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.” THIS WEEK ON NEWYORKER.COM The New Yorker Radio Hour podcast features provocative conversations with some of the biggest names in politics, music, literature, and more, every week. Join the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, for an original mix of profiles, storytelling, and intimate interviews. Find DAILY SHOUTS PHOTO BOOTH The New Yorker Radio Hour free, A comic by Eric Lide shows A Japanese photographer documents wherever you get your podcasts. an encounter with the Lord of the life of his seven-person family in All Evil gone awry. a one-room home. Download the New Yorker Today app for the latest news, commentary, criticism, and humor, plus this week’s magazine and all issues back to 2008. MASAKI BY PHOTOGRAPH RIGHT: THE MAIL 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).