For the Israelis, this was a long-term Obama asked Abdullah if he would proach to the Jewish state. In meetings investment; the prize, they hoped, meet publicly with Netanyahu, the King with American oicials in Riyadh and would be a normalization of relations. responded categorically. “Impossible,” Washington, M.B.S. routinely remarked Soon after Obama’s Inauguration in he said, according to an American oi- that “Israel’s never attacked us,” and 2009, the Israeli and Emirati govern- cial briefed on the meeting. Abdullah “we share a common enemy.” He pri- ments joined forces for the first time to said that a settlement freeze wasn’t vately said that he was prepared to have press the new Administration to take enough. He needed a final peace agree- a full relationship with Israel. Like seriously the Iranian threat. Otaiba and ment. Then he said, to Obama’s sur- M.B.Z., M.B.S., in conversations with Sallai Meridor, who was then Israel’s prise, “We’ll be the last ones to make U.S. oicials and Jewish-American Ambassador to the United States, asked peace with them.” groups, expressed disdain for the Pal- Dennis Ross, the Middle East adviser, Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassa- estinian leadership. He, too, seemed to meet with them at a Georgetown dor to the U.S. from 2009 to 2013, told eager for that conflict to be finished, hotel, where they made their joint ap- me at a cofee shop in Tel Aviv that even if it meant the Palestinians were peal. Obama’s willingness to talk to the he’d encountered “three types” of Arab dissatisfied with the terms. Iranian leadership to find ways to re- ambassadors in Washington: “those Dermer briefed Otaiba on Israel’s duce tensions unnerved oicials in Is- who would have lunch with me openly, position on the Iran deal and tried to rael and the U.A.E. They thought that those who would have convince him to join the a joint presentation would send a stron- lunch with me secretly, and Israelis in actively oppos- ger message than if the two govern- those who wouldn’t have ing Obama. While the Is- ments voiced their concerns inde- lunch with me.” Saudi Ara- raelis mounted a public pendently. The meeting, according to a bia’s Ambassador to the campaign, the Emiratis, former U.S. oicial, demonstrated “a United States at the time, who lack political clout in level of coöperation that was real and Adel al-Jubeir, shunned the United States outside practical,” and went far beyond intelli- Oren, in keeping with the of Washington, largely gence sharing. A senior Arab oicial harder line taken by King voiced their concerns in pri- said, “It was designed to get their at- Abdullah. When Oren saw vate. In early 2015, Net- tention. If we sit together, and tell them Jubeir at events around anyahu accepted an invita- the same thing, they’re going to take it Washington, Jubeir would tion from John Boehner, seriously.” The joint efort surprised “look right through me, as if I was the Republican Speaker of the House, Obama’s advisers, but didn’t deter the made of glass,” Oren recalled. and delivered a fiery speech before a President from pursuing negotiations During a temporary setback in the joint session of Congress, arguing, with Tehran. secret intelligence relationship (caused “This is a bad deal—a very bad deal.” In May, 2009, during a series of meet- by a Mossad operation in Dubai in The speech failed to persuade Con- ings in Washington that were domi- 2010), the U.A.E. made a proposal to gress to block the agreement, yet a se- nated by disagreements over the set- patch things up: Israel would supply nior Israeli oicial said that it led to an tlements, Netanyahu tried to get Obama Emirati forces with armed drones, ac- increase in Israeli-Gulf Arab contacts. and his team to focus on easing Isra- cording to U.S. and Arab oicials. The For years, American oicials were el’s isolation in the region. According Israelis balked at the idea, wary of an- skeptical of Israel’s claims about its abil- to a senior American oicial who was tagonizing the Obama Administra- ity to expand ties with the Gulf states. present, Netanyahu asked Secretary of tion, which had refused to sell armed But, toward the end of Obama’s sec- State Hillary Clinton to convince Gulf drones to the U.A.E. ond term, U.S. intelligence agencies

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 35 learned of phone calls between senior admired Netanyahu’s swagger and or- riously. Despite Jared Kushner’s role U.A.E. and Israeli oicials, including atorical skills, his insistence on project- as an intermediary, Trump’s relation- calls between a senior Emirati leader ing himself as a great historical actor, ship with Netanyahu during the cam- and Netanyahu. Then U.S. intelligence and his willingness to challenge Obama. paign got of to a rough start. At a agencies picked up on a secret meet- In early January, 2013, Jonny Daniels, campaign rally in Manassas, Virginia, ing between senior U.A.E. and Israeli an Israeli public-relations man, asked on December 2, 2015, Trump said, “Very leaders in Cyprus. U.S. oicials suspect Trump if he would be interested in re- soon I’m going to Israel and I’ll be that Netanyahu attended the meeting, cording a video message endorsing Net- meeting with Bibi Netanyahu.” Kush- which centered on countering Obama’s anyahu in the upcoming Israeli elec- ner had been laying the groundwork Iran deal. The Israelis and the Emira- tions. Trump agreed, and shot the video for his father-in-law to fly to Israel for tis didn’t inform the Obama Admin- at Trump Tower. a meeting with the Prime Minister, ten- istration of their discussions. “They “My name is Donald Trump and tatively scheduled for later that month. were not telling the truth,” a former I’m a big fan of Israel,” he said to the The plan was disrupted a few days State Department oicial told me. “It’s camera. “And, frankly, a strong Prime later, when Trump called for a “total one thing to be secret from the public. Minister is a strong Israel. And you and complete shutdown” of the entry It’s another thing to be secret from the truly have a great Prime Minister in of Muslims into the United States. His U.S., supposedly the closest ally of both.” Benjamin Netanyahu. There’s nobody comments echoed a divisive moment Neither Dermer nor Otaiba would like him. He’s a winner. He’s highly re- in Israeli politics nine months earlier, confirm that the meeting took place. spected. He’s highly thought of by all. when Netanyahu, in the last days of “Obama set out to bring Jews and And people really do have great, great his reëlection campaign, warned that Arabs closer together through peace,” respect for what’s happened in Israel. Arab voters were going to the polls in Oren told me. “He succeeded through So vote for Benjamin. Terrific guy. Ter- “droves.” Netanyahu had been sharply common opposition to his Iran policy.” rific leader. Great for Israel.” criticized, so, when Trump’s announce- Trump boasted afterward that Net- ment sparked a political backlash y 2015, Netanyahu no longer cared anyahu personally solicited his help. “I within Israel, Netanyahu’s oice issued Bwhat Obama thought of him. The was called by Bibi and his people,” he a statement saying, “Prime Minister Obama era was ending and, along with told an interviewer for Shalom TV’s Netanyahu rejects Donald Trump’s re- M.B.Z., Netanyahu had set his sights “In the News” program, “and they asked cent remarks about Muslims.” Trump on persuading the new President to me whether or not I’d do an ad or a took the criticism “badly,” according create an entirely new dynamic in the statement, and I said ‘Absolutely.’” In to a friend of Kushner’s. Trump wrote, Middle East. Donald Trump was un- fact, no one in the Israeli leadership on Twitter, “I have decided to post- schooled in the intricacies of policy, had solicited Trump’s help. pone my trip to Israel and to sched- domestic and foreign, but he did pay The Israelis were not sure at first ule my meeting with @Netanyahu at attention to personalities. He’d long whether to take Trump’s candidacy se- a later date after I become President of the U.S.” After being accused of trying to help the Romney campaign, in 2012, Netanyahu and Dermer knew that they had to proceed with caution during the 2016 race. In January, 2016, Michèle Flournoy, who was considered the front-runner to lead the Pentagon in a Hillary Clinton Administration, vis- ited Israel to attend an annual security conference, and met there with Moshe Ya’alon, Netanyahu’s Minister of De- fense. Flournoy told Ya’alon that the strong bipartisan support for the U.S.- Israel relationship was in peril. “Net- anyahu has been weighing in so bra- zenly in our politics and making it very clear that he prefers a Republi- can counterpart,” she recalled telling him. “When an Israeli administration starts to cultivate or prefer one Amer- ican party over the other, you’re play- ing with fire.” Democratic lawmakers and Jewish- “I set a limit: one pity play per actor friend per year.” American leaders delivered similar warnings. The Prime Minister decided ticularly the Palestinian question. The confidence-building trades, the Arab not to attend the annual AIPAC con- former oicial said that the Israelis states would pressure the Palestinians ference in Washington, in March, thus “had that all mapped out” and were to accept a full deal with the Israelis— avoiding face-to-face encounters with confident they would be able to ad- one that was likely to be substantially the various candidates. But, as the cam- vance their priorities. Netanyahu’s main less advantageous to the Palestinians paign went on, Dermer spoke regularly focus was scrapping the Iran nuclear than what they had rejected in previ- with Kushner and even got some of deal and steering the U.S. toward a ous negotiations. his talking points included in Trump’s more confrontational stance against Clinton knew that the U.A.E. and first major policy speech on Israel. Tehran. Lower down on Netanyahu’s Saudi Arabia were already working Meanwhile, other Israeli diplomats wish list was moving the U.S. Em- together behind the scenes with Mos- tried to develop less oicial connec- bassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a sad to counter Iranian influence. Net- tions to a possible Trump Adminis- particular obsession of Trump’s and anyahu made it clear to Clinton that tration. One of these was through the Prime Minister’s most right-wing he wanted the next President’s sup- George Papadopoulos, a young energy supporters. port in strengthening those secret re- consultant based in London, who had In late September, 2016, seven weeks lationships and eventually moving them met Israeli diplomats at a conference before the election, Netanyahu at- into the open. The regional dynamics about oil and gas operations in the tended the annual gathering of the had changed since Clinton left the eastern Mediterranean. When, in U.N. General Assembly. Kushner pro- State Department, but she knew that March, 2016, Papadopoulos joined the posed to Dermer that Netanyahu meet Netanyahu’s approach would be harder Trump campaign as a foreign-policy with Trump during his visit, in the be- to execute than he made it sound. adviser, he shared the news with his lief that such a visible event would Netanyahu and Dermer made a Israeli contacts. One of the Israeli dip- help to energize evangelical-Christian similar pitch about the “regional op- lomats met with Papadopoulos and voters, and make his father-in-law look portunities” to Trump, Kushner, and discussed Trump’s foreign-policy pri- more Presidential. Kushner jokingly Bannon in the candidate’s penthouse orities, which he passed on to his col- told Trump that he believed Netanyahu in Trump Tower. The task of persuad- leagues in Jerusalem. The Israeli dip- was one of the only politicians who ing them was easier, at least in part lomat helped Papadopoulos contact could have challenged him in a race because they had so little experience an oicial at the Australian Embassy, for the Republican Party’s nomina- with the long, tortured history of the who set up a meeting over drinks be- tion; Netanyahu was that popular with region and had yet to formulate a de- tween Papadopoulos and Alexander evangelical Christians. Dermer said tailed strategy of their own. Bannon Downer, Australia’s High Commis- the meeting was an important way to was “blown away” by the idea of an sioner to the United Kingdom. Papa- establish a “strong personal rapport” alliance between Israel and the Gulf dopoulos told Downer that he had between the leaders and to smooth states. A former Trump adviser told heard that Moscow had “dirt” on over any previous misunderstandings. me that Dermer and Netanyahu “had Clinton, in the form of thousands of Trump was initially hesitant. “These thought this through—this wasn’t half- e-mails. F.B.I. agents later found out are two pure alpha males,” a former baked. This was well articulated, and about Downer’s conversation with Pa- Trump adviser told me. “Trump has a it dovetailed exactly with our think- padopoulos, which became part of the powerful personality and a massive ing.” The adviser credited Netanyahu F.B.I.’s early rationale for launching physical presence. And Bibi has a com- and Dermer with inspiring the new an investigation into whether Trump manding presence coupled with im- Administration’s approach to the Mid- or his associates conspired with Moscow mense intellectual firepower that lets dle East. “The germ of the idea started during the 2016 campaign. him drive the narrative.” The adviser in that room . . . on September 25, 2016, American oicials soon learned of said he thought that Trump might have in Trump’s penthouse.” A friend of the activity between Israel and the felt intimidated about meeting with Trump’s compared the candidate’s team Trump team. Other governments took Netanyahu, adding, “He didn’t know if to a “blank canvas”: “Israel just had a Clinton victory as a foregone conclu- Bibi respected him.” In the end, Trump their way with us.” sion, but a former U.S. oicial told me, agreed, and Netanyahu used his time “The Israelis didn’t take that opinion with Trump to create a bond with him .B.Z. was equally determined to at all. They were working the Trump and to press his strategic agenda. Mget an early foothold with Trump. people with great energy before any- Netanyahu saw Clinton, too. He On December 15, 2016, five weeks after body else was engaged with them.” wanted to sell whoever became the the election, he flew to New York to The Israelis knew the Trump team next President on what he saw as a his- see Kushner, Bannon, and Flynn. They from the inside. By the end of the cam- toric opportunity to fashion an anti- met discreetly at the Four Seasons paign, according to the former U.S. Iran alliance. One of Clinton’s aides Hotel, instead of at Trump Tower, where oicial, the Israelis “had a clear under- said that Netanyahu outlined a plan there were always reporters in the lobby. standing” of who Kushner and Trump’s calling for the Arab states to take steps (The Obama White House was tipped other Middle East advisers were, where toward recognizing Israel, in exchange of about the visit when Emirati oi- they stood on policy matters, and how for Israel improving the lives of the cials provided Customs and Border little they knew about the issues, par- Palestinians. Later, after a series of Protection agents in Abu Dhabi with

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 37 a flight manifest that listed M.B.Z.’s ership. The former Trump adviser told and the Emirati leadership, the response name.) M.B.Z. wanted Trump’s advis- me that the Administration and its was negative, a senior Arab oicial told ers to know that he and his counter- closest Middle East allies didn’t want me. Just as Obama and his first Mid- part in Saudi Arabia, M.B.S., were com- Moscow to be on Iran’s side in any fu- dle East envoy, George Mitchell, learned mitted to working with the new ture conflict. Trump initially tried to in 2009, and John Kerry discovered Administration to roll back Iran’s in- ease tensions with Putin, but those later, it wouldn’t be easy to get Gulf fluence. Participants in the meeting eforts only fuelled questions about his Arab leaders to meet in public with said that M.B.Z.’s message—that Iran motivations, given Russia’s meddling Netanyahu, despite the convergence of was the problem, not Israel—coincided on his behalf during the 2016 cam- interests in recent years. Israeli oicials with Netanyahu’s view. Later, accord- paign. U.S. lawmakers and European backed of the idea, telling their Amer- ing to people familiar with the exchange, allies gradually prevailed on Trump to ican counterparts that Netanyahu un- Bannon told Otaiba, “That was one of take a harder line. derstood M.B.Z.’s and M.B.S.’s con- the most eye-opening meetings I’ve M.B.Z., who was in many ways the cerns. The Gulf leaders represented ever had.” most pivotal Arab player in this stra- Israel’s best hope in generations for se- While M.B.Z. and M.B.S. made it tegic drama, has long been surrounded curing acceptance in the region. The clear to Trump’s advisers that Iran was by a shadowy network of part-time ad- last thing the Prime Minister wanted their most urgent priority, they said visers, fixers, and confidants, many of was for a mere photo op to spark a pop- that progress toward ending the Pal- whom shared his hatred of Iran’s rul- ular revolt against them. estinian conflict was mandatory for ers. Word spread in M.B.Z.’s circle, in them to have a more open relationship late 2016 and early 2017, that a new arack Obama had come into oice with Israel. By May, 2017, when Trump campaign to counter Iran was in the Bhoping to achieve what his prede- met with Arab leaders in Riyadh, Kush- works. Some of the crown prince’s ad- cessors could not: a reconciliation be- ner and M.B.S. had agreed on the out- visers were eager to ofer their advice tween the Israelis and the Palestinians. lines of what they called a Middle East and services. Just before Trump’s In- As a young politician in Chicago, he strategic alliance. Israel would, for now, auguration, an M.B.Z. adviser named had numerous Jewish friends and sup- remain a “silent partner.” The U.S. com- George Nader helped arrange a meet- porters; his local coalition depended mitted to taking a harder line on Iran. ing, at the crown prince’s resort in the largely on African-Americans on the And the Gulf Arabs promised to help Seychelles, between the Blackwater South Side and left-leaning Jews far- get the Palestinians to go along with founder Erik Prince—a Bannon ally, ther north. Within Israel, he was drawn the new program. M.B.S. described to and the brother of Betsy DeVos, the to a political culture exemplified by the an American visitor the division of Secretary of Education—and Kirill liberal readers of Haaretz, who lived in labor. “We’re going to get the deal Dmitriev, who ran Russia’s sovereign Tel Aviv and Haifa, voted Labor or done,” M.B.S. said. “I’m going to de- wealth fund and was close to Putin. Meretz, and admired the novels of liver the Palestinians and he”—Trump— Later, disorder in the Trump White David Grossman and Amos Oz. Re- “is going to deliver the Israelis.” House created openings for M.B.Z.’s cently, in a speech at Temple Emanu-El, M.B.Z., M.B.S., and Netanyahu and Bannon’s associates to pitch ideas in New York, Obama said that he was were similarly aligned when it came to increase pressure on Tehran. This “basically a liberal Jew.” Like most to Russia, whose presence in the re- play for contracts, influence, and sta- Democrats, he easily won the Jewish gion couldn’t be ignored. In recent tus has attracted the attention of Rob- vote, in both 2008 and 2012. But his years, the Emiratis and the Saudis ert Mueller. According to a former U.S. Jewish supporters were generally cen- sought to pull Russia’s President, Vla- oicial, one would-be contractor who trists and liberals. For many of them, dimir Putin, out of Iran’s orbit by in- is close to the Emiratis, the Saudis, and Israel was not a primary issue. vesting billions of dollars in the Rus- the Israelis presented a plan to use cy- Trump’s Jewish supporters were sian economy. An even more critical berweapons planted inside Iran’s crit- more religious, mostly aligned with reason for Netanyahu to curry Putin’s ical infrastructure, including its stock Likud and its right-wing coalition part- favor was to insure that the Israeli mil- market, to wreak economic havoc and ners. These Jews are only a minority itary could fly in Syrian airspace, which sow political discord. It remains un- of the roughly six million who live in was partly controlled by Russia, to clear whether he was freelancing or the United States, but they tend to be carry out operations without ending making pitches on behalf of Emirati, more focussed on issues pertaining to up in a conflict with Moscow. Net- Saudi, and Israeli leaders. Israel, and are, in some cases, willing anyahu understood that Putin could Netanyahu also wanted to cash in to spend a great deal of money to in- be the key to getting Iran to eventu- on the new Administration’s enthusi- fluence U.S. policy. Trump’s advisers, ally withdraw its forces from Syria, an asm for creating a Middle East strate- in searching for a high-profile advo- objective shared by Trump and his gic alliance against Iran. Israeli oicials cate, homed in on a pro-Likud billion- team. At the White House, in the win- pressed Trump’s advisers to arrange a aire: the Las Vegas-based casino mogul ter of 2017, Bannon questioned a State White House “summit” that Netanyahu, Sheldon Adelson. Department oicial about what it M.B.Z., M.B.S., and other Arab lead- In December, 2015, Trump spoke at an would take to get Putin to break of ers would attend. When the Ameri- event in Washington, D.C., sponsored Russia’s alliance with the Iranian lead- cans floated the idea with the Saudi by the Republican Jewish Coalition.

