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OCTOBER 2, 2017

4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Steve Coll on Trump’s U.N. début; to sweat like a Finn; floorboard treasures; Demetri Martin’s line; remembering Lillian Ross. LETTER FROM MYANMAR Hannah Beech 22 Fallen Idol Has Aung San Suu Kyi betrayed her principles? SKETCHBOOK Roz Chast 30 “The Knife” LIFE AND LETTERS Alex Ross 32 Cather People A literary fandom on the prairie. PROFILES Jia Tolentino 38 A Woman’s Work Gloria Allred’s relentless push for justice. U.S. JOURNAL Atul Gawande 48 Is Health Care a Right? Asking Americans what they think they deserve. FICTION Ben Marcus 56 “Blueprints for St. Louis” THE CRITICS BOOKS Adam Gopnik 64 Defending Ulysses S. Grant. 71 Briefly Noted Dan Chiasson 72 Danez Smith’s “Don’t Call Us Dead.” THE ART WORLD Peter Schjeldahl 74 Rodin a hundred years later. THE THEATRE Hilton Als 76 “The Red Letter Plays.” THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 78 “American Made,” “Victoria & Abdul.” POEMS Didi Jackson 42 “Signs for the Living” Jameson Fitzpatrick 61 “White Gays” COVER Kadir Nelson “Generations”

DRAWINGS Barbara Smaller, Christian Lowe, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Jon Adams, Avi Steinberg, Lars Kenseth, Paul Noth, Farley Katz, Tom Chitty, Emily Flake, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Teresa Burns Parkhurst SPOTS Pablo Amargo CONTRIBUTORS

Hannah Beech (“Fallen Idol,” p. 22), the Atul Gawande (“Is Health Care a Right?,” Southeast Asia bureau chief for the p. 48), a surgeon and a professor, is the Times, is currently based in Bangkok. director of Ariadne Labs. His most re- cent book is “Being Mortal.” Kadir Nelson (Cover) is an artist whose work has received much recognition, Roz Chast (Sketchbook, p. 30) has been including two Caldecott Honors and a cartoonist for the magazine since a Sibert Medal. He is the illustrator 1978. Her latest book, “Going Into of “Blue Sky White Stars,” which came Town: A Love Letter to New York,” out in June. comes out in October.

Jia Tolentino (“A Woman’s Work,” p. 38) Jameson Fitzpatrick (Poem, p. 61) teaches is a staff writer. Previously, she was the at New York University. He is at work deputy editor at Jezebel and a contrib- on his first book of poems. uting editor at the Hairpin. Ben Marcus (Fiction, p. 56) is the au- Alex Ross (“Cather People,” p. 32), a staff thor of, most recently, “Leaving the writer, is the author of “The Rest Is Sea: Stories.” Noise” and “Listen to This.” Jessica Leigh Hester (The Talk of the Didi Jackson (Poem, p. 42) teaches at Town, p. 19), an editor at CityLab, has the University of Vermont. Her first written for the The Atlantic, the Times, collection of poems, “Killing Jar,” is and NPR. She is an M.F.A. candidate forthcoming. at Hunter College.

Minzayar Oo (Photograph, p. 22) is a Adam Gopnik (Books, p. 64) is a staff photojournalist from Myanmar. He writer. His latest book, “At the Strang- has been detained by Bangladeshi au- ers’ Gate: Arrivals in New York,” came thorities since September 7th. out in September.

NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more.

DAILY SHOUTS PHOTO BOOTH In a comic by Avi Steinberg, a ghost The enigmatic photographer behind finally gets around to wrapping up the creepy cult children’s book “The some unfinished business. Lonely Doll.”

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2 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 THE MAIL

LIFE AFTER DEATH

I was grateful to read Alice Gregory’s essay about people who have inadver- tently killed others (“Accidental Killers,” September 18th). In 1967, on a family va- cation in Florida, my father drowned while saving my life. I was fourteen. My mother raised me as best she could, but she never attempted to help me deal with the emotional scars from the incident. I have always felt that I didn’t deserve the good things that have come to me in life; for a long time, I hoped that I would die, like my father, at the age of forty-six, so that I would get no more out of life than he did. Fifty years after the acci- dent, I still feel burdened by tremendous guilt and shame. Years ago, I read that if someone saves your life you should save someone else’s. Perhaps I’ve done so: I’m a teacher, and recently a former student said that, many years earlier, my encour- agement and support had saved his life. Still, peace is hard to find. Dawne Sohn Moon Township, Pa.

As a physician, I often grapple with the possibility of unintentionally hurting peo- ple. My colleagues and I attend to trauma and critical-care patients, and we con- stantly make judgment calls based on in- complete information and educated guess- work. I am haunted by emergency decisions that, despite my best efforts and inten- tions, caused a patient harm. It is widely acknowledged that this type of guilt is a contributing factor to burnout, a growing problem in the medical profession. But, beyond resilience training for residents, there is no clear solution. It’s comforting to know that this is not just a struggle for those in medicine but an experience shared by all people who have acciden- tally changed another’s life for the worse. David J. Berman Baltimore, Md. • Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 3 SEPTEMBER 27 – OCTOBER 3, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