38 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 Adelson helps to fund the group, and he owns a popular tabloid in Israel called Israel Hayom, which has long served as a loyal tribune for Netanyahu. He takes a particularly derisive view of the Palestinians, believing that es- tablishing a state for them would be “a stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.” One of Israel Hayom’s early targets was Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister be- tween 2006 and 2009. Adelson wanted Olmert “disposed of ” for his eforts to negotiate a two-state agreement with the Palestinians, Olmert told me. After Olmert’s ouster, Adelson turned his attention to electing Netanyahu. “Shel- don didn’t work for Bibi. Bibi worked for Sheldon,” Olmert said. Adelson exerts almost as much in- “Shoes of?” fluence on electoral politics in the U.S. as he does in Israel. No Republican candidate can easily aford to ignore •• him. Adelson considered Obama an enemy of Israel, and, in the 2012 elec- Trump equivocated: “I want to wait Palestinian state that would have as its tion, he and his wife, Miriam, contrib- until I meet with Bibi.” capital at least some part of East Jeru- uted at least ninety-three million dol- Boos erupted from the audience. salem. Adelson wanted to take the issue lars to groups supporting the G.O.P. “Who’s the wise guy?” Trump snapped. of dividing the capital “of the table.” Oicials in the U.S. and Israel said that “You can’t go in with that attitude. . . . A Trump confidant said, “That was the they learned from American Jewish You got to go in, and get it, and do it, sole issue for him. It was his dream.” leaders that Adelson had vowed to and do it nicely, so everyone’s happy. A few weeks after the party Con- spend “whatever it takes” to prevent Don’t worry about it. You’re going to ventions in the summer of 2016, Trump Obama from securing a peace agree- be very happy.” dipped in the national polls. His cam- ment while in oice. A couple of weeks later, Trump paign was concerned that the Repub- At the event in Washington, staunch took part in a primary debate at the lican establishment would withdraw Republican supporters of Likud found Venetian Hotel, in Las Vegas, part of its support, and, in mid-August, Adel- Trump’s performance unsettling. In his Adelson’s casino empire. Early in the son met with Trump, Kushner, and opening remarks, Trump attacked Jeb campaign, Adelson considered Trump Bannon in New York. Adelson asked Bush, saying that he was “controlled to be little more than a braggart. again about moving the Embassy. “We totally” by donors who gave large sums Trump and Adelson met in Las Vegas, have to win this,” Bannon said at the of money to his campaign. “You want and then again in New York. Trump meeting, according to someone famil- to control your own politician, that’s and his advisers thought that Adel- iar with the exchange. “If we don’t, for- fine,” Trump told the group. “I don’t son would back Marco Rubio; their get about moving the Embassy.” Later, want your money.” During a brief ques- objective in the New York meeting Adelson told associates that he had re- tion-and-answer session, Matthew was to caution Adelson. A senior ceived a commitment that Trump Brooks, the executive director of the Trump Administration oicial said would, if elected, announce the Em- Republican Jewish Coalition, asked that the campaign’s message to Adel- bassy move on his first day in oice. Trump how he would approach nego- son was simple: “You’re going to waste Soon after the meeting, Sheldon and tiations between the Israelis and the a lot of money if you’re going to go Miriam Adelson started writing checks Palestinians. Trump cast himself as a against us. You’re only going to help to back the campaign. neutral party, interested in getting the the Democrats.” Adelson’s support, one of Trump’s Israelis and the Palestinians what they In May, 2016, after it became clear senior aides said, was evidence that “the needed to end the conflict. “People are that Trump was going to win the nom- legit part of the Republican establish- going to have to make sacrifices, one ination, Adelson endorsed him, but he ment was coming in big” behind Trump. way or the other,” he said. informed the campaign that he wanted “Within ten days or fifteen days, we Brooks pressed Trump. “Can I, at a commitment to move the U.S. Em- basically secured legitimate Republi- least, try to pin you down on Jerusa- bassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. For can muscle. Adelson was critical.” lem as the undivided capital of Israel? many years, Palestinian, Israeli, and After Trump’s victory, Bannon Is that a position you support?” he asked. American negotiators had discussed a began drafting his “Day One” project,

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 39 a list of executive actions that Trump the assignment. A senior Trump Ad- security adviser, Ron Dermer went to intended to take as soon as the swear- ministration oicial said that Trump’s the White House to try to arrange for ing-in ceremony was over. At the top decision made sense, because Gulf Arab Trump to sign secret documents, as of the list was an executive order mov- leaders ran their countries like family other Presidents had done, which the ing the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. businesses and would naturally feel Israelis saw as an American commit- The Adelsons visited Trump Tower, more comfortable dealing with a mem- ment not to ask them to give up their and spoke of the victory as a “miracle.” ber of Trump’s family. undeclared nuclear arsenal. He asked When Trump mentioned how he looked Trump tried to cast himself as an to meet privately with Flynn. Aides forward to moving the Embassy, Mir- honest broker who was “right down told Dermer that he could not dictate iam wept with joy. Adelson told Trump, the middle,” but his advisers—Kush- whom he wanted to meet with. (It turned “Everything else you do, a thousand ner, David Friedman, and Jason Green- out that Flynn had urgent business to years from now, you’ll be remembered blatt—couldn’t be more aligned with attend to: writing his resignation let- for this.” Netanyahu if he had chosen them ter.) Later, White House oicials com- But after James Mattis and Rex himself. Before Friedman assumed miserated over what they saw as Der- Tillerson, his nominees for Defense his post as Ambassador to Israel, ex- mer’s heavy-handed tactics. “This is Secretary and Secretary of State, urged perts from the State Department our fuckin’ house,” one of them said. caution, Trump decided to defer the briefed him on the dire humanitar- The feeling in the White House, a for- move. The Trump confidant said that ian situation in the Gaza Strip. At the mer adviser there told me, was “There Adelson was caught of guard. As the end of the presentation, according to is a lot of good will, but don’t take ad- weeks passed without an announce- one attendee, Friedman said, “I just vantage of us.” ment, Adelson started to complain. don’t understand. The people who live At one point, in front of witnesses, “You’re making a fool of me!” he there are basically Egyptians. Why Kushner swore at Dermer in his West shouted on the phone to a senior can’t Egypt take them back?” One of Wing oice, saying he wasn’t going to White House aide. Eventually, Adel- the briefers explained to Friedman do his bidding just because of his Jew- son and others pressured Trump to that two-thirds of the residents of ish background. “You’re not going to stop delaying by warning him that Gaza were refugees, or descended from tell us how to run these things,” he he risked losing support among evan- refugees, from what is now Israel told Dermer. “Don’t try to push us gelical Christians. proper. (Friedman denies saying this.) around. Don’t try to jam us.” When I Despite the argument over the tim- Friedman had also written an op-ed asked Dermer about the incident, he ing of the Embassy move, Trump in which he called J Street, a liberal, didn’t remember Kushner using that showed every sign of being not merely pro-Israel political-action committee, language, and said, “I have a very good pro-Israel but pro-Likud. Netanyahu “far worse than kapos—Jews who relationship with Jared, but we don’t now had the latitude to do as he wished turned in their fellow Jews in the Nazi always agree on everything.” regarding the Palestinian question, Is- death camps.” J Street’s supporters, After one of Trump’s oldest friends raeli oicials told me. Denunciations he wrote, were “just smug advocates told him that he didn’t believe Net- from the White House, and calls for of Israel’s destruction delivered from anyahu wanted to make a deal, the restraint during flareups of violence in the comfort of their secure American President began asking whether Net- the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip, sofas—it’s hard to imagine anyone anyahu was only pretending to be com- would be things of the past. Two days worse.” Five previous U.S. Ambassa- mitted, just as Obama and his advis- after being sworn in, Trump had a dors to Israel signed a letter saying ers had concluded. U.S. oicials say phone call with Netanyahu. When the that Friedman was unqualified for the that Netanyahu, in turn, may worry Prime Minister got of the line, he could job. Netanyahu has been delighted that Trump, who is famously unpre- barely contain his excitement. “I saw with the appointment. He knew that dictable, will surprise him with de- the body language,” one of his aides Israel would never be dealt a more mands. Unlike Obama, Trump is pop- told me. “He was like a small child who sympathetic hand; that Kushner was ular in Israel, and Netanyahu knows got the best birthday present he could unlikely to ask him to do anything that it will now be harder for him to ever imagine.” that he thought wouldn’t be in Net- reject White House proposals. anyahu’s best interest. On the other As a senior adviser, Kushner had ac- rump was convinced, he told friends, hand, could Netanyahu say no to cess to sensitive intelligence reports, Tthat he was uniquely suited to bro- Trump and Kushner if and when, including those prepared by the Na- kering the “ultimate deal.” In private down the road, they asked him for tional Security Agency. Many of his conversations, he expressed general sup- real sacrifices for the sake of getting interlocutors were N.S.A. targets, and port for a two-state solution. Since tak- the “ultimate deal”? this allowed him and others to see what ing oice, he has said publicly that he The tensions and the general chaos they were saying about the new White would favor whatever solution the two in the White House sometimes afected House team. At times, Kushner and sides were able to agree on. Trump de- the relationship between the Israelis other White House oicials talked cided to put Kushner in charge of the and the Trump Administration. On about the “chatter,” and how foreign Israeli-Palestinian issue without ask- February 13, 2017, the day that Michael government oicials, including the Is- ing him in advance whether he wanted Flynn was forced out as national- raelis, the Emiratis, and the Saudis,

40 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 could try to “manipulate or take ad- Google twenty years ago. Now I can’t. among Palestinians that they are being vantage” of Kushner. “He was being I have to pay this amount of money. cast aside. told that that’s what’s going on,” a for- It’s not that I’m being punished. I “It was an important strategic de- mer White House oicial said. just missed the opportunity.” Privately, cision by the President to take this on Bill Priestap, the assistant director David Friedman compared the Trump in his first year,” the senior Trump Ad- of the Counterintelligence Division Administration’s approach to structur- ministration oicial told me. He and at the F.B.I., briefed Kushner on the ing a “bankruptcy-type deal” for the other oicials believe that if the Pal- counterintelligence threats he faced. Palestinians. Friedman, in fact, spent estinians alienate Trump now, then they Some foreign powers saw Kushner as much of his professional life structur- risk “three to seven years of bad rela- susceptible to persuasion—and, be- ing bankruptcy deals—for Trump, tions” with a critical aid donor. The cause of his family’s myriad business among other clients. two million residents of Gaza live in pursuits around the world, particu- Israeli intelligence oicials say that particularly dismal conditions. Two- larly prone to conflicts of interest. In Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian thirds of Gazans depend on humani- the briefing, Priestap told Kushner leader, feels more isolated than ever. In tarian aid and other services provided that his father-in-law was the No. 1 the past, support from Arab states gave by an organization called U.N.R.W.A. target of every major foreign intelli- the Palestinians the confidence to re- (the United Nations Relief and Works gence service in the world. He said sist U.S. and Israeli pressure to soften Agency for Palestine Refugees in the that Kushner probably ranked in the their demands. That backing has al- Near East). top five. One of the countries Pries- ways been contingent, but it now seems Earlier this year, Trump, in an ap- tap told Kushner he needed to watch more precarious. Successive U.S. Ad- parent efort to increase pressure on out for was Israel. Kushner said he ministrations have underestimated Ab- Abbas, froze U.S. financial support for wasn’t surprised. bas’s willingness to stand up to outside the agency. U.N. oicials have repeat- To prepare for his new role as an pressure. A friend of Abbas’s said that edly warned that they could be forced international diplomat and peacemaker, Abbas would rather die than give in. to shutter the territory’s schools or Kushner read past peace agreements, Obama once described his guiding even curtail food aid. Nevertheless, including the 1993 Oslo Accords. He principle of foreign policy as “Don’t do Kushner seemed to conclude that the thought they were full of high-flown stupid shit.” In contrast, Trump revels U.N. agency was bluing. In a recent ideals but short on specifics. He told in taking big gambles in foreign pol- e-mail to Greenblatt, Friedman, aides that the documents said “as lit- icy—North Korea, Iran, the Middle and other oicials, Kushner wrote, tle as possible” to “ofend as few peo- East, Europe, Mexico. Like Richard “UNRWA has been threatening us ple as possible.” Kushner’s plan was to Nixon, he appears to take pride in for 6 months that if they don’t get a propose a deal that was highly detailed, throwing his rivals of guard with er- check they will close schools. Noth- and then sell it. ratic behavior and rhetoric. The Trump ing has happened.” team seems unfazed by the feeling In the same e-mail, Kushner boasted, ne of the biggest diferences be- Otween the Obama and Trump Administrations on Middle East pol- icy was their approach to, and under- standing of, the Palestinian question. Kushner told aides that he thought Obama “tried to beat up on Israel and give the Palestinians everything.” This was a common view on the right. Trump’s advisers, by contrast, wanted the Palestinians to think that their stock value was declining—a strategy advocated by Netanyahu and Dermer. The goal was to get the Palestinian leadership to accept more “realistic” proposals than had been ofered to them by former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, in 2000, and by Ehud Olmert, in 2008. Never mind that, in the Pal- estinian view, the Oslo-era notion of a state included only a fraction of the territory of historical Palestine. One senior Trump Administration oicial used the price of stock as an analogy: “Ha-ha, you should see the other guy! And by that I mean, have you seen “Like in life—Oh, I wish I bought the other guy? He’s very big, has my bag, and just beat me in a bar ight.” question astonished Abbas. No Amer- ican President had ever asked him to assess the intentions of an Israeli Prime Minister. Trump repeated the question. Abbas responded cautiously: “He is the Prime Minister of Israel. We don’t have any other option.” Trump concurred: “You don’t have an option.” Then Trump told Abbas there was an opportunity for a deal “because of me.” Describing himself as a neutral party, Trump promised to “give it my one-hundred-per-cent eforts,” and predicted, “It’s going to happen.” Abbas seemed swayed by Trump’s salesman- ship, or at least he decided that it was best to sound encouraged. “We count on you, Mr. President,” Abbas said. “We believe you can do it.” The next challenge facing Abbas •• was a meeting with Trump on May 3, 2017, in the Oval Oice. The meeting took a contentious turn when Trump “We have made some big moves and ald Lauder, a wealthy businessman asked about the Palestinian Authori- everyone in the region is on their toes and the head of the World Jewish ty’s practice of giving money to the which is where they need to be for Congress. After the Inauguration, families of prisoners in Israeli jails and real change. Our goal can’t be to keep Trump met with Lauder and men- the families of terrorists. According to things stable and as they are, our goal tioned that he wanted to call Mah- Erekat, Abbas told the Americans that has to be to make things significantly moud Abbas, to see if he wanted a the Palestinians had been engaged in BETTER! Sometimes you have to deal. “I think he’s going to be some- a long conflict with Israel, and that “we strategically risk breaking things in body who you can work with,” Lauder take care of the families of the mar- order to get there.” told Trump. tyrs.” After the meeting, Trump hosted Obama had called Abbas almost a lunch for Abbas, but Bannon refused he Palestinian leadership had been immediately after being sworn in. to attend. He told me that he wouldn’t Tsufering long before Trump came Trump waited nearly two months. “eat with someone with innocent Jew- into oice. Divided, exhausted, and On March 10, 2017, a White House op- ish blood on his hands.” deeply distrustful of the Netanyahu erator put Abbas on the line with the Later that month, Trump, after his government, the Palestinians knew President. trip to Riyadh, called on Netanyahu in they were no longer a center of world Trump quickly got to the point. Jerusalem. There, the Prime Minister attention. During the transition, Saeb “What do you think?” he asked Abbas. showed him a video with excerpts of Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator who “Can we do a peace deal?” Abbas didn’t speeches by Abbas in which, accord- had worked on the Oslo Accords, trav- answer Trump’s question directly. First, ing to the Israeli government’s trans- elled to Washington for meetings with he hailed the “great democratic results” lations, he incited violence. Soon af- members of the outgoing Adminis- of the American election. terward, Trump travelled to Bethlehem tration. Susan Rice asked him if he “O.K.,” Trump interrupted, telling and confronted Abbas about the video, had any contacts on the Trump tran- Abbas the phone connection wasn’t suggesting that he was trying to trick sition team. He said that he did not. clear. “We are talking about a historic the new Administration into thinking “You’re here and you’re not going to peace deal,” Trump repeated. “What that he was committed to peace, U.S. meet with any of them?” Rice asked, do you think?” oicials said. The Palestinians accused according to Erekat. He responded to Abbas said, “We believe that through Netanyahu of obstructing the peace Rice by saying, “I don’t know any of negotiations we can achieve peace with process, prompting Trump to change them. I don’t know how to contact any the Israelis,” adding that he was “ready the subject. Erekat told me later that of them. I don’t know if they will touch to talk to Mr. Netanyahu in order to Netanyahu was using “every trick in me.” Before Erekat left the Obama start negotiations.” the book” to convince Trump that Abbas White House for the last time, Rice “Oh, that’s very good,” Trump said. wasn’t trustworthy. told him, “You’re going to miss us.” Trump then took Abbas and his Kushner’s encounters with Erekat One of the few people in Trump’s close advisers by surprise. “Do you think were especially combative. In one of circle who argued for engaging seri- Bibi wants to make a deal?” Trump them, Erekat complained that the Pal- ously with the Palestinians was Ron- asked. “What is your opinion?” The estinians were having trouble organiz-

42 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 ing meetings with the Israelis. Kush- real concessions that he would be Abbas waving two clenched fists. On ner explained, “We told them they happy with if he stayed engaged. He a copy of the article, Trump wrote a shouldn’t meet with you now.” Erekat added that Abbas would get a “bet- note in large black script, “Mahmoud, said that didn’t make any sense: “It’s ter” deal under his Administration Wow—This is the real you?” He signed much better for us to meet with the than under Obama’s, a line he repeated it, “Best Wishes, Donald Trump.” Some Israelis. . . . You’re not going to make more than once. Trump finished his of his aides argued that it would be un- peace for us.” monologue after about fifteen min- diplomatic to send the message. Kush- Kushner held his ground. “You utes, and then paused to let Abbas re- ner loved it. “That was the President think all of a sudden you’re going to spond. All he heard was silence. being the President,” he told aides. The meet at your house, and have tea, and Exasperated, Trump asked the oper- White House sent Trump’s message to you’ll be able to agree on something ator what was going on. The connec- Donald Blome, the consul-general you haven’t been able to agree on for tion with Abbas had dropped, the in Jerusalem, who had it delivered to twenty-five years?” Kushner said. He operator told Trump. How long was Abbas at his headquarters in Ramal- felt that the Palestinians were giving Abbas on the call? Trump asked. The lah. Kushner told aides that Trump was him a “history lesson on every single operator said he didn’t know and asked challenging Abbas, saying, in efect, “I issue.” He told them, “That’s all the President if he wanted him to try want to know, are you a great leader or in the past.... Show me what you to connect the call again. Trump said are you a terrorist? You show me. It’s think is an outcome that you can live he might try later. your choice.” with.” Erekat was furious. He char- On December 6th, Trump an- When Abbas and his aides received acterized the Trump team’s treatment nounced his decision to move the Em- the message, they laughed and inter- of him as “If I don’t take thirty cents bassy. “While previous Presidents have preted it as charitably as they could. on the dollar now, I’ll get fifteen cents made this a major campaign promise, Goodwin’s column was hostile to next year.” they failed to deliver,” he said. “Today, Abbas, but Trump’s use of Abbas’s first In one exchange, Erekat told Kush- I am delivering.” Abbas soon pulled name and the phrase “Best Wishes” ner that he felt like he was dealing with out of the talks. The public reaction indicated, Erekat said, that Trump was “real-estate agents” instead of White from Arab capitals was noticeably mild. trying to draw Abbas into a conversa- House oicials. Kushner responded by Still, Gulf Arab leaders privately told tion. Abbas asked Erekat to tell Blome saying, “Saeb, you haven’t made peace Kushner that the decision was counter- to relay his oicial response to Trump’s with politicians. Maybe you need a productive. Before the Jerusalem de- message: “No, that’s not the real me.” real-estate agent.” cision, Arab leaders had told Kushner But Abbas did himself no favors Erekat had another contentious that they were prepared to pressure when, at a meeting of the Palestinian meeting with Kushner at the end of Abbas to accept whatever Trump National Council in late April, in Ra- November, 2017, in which he warned ofered the Palestinians, a senior Arab mallah, he declared that Ashkenazi him that if Trump recognized Jerusa- oicial said. After the decision, they Jews came not from the Biblical holy lem as the capital of Israel “you will told Kushner that they would no lon- lands but from the Turkic empire of have disqualified yourselves from play- ger be able to pressure Abbas to ac- Khazaria, and that the Nazi slaugh- ing any role in the peace process.” Kush- cept the American plan, because of ter of European Jews was the result ner replied, “We’re a sovereign na- popular opposition. not of anti-Semitism but of their tion. . . . Don’t threaten us.” Erekat said Remarkably, M.B.S. met with Jewish- financial activities—“usury and bank- he was simply telling him that “you are American organizations in New York ing and such.” Netanyahu blasted destroying the two-state solution.” in March and criticized Abbas for Abbas, tweeting that he was guilty of Trump’s last phone conversation rejecting ofers of peace. “In the last repeating “the most contemptible anti- with Abbas took place just before the several decades,” he said, “the Pales- Semitic canards.” Jason Greenblatt, announcement of his decision to move tinian leadership has missed one op- the Middle East envoy, agreed, say- the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to portunity after the other and rejected ing, “Peace cannot be built on this Jerusalem. The phone connection to all the peace proposals it was given. kind of foundation.” Abbas kept dropping, frustrating It is about time the Palestinians take Trump, who knew that Abbas would the proposals and agree to come to n 1993, the year of the Oslo Ac- be upset when he heard what he had the negotiations table or shut up and Icords, Shimon Peres published a to say. Finally, the operator told Trump stop complaining.” book called “The New Middle East.” that Abbas was on the line. Trump Trump secretly reached out to Abbas Writing at a moment of high opti- told Abbas that he was keeping his at least one more time. On January 17th, mism, Peres foresaw a region that campaign promise to move the Em- the New York Post published a column would transcend its intractable feuds bassy. Trump then launched into an by Michael Goodwin, a Trump parti- and establish a kind of European impromptu monologue. One former san, with the headline “Abbas’ Jew Community in the desert. This was aide described it as “heartfelt.” Trump hatred exposed.” The column de- before the wars in Iraq, Syria, and told Abbas that he was committed to scribed a speech in which Abbas had Yemen, before the collapse of Israeli- getting the Palestinians the best pos- made comments disparaging Jewish Palestinian negotiations, before the sible deal and that Israel would make history. It featured a photograph of failure of the Arab Spring, before the