Centuries before the Internet began worshipping LOLcats, the ancient Egyptians venerated felines as gods, burying their preserved remains in cat-shaped coffins (like the two pictured here, which may date as far back as 664 B.C.E.). Other cat mummies were simply pets—like their dog, monkey, and gazelle counterparts—joining their owners in the forever home of the afterlife. The Brooklyn Museum highlights these rarely seen treasures in “Soulful Creatures: Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt,” opening Sept. 29.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF BROWN Thundercat This Los Angeles bassist, born Stephen Brunner, has been an under-sung treasure for years, emerg- NIGHT LIFE ing occasionally from behind his instrument with a 1 sun-soaked falsetto and a twisted sense of humor: on his recent single “Friend Zone,” he blows off Nosaj Thing ROCK AND POP an inconsistent date to play Mortal Kombat. He When the rapper Kid Cudi laid out his mission has nestled himself in his city’s young jazz scene, statement on his début mixtape, in 2008, he leaned which has shed the genre’s strict formalities and Musicians and night-club proprietors lead on a soft-rattling arrangement that sounded like drawn out its parallels in dance music and hip-hop complicated lives; it’s advisable to check Brian Eno and the Postal Service playing tic-tac- in refreshing ways. From collaborations with Fly- in advance to confirm engagements. toe on an MPC machine. Cudi’s “Man on the Moon ing Lotus and Kendrick Lamar to his own adven- (The Anthem),” set to an instrumental called turous solo albums, Brunner consistently tests the Chance the Rapper “Aquarium,” by the producer Nosaj Thing, exem- limits of his form with inspired results, offering a Four summers ago, when this quirky young Chi- plified a period of cross-pollination between the brawny alternative to pop R. & B. that never takes cago m.c. (né Chancelor Bennett) played a small hip-hop and the electronic circles in Los Angeles, itself too seriously. He tours in support of his new venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, his energy was notably at venues like the Low End Theory. Nosaj album, “Drunk.” (Brooklyn Steel, 319 Frost St., Brook- infectious, and, as he robo-danced like the sec- Thing, born Jason Chung, earned his place in the lyn. 888-929-7849. Sept. 30-Oct. 1.) ond coming of Ian Curtis and spat offbeat lyrics city’s dense d.j. scene with a drowsy, tech-sleek 1 in a nasal register, the packed room responded by touch that offered fans a bit more soul for their whipping itself into a lather. The performance buck. He plays this Greenpoint community center JAZZ AND STANDARDS introduced local audiences to his first mixtape, alongside Jacques Greene and Jim-E Stack. (War- “Acid Rap,” made up of thirteen thoughtful, saw, 261 Driggs Ave., Brooklyn. 718-387-0505. Sept. 27.) Mary Halvorson eclectic tracks that aspired to Kanye West’s early The group Thumbscrew finds the insistently in- pluckiness and incorporated Chicago’s home- Sad13 ventive guitarist Halvorson alongside two other grown juke sound. Since then, Chance’s reputa- Pop music has historically functioned as an escap- forward-thinking players, the bassist Michael For- tion has been cemented; “Surf,” his album with ist medium, devoid of politics. But Sadie Dupuis, manek and the drummer Tomas Fujiwara. The trio Donnie Trumpet & the Social Experiment, was the front woman of the protean rock band Speedy explores original compositions on the first night and released in 2015, and featured stars like Busta Ortiz, insists that tales about challenging polit- standards on the second. It’s tough to say which eve- Rhymes, Erykah Badu, and Janelle Monáe. Last ical conversations with relatives over Christmas ning will hold more surprises. (The Stone at the New year’s follow-up, “Coloring Book,” raised his pro- dinner can fit snugly between choruses that aim School, 55 W. 13th St. thestonenyc.com. Sept. 29-30.) file even further, leading to daytime-television for hit-factory sheen. Dupuis, who received her appearances and endorsements from Kit Kat M.F.A. in poetry from UMass Amherst, writes in Eddie Henderson and 1800 Tequila. When he sold out this out- a distinctively angular way as Sad13; last Novem- The Henderson of the seventies and the trumpeter door arena, a second show was added to accom- ber, she released her début solo pop effort, “Slug- of the present day are two different species of jazz modate his hungry fans. (Forest Hills Stadium, 1 ger,” a saccharine set of exploratory love songs that player. While the brass man who weaved through Tennis Pl., Forest Hills, Queens. foresthillsstadium. recalibrate such topics as sexual consent (“Get a the fusion forests of Herbie Hancock’s Mwandi- com. Sept. 26-27.) Yes”) and platonic opposite-sex friendships. She shi band and his own jazz-funk projects was all opens for the crunch-punk four-piece Charly Bliss. Miles-ish jabs and flourishes, today’s Henderson Dinosaur Jr. (Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 N. 6th St., Brooklyn. is a post-bop classicist eager to exhibit his sharp- J. Mascis’s latest incarnation of his pivotal alt- 718-486-5400. Sept. 28.) edged chops. He’s joined by the saxophonist Don- rock band has been around longer than the first. ald Harrison and the drummer Mike Clark, another A product of Massachusetts, the group helped Show Me the Body veteran from the Hancock fusion era. (Smoke, 2751 spark, and was subsequently swept up in, the Julian Cashwan Pratt, the lead singer of this Queens Broadway, between 105th and 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. Seattle grunge scene and the surrounding press hardcore outfit, steps on photographers—but only Sept. 29-Oct. 1.) storm; by the late eighties, the original lineup the ones who have it coming. At the ripping gigs had shifted, after releasing just three albums. that Show Me the Body has played since 2014, the Ben Monder In 2005, the founding members reunited, and band reserves the pit for fans only, with Pratt giv- With fresh-faced jazz guitarists sprouting like their new music has won over indie nostalgists ing deadpan directions to his flock between shrieks. kudzu, Monder, after decades of new-jazz inven- with clear sound mixes that allow Mascis’s gui- He and his bandmates put an original spin on the tion, can seem like a toughened veteran. To his tar theatrics to shine as they should. At a New hardcore sound (banjos and rap verses haven’t al- credit, this daring and inquisitive player can give York gig earlier this year, celebrating their 2016 ways had a spot in the genre) and share a refresh- his younger compatriots a run for their money, as album, “Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not,” Lou ing dedication to the punk tenets of inclusivity and evidenced by his recent work on ECM Records. Barlow promised, “I swear, next time we’re in bullheaded productivity. They are on the road with Matt Brewer, on bass, and Ted Poor, on drums, round town, this will sound better.” They’ll have a the Carol City, Florida, rapper Denzel Curry, whose out his trio. (Barbès, 376 9th St., Brooklyn. 347-422- chance to make good on their word for two white-knuckle style complements them well, as part 0248. Sept. 30.) nights at Brooklyn Bowl. (61 Wythe Ave., Wil- of the skate team Illegal Civ’s Cinema Tour. (High- liamsburg. 718-963-3369. Oct. 2-3.) line Ballroom, 431 W. 16th St. 212-414-5994. Oct. 2.) Mario Pavone It’s not every bandleader who could launch a bur- Paul McCartney Harry Styles geoning career after turning seventy, but the bassist McCartney’s “One on One” tour has rumbled While recording his self-titled solo album, Styles Pavone did just that some years ago, and is demon- into its last week in the tristate area. The tour unearthed an inner rock star—or, at least, bur- strating little intention of slowing down. A sharp was advertised with billboards featuring a sim- ied his past as a member of the boy band One Di- sextet stocked with adventurous players, including ple image of his signature Höfner bass, devoid of rection. The result, released in May, was an im- the reedmen Tony Malaby and Oscar Noriega and his likeness—a cryptic campaign that few other pressive collection of ballads and bops that aspire the drummer Michael Sarin, maintains the edge of rock stars could pull off. McCartney has some- to Prince and Bowie, whose shoes no one can be this young-at-heart composer’s music. (Cornelia how grown from his association with a band that faulted for wanting to fill. Pop has grown more self- Street Café, 29 Cornelia St. 212-989-9319. Sept. 30.) was “bigger than Jesus” to something even larger: consciously tasteful since Justin Timberlake broke a living, breathing time capsule from possibly out of ’N Sync: the twenty-three-year-old Styles Pharoah Sanders the richest, most fawned over period in popu- sought out the producer Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Time may have mellowed the formidable free- lar music. He’s also become cooler with age, and the Rolling Stones) and holed up in Port Antonio, jazz saxophonist Sanders, but the juice is hardly his infrequent collaborations with artists gen- Jamaica, at the famous Geejam Studios, to make a all drained yet. At seventy-six, this onetime terror erations his junior (including his sitting in as a serious record with several serious musicians whom can still rattle a bandstand with fervently soulful drummer on an upcoming Foo Fighters record) he recruited as bandmates. “Of course I’m ner- tones. His quintet includes such committed associ- only further stoke his legend. (Nassau Coliseum, vous,” he told Rolling Stone. “I’m still learning . . . ates as the pianist William Henderson and the bass- 1255 Hempstead Turnpike, Uniondale, N.Y. nycb- but it’s my favorite lesson.” (Radio City Music ist Nat Reeves. (Birdland, 315 W. 44th St. 212-581- live.com. Sept. 26-27.) Hall, Sixth Ave. at 50th St. 212-247-4777. Sept. 28.) 3080. Sept. 26-30.)