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 43 conflict between Sunni and Shia, be- cases, the Administration chose to gam- Department’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, tween the Gulf states and Iran, had ble, despite repeated warnings about issued a blunt statement, saying that deepened. the threat of unrest and dangerous the United States was “appalled” by The Israeli government, and its most countermeasures by Iran. the “disgraceful” Israeli attack. After- fervent supporters in the United States, As the May 14th ceremony in Jeru- ward, Israel’s Ambassador, Ron Dermer, expected Donald Trump to deliver a salem celebrating the establishment of called Denis McDonough, Obama’s new New Middle East. Less than a the new U.S. Embassy got under way, chief of staf, to say, “I’m appalled that month after his Inauguration, Trump Israeli soldiers were firing on Palestin- you’re appalled.” When Trump’s dep- met with Benjamin Netanyahu in the ians who had gathered at the security uty White House press secretary, Raj Oval Oice for the first time. After the fence that surrounds the Gaza Strip to Shah, was asked on May 14th whether meeting, the two men issued a joint protest the occupation. Nearly sixty the United States was calling on Is- statement in which they “agreed that Palestinians died that day. rael to show restraint in dealing with there will be no daylight between the While Kushner was on his way to the protests in Gaza, Shah replied, “We United States and Israel” and “reairmed the ceremony, he heard the news and believe that Hamas is responsible for the special relationship” between the made a last-minute adjustment to his these tragic deaths, that their rather two allies. They subsequently called for speech, adding, “Those provoking cynical exploitation of the situation is the formation of joint working groups violence are part of the problem and what’s leading to these deaths, and we to expand security coöperation. Trump’s not part of the solution.” When Net- want them to stop.” Afterward, Der- most ardent anti-Iran advisers on the anyahu addressed the gathering, he mer visited the White House and National Security Council wanted these flattered President Trump for his “cour- pulled Shah aside to thank him. “This working groups to help Israel prepare age” and willingness to keep his prom- is a sharp contrast from what we re- for future conflicts with Iranian prox- ises and said that he had “made his- ceived in 2014,” Dermer told Shah, ies in Lebanon and Syria. But eforts tory.” “It’s a great day for peace,” adding that he was “pleased to see a by those who wanted to do more to Netanyahu said. Sheldon and Miriam very diferent reaction from the White enable Israel to counter Iran met re- Adelson sat in the front row with Net- House while the issue was hot.” sistance from more cautious elements anyahu and his wife, and Jared Kush- Later the same day, at an event in within the U.S. national-security es- ner and Ivanka Trump, underscoring Washington marking the seventieth tablishment, who feared that Israel the roles they played behind the scenes anniversary of Israel’s independence, would initiate a military confrontation in making the Embassy move happen. the Israeli Embassy released a com- and expect the U.S. to finish the job. Later that evening, Adelson attended a memorative book “honoring Ameri- In the ensuing power struggle, Republican Jewish Coalition reception, cans who have strengthened Israel and the anti-Iran hawks in the White where, in brief remarks, he joked about its alliance with the United States.” House, and their allies in the right- being the shortest man in the room— The Israelis had planned to honor only wing media, accused their internal ri- except when standing “on my wallet.” one American President in the book— vals of being more loyal to Obama’s The Palestinians, human-rights Harry Truman, who recognized the agenda than to Trump’s. By the sum- groups, and various foreign govern- Jewish state in 1948—but Dermer de- mer of 2017, they set their sights on the ments accused the Israeli military of cided to add a second President to the national-security adviser, using excessive force in list, Donald Trump; the entry praised General H. R. McMaster, Gaza. A spokesman for his “bold decision to recognize Jerusa- casting him as anti-Israel. Theresa May, the British lem as Israel’s capital.” Dermer sent In March, McMaster was Prime Minister, said, “Is- copies to the White House so that replaced by John Bolton, rael has the right to defend Trump could see his name alongside who took a much harder its borders . . . but the use Truman’s and Albert Einstein’s. line against the Palestin- of live fire is deeply trou- In response to the violence in Gaza, ians and who has long ad- bling.” President Recep the Gulf states issued ritual denunci- vocated for regime change Tayyip Erdoğan, of Turkey, ations and support for the Palestinians, in Iran. Shaul Mofaz, a for- tweeted that Netanyahu but Israeli oicials regarded the lan- mer Israeli Defense Min- was the Prime Minister of guage as unmistakably bland, similar ister, recalled that when “an apartheid state.” Israeli to their reactions to the Jerusalem de- Bolton was Ambassador to the United government spokesmen replied that cision. That their emphasis had shifted Nations he had “tried to convince me the Army was defending Israeli peo- away from the Palestinians and to the that Israel needs to attack Iran.” ple and territory; the Palestinians were, spectre of a confrontation with Iran The contours of the new, more truc- in fact, armed with rocks and explosive was obvious. ulent and hawkish Middle East strat- devices and had used “human shields,” Netanyahu had long supported mov- egy revealed themselves in May, with they said. ing the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, but, the transfer of the U.S. Embassy from In 2014, when Israeli forces acci- in contrast to the Adelsons, he didn’t Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the Trump dentally shelled a United Nations make it a priority. Netanyahu’s main Administration’s decision to withdraw school in the Gaza Strip, killing more request of Trump was the reversal of from the Iran nuclear pact. In both than ten Palestinian civilians, the State Obama-era policies concerning Iran.

44 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 Like M.B.Z. and M.B.S., he wanted Trump to pivot from what he saw as a policy of containment, accommoda- tion, and restraint to one that aims to roll back Iran’s military capabilities and regional ambitions. Trump announced the American withdrawal from the nuclear deal on May 8th, a few days before the Jerusa- lem Embassy ceremony. Dermer said it was his single “best day” as Israel’s Ambassador to the United States. “We were on cruise control heading over a clif and Trump has now turned the wheel,” Dermer told me. Kushner agreed with Dermer that Obama had strengthened Iran at the expense of relations with Israel and the Gulf states, and left oice no closer to bringing about an Arab-Israeli peace. “If we’re going to take on Iran, we want to do it all together,” Kushner recently told aides. Bolton and his hawkish advisers have started talks with Israeli financial and intelligence experts, aimed at reimposing economic sanctions on “Computer, order me two long-sleeved cotton crewnecks Iran. Netanyahu suggested in private in dark wine and green heather.” meetings with current and former U.S. oicials that Iran’s government was more vulnerable than it appeared; he •• argued for increased pressure that could lead to its collapse. “Iran is in conflict ner’s plan fails to ofer the Palestinians Abbas’s worst nightmare could be with us, Iran is in conflict with the a capital in East Jerusalem and gives coming true,” the former U.S. oicial United States, Iran is in conflict with Israel sovereignty over the Old City, told me. just about all the Arab states in the Arab leaders may have no choice but Recently, coöperation among Israel Middle East,” Netanyahu said in an to reject it. A senior Administration and the Gulf states has expanded into interview with Fox News, in mid-May. oicial said only that the plan will focus the Sinai Peninsula, where M.B.Z. has “I think we should unite together under on “how you make the lives of the Is- deployed Emirati forces to train and President Trump’s leadership to kick raeli and Palestinian people much bet- assist Egyptian troops who have been Iran out of Syria.” Mike Pompeo, in ter,” and described it as “fair.” fighting militants with help from Israeli his first major address as Secretary of Netanyahu’s assumption is that military aircraft and intelligence agen- State, echoed Netanyahu’s demands, Abbas, who has been counting for de- cies. U.A.E. forces have, on occasion, and suggested that the Iranian peo- cades on a full-fledged final settle- conducted counterterrorism missions ple should reject the clerical govern- ment and a state, will reject Kushner’s in Sinai. Although Netanyahu would ment in Tehran. meliorist blueprint. That would put like to make these new relationships Kushner intends to release a Mid- the onus on M.B.Z., M.B.S., and other more public, he doesn’t want to put dle East peace plan in the coming Arab leaders to decide whether to fol- M.B.Z. and M.B.S. at risk. Eventually, months. His message to the Palestin- low Abbas’s lead or chart a diferent Netanyahu hopes that those leaders ians is “If you want to work with us, course. Netanyahu hopes that Gulf will take steps to recognize Israel—a work with us. If you don’t want to work Arab leaders will not disapprove of moment that the Palestinians, espe- with us, we’re not going to chase after the new American ofer, and opt in- cially in their current state, would be you.” Netanyahu, who was never en- stead to deepen coöperation against loath to see. thusiastic about Trump’s talk of reach- Iran and other enemies. Toward the The Palestinians seem to be the ing the “ultimate deal,” knows that the end of the Obama Administration, likely losers in the new New Middle plan, in order to pass muster with Kush- one of Abbas’s top aides told a U.S. East. As a senior Arab oicial said of ner’s Gulf Arab partners, will have to oicial that “our worst nightmare” the strategic alliance, “With or with- ask Israel to make concessions and not would be for Netanyahu to find a way out a peace plan, it’s happening.” A se- look like something concocted by the to divide the Gulf states from the Pal- nior Trump adviser said, “Iran is the Central Committee of Likud. If Kush- estinians. “Bibi’s greatest dream and reason why this is all happening.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 45 LETTER FROM THE FAROE ISLANDS MEAL TICKET Foodies are locking to a remote archipelago for the ultimate locavore meal.

BY REBECCA MEAD

he Faroe Islands, an austere, there’s little lumber available either a company that markets and supplies mountainous archipelago ma- to manufacture salt or to generate Faroese fish internationally, said, “We T rooned in the North Atlan- smoke. Instead, a catch is suspended eat cod and haddock like anything. tic two hundred miles north of Scot- from the eaves of a house, like wind But twenty-five years ago, when the land, has a landmass of only five chimes on a porch, where it dries and fishermen caught monkfish, they hundred and forty square miles, and ferments. After it is suiciently de- would throw it all out!” Høj is a born- is sparsely populated with fifty thou- composed, a process that takes sev- again Christian, like a growing num- sand people and seventy thousand eral weeks, it is boiled, then served ber of islanders, and he cited the coun- sheep. But, looked at another way, the alongside boiled potatoes. A condi- ty’s social conservatism: just as the country, an autonomous outpost of ment of fermented tallow, made from Faroese like their society to be pre- the Kingdom of Denmark, is much lamb intestines, is poured on top. This dictable, they don’t like their fish to larger: its territorial waters extend for dish is as delicious to an islander as be too fishy. more than a hundred thousand square a crustacean freshly plucked from the Bjarti Petersen, a professional diver miles around nearly seven hundred clean waters of the North Atlantic who works for a fishery, suggested miles of coastline. Only one village, might be to just about anyone other that Faroese fishermen have an aver- Vatnsoyrar, isn’t on the coast, and than a Faroese. sion to mollusks because they use wherever you are on any of the Faroes’ It’s a mystery why the islanders de- clams and mussels as bait. “You don’t eighteen islands you’re never more cline to eat a rich supply of foodstufs eat bait,” he said, when I visited him than three miles from the crashing, that elsewhere would be considered at his apartment, in Tórshavn, on the frigid ocean. Like the human body, delicacies. When I visited the archi- largest island, Streymoy. Not only did the Faroes are mostly water. pelago recently, locals ofered me sev- eating bait seem gross; it made no The inhabitants of the islands, eral explanations. Many said that the economic sense. “You have a clam this which were settled by Vikings in the Faroese are afraid of getting food poi- size”—Petersen made an “O” with his ninth and tenth centuries, have al- soning from eating anything too raw forefinger and thumb—“and, with one ways depended on sustenance from or mollusky, a caution that has hard- of those, you can get a big cod.” As the ocean. But the local diet is sur- ened into tradition. It’s as if, in the we spoke, Petersen’s wife made tea, prisingly selective. The waters of the ancestral era, a Faroese had eaten a and their eighteen-month-old daugh- Faroes teem with edible creatures that mussel and died, while, a thousand ter sat on a couch, watching a DVD the Faroese do not eat. They don’t miles south, his Gallic equivalent had of “Frozen.” The wondrous fictional gorge on the mahogany clams, bur- discovered that a mussel becomes a landscape of Arendelle—with its ied in underwater sand, that can live tasty morsel when steamed, especially deep fjords and craggy mountains— for centuries. They ignore the abun- if you have wine, garlic, and parsley looked just like the world outside her dant mussels that cling to coastal at hand. door. One person’s weird is another rocks, and consider langoustines and Sveinur Trondarson, a journalist person’s normal. sea urchins to be revolting. It’s a fa- turned tour guide, suggested that his vorite game among Faroese children countrymen’s avoidance of shellfish hen I asked Poul Andrias Ziska, to pick up sea urchins and hurl them might have its origins in the Biblical Wa twenty-eight-year-old chef at one another, because they make a prohibition in Leviticus 11:12. A busi- and a native of Tórshavn, why his satisfying splat on impact. nessman in Tórshavn, the country’s countrymen rejected so much of the The Faroese do eat cod and had- diminutive capital city, bluntly as- bounty of the North Atlantic, he spoke dock—masses of it, typically prepared cribed the islanders’ self-imposed di- of social class. In the Faroes, he said, in one of two ways. When eaten fresh, etary limitations to a lack of native shellfish counts as a poor man’s food, the fish is subjected to prolonged boil- intelligence, compounded by geo- and it has historically been consid- ing (or “killed twice,” as some locals graphical remoteness. “The Faroese ered shameful to eat it, especially com- put it). The Faroese also preserve fish, are not stupid, but they were so iso- pared with the fresh or salt-cured though not with such familiar Nor- lated that for a long time they didn’t meats that, under the influence of the dic techniques as salting or smoking; know that the vast sea around us was Danes, furnish the tables of high so- the islands are so windswept that al- filled with so many great things,” he ciety. The islands, which fell under most no trees grow, and as a result said. Leif Høj, the co-owner of Fofish, Danish rule in the fourteenth century,

46 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 Two Faroese delicacies, fermented ocean perch and wind-dried pilot whale, hanging in a shed perforated with air vents.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANNE GOLAZ THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 47 Poul Andrias Ziska, Koks’s twenty-eight-year-old head chef, plates a dish of crab, fermented leek, and pickled elderlower. became self-governing in 1948, but which can serve no more than twenty- to the Faroes; a thinner slice of salted the relationship between the two four diners a night, costs about two blubber, butchered from one of the countries remains that of a resentful hundred and twenty dollars a person, eight hundred or so whales slaugh- subaltern state and a condescending with a wine pairing adding a hun- tered annually in a community hunt; colonial power. The joke among Danes dred and seventy dollars more. On and a sprinkle of fresh herbs foraged is that the inhabitants of the Faroes ofer is a tasting menu, of eighteen from the mountainsides. are descended from Vikings who were courses, made up almost exclusively In Faroese, koks means a flirt, or too seasick to make it all the way of foods that are raised or cultivated someone who fusses over something to Iceland. on the Faroes, or found in the local in pursuit of perfection. (The restau- Similar feelings of shame haunt waters. Among the prominent ingre- rant’s name was not chosen because the consumption of traditional Faro- dients are lamb, fish, shellfish, sea- of its swaggering phallic connotations ese specialties like fermented lamb. weed, and such root vegetables as po- in English.) Early last year, Koks re- Joints of freshly butchered lamb are tatoes and turnips. ceived a Michelin star, the first to be hung in a wooden shed, known as a Some of Ziska’s creations would awarded in the Faroes. The judges hjallur, that is chinked with drafty shock the palate of a Faroese fisher- cited “dishes with distinct flavors . . . gaps, allowing the islands’ incessant man but delight a sophisticated res- carefully prepared to a consistently winds to blow through it. Wind and ident of San Francisco. He presents high standard.” When the represen- time bestow on the meat a layer a raw mahogany clam on the half shell, tative from Michelin paid Koks a visit, of greenish mold, and a pungency its flesh sliced over kale purée, with the restaurant occupied a modernist somewhere between Parmesan cheese kelp broth spooned on top. (Bjarti Pe- house, with large windows, at the base and death. “The Faroese food, espe- tersen, who works a few days a week of a mountain that overlooks the cially the fermented food, is some- as Koks’s diver, stores his catch in a coastal hamlet of Kirkjubøur. The thing you keep to yourself,” Ziska crate that remains submerged in a village is one of the most picturesque told me. “You eat it, but only if no one nearby fjord until it’s time to prepare spots on the islands, with a turf-roofed is looking.” meals.) Ziska also ofers imaginative farmhouse that dates to the eleventh Anyone who secures a reservation twists on traditional dishes. A “sand- century, and the ruins of a cathedral at Koks, a restaurant that Ziska runs, wich,” made with cracker-like slices built in 1300. The Michelin citation finds that his Faroese cooking is hardly of dried cod skin, contains a thin piece led to a surge in reservations, espe- poor man’s food. Dinner at Koks, of salted gannet, a seabird common cially from international gastronomes

48 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 who were not deterred—and who here.” Diners at the new Koks loca- ter flavored with raisins and carda- sometimes were energized—by the tion were to be welcomed into the mom, and then baking it. The result, necessity of taking a flight from Co- hjallur for one or two courses. One Ziska told me, is a filling but leaden penhagen, Reykjavík, or Edinburgh. planned dish was a sushi-like confec- dish. In his version, a pancake is Last August, Koks’s lease on the tion: raw fermented lamb served atop wrapped around slices of baked ra- house in Kirkjubøur, which is a a cake of crispy fried reindeer lichen, zorbill, a more plentiful relative of the fifteen-minute cab ride from Tórs- cemented in place with an emulsion puin. Ziska served a similar dish last havn, ended. The restaurant closed of mushrooms and pickled berries. year but used fulmar, another seabird. for the winter, and when I arrived in Diners would be invited to sprinkle Fulmar has a very strong, fatty flavor, the Faroes, in early April, Koks was the lamb with desiccated seaweed similar to that of cod-liver oil. Razor- about to reopen in an even more re- flakes that tasted a bit like trules. bill is milder. He said of the dish, “It’s mote location, amid forbidding moun- The farmhouse had the usual tables a beef Wellington, but with a batter tains near Lake Leynar, half an hour for two and four, and also a large com- around this gamy bird, and it tastes a northwest of Tórshavn. The new munal table, which could seat up to little bit of fish.” Koks doesn’t even have a road lead- eight people. Ziska imagined that it The evening before I met Ziska, ing to it. After you pull of a sin- often would be occupied by single a soft opening had been held for a gle-lane highway, you follow a dirt diners, or by friends travelling to- dozen or so of his friends. Oversee- track that peters out along the lake’s gether who didn’t want to eat alone, ing Koks’s staf of nine chefs—each shoreline, a ribbon of black volcanic or by “people who have been married of whom is from a diferent coun- sand. Then you must ford a stream too long.” try—and five waiters had left him and drive, for several minutes, on Ziska is slender and intense, with feeling wired, and he had been up a rutted, rocky pathway until you a ginger beard and long curly hair, late in the restaurant’s cozy, warmly reach a modest turf-roofed farmhouse like that of a Romantic poet. He had lit lounge, where akvavit and wine that was built in 1741. It is a fitting spent much of the winter researching bottles were displayed along shelves. venue for a superlatively perverse din- new flavors and techniques, and was The room has pine benches that are ing experience. eager to try them out on his guests. topped with Faroese sheepskins: of- When I visited Koks one bright “When we first opened, we got maybe white, brown, black, and almost afternoon, the new space was sched- the wrong guests—people who ex- mauve. (There are so many sheep on uled to open oicially the following pected a lot of food, to get full,” Ziska the islands that even professional evening. There were only traces of told me. “But over time we have dis- knitters cannot keep up with the sup- snow at the tops of the surrounding tilled those people away. People know ply; every spring, entire flocks’ worth mountains: the Gulf Stream keeps if they want one dish, one steak, they of sheared wool is burned, for want winters in the Faroes relatively mild. shouldn’t come here.” of a better use.) There are three con- Construction workers were bustling When he first dared to serve fer- nected dining rooms, and, as is to be to finish an extensive renovation of mented lamb tallow, in 2012, foreign expected in an old farmhouse, the the farmhouse and the grounds. Men diners compared its strong taste to windows are small, framing diminu- were installing green plastic matting that of blue cheese. “I have been eat- tive squares of a stark mountainside. along a path between a gravel park- ing it my whole life, and I never made Ziska spoke with relish of subvert- ing lot and the stone steps of the that connection,” Ziska said. “But once ing guests’ expectations of natural farmhouse. The matting was to be you start thinking of it like that you beauty. “At Kirkjubøur, it was a pan- disguised with moisture-absorbing, can work further on it. ‘O.K., what oramic view—it was completely beau- high-heel-tolerant, mud-colored does blue cheese go well with?’ ” He tiful—but in the end I don’t want it sand, which would obviate the ne- now serves fermented lamb tallow as to be about the view,” he said. “It cessity of guests walking through ac- a paste with dried cod, smeared on a should be about the people and the tual mud. Outside the farmhouse was cheesy wale—a savory twist on a food and the wine.” In a country where a new hjallur. For the moment, it was traditional Faroese sweet that is usu- spectacular vistas are hard to avoid, being used to store construction ally served with cofee. Koks was ofering the absence of equipment, not meat, but that would Some of Koks’s dishes, such as a one as the ultimate treat. Ziska said, soon change. raw queen scallop served in its shell, “Here, you sit, and when it gets dark In 2016, Koks established a pop-up are self-explanatory, but others re- you don’t see anything.” restaurant for a few weeks in Copen- quire elucidation. Ziska told me that hagen, and had great success with a he had been developing a variation oks opened in April, 2011, and mobile hjallur that had been converted on a traditional method of preparing KZiska, one of the first employees, into a small dining space, with glass roasted puin, a seabird that was once started as a trainee, when he was barely windows instead of vented wooden plentiful in the Faroes but whose num- out of his teens. The restaurant was walls. “We pimped it up a little bit,” bers have diminished drastically be- launched by Johannes Jensen, an en- Ziska recalled. “The atmosphere was cause of climate change. A Faroese trepreneur who is the islands’ closest crazy—there was interaction between recipe book from 1902 recommends equivalent to Danny Meyer. (Jensen the guests, which we want to work on stuing the seabird with pancake bat- owns twelve restaurants.) At first,