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 5 angled lines, in one, are laid over what look like long horizontal brushstrokes of stormy green. A RT Through Oct. 21. (White Columns, 320 W. 13th St. 1 212-924-4212.) Celeste Dupuy-Spencer MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES in São Paolo in 1953, an exciting moment for With a wry observation of detail and a near- Brazilian modernism. While indebted to the in- Fauvist palette, the American figurative paint- novations of the austere Concrete and the more er—a standout in this year’s Whitney Biennial— Jewish Museum playful Neo-Concrete art movements, the poetic intertwines the personal and the political. She “Modigliani Unmasked: Drawings from the economy of Schendel’s gestures is hers alone. also works fast: in her characteristically small- Paul Alexandre Collection” Six works from her “Sarrafos” series, made in scale “Durham, August 14, 2017,” she commemo- Amedeo Modigliani, a Sephardic Jew from the 1987, are the exhibition’s main event. In these rates the recent toppling of a Confederate statue Tuscan port city of Livorno, met Paul Alexan- brusque statements, black-painted wooden bars in front of a North Carolina courthouse, show- dre shortly after moving to Paris, in 1906, and (one per work) protrude askew from snowy ing the crumpled metal soldier defeated in sun- the young French doctor soon became the art- grounds. Simultaneously paintings and sculp- lit grass, the smudgy legs of protesters in the ist’s first patron, amassing some four hundred tures, the works reflect what the artist has de- background. A painting of the Cajun Navy, al- drawings by 1914. Set aside this exhibition’s scribed as an “aggressiveness” in response to though made in 2016, feels eerily topical in its awkward attempts to underscore the specif- Brazil’s post-dictatorship political climate. Ac- depiction of a floodwater rescue. Other can- ically Jewish character of Modigliani’s work companying the “Sarrafos”—and anticipating vases are more intimate—and more raucously (for example, curators point to his formal fas- their stark palette and bare-bones grace—are rendered. In one of her larger paintings, queer cination with noses); for anyone chiefly famil- selections from the series “Brancos e Pretos” lovers spill out of an open window; in another, iar with the masklike faces and stylized bod- (1985-87). Through Oct. 21. (Hauser & Wirth, 32 Dupuy-Spencer offers a transporting view of ies of Modigliani’s later paintings, this trove of E. 69th St. 212-794-4970.) a busy, ramshackle country hotel on a starry early drawings will be a revelation. Many of the 1 night. Through Oct. 7. (Marlborough Contempo- works—a serenely confident outline of a circus rary, 545 W. 25th St. 212-463-8634.) performer hopping from foot to foot; a precise GALLERIES—CHELSEA caricature, made from memory, of a medium the Kara Walker artist had seen at a séance in Vienna; dozens of Jack Drummer Walker produced the first masterpiece of the female nudes—demonstrate that Modigliani’s It’s something of a mystery how Drummer, an social-media age, but she doesn’t give a damn increased stylization can be read as a search for artist who found some acclaim in New York in about likes—she wants our discomfort. In her specificity. In the nudes in particular, one can the nineteen-fifties and sixties, before skipping blistering, beautiful first show in New York see how exaggerating a body’s length allowed town—and the art scene—made the impressive since 2014, when her monumental “Sugar Modigliani the emphatic advantages of cari- five-foot works in this show. In Buffalo, in the Sphinx” sculpture stormed Instagram feeds, cature without its essentializing limitations. eighties, he started working with discarded rub- the artist reinvents drawing to demand a reck- Dr. Alexandre himself appears in six taut black- ber “blankets” used to clean printing drums, oning with the history and ongoing repercus- crayon drawings, sporting a pointy little mus- but he never exhibited the results before he sions of slavery, in works whose ambition and tache with his coattails thrown back, the very died, in 2013. The process must have involved scale are in direct dialogue with art history, picture of a Gallic rooster. Through Feb. 4. some kind of rubbing, but the untitled pieces too. (One twelve-foot-long piece combines ref- 1 suggest giant photograms of diamond-plate erences to Edward Kienholz’s 1969 sculpture steel, chain-link fence, and other found grids, about lynching, “Five Car Stud,” and Dela- GALLERIES—UPTOWN their patterns apparently bleached into back- croix’s 1827 painting “The Death of Sardana- grounds of deep colors from the hard-to-figure palus”; both works, like Walker’s own output Mira Schendel edges of the rainbow. Ghostly fragments of in- of the past twenty years, stirred controversy in The Swiss-born artist, who was raised in Milan, verted white text appear here and there. Some their day.) The atrocities of Goya’s “Black Paint- fled fascist persecution during the war, settling of the pieces he also must have painted: pale ings” come to mind here, but so does the recent Charlottesville rally, as Walker introduces al- lusions to current events into her work for the first time. Through Oct. 14. (Sikkema Jenkins, 530 W.1 22nd St. 212-929-2262.) GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN