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 49 Koks occupied the dining room of lovage while dressed in kitchen whites. Tórshavn’s fanciest hotel, the Føroyar, Although Ziska was not yet the which is on a hillside on the outskirts head chef, he contributed several of town. Until Koks opened, one of dishes to the menu, including beet ice the hotel dining room’s featured items cream and skate and sea sandwort was Steak Hawaii, a chunk of im- with mussel froth. “Poul Andrias was ported meat with a ring of imported, the crazy guy,” Sørensen told me. “He canned pineapple on top. Koks’s new thought it was important to have a approach was not entirely to the lik- twisted mind.” In 2014, Sørensen left ing of locals, who had treated the hotel Koks, after disagreements with Jen- as a special-occasion destination. “At sen about how it should be run. He the beginning, people were laughing will soon open an afordable restau- at us for putting a small thing on a rant for locals, on Tórshavn’s harbor, big plate, or for serving raw fish,” Ziska that will not adhere strictly to New told me. “And in the Faroe Islands Nordic principles. “It is nice that I paying for food is considered crazy. can use tomatoes again,” Sørensen You have the fish in the ocean, and told me. you have a boat, or you know some- Ziska, who in 2013 moved to Co- one who has a boat, and you go out penhagen to work at Geranium, Den- and get it and cook it yourself—that’s mark’s only Michelin three-star restau- the mentality.” rant, was about to start a new job, at Ziska initially worked at Koks Noma, when he heard of Sørensen’s under Leif Sørensen, the head chef, departure. He immediately returned who had learned his trade in French to Koks as head chef. Under his guid- kitchens and at Kommandanten, a ance, the menu has become no less Michelin-starred Danish-French radical, but it is more Faroese. Not as restaurant in Copenhagen. In 2004, much efort is made to give dishes he was one of the signatories of the an approachable French veneer, or to “New Nordic Kitchen Manifesto,” conceal unfamiliar local ingredients joining chefs from Finland, Sweden, with technical wizardry. Ziska has Denmark, Norway, Iceland, and stopped putting fermented lamb in a Greenland, all of whom pledged to test tube. “You couldn’t really taste it,” use Nordic produce and Nordic meth- he recalled. “It was there, and you had ods to create an innovative contem- the story about it, but it was so far porary cuisine. The most celebrated from what it is in reality that it wasn’t signatory is René Redzepi, whose even close to the real thing.” restaurant Noma, in Copenhagen, Under Ziska, Koks gleefully em- opened in 2003 and has since earned braces the potentially disgusting as- two Michelin stars, for such dishes as pects of Faroese cuisine. In the nine- confit of snail, roasted cod head, and teenth century, a Danish physician cake made from plankton. The menu named Peter Ludvig Panum wrote a at Koks aspired to be both firmly treatise entitled “Observations Made rooted in native produce and brashly During the Measles Epidemic on the experimental: raw scallops and horse- Faroe Islands in the Year 1846,” which radish were mixed with milk and liq- noted that the archipelago’s inhabi- uid nitrogen. Select fermented foods tants regularly ate meat that was crawl- were introduced. A lavishly illustrated ing with maggots. Panum’s writings book about the restaurant, published made many Faroese feel embarrassed in 2012, contains a photograph of what about their culinary traditions, but became a signature appetizer: a test Ziska does not doubt the account’s ac- tube containing a mouthful of dried- curacy. “If you ferment the meat and fish crisps, roasted pearl barley, sugar- the weather goes wrong, then you get glazed seaweed, and fragments of maggots in it,” he noted, cheerfully. roasted fermented lamb. The book “It’s a completely natural thing to includes some unintentionally comic happen to any meat. Back then, you images of Koks’s team—including couldn’t throw any meat away—it was a younger and considerably more too valuable. You had to eat it to sur- kempt-looking Ziska—foraging on vive. What we did back then—and Faroese hillsides for wild thyme or still do today—is you cook the meat Johannes Jensen, the entrepreneur behind Koks,

50 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 suggested that the beauty of eating at the restaurant is the radical proximity of the farm to the table.

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 51 but add rice.” (Rice has been imported for centuries.) One dish that Ziska has served at Koks is a twist on his ances- THE KING OF FIRE tors’ starvation-level fare: flatbread filled with cooked fermented lamb and My irst night without you topped with ground mealworms, which my wings fold back in on themselves— Ziska buys from a pet-food supplier on the Internet. “Maggots are a very all those birds inside or good source of protein, and could po- released by your hands—now I trace tentially save the planet, but when I give them to diners I don’t present it my ingers along my collarbone in that much depth,” he told me. “I just tell that fun little story about the trying to ind where they live. I keep rice.” Diners at Koks tend not to be touching my scar—it feels like swallowing timid eaters; with rare exceptions, the mealworms go down the hatch. night, like lyers for a lost boy— what if it’s true our bodies are not our own, wo days before I ate dinner at TKoks, I visited the smallest in- but only become manifest (like this habited island in the Faroes, Stóra poem) when activated by another’s touch Dímun, to learn more about traditional Faroese cuisine—in particular, ræst, a what if the thing activated is outlined— broad term for food that has been fer- roughly—by the word body . . . This mented. (The Faroese language has dozens of words for degrees of rotten- morning my daughter stood before me ness: stadnaður means “dried on the naked & said her body was not outside, soft on the inside”; karmoðin means “completely rotten.”) Stóra her own—she’s been sick for two days— Dímun, six hundred acres of moun- smiling, she seemed to tains that shear of into frightful clifs on all sides, can be reached by heli- like it, the feeling, that copter three times a week. Visiting used to require a hazardous boat land- loating above . . . I worry it’s a set-up, a ing. Back then, the island was a work- manifestation of the addict I’ve place of last resort for unmarried moth- ers and their ofspring. Stóra Dímun is home to the farm of one extended family: a brother and a sister, both eighth-generation farm- ing on the edge of a clif face, hold- lamb bladders, which the family gen- ers on the island, and their spouses ing one end of a rope that was tied erally used for making sausage, were and children, who range in age from around the waist of another man, strung from the ceiling as decora- one to fourteen. Eva Petersen, the sis- who was descending the rock face to tions—blowing them up is a favorite ter, greeted me in head-to-foot oil- collect puin eggs. When the man activity of the children. The kitchen skins—it was raining and misty. After lost his footing, he pulled the blind table was laid with homemade bread, picking up a box of groceries from farmer over the edge, and they both butter, jam, a tureen of dried lamb the helicopter, she took me on a short fell to their deaths. The blind farm- tallow, and a haunch of fermented tour of the farm, where, she told me, er’s son, Petersen’s great-grandfather, lamb. Petersen cut me a thin slice of the family raises about four hundred also died in a puin-egg accident: meat. It had a consistency like bre- and fifty ewes, and slaughters a sim- he was foraging on a clif when a saola, and a strong flavor that was at ilar number of lambs annually. As we rock above him came loose and once meaty and cheesy, and also some- looked around stone-walled pens brained him. thing else entirely, which might gen- teeming with sheep, she passed on The centerpiece of the farm is a erously have been characterized as stories of her ancestors’ harsh lives spacious hjallur, inside which were umami. The lamb haunch was not at and early deaths. Her great-great-grand- hanging the remains of the summer all to my taste, but, given a choice be- father, known simply as “the blind harvest: a few dozen joints of gently tween eating it and foraging for a farmer,” was memorialized in a por- greening lamb, looking less like the puin egg, I know which I’d choose. trait that hung on a farmhouse wall. wares in a butcher’s shop than like On returning to Tórshavn, I had a He lost his sight at the age of thirty, shards of granite patterned delicately meal at a restaurant called Ræst, which and, some years later, he was stand- with lichen. In the farmhouse, inflated is owned by Johannes Jensen, the en-

52 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 better part of two decades in the trade, primarily as a marketer and a sales manager. He began to travel for work, and, after being exposed to fine restau- passed on through the blood, my talent rants in France and elsewhere, he be- for slipping into the bigger thing came determined to nurture something equivalent in the Faroes. “Fermented a craving for it . . . O food is maybe the most important cul- tural heritage we’ve got,” he said, as to live without thoughts—no rats in our the next dish, aged lamb with ruta- shoulders, only birds, baga, arrived. “A chef coming from Denmark says that the Faroese lamb & the willingness to let someone is delicious—much better than they inside. What if have there. He can’t understand why we destroy it by fermenting it, and we these things we call our bodies are not say completely the opposite. To put singular or contained, what if garlic on it? That, to me, is a bit sad.” The aged lamb on my plate looked they inally become irrelevant . . . like shreds of an automobile tire, and after so much time trying to be grounded, it tasted like something I wouldn’t be able to wash out of my hair for a week. to land on this earth, so strange Jensen explained that each farm- to imagine we might simply pass by ourselves er’s ræst has a singular terroir. Some farms produce meat that is particu- for a moment, en route to somewhere else . . . larly salty, perhaps because of the di- What’s on the other side? A nap? rection of the wind in relation to the sea, and it’s said that certain farmers A parade? It works—matchbox can tell which Faroese island a sheep has been raised on simply by tasting sparks, lightning bugs, I’m completely inside its meat. Jensen suggested that the that boy who feels like he’s inside me. beauty of eating in the archipelago— and, especially, at Koks—is the radi- And this— cal proximity of the farm to the table. I want to know everything about the parade. “You are sitting in a restaurant in Stockholm, or in London, and a chef —Nick Flynn is explaining that this is from a farmer here, and there, and there, and you look out the window and you see trepreneur who founded Koks. Ræst, ber, and dried whale meat (which traic,” he said. “But at a restaurant which occupies one of the oldest build- was black and tasted of seawater, in the Faroe Islands, in the middle of ings in Tórshavn, has small wood-pan- blood, and iron). The first main course the North Atlantic, you put it on the elled rooms, giving it the feel of a salt- featured stewed whale cooked in a plate and the guest sees what he eats box house on Nantucket, though it is risotto-like mess of barley and sea- through the window. He feels what imbued with a distinctive, near-ran- weed. It was served with a glass of he eats. That, to me, is the diference.” cid smell. Ræst allows foodies lured sherry, which, Jensen explained, is a In Jensen’s opinion, there is no rea- to the Faroes by the avant-garde cui- better accompaniment to fermented son that Koks can’t become the world’s sine at Koks to sample native foods dishes than more insipid wines. More finest restaurant. “We are living in the in something close to their traditional ræst dishes followed, including a ver- world’s best pantry,” he said. “Why preparations. For some foreign din- sion of the islands’ most common fish should a restaurant like Noma be- ers, its pleasures are strictly anthropo- dish: fermented cod served with come the world’s best, when we have logical. As I sat down, Jensen said, puréed potatoes and leeks and topped our raw materials? Why can’t we do “You will probably dislike everything with fermented lamb tallow. The tal- it ourselves?” you eat. Sorry.” low was vividly rank. The fish was Dessert arrived: blissfully palatable The experience of dining at Ræst toothsome and chewy—a bit like ba- fermented gooseberries served with a was like what it might be for an Amer- calao—but unsalted. “It tastes a little rosemary-flavored pudding. We dis- ican to consume an extended meal in bit of ammonia, doesn’t it?” Jensen in- cussed the new location of Koks, and which Marmite was the central in- quired, solicitously. Jensen told me that he was thrilled with gredient. The set menu began with Like many Faroese, Jensen started the rugged setting. But there was one an appetizer of dried cod, whale blub- of in the fish business. He spent the risk: the access route to the restaurant

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 53 A mahogany clam, one of the ocean’s most long-lived creatures, served at Koks. Faroese isherman use clams as bait. sometimes becomes severely flooded. who were sitting around a table and Champagne was poured, and a flurry “Some years often, some years seldom,” sipping the first course: a bowl of lamb of chefs came from the kitchen to show Jensen said. “The key word is ‘flexibil- broth, served with pale ale from a mi- of the day’s catch: two big platters ity.’ We will have to find a solution to crobrewery outside Tórshavn. We all filled with live langoustines and clams solve it when it occurs.” introduced ourselves, and, unsurpris- and mussels. One desperately mortal ingly, none of us was Faroese. The langoustine heaved itself of a platter small fleet of taxi-drivers has group included a technical manager and made a break for it, in the direc- A been trained to ferry guests to from Toronto, who was on an extended tion of the tech nomad, before being Koks. On leaving town, they bypass hiking vacation and was dressed in whisked back to its fate in the kitchen, a low road, which was built in the perspiration-wicking fabrics; an En- a tiny space at one end of the farm- nineteen-nineties, and instead take a glish representative of Atlantic Air- house. (A larger prep kitchen is in a high road, which rises more than ways, the Faroese national airline; a former shepherd’s hut a few feet up fifteen hundred feet above sea level, Danish psychologist who was spend- the hillside.) Ziska emerged from the with views over spectacular fjords. ing a few days teaching Faroese hos- kitchen to present each diner with a When I took a cab to get to my seven- pital workers about trauma; and a spoonful of salted roe from the cape- o’clock reservation on the opening young tech guy from New York, who lin fish, a kind of smelt, served atop a night, my driver noted that during said that he had been “nomading” purée of cauliflower, under which the winter the winds on the high road around the world for several months, lurked a puddle of bright-green dill had reached seventy-five miles an hour. and who wore a woollen cap pulled oil. “We get a hundred and eighty kilos This evening, the breeze was relatively over an almost shaved head. After the of fish, and from that we get approx- placid. As we drove along, a black broth, we piled into a four-wheel- imately ten kilos of roe,” Ziska said, sheep wandered onto the deserted drive vehicle for the trek across the as the diners nodded approvingly. road ahead of us. We watched it cross beach, over the stream, and up to the As successive courses were pre- to the other side. “Part of the show,” restaurant. Inside, we were introduced sented, and waiters and chefs scur- the driver said. to two other guests, a prosperous-look- ried around the restaurant, ducking Taxis pull up where the paved road ing couple from Copenhagen, a busi- their heads to avoid hitting low raf- stops, by a customized hjallur over- nessman nearing retirement and his ters, members of our group compared looking Lake Leynar. I was invited wife. All of us shared the large, square élite dining experiences. The psychol- inside, and met several other diners, communal table. ogist reported that the staf at Gera-

54 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 nium, the Copenhagen restaurant, and sucked avidly on the claws, extract- courses that had taken hours of efort had tried to upsell him on wine. The ing the sweet flesh, as a Trebbiano was to prepare. Above all, there was a strange businessman from Copenhagen told poured and the businessman from Co- satisfaction in how hard it had been to a story about his daughter attending penhagen ofered a toast, “because the get to the restaurant. Fäviken, the Mi- a friend’s wedding dinner at Noma. company is as good as the food.” chelin two-star restaurant in the snowy “Who was she marrying—royalty?” Koks’s version of ræst lamb was next: hinterlands of northern Sweden, was the Atlantic Airways rep exclaimed. dark snarls of flesh that looked like positively metropolitan by comparison; The conversation was conducted en- caramelized red cabbage. Pieces of the it was on the European mainland, after tirely in fluent English, and the at- meat were served inside layers of all. At Koks, we were getting not just mosphere was so convivial that when roasted onions, with pickled lingon- extreme cuisine but an experience that Ziska’s gannet-and-whale-blubber berries on top. When presenting the was, quite literally, outlandish. A bunch sandwich was brought out its unusual dish, a chef ofered a confession: “They of foreigners had gone to absurd lengths contents were barely remarked on. are not Faroese lingonberries. They are to eat food that even the natives didn’t Ziska and a clutch of deputy chefs from Sweden.” He added, “But we peel fully expect us to like. Looking around served the mahogany clams, explain- them ourselves.” The guests generally the table, I calculated that, collectively, ing that they are among the ocean’s approved of the dish, though I couldn’t we would be burning through roughly most long-lived creatures. “A mahog- help feeling that, in my few days on thirty-two thousand air miles to enjoy any clam can live to five hundred,” he the islands, I had consumed enough a fanatically locavore, ecologically pris- said. After the cheesy wale with fer- fermented meat for a lifetime. tine meal. mented-lamb spread, hailed as deli- The jolly atmosphere was enhanced cious, came a palate cleanser: a dollop by the frequent replenishment of wine. s the evening drew to a close, a of stewed rhubarb between peppery The businessman from Copenhagen Aseries of desserts was served, in- nasturtium leaves smaller than the pads took out his phone and showed us pho- cluding a crème brûlée infused with of one’s fingertips. It looked like a fairy’s tographs of vintage cars that he owned, red seaweed. A carafe of cofee was de- portion, or a chef ’s practical joke. and then everyone began talking about livered to the table with a dried salmon Two hours had passed since we Bitcoin. A waiter entered the room car- skin wrapped around its neck, as a had arrived at the hjallur, and by the rying eight alarming-looking knives, holder. (The engineer snifed it: not time the first main course was pre- sheathed in wooden scabbards deco- fishy.) The guests strategized about sented it was pitch-dark outside, as rated with mother-of-pearl inlays. We sharing taxis back to Tórshavn—one promised. Halibut, procured to Zis- needed the knives for the fourteenth, challenge of remote-chic dining is get- ka’s specifications by Leif Høj, of and final, savory course: the razorbill ting home. As the first carload de- Fofish, was served sashimi style, with Wellington. The pancake-wrapped sea- parted, the rest of us discussed the meal, watercress and toasted buckwheat. It bird was topped by a lumpy, bloody- and, despite the delight that had been was so fresh and flavorsome that it looking sauce made from beet, elder- expressed all evening, the verdict was made the ancient Faroese failure to berry, and rose hip. not one of universal acclaim. discover the joys of raw seafood seem “It has a little bit the taste of liver,” “I expected some meat,” the wife like an epic tragedy. the engineer from Toronto remarked. of the businessman from Copenha- A Grüner Veltliner wine was poured “It’s not dissimilar to puin, but gen said. Her husband agreed, add- and a dish of crab was served, accom- puin is less livery,” the rep from At- ing that he would have liked a proper panied by a cream of fermented leeks lantic Airways said. piece of lamb. “For what I am paying and pickled elderflower. The conversa- I found the razorbill inedible, but here, I should be full, but I could go tion turned to fermentation. The tech after enduring the meal at Ræst I felt out and have a hot dog,” he said. An- nomad described an Icelandic dish that relieved: it was the only dish at Koks other diner, a British woman, won- he’d heard of—it involved burying shark that had defeated me. For the most dered if the atmosphere lacked spark, meat until it rotted, then digging it up part, the succession of plates had ranged and noted, “We were the entertain- and eating it. The Atlantic Airways rep between very pleasant and preternat- ment.” I didn’t point out that this was talked about visiting the caves in Roque- urally delicious. (For me, the raw sea- exactly what Ziska had intended. fort, France, and learning all about the food, in particular the antediluvian clam, “I would have liked some meat,” region’s cherished mold. The engineer was a highlight.) What Koks ofered the businessman’s wife said again. from Toronto changed the subject to its diners wasn’t culinary perfection: it With repletion came dissatisfac- exotic travel, and was recalling a mem- was uniqueness. In an era when mat- tion: a hunger for something more, orable walk in Spain along the Camino cha macarons and eel ceviche are avail- or for something diferent. Everyone de Santiago pilgrimage route—it was able across the globe, its patrons were felt a bit drained. Ducking under the all about the journey, not the destina- thrilled to spend an evening eating rafters by the door, then taking care tion—when the langoustines were things that nobody they knew had ever not to slide on the mud that the work- brought back to the table. Their claws eaten. The presentation had been si- ers had not entirely remediated, we had been barbecued into immobility, multaneously theatrical and artisanal, straggled out into the all-consuming and their heads stufed with a cream and imbued with a spirit of luxurious darkness, and began the long passage made from their own brains. We poked severity: diners got only a few bites of home across the sea. 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 55 FICTION

56 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC he couple decided that tonight quicker ways to die. In New York, the pots and pans, seven paring knives, they would go out for sushi. subway generally got you where you and so on. T Two years ago, they’d met on- needed to go, but you had to endure a She was one of those people—the line. Three months ago, they’d moved lot. For example, by the end of her first kind to create an Excel spreadsheet of in together. Previously, she’d lived in month the woman had already seen everything she owned and send it to Boston, but now she lived in New York someone pee in the corner of a car. She him, so that he could then highlight with him. had been solicited for money numer- what he also owned and specify quan- The woman was a research analyst ous times. And, if she didn’t have money, tity and type, since it might make sense at a bank downtown. The man was a the same person would ask her for food to have seven paring knives if they were ceramic-pottery instructor at a studio or a pencil or a tissue to wipe his nose. of diferent thicknesses and lengths and uptown. Both were in their late thir- On a trip into Brooklyn on the L, she could pare diferent things. ties, and neither of them wanted kids. had almost been kicked in the face by He was one of these people—the Both enjoyed Asian cuisine, specifi- a pole-dancing kid. She’d refused to give kind to look at an Excel spreadsheet cally sushi, specifically omakase. It was that kid any money. and squint. the element of surprise that they liked. You worry too much, the man said Before the big move, she had done And it suited them in diferent ways. whenever she brought up the fact that some research on the best time to drive She got nervous looking at a list of op- she still didn’t feel quite at home in into the city in a large moving truck. tions and would second-guess herself. New York. And not only did she not She did not want to take up too much He enjoyed going with the flow. What feel at home; she felt that she was con- space. It would pain her if the moving is the best choice? she’d ask him when stantly in danger. truck was responsible for a blocked in- flipping through menus with many You exaggerate, the man replied. tersection and a mess of cars honking pages and many words, and he’d reply, At the restaurant, he gave the woman non-stop. The Internet said that New The best choice is whatever you feel a look of his own. This look said two Yorkers were tough and could proba- like eating at the moment. things: one, you worry too much, and, bly handle anything. But the Internet Before they got there, the man had two, this is fun—I’m having fun, now also said, To avoid the angriest of New described the restaurant as a “hole-in- you have fun. Yorkers during rush hour, try 5 a.m. the-wall.” He had found it on a list of The woman was having fun, but she When she arrived at 5 a.m., he was wait- top sushi places in central Harlem. Not also didn’t want to get food poisoning. ing for her in the lobby of his build- that there were many. So, instead of As if having read her mind, the ing, with a cofee, an extra sweatshirt, top sushi places, it may just have been man said, If you do get sick, you can and a very enthusiastic kiss. After the a list of all sushi places. Be prepared, blame me. kiss, he handed her a set of keys. There he said. Nothing is actually a hole-in- Eventually, the waitress noticed that were four in total: one for the build- the-wall, she replied. Yet the restau- the couple had arrived. She had been ing, one for the trash room, one for the rant was as the man had described: a picking polish of her nails. She looked mailbox, one for their apartment door. tiny room with a sushi bar and a cash up but didn’t get up and instead waved Because all the keys looked the same, register. Behind the bar stood an old them to the bar. Sit anywhere you like, he said that it might take her a month sushi chef. Behind the cash register sat she said sleepily. Then she disappeared to figure out which was which, but it a young waitress. The woman esti- behind a black curtain embroidered took her only a day. She was happy that mated that the hole could seat no more with the Chinese character for the sun. he was happy. She would frequently than six adults and a child. Good thing wonder, but never ask, if he had looked sushi pieces were small. Upon enter- hen they first started dating, for a job as diligently as she had. ing, she gave the man a look. The look Wthey’d agreed that if there weren’t said, Is this going to be O.K.? Usually, any glaring red flags, and there weren’t, ’ll just have water, the man said, when for sushi, they went downtown to places they would try to live together, and Ithe waitress gave them each a cup that were brightly lit, crowded, and did they did. To make things fair, each tried of hot tea. It was eight degrees out- not smell so strongly of fish. But to- to find a job in the other’s city. Not side, and the waitress explained that night downtown trains were experi- surprisingly, the demand for financial the tea, made from barley, was inten- encing delays because someone had analysts in New York was much higher tionally paired with the Pacific oyster, jumped onto the tracks at Port Au- than the demand for pottery instruc- which was the first course of the thority and been hit. tors in Boston. omakase. The waitress looked no older That was something the woman had Huzzah, he texted the day the mov- than eighteen. She was Asian, with a to get used to about New York. In Bos- ers arrived at her old apartment. She diamond nose stud and a purple lip ton, the subway didn’t get you anywhere, texted back a smiley face, then, later, ring. When talking to her, the woman but the stations were generally clean pictures of her empty living room, could only stare at the ring and bite and quiet and no one bothered you on bedroom, bathroom, and the pile of her own lip. The woman was also Asian the actual train. Also, there were rarely furniture and things she was donat- (Chinese), and seeing another Asian delays due to people jumping in front ing so that, once they were living to- with facial piercings reminded her of of trains. Probably because the trains gether, they would not have, for ex- all the things she had not been able to came so infrequently that there were ample, two dining-room sets, twenty get away with as a kid. Her immigrant

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 57 of. Kids now were not only diferent but lucky, the woman thought. She wanted to say to the waitress, You have no idea how hard some of us worked so that you could dye your hair purple and pierce your lip. The man nudged the woman, who was sitting next to him like a statue. You’re staring, he said. The waitress had noticed, too, and hufed of.

he mugs that the tea came in were Thandleless. The tea was so hot that neither of them could pick up the handleless mug comfortably. They could only blow at the steam, hoping that the tea would cool, and comment to each other on how hot it was. Until now, the sushi chef had not said a word to the couple. But it seemed to irritate him as he prepared the Pacific oyster “So is this the fun part, or will there be even (which turned out to be delicious) to bigger bugs sticking to my face soon?” see them not drink the tea. This is the Japanese way, he finally said. He reached over the bar for the •• woman’s mug. He then held the mug delicately at the very top with two fin- parents had wanted the best for her, at the pretty waitress. She was pretty. gertips and a thumb. The other hand so imagine coming home to them with The purple lip ring matched the pur- was placed under the mug like a sau- a lip ring. First, her parents would have ple streak in her hair, which matched cer. This is the Japanese way, he said made her take the ring out, then they the purple nail polish. Nevertheless, again. He handed the mug back to the would have slapped her, then they the man complimented the waitress’s woman. The couple tried to mimic the would have reminded her that a lip unremarkable black uniform. The wait- chef, but perhaps their skin was thin- ring made her look like a hoodlum and ress returned the favor by compliment- ner than his; holding the mug the Jap- in this country not everyone would ing the man’s circular eyeglass frames. anese way didn’t hurt any less than stick- give someone with an Asian face the Oh, these silly things, the man ing their hands into boiling water. The benefit of the doubt. If she looked like said, lifting his glasses of his nose man put his mug down. The woman, a hoodlum, then she would have trou- for a second. however, did not want to ofend the ble getting into college. If she couldn’t They’re not silly, the waitress said chef and held her mug until she felt get into college, then she couldn’t get matter-of-factly. They’re cool. My boy- her hands go numb. a job. If she couldn’t get a job, then she friend couldn’t pull those of. He doesn’t Now that the man knew the chef couldn’t enter society. If she couldn’t have the head shape for it. could speak English, he tried to talk enter society, then she might as well If the man lost interest, he didn’t to him. go to jail. Ultimately, a lip ring could show it. If anything, knowing that the What kind of mug is this? he asked. only land her in jail—what other pur- pretty waitress had a boyfriend only It looks handmade. The glaze is mag- pose did it serve? She was not joining made the flirtation more fun. nificent. Then the man turned to the the circus. She was not part of an in- Kids now are so diferent, the woman woman and pointed out how the green- digenous African tribe. She was not thought. She hadn’t had a boyfriend blue glaze of their mugs seemed to Marilyn Manson. (Her father, for some until college. She wasn’t this bold until difer. The layering, he said, was sub- strange reason, knew who Marilyn after grad school. But the waitress might tly thicker and darker in this part of Manson was and listened to him and not have immigrant parents. Perhaps her mug than in his. liked him.) Then, in jail, she could her parents were born here, which Hmm, the woman said. To her, a make friends with other people wear- would mean diferent expectations, or mug was a mug. ing lip rings and form a gang. Is that parenting so opposed to the way they It’s a yunomi, isn’t it? he said to the what you want as a career? her parents had been brought up by their own strict chef. Taller than it is wide, handleless. would have asked. To form a lip-ring immigrant parents that there were ba- Yes, handleless, with a trimmed foot. gang in jail? And she would have an- sically no expectations. Another pos- Used in traditional tea ceremonies. swered no. sibility: the waitress might have been The chef looked suspiciously at the Tea it is, the man said. He smiled adopted. In which case all bets were man. Maybe he was wondering if the

58 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 man was fucking with him, as people I mean Tang dynasty, she had said. verely infected said something about sometimes did when they encountered She was fine with watching some- the attraction. Her closest friends told a diferent culture and, in an efort to thing more mainstream, set in modern her that she was doing what she did tease, came of as incredibly earnest, day, with story lines about non-Asians. best, overthinking and picking out flaws only to draw information out of the She didn’t need the man to make her where there weren’t any, hence the rea- person they were teasing until the per- feel comfortable, if that was, in fact, son she was still single at thirty-six. As son looked foolish. what he was trying to do. a potter, the man would obviously know He’s a potter, the woman said. But it’s a critically acclaimed movie, about the history of pottery. And he The man quickly turned to her as he’d replied. probably just liked “House of Flying if to say, Why did you just do that? We So they ended up watching “House Daggers” as a movie. One of her non- were having so much fun. Then he of Flying Daggers.” The entire movie Asian friends said, He’s a guy and prob- began to laugh, leaning back and al- was in Chinese, with English subtitles. ably just thinks martial arts are cool. most falling of the barstool. I’m sorry, As they got progressively tipsier, the One of her Asian friends said, He prob- he said to the chef. I didn’t mean to man asked the woman if the subtitles ably just wants to impress you. put you on the spot. The mug is beau- were all correct. I guess, the woman We’ll see, she replied. tiful, and you should be proud to have said, even though she understood only For their next Skype date, he sug- something like this in your kitchen. I half of what was said and was reading gested a romantic comedy set in En- would be. the English herself. The man knew gland. The following week, an Amer- The chef said thank you and served much more about Wuxia than she did. ican action film. The next week, a them their first piece of fish on simi- He also knew much more about the Russian spy drama. After watching, larly green-blue ceramic plates that the Tang dynasty, especially the pottery. they chatted first about the movie and man promised not to scrutinize. During that dynasty, the Chinese had then about other things. He told her Enjoy, the chef said, and gave them perfected color glazes. Most famously, that he had been in a few serious re- a steady thumbs-up. they had perfected the tricolored glaze, lationships, the most recent of which The man responded with his own which is a combination of green, yel- ended a year ago. What was she like? thumbs-up. low, and white. He even said the Chi- the woman asked, but really just wanted The woman liked how easily the nese word for it, sancai, and she was a to know if she was Chinese. The man man handled everything. He never took little shocked. No, she was a lot shocked. said that she was nice, though a little anything too seriously. He was a nat- You would know the glaze if you saw neurotic. But what was she like? the ural extrovert. By now, the woman knew it, he said once the movie was over and woman asked again, and the man said, that, although he worked alone in his the wine had been drunk. The next What do you mean? She was Jewish studio, he not only enjoyed the com- day, he sent her a picture of a Tang- and tall. He didn’t suggest watching a pany of others but needed it. When dynasty camel with sancai glaze. It was Chinese movie again. When they vis- out, he talked to anyone and everyone. the same camel that had sat next to ited each other, they ate not at Chi- Sometimes it was jokey talk, the kind her mother’s fireplace for the past nese places but at French, Italian, and he was having with the sushi chef. twenty-five years. Japanese restaurants. She was excited Sometimes it was playful banter, the The woman asked some of her that he was turning out to be a regu- kind he had with the pretty waitress. friends. Most of them were Asian, but lar guy. He met most of her friends, The flirting didn’t bother the woman. who afterward found a way to tell her Instead, it made her feel good that the how lucky she was to have met some- man was desired. While he was not one like him: single, American—an handsome, he had a friendly face and artist, no less—and her age. By “Amer- rosy cheeks. The word “wholesome” ican,” some of her Asian friends also came to mind. He was someone who meant “white,” the implication being could have just stepped out of a Nor- that she was somehow climbing the man Rockwell painting. social ladder. She hadn’t thought any of these things before, but now she heir first oicial date had been on did. Or maybe she had thought all of TSkype. It had consisted of each of she had a few non-Asian friends as these things before and was just now them drinking a bottle of wine and well. A red flag? She did not want to admitting to them. Eventually, the watching the same movie on their re- continue with this man if he was in- woman felt comfortable enough to ask spective laptops. He suggested “House terested in her only because she was the man why he had picked “House of Flying Daggers,” and she said that Chinese. She had heard of these men, of Flying Daggers” for their first date. she was O.K. with watching something especially the kind you met on the In- The answer he gave was even less pro- else. Maybe something that wasn’t so ternet. She had heard of “yellow fever.” found than what her friends had said. overtly Chinese and, no ofense to the She didn’t like that it was called yel- It was a random choice, he explained. talented Zhang Yimou, so old-school. low fever. To name a kind of attraction That day, the movie had popped up What do you mean, “old-school”? after a disease carried by mosquitoes on his browser as something that he he had asked. that killed one out of four people se- might be interested in watching. It

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 59 was critically acclaimed, he said again. chef, who might have been the brother The woman wanted to add that per- So it was settled. The big question or the friend. At this point, the woman haps what the man was smelling was of why he was dating her was out of put a hand on the man’s thigh. bullshit, because the waitress was clearly the way. Her Chineseness was not a The chef chuckled again, longer and making everything up. How the woman factor. They were merely one out of a louder than before. He looked at the knew was that she had read the back billion or so Asian girl–white guy cou- woman, and she felt herself unable to of the bottle, which said the sake had ples walking around on this earth. meet his gaze. It was not a family-run a fruity nose with hints of citrus. business, he clarified. He did not know What’s wrong with me? the woman he sushi chef worked quickly with the previous chef. He had been hired thought. She was getting riled up over This hands, and the woman couldn’t yesterday and had interviewed by phone. nothing. This was nothing. The man help but be mesmerized. From a giant The man finally let the topic slide, leaned over and rubbed a finger under wooden tub of warm rice he scooped and the woman was relieved. If he’d con- her chin. She felt better, but not entirely out two tiny balls. He molded the balls tinued, she would have had to say some- right. The chef smiled at them while into elongated dollops. Then he pressed thing. She would have had to explain slicing two thin pieces of snapper. a slice of fish on top of the rice using to the man (in a roundabout way) that two fingers, the index and middle, turn- he sounded insensitive, assuming that hen enough time had passed, ing the nigiri in the palm of his hand as the chef he’d seen in the window was Wthe man began chatting with the if displaying a shiny toy car. As a final this chef and then assuming that the chef again. He was curious, he said. touch, he dipped a delicate brush into a chefs could have been brothers. The The sushi was delicious, and he was bowl of black sauce and lightly painted roundabout way would have to involve wondering where the chef had worked the top of the car. For certain pieces, he a joke—something like Oh-don’t-think- before. He must have had years of ex- wrapped a thin strip of nori around the all-of-us-look-the-same—and the man perience. It showed. Speaking on be- nigiri. For others, he left the fish slices would have laughed and the woman half of both of them, the man contin- on a small grill to char. The woman was would have laughed and the chef would ued, he hadn’t had omakase like this in impressed. This chef looked as though have chuckled. It would have to be said years and they went to some of the best he belonged at the Four Seasons or the as a joke, because the woman knew that places in the city. Mandarin Oriental. Between courses, the man hadn’t meant to seem insensi- Like where? the chef asked. he wiped down his cooking station and tive; he had just wanted to be right. Also, The man listed the places, and the conversed with them. He spoke softly, the woman didn’t want to make a big chef nodded in approval and the man which meant that the couple had to lis- deal out of nothing. She didn’t want to beamed. The woman felt a need to in- ten carefully and not chew too loudly. be one of those women who noted every terject. Many of these omakase places The man told the chef that they lived teeny tiny thing and racialized it. And had been her suggestion. To be honest, only a few blocks away. The chef lived wasn’t it something that she and her when they first started dating the man in Queens but was originally from Tokyo. closest Asian friends joked about, too— knew what omakase was but had never The man said that he had seen the chef that, if you considered how people are tried it. He said the opportunity had working here before. The chef said that typically described, by the color of their never come up, and the woman won- that was impossible. The man insisted hair and their eyes, it did sound as though dered if this was code for I didn’t know that he had. He said that he walked by they all looked the same? how to go about it, I didn’t want to look this restaurant every day on the way back But joking about this with her like an idiot if I went in and ordered from his studio, and though he had never friends was diferent from joking with wrong. So, for one of their early in- come in, he peeked inside every now the man. person dates she had taken him to a and then and saw a chef—you, he said— For a moment, the woman felt a place in Boston. She knew the chef, who working diligently behind the bar. kinship with the chef, but the moment was Chinese. Many Chinese chefs The chef chuckled and said, That’s passed. turned to Japanese food, as it was signifi- impossible. After the couple had finished their cantly classier and more lucrative. She Why do you say impossible? the tea, the waitress came back and started spoke with the Chinese chef in Chi- man asked. them on a bottle of unfiltered sake. She nese about the Japanese omakase, an Because this is my first day work- still seemed mifed from earlier. She experience that she would not have ing here. spoke only to the man, explaining that known how to describe to her parents, Oh, the man said, but, refusing to the nigori had herbal notes and hints who had been taught to loathe the Jap- admit that he had been wrong, pushed of chrysanthemum. The woman tossed anese, or her grandparents, who had on. He asked if the restaurant was a back her sake and couldn’t taste either. lived through the Sino-Japanese War family-run business. He might not have The man hovered his nose over his cup and did loathe the Japanese. Thankfully, seen the chef, as in you, but he might for a long minute and said that he could that history was not part of the wom- have seen a brother or a friend. And smell subtle hints of something. an’s identity. She had grown up in the surely the chef must have come in for Alcohol? the woman said. States. She felt no animosity toward an interview. Perhaps when he peeked Something else. Japanese people, culture, or food. Any- in that day the chef was actually there, Chrysanthemum? way, the point was that, when she’d vis- learning the ropes from the previous Something else. ited the man in New York, she had

60 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 you’d called the wrong number and hang up. THE GURNEY You’re kidding, the man said. Then he looked at the woman and asked if Because the gurney is unattended she’d heard that. in the hallway outside my father’s room, She had heard it. The chef wasn’t because nobody is guarding its bright metal rails whispering. The man leaned over the or its silver tongue shrouded with a woollen blanket, bar, so that his upper body was now because the blanket is a faded shade above the trays of nori and the bowl of red currant—now bitter, now sweet— of sauce. He was leaning on his elbows, because the hallway is empty like a little boy waiting for a treat from of everything but soothing lemon wallpaper his mother in the kitchen. Adorable, and the eucalypt sting of disinfectant, the woman noted, and momentarily I am almost beside it before I see felt fine again. the unmistakable topography of a body— So I’m guessing you got tired of that, troughs and peaks, a rough silhouette the man said. Dealing with all those as though earth is piled up there, underneath. rich folks. The hairs on my arms rise stily No. like the prickling pelt of a nettle leaf, It was probably the stress. I bet a and as if I have suddenly held copper place like that made you work terrible wire to current I am seized hours. All those private parties. People with an uncontrollable shudder who have nothing better to do with summoned from some primordial place their money. behind the daylight mind. Mortal voice, speak. No. Don’t move, I want to say, I’ll get somebody— And not being able to make what- but I do not know to whom I am speaking, ever you wanted. What the customer I do not know whose body I will raise, wants the customer gets. A place that there is no helping what is beyond exclusive, you probably got some strange help, no speaking to what is beyond requests. speech. My father’s voice pipes from his room— Yes, but that’s not the reason I was a rising inlection that means he is arguing fired. with the nurse about his medication— Fired? and I am woozy, ecstatic: this body is not The man looked even more inter- his, he is still wrapped in his voice, if I shook him ested. Did you hear that? he said to the he would rattle with it, it would spear woman. To him, if a high-class chef from him like a germinating seed, had been fired that meant that the chef the green pellet of it spiking open, had a rogue streak, which was some- rolling his life out on gimballing wheels. thing the man tended to respect. Also, he was getting drunk. The sake bottle —Sarah Holland-Batt was empty, and the waitress had brought another. Fired for what? the man asked. He looked up the places he had just listed. Of course, the man said without ofered the chef a cup of sake, but the She had taught the man that, in Japa- glancing at her. So where did you work chef declined. nese, “omakase” means “I leave it up to again? he asked the chef. The woman turned her own cup you.” There was one more thing. She A restaurant downtown, he said. in her hands and stared at the wall had paid. Not always but most of the He then gave the name, but it was behind the chef, which had a paint- time, especially at the more expensive not one that either the man or the ing of a giant wave about to crush places. And it made sense for her to pay. woman recognized. three tiny boats. The woman liked the She earned more, and trying omakase You might not know it, he said. fact that she and the man worked in together had become one of their things. It was a very exclusive place. Very completely diferent fields. It meant She liked that they had things. fancy. We didn’t open every day. We that there was very little competition There was also that place in Bos- opened only by reservation. And to between them, and what they had in ton, the woman interjected. Remem- make a reservation you had to call a common was something genuine. The ber? The one I took you to. The first specific number that wasn’t listed, that man had no interest in money, and time you had omakase. While she was was only passed by word of mouth. that fascinated her. He seemed a free saying this, the woman wondered if When you called, you asked to speak spirit, but how was he still alive today she was being too defensive, but she with the manager. The manager had if he didn’t care about money? She, said it anyway. to know you, or else he would say on the other hand, was much more