Petra Cortright In her new digitally generated paintings, the Los Angeles artist incorporates shout-outs to Monet, with flowers and muted, impressionis- tic depths. There are also echoes of living paint- ers, from the neither-abstract-nor-figurative compositions of Cecily Brown to the algorith- mic swaths of color in David Hockney’s iPad landscapes. But Cortright’s works are distin- guished by their laboriously layered construc- tion, in which she incorporates and recycles found imagery and graphics. “AziLabs b Bar- clay b c license plate azwan” is a watery vista composed of plant life, scratches, brushstrokes, and unidentifiable online ingredients (as its weird title, culled from search terms and file names, indicates). While Cortright harnesses the aesthetics of Internet overload to surpris- ingly harmonious effect in these cagey works, the show feels a bit like a swan song for this mode of painting. Her next move is one to At the Lisson gallery, the American painter Stanley Whitney takes the grid on a joyride, in radiant watch for. Through Oct. 8. (Foxy Production,

drawings he made during the course of three decades. (Above, an untitled example from 1994-95.) 2 E. Broadway. 212-239-2758.) N.Y. AND LISSON GALLERY, ARTIST THE COURTESY

6 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017

MOVIES

Kim Min-hee stars in two new films by Hong Sang-soo, “On the Beach at Night Alone” and “The Day After,” both playing in the New York Film Festival.