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 61 concerned about money and where it could please repeat something. Her as if he were a clever monkey who had came from. She liked her job, but she mother took a job at JCPenney but put the square peg into the square hole. liked it most because it was stable and eventually quit. In China, an eicient That he could use chopsticks cor- salaried. Although she could not say salesclerk followed customers from rectly elicited another smile, even a those things to the man, who some- place to place like a shadow, but no clap. Then they complimented him on times said to his friends, Bankers, when one wanted her mother to do that at everything, from the color of his hair she made practical remarks about how JCPenney. In fact, her mother was fre- down to the color of his shoes. they were going to split the check. quently reported for looking like a The woman was glad that her par- After he said that, he did one of those thief. Nevertheless, her parents were ents were being nice, as it dispelled the comical eye rolls to show everyone now comfortable in their two-thou- cliché of diicult Asian parents. Pre- that he was kidding. It was funny. She sand-square-foot house, which had a viously she had explained to the man laughed along. But later, when she plastic mailbox and resembled every- that her parents had a tendency to be asked him why he did that, he would one else’s. Perhaps her parents liked cold, but the coldness was more a reflex put a hand on her head and say that the sameness of suburban houses be- from years of being underdogs than she was overthinking it. He was only cause, from the outside, you couldn’t their natural state. When her parents teasing her because he was so proud tell that a Chinese family lived inside. turned out not to be cold at all, the of her. She did something he couldn’t Not that her parents were ashamed of woman was glad, but then she won- in a million years do. Numbers, graphs— being Chinese, and they had taught dered why they hadn’t been more dii- just hearing her on the phone made their daughter not to be ashamed, ei- cult. Why hadn’t her father been more his head spin, but the work was clearly ther. You are just as good as anyone like a typical American dad and greeted important and necessary. And you’re else, they’d told her, even before she the man at their cookie-cutter door able to do this because, well, let’s face realized that this was a thought she with a cookie-cutter threat? it, you’re smarter than me. The man was supposed to have. By the end of the weekend, her had said that. When he said it, the The woman did not know how her mother had pulled her aside to say that woman felt a happy balloon rise from parents would react. She had brought she should consider moving to New her stomach to her mouth. home other boyfriends, and the recep- York. The man had thrown the idea Fired for what? tion had been lukewarm. The man was out there, and the woman didn’t know The chef didn’t answer. Instead, he the first boyfriend she had brought how to respond. washed his hands, which were now home in a long time. Unfortunately, I’m not sure yet, she told her mother. covered in red slime, and picked up a that made the question of race even But we’re going to look for jobs in both blowtorch to sear the skin of a nearby harder to answer, as he was also the places. salmon. first white boyfriend she had brought Her mother nodded and said, Good. home. So, were her parents being wel- Then she reminded the woman that year into dating, she had taken coming out of relief that their daugh- a man like that wouldn’t wait around A the man to meet her parents. ter wouldn’t become a spinster or out forever. They lived in a cookie-cutter suburb of surprise that she, as her friends in Springfield, Massachusetts. Her pointed out, had got lucky? As with or their last piece of omakase, the father worked for a com- every complex question in Fchef presented them with the clas- pany that designed pros- life, it was probably a mix- sic tamago egg on sushi rice. The egg thetic limbs. Her mother ture of both. But was it a was flufy and sweet. How was that? was a housewife. Back in fifty-fifty mix or a twen- the chef asked. He asked this question China, they’d had diferent ty-eighty one, and, if the lat- after every course, with his shoulders jobs. Her father had been a ter, which was the eighty and slumped forward, and their response— computer-science professor which was the twenty? that it was the best tamago egg on sushi and her mother had been a Throughout the weekend, rice they’d ever had—pushed his shoul- salesclerk, but their success the woman felt feverish. Her ders back like a strong wind. in those former roles had brain was in overdrive. She The Japanese way, the woman hinged on being loquacious watched the man help her thought. Or perhaps the Asian way. Or and witty in their native lan- mother bring in groceries and perhaps the human way. guage, none of which translated into then help her father shovel the drive- Dessert was two scoops of mocha English. Every now and then, her fa- way. She was in disbelief when her fa- ice cream. For the remainder of the ther went out for academic jobs and ther went out and came back with a meal, the man kept asking the chef why would make it as far as the interview bottle of whiskey. She didn’t know that he’d been fired. Another bottle of sake stage, at which point he had to teach a he drank whiskey. She then had to re- had arrived. class. He would dress as sharply as he calculate the fifty-fifty ratio to take into It’s nothing interesting, the chef said. could. He would prepare careful notes. account the whiskey. For each meal, her I doubt that, the man said. Come Then, during class, the only question mother set out a pair of chopsticks and on. We’re all friends here. he was asked, usually by a clownish also cutlery. When the man chose the Though neither he nor the woman kid in the back row, was whether he chopsticks, her parents smiled at him knew the chef ’s name, and vice versa.

62 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 During the meal, no one else had come into the restaurant. People had stopped by the window and looked at the menu but had moved on. Management, the chef finally said. He was done making sushi and had begun to clean the counter. He would clean the counter and wash his rag. Then he would clean the counter again. His purpose wasn’t to clean any- more, the woman decided. It was to look as if he had something to do while he told the story. What happened? she asked. At this point, she might as well know. I was fired three weeks ago, the chef said. The manager had booked a party of fifty for a day that I was supposed to have of. Then he called me in. I ini- tially said no, but the party was for one of our regulars. I said I couldn’t serve a party of fifty on my own and he would need to call in backup. He said O.K., and an hour later I showed up. But there was no backup, just me. The man- “I’m just sayin’—seventeen TVs in this joint and you ager was Chinese, and said that he had can’t turn one to the dressage championship?” called other chefs but no one had come. The chef stopped cleaning for a mo- ment to wash his rag. I’m not an idiot, •• he continued. I knew that was a lie. So I only made sushi for two people. I refused them from rolling. Then she imagined pretended not to notice. She tipped to make sushi for the other forty-eight, making herself a very dry Martini with her usual twenty per cent. and eventually the entire party left. a skewer of olives. What was that? the man said once Bold, the man said. Sorry, the chef said. He was now re- they were outside. It had got colder. It The woman didn’t say anything. arranging the boxes of sesame seeds and would take them fifteen minutes to There was a piece of egg stuck between bonito flakes. He was smiling but not walk home. her molars and she was trying to get making eye contact. In a moment, he I’m not mad at him, the woman said. it out with her tongue. When she would start humming and the woman And you shouldn’t be. He was just couldn’t, she used a finger. She stuck would not be able to tell if he was sorry telling a story. her finger into the back of her mouth. for what he’d said or sorry that she was Again, I’m not mad at him. Then she wiped the piece of egg—no Chinese. A mix of both? She wanted The man understood. They walked longer yellow and flufy but white and to ask which one it was, or how much in silence for a while before he said, foamy—on her napkin. of each, but then she would sound in- Look, I wasn’t the one who told the I’m Chinese, the woman said reflex- sane. She didn’t want to sound insane, story and you have to learn not to take ively, the way her parents might have. yet she also didn’t want to be a quiet everything so personally. You take ev- The chef went back to cleaning his little flower. So there she was, saying erything so personally. counter. The man cleared his throat. nothing but oscillating between these Do I? He said, not specifically to the woman two extremes. In truth, what could she Also, you have to be a little more or the chef but to an invisible audience, say? The chef was over sixty years old. self-aware. That’s not what the chef meant. And the Chinese, or so she’d heard, Aware of what? I know, the woman said. She was look- were the cheapest of the cheap. The man sighed. ing at the man. I know that’s not what The man never called her sweet- Aware of what? he meant. I just wanted to put it out heart. Sweetheart, he said, I think you’ve The man said, Never mind. Then there. I don’t mean anything by it, either. had enough to drink. Then he turned he put a hand on her head and told The man rolled his eyes and a spike to the chef. Time to go, methinks. her to stop overthinking it. ♦ of anger went through the woman. Or The chef spoke only to the waitress maybe two spikes. She imagined tak- after that. He called her over to help NEWYORKER.COM ing two toothpicks and sticking them the couple settle the bill. The woman Weike Wang on the privilege of not having to through the man’s pretty eyes to stop put her credit card down while the man think about race.

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 63 THE CRITICS

BOOKS HIGH CRIMES Bill Clinton pens a thriller, sort of.

BY ANTHONY LANE

ollaboration is a murky trade, and All of which brings us to another The events in the novel are designed Cit covers quite a range. Whether famous William. Bill Clinton, who can to put the shine back on. Duncan is, you’re siding with the enemy in Nazi- write, has hooked up with James Pat- by his own account, “a war hero with occupied France or laying out the terson, who can’t, but whose works have rugged good looks and a sharp sense lyrics to “Edelweiss” so that Richard sold more than three hundred and sev- of humor,” not to mention a beguiling Rodgers can devise a tune to match, enty-five million copies, most of them modesty. He served in Operation you’re a collaborator. But no joining of to happy and contented customers for Desert Storm, in Iraq, where he was forces is more diicult to fathom than whom good writing would only get in wounded. He is also a former gover- the partnership between two writers. the way. This unlikely pact has resulted nor of North Carolina. His wife died Writing, like dying, is one of those in “The President Is Missing” (Knopf not long ago, and now it’s just him and things that should be done alone or and Little, Brown), which we must, his daughter: the exact situation, as not at all. In each case, loved ones may not without reservations, describe as a it happens, that confronted Michael hover around and tender their support, thriller. Get a load of this: “The stun Douglas in “The American President,” but, in the end, it’s up to you. So, when grenades detonate, producing a con- Rob Reiner’s 1995 movie, a direct pre- two writers decide to merge, what do cussive blast of 180 decibels.” A hun- cursor of “The West Wing.” The Pres- they actually do? dred and eighty, mark you, and not a ident in that show, played by Martin Well, I’ve heard rumors of novelist decibel less! If that isn’t thrilling, I can’t Sheen, sufered from multiple sclero- couples who produce alternate chap- imagine what is. sis, and Duncan, too, has a medical bur- ters: one for you, one for me. A tidy The book itself is a concussive blast den, grave yet controllable, to bear: im- scheme for twin souls but otherwise, of five hundred and thirteen pages. mune thrombocytopenia, which means assuredly, a prelude to divorce. Also, Though not as massive as “My Life” that his blood won’t clot as it should, how can you guarantee that the cracks (2004), Clinton’s autobiography, which and which leaves him with bruising on won’t show between your styles? John was twice as long, it’s a welcome re- the legs. His physician warns that he Fletcher, a popular and gifted play- turn to bulk after his slender oferings could have a stroke at any moment, es- wright, once hooked up with some old of recent years—“Giving: How Each pecially if he is under stress. slacker named Shakespeare to bring of Us Can Save the World” (2007) and Cue the stress. Duncan is facing us “Henry VIII,” which was first per- “Back to Work: Why We Need Smart possible impeachment, partly because formed in 1613, and linguistic analysis Government for a Strong Economy” his opponents are careerist weasels but can propose, scene by scene, who (2011). Neither of these volumes, it is mainly because, according to leaked delivered which slices of the cake. fair to say, was a thriller. Both con- reports, he held a telephone conversa- (Fletcher, who liked to get by with a tained plenty of sage advice but were tion with “the most dangerous and little help from his friends, later con- scandalously short of car chases, erup- prolific cyberterrorist in the world,” jured a play with three other writers. I tive fireballs, and missile-bearing he- Suliman Cindoruk, who leads an or- bet that was peaceful.) Even so, no- licopters, and that is where the new ganization known as Sons of Jihad. body is sure about the sequence of book has the edge: “The Viper arrives, (“He’s Turkish-born, but he’s not Mus- events—whether Fletcher rounded of firing another Hellfire and completely lim,” Duncan says. That faint sound what Shakespeare couldn’t be both- incinerating the attack boat.” The world you can hear is our two authors tread- ered to complete, or whether the play is saved, not by giving, still less by eco- ing very, very carefully.) Now, if the was genuinely conceived in perfect nomic strength, but by the eforts of opening chapter is to be trusted, Dun- harmony, with one guy sitting on the one man. Guess who. can is to answer for this bizarre and other’s lap, their fingers interlaced Jon Duncan is the President of the perhaps treasonable lapse in front of a

around the quill. United States, “fifty years old and rusty.” House Select Committee, many of FLOIRAT CLO’E ABOVE:

64 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 Clinton’s unlikely collaboration with James Patterson yields mysteries, thrills, and a topdressing of moral rumination.

ILLUSTRATION BY BARRY BLITT THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 65 whose members pine for his fall from scarcely touched upon, and the entire hands,” who’s about to board a Ma- grace. “They can impeach me for any- novel has an air of narrative lockdown, rine helicopter with the German thing they want,” Duncan remarks. “It with Duncan seldom interacting with Chancellor. She could indeed stay, doesn’t have to be a crime.” A nice line, anyone beyond his immediate circle or though not in Duncan’s lonely bed. which, depending on your point of his international peers, even after he Not tonight. view, either glances back at President has flown the oicial coop. His pro- Clinton’s own tribulations, in his sec- nouncements, on the page, evince an n 2003, in downtown Little Rock, ond term, or peers ahead to the puta- ardent faith in government of the peo- Ithere was an exhibition devoted tive deposing of Donald Trump. ple, by the people, and for the people, to Bill Clinton’s favorite books. Another problem: a female assassin but you badly want him to hang out It was solid fare, and doughtily un- is in the oing. We are as yet unaware with the people. Maybe all Presidents modish. T. S. Eliot, Yeats, Orwell, of her targets, but she’s no ordinary feel that way, and I believed in Dun- Sophocles, and Marcus Aurelius were killer, for every aspect of her craft is can’s admission, at once touching and present, and also Reinhold Niebuhr tinged with Johann Sebastian Bach, exasperated, on page 99: “I haven’t (of whom Barack Obama, likewise, including her weapon of choice: “Anna opened my own car door for a decade.” is a devotee). There was a face-of Magdalena is a thing of beauty, a matte- The fingerprints of Clinton are all over between biographies of Lincoln and black semiautomatic rifle.” Let us hope that line. So where else can we find Leopold II of Belgium. There was that her passions last for two and a half him in this book? even something entitled “Living hours, preferably in the company of a Not in the sex, that’s for sure, be- History,” by Hillary Rodham Clin- hunk named Mr. Goldberg. But she’s cause there ain’t any. I’ve looked. It will ton. How on earth did that make the not the only incoming threat. There be the first thing, let’s face it, for which cut? Then, last year, on Facebook, the are also a couple of computer wonks, hostile readers will hunt, but the forty- former President issued a fresh ros- motives unclear: the first, “a cross be- second President of the United States ter of recommendations, this time tween a Calvin Klein model and a Eu- is smart enough to give any hint of with extra quirks: Oliver Sacks and rotrash punk rocker,” if you can pic- carnality the widest of berths. There Carly Simon, a book about the mak- ture such a creature; the second, a are teasers, naturally, but they lead no- ing of “High Noon,” and “House of frightened fellow who arranges a co- where. “I uncurl the gooseneck stem Spies,” by the indefatigable Daniel vert meeting with the President at Na- of the microphone so that it is taut, Silva, whose recurrent leading man, tionals Park. Nail-gnawing stuf. No fully extended,” Duncan says, as early over seventeen books, displays a knack wonder Duncan dreams of sitting there as the fourth page, yet the goosing goes for espionage, judicious homicide, and in the stadium, crisis-free, with a hot no further. Yes, the Bach-flavored as- art restoration. dog and a beer. And he knows which sassin had a lover, but “she slept with The literary diet that emerges from beer, too: “At a ball game, there is no him no more than three times a week these lists, mixing disposable genre fic- finer beverage than an ice-cold Bud,” to maximize his potency,” a regime that tion with unrepentant classics and, for he says to himself. Not since Daniel statisticians alone are likely to find the most part, skipping the indigest- Craig practically ruined “Casino arousing. Coders, similarly, are given ibly middlebrow, is one that I happen Royale” by pimping his watch to Eva something to moon over: “There is to share. And, if you’d told me, in strict- Green (“Rolex?” “Omega.” “Beautiful”) nothing so sexy as a good, destructive est confidence, that Clinton was now has a product been placed with such planning a novel, I would have wa- unblushing zeal. gered that mysteries and thrills, with The reason Duncan can attend the a topdressing of moral rumination, game, alone, is that he’s wearing a Na- would be on the menu. And so it proves. tionals cap, plus thickened eyebrows Yet the puzzle remains: why James and spectacles. Aided by this impen- Patterson? Why not Daniel Silva? It’s etrable disguise, he slips out of the understandable that Clinton, with White House and, bereft of a security limited time on his hands, might well detail, goes on the lam. Hence the title scout for a partner; you really need a of this book. The notion that the Sundance Kid, if you want to be a Commander-in-Chief could be elu- overwrite.” Only once, in the entire Butch. Clinton could have taken his sive, camouflaged, or absent without novel, do two regular people come close pick from the ranks of American nov- leave is a promising one—“Dave” (1993), to tossing aside all inhibitions and get- elists, though whether Don DeLillo starring Kevin Kline, mined it for comic ting it on: would have leaped at the chance is value—and it’s odd to see how little open to debate. Personally, I’d have attention Patterson and Clinton (who “Noya.” I give her a long hug, enjoying the plumped for Martin Cruz Smith, who he comfort o her warm embrace. may sometimes have prayed that “I could stay, Jonny,” she whispers in my ear. has demonstrated, since the first two could go missing) pay to their main sentences of “Gorky Park” (1981), that conceit. You’d think that such a van- Hot stuf, except that the huggee the English language lies at his com- ishing act would raise an unrelenting in question is the Prime Minister of mand, whereas Patterson is helplessly hue and cry, but the media aspect is Israel, with her “delicate, wrinkled at its mercy, as even the briefest browse

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@newyorkerlive #tnyfest of his corpus will confirm. Still, what terson reverse his usual process, merely laughter.” But isn’t. And what can you a corpus: almost two hundred books tinkering and smoothing after Clin- do with a line like “her face once again to date, of which sixty-six have headed ton, musing on his years in oice, had becomes a poker-face wall,” except the Times best-seller list. In 2016, brought forth a plot—in essence, his revel in its delicious tautology? Time Forbes estimated his net worth at reverie of responsible power? and again, the folks in this very pecu- around seven hundred million dol- Whatever the ratio of their labors, liar novel indulge in gestures that would lars, a sum that would have made even one thing is certain: everything you be diicult—and physically unwise— Marcus Aurelius ditch the Stoicism expect from Patterson is here, unadul- to emulate, even in the safety of your and buy a yacht. If Clinton, like all terated, right down to the ritual mix- own home. “Carolyn tucks in her lips.” aspiring novelists, yearned for his book ing of the metaphors—“She had to “Casey falls to a crouch, gripping her to sell, he chose the right wingman. bite her tongue and accept her place hair.” One character has “eyes in a fo- It could be called “The President Is as second fiddle,” say, or “the sorrow- cused squint,” a second performs “a Cashing In.” ful, deer-in-the-headlights look is sweeping nod,” while a third “shakes But the gods are just, and although long gone. The gloves have come his head, hiccups a bitter chuckle.” As they denied the gift of literary grace of.” Fauna, for some reason, bring opposed to chuckling a bitter hiccup. to Patterson, they bestowed on him an out the very best in the makers of That would be absurd. even rarer skill. As a collaborator, he’s this book. The stealthy assassin, Not that Duncan is immune, with the top. Barely can he sketch an out- seeking a forest perch from which to his weirdly alien moves: “My head on line without reaching for a sidekick. shoot, has a Bambi moment: “Along a swivel, I focus on Devin.” Fie, his So numerous are his assistants that one the way, little animals bounce out of very locomotion is a riddle: “I break has to ask, less in snotty disapproval her path.” On a more rueful note, into a jog, something close to a full than in ontological awe, how many of “Augie looks at me like a lost puppy, sprint.” Well, which is it, a sprint or a Patterson’s books are actually “his,” and in a foreign place with no partner jog? A jig, maybe? Or a sprog? What- to what extent he is a writer at all, as anymore, nothing to call his own ever the case, it’s patently arduous, be- opposed to a trademark or a brand. except his smartphone.” So true, and cause, three pages later, the poor guy Were he to unearth a distant ancestor, so very sad. It’s not enough to give a can’t stop puing. “I blow out air, my in cinquecento Florence, whose out- dog a phone. nerves still jangled,” he says, tempo- put is mostly attributed to “the work- In short, not even an ex-President, rarily transformed into a porpoise. And shop of Giacomo Paterfilio,” no one for all his heft and influence, can mar again, “My pulse banging, I take a would be surprised. the charms of so transcendent a tech- breath.” The whole question of air, in Last year, in a splendid article in nique, or curb its ability to suck us in. fact, seems vital to both Patterson and Digital Humanities Quarterly, Simon When Duncan tells us, “Adrenaline Clinton, forever ruling the pages of Fuller and James O’Sullivan applied crashes through my body,” we are their busy book. If you can read a sen- stylometric analysis to a variety of meant to get caught in the crash. It tence like “The wind of the river lifts Patterson’s texts—much as earlier goes without saying that “The Pres- his hair,” for instance, without think- scholars attempted to sift the Fletcher ident Is Missing” is written in the ing of the current American President, from the Shakespeare in “Henry present tense, or, to be accurate, in a you’re doing better than me. Duncan VIII”—and reported that “Patterson’s specialist subset of that tense. Think takes “one of the deepest breaths I’ve collaborators perform the vast major- of it as the hysteric present. “I grab ever taken, sweet, delicious oxygen,” ity of the actual writing.” The article, my phone and dial my go-to guy.” “I which is a relief to anybody who feared far from deriding his approach, hit the bottom of the stairs.” “I punch that he was giggling through this major connects it to older habits of cultural out the phone call and flip on the emergency on helium. Most stirring production, recalling the auspicious overhead light.” Who would not fol- of all is the emotional flatulence that stamp of authority in the phrase “Al- low such a man, and heed his call? blares out when the pressure is on: “A fred Hitchcock Presents” and noting Make no mistake, though. If he needs collective exhalation of air escapes from that Alexandre Dumas, in the mid- to play dirty, he will: “I terminate the the room as the world’s foremost cy- nineteenth century, ran what was connection and walk out of the room.” berops experts gasp in wonder at the basically an assembly line, stafed by You want dirtier? Duncan can do that, empty screen.” lowly sub-scribes. Fuller and O’Sul- too: “I can get pretty creative with my You can’t blame them for gasping, livan conclude that Patterson’s œuvre cussing.” No shit. though, since the core of the book’s is “exemplary of the experience of What fascinates me, above all, are plot is technological, and the primary leisure-time in late capitalism.” Just the people of Pattersonia, that fabled tool of aggression is not a warhead what I was thinking. land where sentences go to die. Its but a virus—not any old bug, mind We are left, therefore, with a copy inhabitants carry and express them- you, but “a devastating stealth wiper of “The President Is Missing” and a selves like eager extraterrestrials who virus,” initiated by a villain who wishes consuming question: who ghosted have completed all but one module of to “reboot the world.” This master whom? Did Patterson supply the their human-conversion course: plan may be timely and plausible, bones of the story, as is his wont, and “Volkov’s eyebrows flare a bit.” Or but I’m not altogether convinced that Clinton tack on the flesh? Or did Pat- “Augie lets out a noise that sounds like either Patterson or Clinton is, as yet,