Two from the Heart resumes her career. The natural progress matizes with audacious wit the physically of her life, however, is fragmented in awkward and emotionally colossal details Idiosyncratic views of romance emerge Hong’s kaleidoscopic fusion of reality and of sex and romance. Isabelle is a Parisian in a pair of artistically distinctive films. fantasy. Young-hee is a character of vital artist who risks her gallery representation It’s rare for the New York Film Festival’s insight and inspired impulse, whether she over an intimate misunderstanding. Her main slate to present two films by the same drops to her knees amid the splendors of struggles with her married lover (Xavier filmmaker; it’s happening in this year’s nature or ardently urges a friend to live Beauvois), with a friend who hesitates to edition of the festival (Sept. 28-Oct. 15), adventurously. Hong builds moments of become a lover (Alex Descas), with a lover which will screen two new films, “The extraordinary romantic power, culminat- who hesitates to become a friend (Nicolas Day After” and “On the Beach at Night ing in a brilliant sequence, constructed Duvauchelle), and with an ex whom she Alone,” by the South Korean director from a single ten-minute shot parsed with keeps inviting back (Laurent Grévill) are Hong Sang-soo, one of the most prolific brisk and assertive zooms and pans, in balanced on the edge of humor and pain. and most original directors working today. which Young-hee reflects on her bitter There’s a stereotypical Frenchness in the The better of the two, “On the Beach experiences. Kim infuses the scene with story’s emphasis on casual sex and in the at Night Alone,” is a drama of rare lyrical a passionate existential resignation rem- intellectual elegance of the dialogue about exaltation. The actress Kim Min-hee stars iniscent of Gena Rowlands’s work in the it, and Denis films her actors in confron- as an actress named Young-hee, whose films of John Cassavetes. tational and vulnerable closeups that give life has been thrown into turmoil by re- The French director Claire Denis’s the dialogue a life of its own. Isabelle leaps ports about her affair with an older direc- new film, “Let the Sun Shine In,” about from encounter to encounter with an tor. Although Hong and Kim have been a middle-aged woman’s romantic adven- ironic abruptness, and her sublime pug- in a relationship together that is tabloid tures, refracts personal experience in the nacity gives rise to a riotous tirade during fodder in Korea, the film isn’t directly form of a modernistic screwball comedy. a jaunt in a rich landowner’s ample woods. autobiographical. Hong centers the story Juliette Binoche brings luminous intensity The exquisite turmoil builds to a grand on Young-hee’s efforts to cope with the and wicked humor to the role of Isabelle, cameo for the sacred monster of modern unwanted publicity, beginning with her who is first seen naked in bed, under a French cinema, Gérard Depardieu, whose travels in Germany, where she lives out of man who’s pumping away in vain. From brief but dominating appearance veers the spotlight. Returning to Korea, she the start, Denis—who co-wrote the script from beastly voracity to gruff compassion.

tentatively renews old friendships and with the novelist Christine Angot—dra- —Richard Brody CINEMA GUILD COURTESY

8 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 1 MOVIES NOW PLAYING or a confession—disguised and agonized—on the part life. Though Gyllenhaal glowers and rages soulfully, of the director is up to you. It will not prove easy to he and most of the cast members are burdened with Battle of the Sexes forget.—A.L. (9/25/17) (In wide release.) working-class-Boston clichés.—R.B. (In wide release.) Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton, who made “Lit- tle Miss Sunshine,” turn to the tennis court for this Stronger Thirst Street drama, set in the early nineteen-seventies. Emma The director David Gordon Green’s frank, perceptive Nathan Silver’s new feature, a drama of romantic Stone stars as Billie Jean King, a champion in her approach to the true story of Jeff Bauman, a victim of obsession set mainly in Paris, condenses an entire late twenties who has multiple barriers to contend the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, is often at odds city into the pathological bounds of a few tight ven- with. First, there’s unequal pay. The gods of tennis, with the movie’s script. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jeff, a ues—and woe unto his protagonist, Gina (Lindsay headed by Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman), still decree twenty-eight-year-old self-described fuckup from a Burdge), when she ventures beyond them. Gina, a that women players are less of a draw—which, as tough neighborhood who goes to the race to cheer lonely flight attendant on a layover in Paris, meets King points out, is untrue—and therefore deserve on his ex, Erin (Tatiana Maslany), whom he hopes Jérôme (Damien Bonnard), a slick bartender at a lesser prizes. Then, there’s her husband, Larry (Aus- to win back. He loses both legs as a result of the at- louche night club. For Jérôme, Gina is a one-night tin Stowell), who could surely make a fortune adver- tack, and he becomes an unwilling symbol of local stand; for Gina, Jérôme is the love of her life, and tising slacks; she loves him, but her heart belongs pride who’s bewildered by celebrations of a heroism she moves to Paris to pursue him, secretly taking an to her hairdresser, Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough). that he considers unearned. Green puts an absorb- apartment across the street from his home in order Last, there’s Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), a fifty- ing, quasi-documentary emphasis on the details of to spy on him. Though there’s something theoretical, something former champion and full-time chau- Jeff’s recovery—the sheer agony of his wounds, the almost mathematical, about Gina’s passion (which vinist, who, having beaten King’s rival Margaret hardships and indignities that he endures, and the seems borrowed from other movies), it provokes free Court (Jessica McNamee), looks forward to trounc- relentless effort of his rehabilitation, which is ren- and energetic performances from Bonnard and the ing King herself. Some hope. Carell convinces you dered all the more difficult by his lack of discipline. rest of the supporting cast, headed by such notables that Riggs was more of a sad sack than a showman; The film also considers the gap between public im- as Jacques Nolot, as the club’s owner, and Françoise as for Stone, trailing clouds of wistfulness from “La ages and private lives, but its emotional payoff rests Lebrun, as Gina’s landlord. Burdge infuses her rig- La Land,” she may seem ill-suited to so combative a upon Jeff’s willingness to assume his civic role and idly and scantly defined role with tremulous vulnera- role, but, once the match starts, at the Houston As- recognize its healing power. In the process, the movie bility, and Silver, aided by the splashy palette of Sean trodome, she comes into her own, shuts off her smile, simplifies and sentimentalizes trauma, avoids ques- Price Williams’s cinematography, evokes derange- and leaves her opponent gasping like a fish. With tions of therapy, and flattens Jeff’s voice and inner ment with a sardonic wink.—R.B. (In limited release.) Sarah Silverman, Elisabeth Shue, and Alan Cum- ming, as the doyen of tennis fashion.—Anthony Lane (Reviewed in our issue of 9/25/17.) (In wide release.)

Lucky The late Harry Dean Stanton, in one of his last roles, infuses the slightest gesture and inflection with the THE THEATRE weight of grave experience, but this maudlin drama 1 mainly renders his grit and wisdom wholesome and Lonely Planet cute. Stanton stars as Lucky, a cantankerous ninety-ish OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS Second World War veteran living in a small town on Keen Company revives Steven Dietz’s 1994 play, the edge of a desert. Lucky whiles away his time in a featuring Arnie Burton and Matt McGrath as gay fixed routine that starts with yoga at home and break- As You Like It men who meet at a map store during the height fast at a diner, moves on to crossword puzzles and John Doyle’s production of the Shakespeare com- of the AIDS epidemic. (Clurman, 410 W. 42nd St. TV shows, and ends in a bar among life-worn regu- edy features Hannah Cabell, Ellen Burstyn, and 212-239-6200. Previews begin Oct. 3.) lars. (One of them, played by David Lynch, is griev- André de Shields, with original music by Stephen ing over the loss of his pet tortoise.) It’s never clear Schwartz. (Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th St. Measure for Measure what Lucky has done with his life, but, with the first 866-811-4111. In previews. Opens Sept. 28.) Elevator Repair Service (“Gatz”) stages a high- sign of failing health, he grows reminiscent, dredg- tech, slapstick version of Shakespeare’s problem ing up old regrets in gruffly sentimental monologues. The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, play, about a corrupt official and a nun pleading His elbows-out rounds of friendly joshing are filled Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: for her brother’s life. John Collins directs. (Public, with hardboiled argot, and they only hint at his trou- Discord 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. In previews.) bled past as an argumentative and insubordinate cuss. Primary Stages presents a comedy by Scott Carter Stanton and the entire cast (including James Darren, (the executive producer of “Real Time with Bill Oedipus El Rey Beth Grant, Barry Shabaka Henley, and Yvonne Huff) Maher”), directed by Kimberly Senior, in which Luis Alfaro wrote this adaptation of the Sopho- are delightful to watch, but they don’t stand a chance the three famous men are trapped in Limbo to- cles tragedy, reset in a South Central L.A. peni- against the stereotypes. Directed by John Carroll gether. (Cherry Lane, 38 Commerce St. 866-811- tentiary. Directed by Chay Yew, in collaboration Lynch.—Richard Brody (In limited release.) 4111. In previews. Opens Oct. 1.) with the Sol Project. (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212- 967-7555. Previews begin Oct. 3.) Mother! The Home Place Just when you’ve decided that Darren Aronofsky can- Charlotte Moore directs Brian Friel’s play, in which The Portuguese Kid not meet his own high standards of extremity, dis- a Darwin-inspired doctor arrives in Donegal in John Patrick Shanley wrote and directs this com- played in “Requiem for a Dream” (2000) and “Black 1878 to study the craniums of the indigenous Irish edy, at Manhattan Theatre Club, about a lawyer Swan” (2010), he proves you spectacularly wrong. In population in an attempt to prove their inferior- (Jason Alexander) juggling his personal travails his new movie, most of which is set inside a single se- ity. (Irish Repertory, 132 W. 22nd St. 212-727-2737. with those of a widow settling her husband’s affairs. cluded house and staffed by characters with no names, In previews.) With Sherie Rene Scott and Mary Testa. (City Cen- Jennifer Lawrence plays the wife of a poet (Javier Bar- ter Stage I, 131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212. In previews.) dem) who is having trouble writing. (When he is un- Jesus Hopped the “A” Train blocked, at last, the stuff comes out like a fountain.) In Stephen Adly Guirgis’s dark comedy from 2000, A Soldier’s Play Her own hobbies include interior decoration and directed by Mark Brokaw, a former bike messenger Negro Ensemble Company revives Charles Ful - paranoid hysteria. Alas, the loving couple knows so imprisoned at Rikers Island meets a born-again ler’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play from 1981, in which little peace. It is disturbed first by a fan (Ed Harris) serial killer. (Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 a murder at a segregated U.S. Army base brings and his wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), then by their war- W. 42nd St. 212-244-7529. Previews begin Oct. 3.) angry undercurrents to light. (Theatre 80, at 80 ring relations, then by their grieving friends, and fi- St. Marks Pl. 866-811-4111. In previews. Opens Sept. 29.) nally by a madding crowd of poetry lovers—that old The Last Match story. The building, meanwhile, acquires a treacher- Anna Ziegler’s play, directed by Gaye Taylor Up- Springsteen on Broadway ous life of its own, the walls pulsing and peeling in church for the Roundabout, follows two tennis The Boss performs solo with guitar and piano, accordance with the heroine’s disintegrating mood. champions preparing to face off in a high-stakes tracing his life through songs and storytelling. Whether you read the film as an eco-fable, a poisoned match. (Laura Pels, 111 W. 46th St. 212-719-1300. (Walter Kerr, 219 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200. Pre- fairy tale, a hymn to the insatiable needs of the artist, Previews begin Sept. 28.) views begin Oct. 3.)