68 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 a master of the vocabulary that this strand of the story demands. At one point, we are met by monkey emojis BRIEFLY NOTED instead of prose, and at another by “a bunch of scrambled jumble,” a Kudos, by Rachel Cusk (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). In the final phrase that would not disgrace the novel of a mordant trilogy, the narrator, Faye, a British writer, poetry of Edward Lear. A computer, attends a literary festival in Europe. Her exchanges with com- we learn, “changes from a black screen placent publishers, tedious journalists, and egotistical writers to fuzz, then a somewhat clear screen allow Cusk to eviscerate the characters for their ignorance— split in two.” Loveliest of all, and a of themselves, of one another, and of the changing European reminder that both authors are re- political landscape post-Brexit. Literary-world foibles may vered senior citizens, is their desire to be a tired subject, but the narrative brilliantly explores that help those who are less digitally dex- very sense of fatigue, as illustrated in a speech delivered by terous than themselves: “That word Faye: “I said I wasn’t sure it mattered where people lived or is trending, as they say on the Inter- how, since their individual nature would create its own cir- net right now.” cumstances: it was a risky kind of presumption, I said, to re- Let’s be fair, though. Somehow, write your own fate by changing its setting.” “The President Is Missing” rises above its blithely forgivable faults. It’s a go-to Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje (Knopf ). This shadowy novel read. It maximizes its potency and intertwines the experiences of a fourteen-year-old, Nathaniel, fulfills its mission. There’s a twist or with British intelligence operations after the Second World two of which Frederick Forsyth might War. When Nathaniel’s parents move from London to Sin- be proud. So, if you want to make gapore, for the father’s job, he and his sister stay behind, in the the most of your late-capitalist lei- care of a near-stranger who introduces them to a network of sure-time, hit the couch, crack a Bud, part-time crooks and other eccentrics. Gradually, Nathaniel punch the book open, focus your realizes that his parents may not be in Singapore after all, and, squint, and enjoy. Moreover, in two following an attack on the siblings, their mother reappears. important respects, this novel is a dead Where has she been, and where is her husband? What caused ringer for “War and Peace.” First, the scars that now cover her arms? These questions follow Na- there’s the cunning brevity of the chap- thaniel into adulthood as he scrutinizes the past, trying to ters—a hundred and twenty-nine of comprehend the “true map” of his mother’s life, and his own. them—that makes a long story zip by. And, second, there’s the chutzpah with A Girl Stands at the Door, by Rachel Devlin (Basic). In 1936, a which Clinton (Patterson, I would black man named Lloyd Gaines was denied admission to the suggest, may have stepped aside at this University of Missouri School of Law because of his race. The stage) waits until the twilight of the N.A.A.C.P. successfully sued, but Gaines disappeared myste- novel and then, like Tolstoy, squares riously. From then on, the N.A.A.C.P.’s search for promising his shoulders and expounds, in fic- plaintifs in desegregation suits focussed on female volunteers. tion-free form, his politico-historical Devlin tells the stories of young women who were adept at the thoughts. The gloves come of the “high-wire act” required to endure a long and perilous process. deer. It’s notionally Duncan who is Ada Lois Sipuel, who desegregated the University of Okla- speaking, addressing Congress, but we homa College of Law, was praised for her “finesse” and “ready know whose noble words he is de- smile.” Patricia Black, who testified in a lawsuit against a seg- claiming. “Today it’s ‘us versus them’ regated Kansas school district, later said that she was chosen in America. Politics is little more than because she had been taught “how to act in certain situations.” blood sport,” he warns. Yet the man does not despair. Things could im- The Prodigal Tongue, by Lynne Murphy (Penguin Press). The prove. He still sees the city upon the story of how the British and American forms of English hill. “I want the United States to be came to be seen as foes, despite their underlying friendship, free and prosperous, peaceful and se- is told here with wry humo(u)r and scholarly acumen. His- cure, and constantly improving for all tory plays a role: after 1776, “rejecting the King’s English was generations to come.” Amen.  another way to reject the King.” But despite the eforts of 1 reactionaries—some British philologists advocated a return Therein Lies a Tale Dept. to Old English—and of spelling modernizers like Noah From the Associated Press. Webster, the lexicon remains our common property. The au- thor, a scholar of linguistics, revels in the minutiae of spell- A former meerkat expert at London Zoo has been ordered to pay compensation to a ing, grammar, and usage, and her love of our living, chang- monkey handler she attacked with a wine glass ing language is infectious. When we communicate, she writes, in a love spat over a llama-keeper. “we’re not robots. We’re poets.”

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 69 policies, and in his speeches. Many of BOOKS them were written by Rhodes, who joined the campaign as a foreign-policy speech- writer in mid-2007, when he was twenty- THE STORY GOES nine; rose to become a deputy national- security adviser; accompanied Obama Ben Rhodes’s “The World as It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House.” on every trip overseas but one; stayed to the last day of the Presidency; and BY GEORGE PACKER even joined the Obamas on the flight to their first post-Presidential vacation, in Palm Springs, wanting to ease the loneliness of their sudden return to pri- vate life. Today, Rhodes still works alongside Obama. The journalistic cliché of a “mind meld” doesn’t capture the totality of Rhodes’s identification with the Presi- dent. He came to Obama with an M.F.A. in fiction writing from New York Uni- versity and a few years on the staf of a Washington think tank. He became so adept at anticipating Obama’s thoughts and finding Obamaesque words for them that the President made him a top for- eign-policy adviser, with a say on every major issue. Rhodes’s advice mostly took the form of a continuous efort to un- derstand and apply the President’s think- ing. His decade with Obama blurred his own identity to the vanishing point, and he was sensitive enough—unusually so for a political operative—to fear losing himself entirely in the larger story. Meet- ing Obama was a fantastic career oppor- tunity and an existential threat. In “The World as It Is: A Memoir Over eight years, Rhodes’s liberal idealism evolved into chastened pragmatism. of the Obama White House” (Random House), Rhodes shows no trace of the arack Obama was a writer before he At the heart of Obama’s narrative was disillusionment that gave George Steph- Bbecame a politician, and he saw his a belief that progress, in the larger scheme anopoulos’s tale of Bill Clinton its bit- Presidency as a struggle over narrative. of things, was inevitable, and this belief ter, gossipy flavor, or of the light irony “We’re telling a story about who we are,” underscored his position on every issue that came to inflect Peggy Noonan’s he instructed his aide Ben Rhodes early from marriage equality to climate change. adoration of Ronald Reagan. More than in the first year of his first term. He said His idea of progress was neither the rigid any other White House memoirist, it again in his last months in oice, on millennial faith of Woodrow Wilson nor Rhodes is a creature of the man he a trip to Asia—“I mean, that’s our job. Bush’s shallow God-blessed optimism. served. When Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., To tell a really good story about who we It was human-scale and incremental. went to work as a special assistant to are”—adding that the book he happened Temperamentally the opposite of zeal- John F. Kennedy, in 1961, he was a mid- to be reading argued for storytelling as ous, he always acknowledged our human dle-aged Harvard professor, the author the trait that distinguishes us from other imperfection—his Nobel Peace Prize of eight books, and a Democratic Party primates. Obama’s audience was both lecture was a Niebuhrian meditation on intellectual. Schlesinger was a worship- the American public and the rest of the the tragic necessity of force in afairs of ful convert with serious blind spots about world. His characteristic rhetorical mode state. But, whatever the setbacks of the Kennedy, but he did warn the new Pres- was to describe and understand both moment, he had faith that the future be- ident not to go ahead with the Bay of sides of a divide—black and white, lib- longed to his expansive vision and not Pigs, persistently enough that Robert eral and conservative, Muslim and non- to the narrow, backward-pointing lens Kennedy told him to back of. It’s im- Muslim—before synthesizing them into of his opponents. possible to imagine Rhodes giving a unifying story that seemed to origi- This progressive story emerged in Obama that kind of advice, or writing

nate in and airm his own. Obama’s account of his own life, in his a book like “A Thousand Days,” which HOUSE PETE SOUZA/WHITE BY PHOTOGRAPH

70 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN GALL isn’t so much a White House memoir cludes, along with the important speeches cious of the foreign-policy establish- as a history of the New Frontier. and decisions of state, a quiet moment ment. “The events of my twenties felt What Rhodes lacks in critical dis- in which Obama, standing on a beach historic, but the people involved did not,” tance he gains in unobtrusive proxim- in Hawaii, points to a hill and says, “My he writes. “I wanted a hero—someone ity. He spent thousands of hours with mom used to come here every day and who could make sense of what was hap- Obama in the Oval Oice, on board Air sit there looking out at the bay when she pening around me and in some way re- Force One, and inside “the Beast,” the was pregnant with me. I’ve always thought deem it.” Professional connections led bulletproof Presidential limousine. “My that’s one of the reasons why I have a him to the nascent Obama campaign. role in these conversations, and perhaps certain calm.” This ability to stand back Rhodes showed that he could write under within his presidency,” Rhodes writes, from the passing frenzy and survey it at pressure and think against the conven- “was to respond to what he said, to talk a distance was an intellectual strength tional grain. He had found his hero. and fill quiet space—to test out the logic and a political liability. More than any Rhodes was a liberal idealist. He of his own ideas, or to ofer a distrac- modern President, Obama had a keen turned against the Iraq War, but not tion.” Although Rhodes took on impor- sense of the limits of American power— against American intervention to pre- tant projects like normalizing relations and of his own. But it’s hard to build a vent mass atrocities around the world. with Cuba and building support for the narrative around actions not taken, di- He was strongly influenced by Saman- Iran nuclear deal, his essential role was sasters possibly averted, hard realities ac- tha Power’s book on genocide in the to be the President’s mirror and echo. commodated. The story of what didn’t twentieth century, “ ‘A Problem from When Obama mused that Ray Charles’s happen isn’t an easy one to tell. Hell.’ ” Power was an adviser in Obama’s version of “America the Beautiful” should What Rhodes conveys forcefully is Senate oice, and she and Rhodes be- be the national anthem, Rhodes added, the disdain that he and Obama shared came comrades in the Obama cause, with “They should play it before every game.” for the reflexive hawkishness of the for- “a sense of destiny” about their work on Obama seems to have wanted his right- eign-policy flock, the clichés of the es- the campaign and their place in “a move- hand man to be smart, loyal, and unlikely tablishment media, the usual Washing- ment that would remake the world order.” to ofer a serious challenge. Reserved and ton games. Even in the White House, Rhodes saw Obama as a symbol of as- watchful himself, Rhodes provided just they saw themselves as perpetual out- piration for billions of people, including the level of low-key, eicient compan- siders. This aversion to normal politics Muslims who had become alienated from ionship that his boss needed. It’s not sur- gave Obama’s story its cleanness and in- the United States in the years since 9/11. prising that the aide whose company spiration, while leaving the progress he He believed that the identity of the new Obama tolerated best was another writer. achieved fragile and vulnerable to rougher President could transform America’s re- This is the closest view of Obama practitioners with fewer qualms about lation to the rest of the world. we’re likely to get until he publishes his the business they were all in. Rhodes drafted a speech for Obama own memoir. Rhodes’s Obama is curi- to give in Cairo in June of 2009, outlin- ous, self-contained, irritable, and witty, here were two moments during ing the diiculties with the Muslim world and Rhodes—sixteen years younger and Ttheir ten years together when a gap and promising a new start. “It expressed six inches shorter—is his straight man. opened up between the President and what Obama believed and where he On a Presidential trip to Latin America his aide. The first came at the start of wanted to go, the world that should be,” in 2011, at the start of the NAT‹ air cam- Obama’s second term, when the prom- Rhodes writes. Eighteen months later, paign in Libya, Rhodes found himself ises of the Arab Spring were unravel- the Arab Spring began. Rhodes quotes a cast as spokesman for a country at war. ling. The second came with the election Palestinian-born woman telling him that The stress—he’s appealingly candid about of a successor who pledged to disman- Obama was its inspiration: “The young the anxiety and self-doubt, as well as the tle everything Obama had stood for. In people saw him, a black man as president arrogance, that went with his job—caused each case, Obama was forced into a re- of America, someone who looked like him to lose track of his razor. Obama consideration of his idea of progress, and them. And they thought, why not me?” noticed. “What, you can’t even bother to Rhodes, a step or two behind, had to A more seasoned adviser might have been shave?” the President chided him. “Pull catch up. The drama of “The World as skeptical, but Rhodes lets this dubious yourself together. We have to be profes- It Is” lies between these points. claim stand. His firsthand experience of sional here.” Rhodes wanted to plead After Rhodes, a New Yorker, wit- the rest of the world came from the huge that he was overtasked and underslept, nessed the 9/11 attacks, he considered crowds that he saw through bulletproof but instead he used the rebuke to un- joining the Army but instead went to glass lining the route of Obama’s motor- derstand Obama better: “I realized that Washington to become a speechwriter cade in Lima and in Hiroshima, from the these little flashes were how he relieved at the Wilson Center, a foreign-policy young people who posed earnest ques- some of the stress that he had to be feel- think tank. He supported the Iraq War tions at town-hall meetings in Ramallah ing, and that being composed and pro- in order to be taken seriously by the and Mumbai. He took them as evidence fessional—doing the job—was how he older people around him—he was just of the tide of progress. managed to take everything in stride. I twenty-five—but his staf work for the Rhodes and Power were among hadn’t just failed to shave; I’d deviated 9/11 Commission and the Iraq Study the White House aides who wanted from his ethos of unflappability.” Group, which issued a damning report the United States to stand with the With a fine writer’s sense, Rhodes in- on the war, in 2006, made him suspi- demonstrators in Tahrir Square. Obama