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 9 THE THEATRE

Time and the Conways tor, D (Kelli Simpkins), and learns from them, too. Oh My Sweet Land Elizabeth McGovern (“Downton Abbey”) stars in Looking beyond gender and race conflicts, the show It’s not often you worry about a performer’s physi­ the Roundabout’s revival of J. B. Priestley’s play, sends a hopeful message in our angry, divided times: cal well­being, but it’s hard not to flinch as Nadine directed by Rebecca Taichman, which follows the What if we could actually all get along? (Lucille Lor- Malouf quickly chops onions, her eyes flittering ups and downs of a moneyed English family be­ tel, 121 Christopher St. 866-811-4111.) away from fingers that are dangerously close to her tween 1919 and 1937. (American Airlines Theatre, 227 knife. The suspense is enhanced by intimacy: this W. 42nd St. 212-719-1300. In previews.) Distant Star solo show from the Play Company, written and di­ It was always going to be a challenge to adapt for rected by Amir Nizar Zuabi, is performed for tiny Tiny Beautiful Things the stage Roberto Bolaño’s droll and disorienting audiences in various kitchens around New York A return engagement of Nia Vardalos’s adaptation short novel, filtered through multiple perspectives City. Malouf’s narrator prepares the Syrian dish of the Cheryl Strayed book, drawn from her time and faulty memory, about an elusive fascist poet and kibbe while recounting her search for her lover, writing the advice column Dear Sugar. Directed serial killer who skywrites in verse. But the theatre Ashraf, an exile from that war­torn country. She by Thomas Kail. (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967- company Caborca ups the ante: the script (by Javier gets so distracted by the intensity of the storytell­ 7555. In previews. Opens Oct. 2.) Antonio González) shifts incessantly between nar­ ing that at one point the onions start burning in ration and scene, the actors often play more than the pan—more anxiety! This is as dramatic as the Too Heavy for Your Pocket one character at a time, and live video projections show gets, however. The horror engulfing Syria Roundabout Underground stages Jiréh Breon Hol­ give the impression that the company is attempting feels oddly remote, and, after many peregrinations, der’s play, about a young man in Nashville who gives a simultaneous film adaptation. The set design, by the narrator’s reunion with Ashraf is anticlimac­ up a college scholarship to join the Freedom Rid­ Jian Jung, mostly leaves the room as is, all poured tic. (Various locations. 866-811-4111.) ers in the summer of 1961. (Black Box, Harold and concrete and cinder blocks. The result can be hard Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46th St. to follow, tonally inconsistent, digressive, and de­ One Night Only (Running as Long as We Can) 212-719-1300. In previews.) liberately primitive in its special effects—all per­ The dancer and choreographer Monica Bill Barnes, fectly befitting Bolaño’s slippery yarn, which, like whose face seems to have been chiselled from the Torch Song this show, reverberates with dread precisely because same stone as Buster Keaton’s, gives her deadpan a Michael Urie and Mercedes Ruehl star in a new ver­ it leaves so much to the imagination. (Abrons Arts workout in a short but relentless vaudeville­style sion of Harvey Fierstein’s “Torch Song Trilogy,” di­ Center, 466 Grand St. 212-598-0400. Through Oct. 1.) tribute to athleticism, in tandem with her frequent rected by Moisés Kaufman and set in the New York partner Anna Bass. What first comes across as a lam­ gay scene of the seventies and early eighties. (Sec- Neighbors: A Fair Trade Agreement poon of macho posturing—complete with an inces­ ond Stage, 305 W. 43rd St. 212-246-4422. In previews.) Watch out for that flan—it’s been weaponized. In sant patter of absurd sports clichés, courtesy of a 1 Bernardo Cubría’s allegorical comedy, Joe, a white quick­witted offstage announcer (Robert Saenz de mogul, and José, a Latino laborer, start out trading Viteri)—evolves into a commentary on the stamina NOW PLAYING pleasantries across the creek dividing their proper­ of athletes at what’s considered the late end of their ties. They end by attacking each other with emblem­ careers. (Barnes is forty­four; Bass is thirty­nine.) Charm atic foodstuffs: McDonald’s apple pie as suffocation In the show’s cleverest conceit, an audience member “I’m not modelling trans behavior,” Mama Darleena device, avocado as hand grenade. An absurdist por­ recites the lifetime inventory of the duo’s injuries— Andrews says in Philip Dawkins’s new play. “I’m mod­ trait of friendship and foeship, the INTAR and In­ broken bones, kidney stones, a concussion—while elling good behavior.” Inspired by the real­life Miss Violet production is gamely acted by Andrew Blair they dance backward in circles. It’s a long list. (Mc- Gloria Allen, Darleena (Sandra Caldwell), sixtysome­ (Joe) and Gerardo Rodriguez (José). Under Lou Ginn/Cazale, 2162 Broadway, at 76th St. 866-811-4111.) thing and transgender, has her work cut out for her Moreno’s direction, the play doesn’t have much to teaching etiquette to the young misfits who gather at say about America’s liaison with those across its The Violin a Chicago gay­and­lesbian center; yet, to the surprise borders (and what it does say merely recapitulates Terry (Kevin Isola), a simple soul, has found a of exactly no one, she succeeds. This MCC produc­ stereotypes). But there’s verve to the climactic in­ 1710 Stradivarius in the back seat of his cab. His tion, directed by Will Davis, does not have the sub­ sult match—“Brownie!” “Whitey!” “Salsa­chugger!” older brother, Bobby (Peter Bradbury), a small­ tlest touch, but its heart is huge, its humor irresist­ “Hamburger Helper!”—and a wily hat tip to current time hustler, takes charge with a plan to collect a ible, and its ensemble absolutely terrific. Darleena, politics. When the relationship tanks, millionaire healthy ransom for it. Also involved is Gio (Robert smashing in pastel twin sets, connects with her rag­ Joe can’t manage to build a proper wall. (INTAR, LuPone), a tailor who has kept a watchful eye on the tag crew and with the center’s efficient administra­ 500 W. 52nd St. 866-811-4111.) brothers ever since their parents died, one horrible night many years earlier. All the action unfolds in Gio’s shop, on Avenue A, in Harry Feiner’s clut­ tered, nicely appointed set. The story is meant to be contemporary, but, except for the expletives and a couple of bizarre incidents thrown in to demon­ strate the city’s hellish atmosphere, Dan McCor­ mick’s play resembles that of a sentimental thirties gangster movie. Under Joseph Discher’s direction, the actors gamely summon all the emotional be­ lievability they can, but the predictable script de­ feats1 them. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St. 212-279-4200.) ALSO NOTABLE