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 71 encouraged Rhodes to speak up more in didn’t seem to matter. . . . I thought it bated whether to punish the regime for meetings: “Don’t hold back just because was right to save thousands of Libyans crossing Obama’s stated “red line.” The it’s the principals. You know where I’m from Gaddafi, but we were now being President decided to leave the decision coming from. And we’re younger.” After second-guessed.” to Congress, which meant no military Egypt came the American-led military The failure of the supporting cast to action. “It will drive a stake through the intervention in Libya—prompted by join the march of progress came as a kind heart of neoconservatism,” he told his Muammar Gaddafi’s threats to rebel-held of irrational afront: how could they be advisers. “Everyone will see they have no Benghazi—which ended up toppling so impervious to the appeal of Obama’s votes.” Obama regarded this decision as the dictator. The spring of 2011 was the example and words? “One of Barack a clever tactical win, as if exposing Re- high-water mark of Obama’s foreign Obama’s greatest frustrations during his publican hypocrisy mattered more than policy: Osama bin Laden dead, Amer- time in the White House was his in- trying to prevent another gas attack in ican troops withdrawn from Iraq and ability to use rhetoric and reason to bet- Syria. He was willing to follow the logic preparing to leave Afghanistan, the Arab ter tell the story of his presidency,” Dan of inaction as far as it led. “Maybe we Spring in full flower. “Barack Obama’s Pfeifer, Obama’s communications direc- never would have done Rwanda,” he told story was gaining a certain momentum,” tor, tells us in another new White House Rhodes during the Syria crisis. “There’s Rhodes writes. “But something was miss- memoir, “Yes We (Still) Can: Politics in no way there would have been any ap- ing—the supporting characters, in Con- the Age of Obama, Twitter, and Trump” petite for that in Congress.” For Obama gress and around the world.” (Twelve). Rhodes stuck to the ideals of idealists, this stance was apostasy. “ ‘A “The supporting characters”—Mitch the Arab Spring, but Obama was leav- Problem from Hell’ ” turned out to be McConnell, Vladimir Putin, Egyptian ing him behind. “Our priority has to be one of the least relevant foreign-policy generals, Libyan warlords, reactionary stability and supporting the scaf (Egyp- books for the Obama White House. forces that had no stake in Obama’s suc- tian Military Council),” he snapped at Rhodes had to choose between stick- cess—were in fact forces of opposition, Rhodes in one meeting. “Even if we get ing with the principles that originally and they weren’t just missing; they were criticized. I’m not interested in the crowd drew him to Obama and continuing to gathering strength. You get the sense in Tahrir Square and Nick Kristof.” identify with his hero. He went with the that Rhodes, and perhaps Obama, too, This sounded like cold realpolitik, and latter. When Egyptian generals over- wasn’t ready for them. Relentless Repub- it came as a shock to Rhodes: “For the threw the elected Islamist government, lican obstruction didn’t fit with Obama’s first time, I felt out of step with my boss.” and the Administration refused to call tale of there being no red or blue Amer- It got worse with the Syrian civil war. it a coup, Rhodes made one last pitch ica; rising chaos and nationalism were Rhodes again supported American mil- for Arab democracy, but “as with inter- out of tune with his hymn of walls fall- itary intervention, but without much vention in Syria, my heart wasn’t entirely ing. In Libya, civil war killed thousands faith, and Obama half-listened to in it anymore.” It’s hard to blame him. of people and left much of the country Rhodes’s half-hearted arguments. “It was There was no obvious policy that could ungoverned and vulnerable to terrorists, wrenching to read about the brutality of have reversed the Egyptian coup or, short and the U.S., as usual, had no plan or Assad every morning, to see images of of a full-scale military invasion, forced desire to deal with the aftermath of in- family homes reduced to rubble,” he the departure of Assad. Worse to try and tervention. But Rhodes took the criti- writes. “I felt we had to do something in likely leave a bigger mess, Obama con- cism that followed as a sign of the ab- Syria.” In August of 2013, Bashar al-Assad cluded, than not to try at all. Other surdity of American politics: “I couldn’t killed hundreds of civilians with chem- voices—Secretary of State John Kerry; reconcile how much doing the right thing ical weapons, and the White House de- the national-security adviser, Susan Rice—argued for more American activ- ism, but Obama was unmoved. With- out congressional or allied support, with- out a clear answer to the question “And what happens after we bomb the run- ways and Russia, Iran, and Assad rebuild them?,” he dropped “Never again” for a more skeptical motto: “Don’t do stupid shit.” Rhodes adopted the more mini- malist words and ideas, though never with the same equanimity as his boss. “It was as if Obama was finally forcing me to let go of a part of who I was.” “ he World as It Is” charts the edu- Tcation of Ben Rhodes through his White House years from liberal idealism to a chastened appreciation of how Amer- “Yeah, the rooftop-farming idea isn’t working out.” ican power can be more wisely harnessed to limited ends—hence the title. With of European politics to the populist gence about Russian meddling on be- Obama’s encouragement, Rhodes spent right, an emboldened Russia interven- half of Trump reached the Oval Oice. the last years of the Presidency trying to ing militarily in Syria. It turned out Obama’s instinct was to avoid politiciz- realize his original ideals through diplo- that prudent inaction didn’t necessar- ing it at all costs. Rhodes urged the Pres- macy. He took the lead in talks with ily further the cause of progress any ident to be more vocal, just as he’d urged Cuba that achieved normalized relations more than a naïve confidence in overt him to intervene in Egypt, Libya, and after more than half a century of Cold action. When America sobered up under Syria, but Obama replied, “If I speak War hostility. He helped prevent Con- Obama, other powers saw not wisdom out more, he’ll just say it’s rigged.” Trump, gress from sinking the Iran nuclear deal. but a chance to fill the gap. if he lost, was going to say He involved himself in humanitarian is- Obama doesn’t seem to the election had been rigged sues in Southeast Asia. He became more have known what to make regardless. His supporters emphatic in his contempt for the Wash- of Vladimir Putin: “He nei- were going to disbelieve any- ington establishment (although I’m not ther liked nor loathed Putin, thing Obama said. The rest sure what makes you a member if not nor did he subscribe to the of us deserved to hear it, any- eight years in the White House), and he view that Putin was all that way. “I talk about it every became a high-profile target of the con- tough.” This dusting-of- time I’m asked,” Obama pro- spiratorial right wing. Rhodes concludes the-shoulder attitude under- tested to Rhodes, concern- his book with the thought that “billions estimated the Russian lead- ing the issue of Russian in- of people around the globe had come er’s ambition to manipulate terference. “What else are to know Barack Obama, had heard his the resentments and hatreds we going to do?” He wasn’t words, had watched his speeches, and, of democratic citizens. Obama told going to worry about it, true to charac- in some unknowable but irreducible way, Rhodes that he knew all about the Putins ter; Rhodes, true to character, did the had come to see the world as a place of the world—from the Tea Party, Fox worrying instead, and still does. that could—in some incremental way— News, and the Republican extremists In “The Final Year,” a new documen- change. The arc of history.” who had been trying from the start to tary that focusses on Obama’s foreign That’s more qualified than the sense delegitimize his Presidency. “Obama policy at the end of his Presidency, of high destiny with which Rhodes set was more sanguine about the forces at Trump’s victory leaves Rhodes unable out, but it’s still a story of progress, of play in the world not because he was to speak for almost a full minute. It had the philosophy that he ascribes to both late in recognizing them,” Rhodes writes, been inconceivable, like the repeal of a the chef Anthony Bourdain and Barack “but because he’d seen them earlier.” law of nature—not just because of who Obama: “If people would just sit down Obama had come to think that he could Trump was but also because of who and eat together, and understand some- work around Putin and McConnell and Obama was. Rhodes and Obama briefly thing about each other, maybe they could Fox News, by picking his shots, setting sought refuge in the high-mindedness figure things out.” Yet Rhodes was still the right example, avoiding stupid shit, of the long view—“Progress doesn’t move fighting the last war against the tired and bringing change in increments. in a straight line,” Rhodes messaged his Washington establishment, the reflex- In fact, he was too sanguine, perhaps boss on Election Night, a reference to ive hawks, the carping ignoramuses in because he was overconfident in his own one of Obama’s own sayings, which the the media. Meanwhile, in places as transformative power, perhaps because President then revived for the occasion: far-flung as Turkey, India, the Czech he wasn’t alert to the brittleness of his “History doesn’t move in a straight line, Republic, Moscow, and Washington, achievement. Progressives find it hard it zigs and zags.” But that was not the strongest political forces were run- to imagine that there are others who in much consolation. On Obama’s last trip ning dead against the idea of sitting good faith don’t want the better world abroad, he sat quietly with Rhodes in down together over a meal and figur- they’re ofering and will fiercely resist it. the Beast as they passed the cheering ing things out. Obama was always better at explaining Peruvian crowds. “What if we were After Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the meaning of democracy than at fight- wrong?” Obama suddenly asked. Rhodes the burden of proof is on anyone who ing its opponents. Other than “Yes, we didn’t know what he meant. “Maybe we would make the case for military ac- can” and a few other phrases, it’s hard to pushed too far. Maybe people just want tion as a force for good. But Obama, remember any lines from his speeches, to fall back into their tribe.” Obama took proudly defying political convention including ones drafted by Rhodes. Many the thought to its natural conclusion: and confident in the larger forces of of them are profound meditations that “Sometimes I wonder whether I was ten progress, was reluctant to acknowledge can stand reading and rereading—Rhodes or twenty years too early.” that inaction, too, is an action. We don’t quotes some of the best—but Obama’s Rhodes wrestled with this painful know what a missile strike against Assad way was to rise above simplifications that blow. It sounded like a repudiation of in 2013 might have achieved, but we do would have stuck in people’s heads and everything they had done. But then he know what followed Obama’s refusal given them verbal weapons with which found an answer, and it was in keeping to enforce his own red line: more Syr- to defend themselves. with the spirit of his years in service to ian government atrocities (including His aversion to the dirty tasks of pol- Obama: “We were right, but all that the repeated use of chemical weapons), itics culminated in the moment during progress depended upon him, and now millions more Syrian refugees, the shift the 2016 campaign when U.S. intelli- he was out of time.” 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 73 his life. Committed to art from child- THE ART WORLD hood, Giacometti moved to Paris in 1922, briefly pursuing academic study and ex- perimenting in modes of classical, an- SKINNY SUBLIMITY cient Egyptian, Cycladic, and African art. A generically Fauvist portrait of Giacometti at the Guggenheim. Diego painted that year pictures a dap- per, stily alert young man, standing BY PETER SCHJELDAHL straight in a way that feels faintly pro- phetic of Giacometti’s eventual sculp- here might not seem to be much between midnight and nine the next ture. At the Guggenheim, it is the first Tleft to say about Alberto Giaco- morning,” and which fetched more than in a terrific selection of paintings and metti, the subject of a majestic, exhaust- a hundred and forty-one million dol- drawings that have raised my opinion ing retrospective—pace yourself, when lars at Christie’s in 2015. Auction antics of his two-dimensional work, which un- you go—at the Guggenheim. Critics, hardly amount to historical verdicts, but, fortunately is far better known for the scholars, philosophers, poets, journal- these days, trying to ignore the market monotonous and largely mud-colored ists, and chatty amateurs have all had a when discussing artistic values is like monochrome, ritualistic portraits from go at the Swiss master of the skinny trying to communicate by whisper at a his later years, for which he demanded sublime. I wrote about him in direct gazes from his sitters as these pages seventeen years ago, he excavated their heads in pic- on the occasion of a retrospec- torial space. Most of those por- tive at the Museum of Modern traits feel like relics, rather than Art. A standard story of Gia- expressions of the artist’s intense cometti, as a Surrealist who be- scrutiny, though a few—nota- came a paragon of existential- bly, of his wife, Annette Arm, ism for his ravaged response to and his last mistress, a spirited the Second World War, was well prostitute called Caroline—fight established by 1966, when he through with hollow-eyed looks died, at the age of sixty-four. He that assert independence from hasn’t changed. The world has, the artist. (The departure sug- though, and with it the signifi- gests love, an emotion flicker- cance of a man who termed ingly rare in Giacometti.) But himself a failure and chose to the show turns up pictures, es- live in bohemian squalor even pecially still-lifes, whose lyri- while, in his later years, he was cism is as surprising as birds es- quite rich and famous. A rather caping a magician’s top hat. sudden consensus of people The lyrical was a note out of who keep score regarding can- key with Giacometti’s drive to ons has come to rank the leg- capture essences of human real- endary eccentric as the world’s ity as it confronted, or, better, as- greatest modern sculptor after saulted, his consciousness. That Rodin—despite fair quibbles in goal was fundamentally so im- favor of Brancusi or the moon- possible as to be comic, but his lighting feats of the painters Pi- ordeal in its pursuit—material- casso, Matisse, and de Kooning. ized in the bodily scrimmages The taste leaders are wealthy of his sculpture—conveys a des- people, with exegetes in their perate sincerity. Sculpting from wake. Why Giacometti? What Giacometti at Galerie Maeght, in Paris, in 161. models or imagination, his hand is he to 2018 and 2018 to him? ate away flesh to register how, Since 2010, three bronze figures by Trump rally. Giacometti’s work surely instead of in what form, people ex- Giacometti—in each case, one in an deserves its price tags, if anything of isted for him, whether in pride or ab- edition of casts from an original work strictly subjective worth ever does. The jection, in loneliness or resilience—per- in plaster or clay—have become the first, bad efect is a suppressed acknowledg- haps ridiculous, perhaps frightening. second, and third most expensive sculp- ment of his strangeness. Sometimes his quest for a likeness be- tures ever sold. The titleholder is “Man Giacometti was born in 1901 in a rus- yond appearance came literally to noth- Pointing” (1947), an almost six-foot-high tic valley near the border of Italy, the ing: scraps of material fallen to the stu- slender figure extending an index finger, son of a professional painter. His younger dio floor. The drive is an irresistible which Giacometti said he had made, brother, the shy and taciturn Diego, re- force of ambition colliding with an

against a show deadline, “in one night mained a close companion throughout immovable conviction of inadequacy. MAGNUM

74 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 PHOTOGRAPH BY HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON He has a plausible avatar in Sisyphus. darkness, and open spaces. His friend Giacometti’s dedication is what rivets Simone de Beauvoir—the subject here us to him and has reliably come, should of three heads, each sporting a turban— money be involved, to break the bank—a recalled “a long period,” in 1941, “when spiritual gold standard for a time of ner- he could not walk down a street with- vous suspicion that art’s prestige has out- out putting out a hand and touching run its supply lines of meaning. His sin- the solid bulk of a wall in order to arm gle-mindedness marked his friendships himself against the gulf that yawned with the leading artists and intellectu- all around him.” Infertile from an ad- als in his milieu, including Picasso. He olescent bout of mumps, he was often disparaged the Spaniard for a virtuos- impotent except with prostitutes, whom, ity not yoked to a consistent passion. Pi- for their detachment, he termed “god- casso parried by mocking the apparent desses.” He remained emotionally at- repetitiveness of the gaunt figures that tached to his mother, visiting her reg- had become the exclusive focus of Gia- ularly in Switzerland until her death, cometti’s sculpture during his war years in 1964, two years before his fatal heart in Switzerland—a bum rap, as this show attack. He met Annette Arm in Ge- proves. A skillful installation sensitizes neva in 1943 and seems to have mar- you to myriad variations in the character ried her six years later because she in- of works that only at first glance appear sisted on it and showed herself willing not to difer much except in size, from to subordinate herself to him, come minuscule to monumental. Nearly al- what may. They lived to the end in a ways, but most expressively when painted, plaster-spattered Montparnasse studio Your Anniversary they emerge from family resemblance, that another friend, Jean Genet, de- Immortalized with some distinctive nuance. Each in- scribed as “a milky swamp, a seething in Roman Numerals habits its own present tense. dump, a genuine ditch.” Giacometti was 3-Day Rush Available! Giacometti’s uniqueness was detect- a voluble and, by all accounts, enchant- Crafted from Gold and Platinum JOHN- CHRISTIAN.COM able already, in the early nineteen-thir- ing conversationalist, humbly courte- OR CALL 888.646.6466 ties, when he embraced the sexual ma- ous, whose most frequent topic hap- nias of Surrealism and veered between pened to be the hopelessness of his the opposed coteries of the movement, enterprise. He took long walks with a led by the sentimental André Breton friend who knew the feeling—Samuel and the cynical Georges Bataille. Gia- Beckett—reportedly in mutual silence. cometti took to creating only works that, Giacometti quit Surrealism in 1935 New Yorker he said, he had visualized in advance, in and went back to working from life, forms and styles that hopscotched from with fumbling uncertainty during the Cartoon Prints primitivist to abstract and from sweetly next ten years. The gestation of his ul- Find your favorite poetic to viciously aggressive. His finely timate manner accorded in date and in cartoon on virtually any topic crafted wooden “Disagreeable Object” feeling with the catastrophe of the war. at newyorkerstore.com (1931)—suggesting a tapered dildo with In Switzerland, the harder he worked eyes at one end and spikes at the other— to mold heads and figures, the more vies for the honor of being the single ug- they crumbled and shrank, to the point Enter TNY20 for 20 off. liest thing ever made, and his “Woman that, when he returned to Paris, he could with Her Throat Cut” (1932)—while a transport many of the works in match- tour de force of sculptural mastery—the boxes. He reported having a life-chang- most disturbing. About three feet long, ing epiphany, in 1946, on leaving a movie meant to be set on a floor, “Woman” con- theatre, when the abrupt shift from the joins elements suggestively animal, vege- film projection to an engulfing street tal, and mechanical to represent a woman ignited a sense that, as he wrote, “I see arched in a paroxysm of orgasm and, reality for the first time but in such a her neck notched, death. (Viewed dis- way that I can make everything very “Cat, anyone?” tantly, across the Guggenheim’s atrium, it rapidly.” Some occult circuit had closed evokes a squashed bug.) Misogynous? Oh between what he saw and what he could Liza Donnelly, November 14, 1994 boy. Giacometti confessed at the time to make visible. For me, a spark leaps from having had compulsive fantasies of rape that moment to the present day, a time and murder, though “Woman” seems to of paralyzing anxieties and cascading il- have used up the pathology as an overt lusions. Look around on Fifth Avenue motive in his art. when you leave the show. Something He was ridden with phobias of death, will be happening, perhaps to you. 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 75 gown. Why, she could almost be alive! THE CURRENT CINEMA Annie’s other hobbies include majes- tic monologues, in which she lays bare the roots of her grievances and griefs. NIGHTMARE-TINTED TOYS We are no longer used to long speeches in American cinema, but, even when in “Hereditary.” fashion, their purpose was to rouse or to denounce—think of George C. Scott at BY ANTHONY LANE the start of “Patton” (1970), or Al Paci- no’s belligerent bellowing in “Scent of a he scariest thing in “Hereditary,” a a whisper in a cave. Scene after scene Woman” (1992) and “Any Given Sunday” Tmovie well supplied with fear, is a bears the hermetic rigor of a rite, one that (1999). Annie, by contrast, sounds more noise. It’s the one that you make by flicking outsiders—or even other members of the like a fugitive from a Bergman film. As your tongue down from the roof of your household—may struggle to understand. she recites her woes in a group-therapy mouth: klokk. Most of us rarely do this, This sense of enclosure, we come to session for the bereaved, or raves with unless moved by a desire to mimic the realize, is a female preserve. Annie’s indignation in front of Peter and Steve, hoofbeats of a horse, but Charlie Graham husband, Steve, may have troubles, too tumbling over her words (“All I get back (Milly Shapiro), a non-smiling girl of (weighty ones, given that he’s played is that fucking face on your face”), the thirteen, klokks with unnerving frequency. by the ever-sombre Gabriel Byrne), but, efect verges on the comic, and some of “Hereditary” can best be borne, or re- lieved, by means of a jittery laugh. The cruellest joke is delivered by the final credits, in which Judy Collins sings Joni Mitchell’s breezy “Both Sides Now”: “So many things I would have done/ But clouds got in my way.” Indeed. One result of the therapy is that Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd), a fellow- mourner, warm and courteous, who teaches her how to contact the dearly departed. Joan contends that summon- ing the spirits of others is the most efec- tive way to raise your own, and the séance, at her place, is a notably low-rent afair, its tools consisting of a table, a candle, a chalkboard, and a glass. When Annie goes home and proposes the same rou- tine, Steve scofs and sighs but, to pla- In Ari Aster’s ilm, a recently bereaved woman learns how to contact the dead. cate her, goes along with it. Bad idea. Henceforth, the movie shifts from the It’s her signature sound, like the bing! in his case, the movie chooses not to disquieting to the freaky and, by the end, emitted by the annoying guy in “Ground- pry. We never find out what he does the absolutely nuts. Did I really see one hog Day,” and her brother, Peter (Alex for a living. Though Peter and his figure self-decapitate with a length of Wolf), who’s a few years older than Char- schoolmates observe their own customs, wire, sawing briskly back and forth as if lie, hears a klokk in the corner of his bed- they do so gregariously, ganging to- through a log? And another, reduced to room, after dark, even when she’s not there. gether to smoke a bowl. About Char- carbonized flesh, apparently kneeling in Or, at any rate, he thinks he does. Most lie and Annie, on the other hand, we prayer? Maybe I dreamed the whole of the folks in the film, which is written learn perhaps more than we would wish. thing, in the churning wake of the screen- and directed by Ari Aster, don’t quite Charlie solemnly scissors the head from ing. One thing’s for sure: requesting the know what to believe, or how much they a dead pigeon—Michael Haneke’s “The presence of the dead is a risky business. should trust their eyes and ears. The chil- White Ribbon” (2009) contains a sim- You cannot predict which of them will dren’s mother, Annie (Toni Collette), can’t ilar avian outrage—and combines odds show up, and in what mood. The road tell if her own emotions are correct. Her and ends to make nightmare-tinted to Hell is paved with invitations. mother just passed away, and Annie is toys. This charming gift of constructive bemused, or half-ashamed, at feeling in- improvisation is clearly inherited from dvance word on “Hereditary” told, suiciently sad. But then, as she admits Annie, who designs doll’s houses, rep- Aor gabbled, of something more ar- at the funeral, her mother was a secre- licating her own experience in minia- resting than a regular fright night. And tive person, possessed of “private rituals.” ture. One room, say, features a tiny ver- it’s true that, if you enjoy a little spook- That phrase echoes around the story like sion of her late mother, dressed in a white ing on the weekend, cheerfully spilling

76 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY BILL BRAGG your Raisinets in front of a skittish fran- Dogs” before going to stay with the (In Australia, the trailer was reportedly chise (“Annabelle,” “The Conjuring,” Baskervilles? screened by mistake before a showing “Insidious,” and so on), Aster’s movie One thing that does set “Hereditary” of “Peter Rabbit.” Sleep well, children!) will come across either as a challeng- apart is the force of its cast. Milly Sha- For viewers recuperating from a wounded ing diversion from the norm or as an piro, despite having played the buoyant childhood, or from a festering relation- indulgence too far. It runs more than heroine of “Matilda,” on Broadway, for- ship, it could scrape too close to the two hours, and whether it will conquer sakes any hint of joy in her depiction of bone. The movie haunts us even when the multiplex as well as the art house Charlie, who strikes me as unreachably it isn’t making us jump, so intently are remains to be seen. Although “The inward. Confronting her grandmother’s the characters bedevilled by the spec- Witch,” an independent horror flick open casket, she doesn’t weep, or shy tres of their past. “I’m not to be blamed,” with a squirm power akin to that of away, but bites into a candy bar with a Annie says in therapy, as she describes “Hereditary,” brought in a handsome loud, heretical snap. Meanwhile, in re- her mother’s legacy, before adding, in twenty-five million dollars when re- gard to Annie, it was gutsy of Toni Col- despair, “I am blamed.” leased in early 2016, a clunker like “The lette to take the part, given that she’s Should you want to measure the Conjuring 2,” which appeared a few had less than twenty years to recover psychological disturbance at work here, months later, still earned four times as from “The Sixth Sense” (1999), and as try comparing “Hereditary” with “A much nationwide. the new film gets under way she looks Quiet Place.” That recent hit, for all its Not that “Hereditary” is disloyal to stricken, like someone who has already masterly shocks, is at bottom a reas- the genre. No film in which a son hands weathered an ordeal. And yet, as in most suring film, introducing people who the phone to his father and remarks, of Collette’s performances, from “Mu- are beset by an external menace but “Dad, it’s the cemetery,” can be said to riel’s Wedding” (1994) onward, there’s a more or less able to pull through be- break entirely fresh ground. The Gra- resilience, too, in those strong-boned cause, as a team, they’re roped together hams could easily improve their gloomy features and that tough pragmatic gaze. with enough love to fight back. “He- mood by investing in some hun- She’s damned if she’s going to be a vic- reditary” is more perplexing. It has the dred-watt light bulbs, but no: this is tim and nothing but. nerve to suggest that the social unit is, horror, and therefore the dinner table Damned, unfortunately, is right. Aster by definition, self-menacing, and that must be illuminated as dimly as a crypt. means to petrify us, and he succeeds; I the home is no longer a sanctuary but We get a blood-red glow, emanating won’t forget the pale shape that lurks a crumbling fortress, under siege from from the children’s tree house, and bor- and scoots behind Peter, in the corner within. That is why there are no doc- rowed from the eyelike windows in of the ceiling, like Spider-Man’s evil tors in Aster’s film, and no detectives, “The Amityville Horror” (1979). We twin. And the expression on the poor either, urgently though both are re- get faces crawling with ants—an itchy lad’s face, at the climax of the tale, is one quired; nor does a man of God arrive, spectacle, but no spookier than the bees of genuine bewilderment, quivering with as he does in “The Exorcist” (1973), to that swarmed out of someone’s mouth disbelief that his ordinary young life lay the anguish to rest. Nothing, in short, in “Candyman” (1992). There’s also a should have descended into the infer- can help Annie, Steve, and the kids, sequence, early on, in which Annie, nal. As for the music, I’d have to check and they sure can’t help themselves, sta- sorting through her mother’s stuf, picks with the composer, Colin Stetson, but tioned as they are inside their delicate up a volume entitled “Guide to Spiri- it seems to be scored for violins, percus- doll’s house of a world. There is no tualism,” which may not give the game sion, a humpback whale, and bats. family curse in this remarkable movie. away but certainly advertises what sort Here’s the thing, though. “Heredi- The family is the curse. Klokk.  of game we can expect. Is this neces- tary” is far more upsetting than it is sary? Were guests obliged to study “A frightening, and I would hesitate to rec- NEWYORKER.COM Handbook to the Breeding of Large ommend it to the readily traumatized. Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 18, 2018 77 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three inalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by Drew Dernavich, must be received by Sunday, June 17th. The inalists in the May 28th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the inalists in this week’s contest, in the July 2nd issue. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ” ......

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

“I’m still cleaning the glitter out of the truck.” Gwyn Joy, Brooklyn, N.Y.

“I also have a centaur, but it makes people uncomfortable.” “His words, not mine.” Yacov Freedman, Atlanta, Ga. Jack Buchignani, Los Angeles, Calif.

“Well, of course they don’t exist. Now.” Francesca Walsh, Bray, Ireland