Anastasia Broadhurst. • A Clockwork Orange New World Stages. • Come from Away Schoen­ feld. • Dear Evan Hansen Music Box. • For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday Playwrights Horizons. Through Oct. 1. • Hello, Dolly! Shubert. • In & of Itself Daryl Roth. • Inanimate Flea. • KPOP A.R.T./New York Theatres. • Mary Jane New York Theatre Work­ shop. • 1984 Hudson. • On the Shore of the Wide World Atlantic Theatre Company. • The Play That Goes Wrong Lyceum. • Prince of Broadway Sam­ uel J. Friedman. • The Red Letter Plays: Fucking A & In the Blood Pershing Square Signature Center. (Reviewed in this issue.) • The Suitcase Under the After four decades of stardom, Bruce Springsteen tries something new: Broadway. His solo show, Bed Beckett. Through Sept. 30. • The Terms of My • combining songs and reminiscences, plays five nights a week at the Walter Kerr, starting Oct. 3. Surrender Belasco. War Paint Nederlander. NICK LITTLE BY ILLUSTRATION

10 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017

DANCE

The Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen’s “7 Pleasures” will have its New York première at Skirball, Sept. 29-30.

Naked Nordics collective. But, in the performance I got together, leaned over, and—how Danish dancers bare all. saw, all seven looked pretty unsexy. In shall I say?—fucked the couch, in uni- what I think was the “vibrational” part, son. But this, too, delivered less than If you haven’t had a chance to see any everyone jumped around a lot, so that might have been hoped for. naked people lately, you might get over their breasts and penises bobbed up The show’s big problem, I think, to N.Y.U.’s Skirball at the end of the and down so wildly that you worried was that of many putatively avant- month (Sept. 29-30), when the young they’d fall off. After you got over the garde shows: improvisation. I wasn’t Danish choreographer Mette Ingvart- initial surprise, you hoped they’d soon at rehearsal and therefore I can’t swear sen will be showing her new “7 Plea- go on to something else, but that didn’t to this, but I would guess that the sures” (it premièred in Toronto last happen. Nor was there any discernible dancers were told to do pretty much year), featuring twelve dancers without beginning, middle, or end to the pre- what humankind in general wants to a stitch on. Though Scandinavian, the ceding section, “viscous,” where the do, and, because they don’t actually show lacks the note of rectitude that dancers lay down on the floor and know what that is, they don’t have a from the nineteen-sixties onward smooshed their bodies over each other. lot of material. In case you’re inter- tended to accompany artistic events But for the absence of police, I felt as ested, there wasn’t much forthright about Nordic sex, as if to say to us that if I were watching an end-of-semester sexual activity. Toward the end, if I’m we were a bunch of prudes whereas student dance project. The performers not mistaken, a few couples went they were wholesome folk who ate didn’t get any help from costumes, down on each other, but not so’s their muesli and then did 69 before needless to say. Sets were not much in you’d notice. getting in their Volvos and going to evidence, either. There was a coffee I have to say, though, that these work. (Ingmar Bergman has a lot to table on the stage—a woman looked twelve people had beautiful bodies, answer for.) under it and found nothing—and a and that they seemed truly un- Indeed, Ingvartsen swerves in the house plant, which another dancer ashamed. When they leaned over that opposite direction: analytic, even scho- tried to eat. There was also a couch, couch, we looked, yes, right up every- lastic. Sexual pleasure, for her, she has and, in what I think was supposed to body’s butt. I haven’t seen that before, said, is divided into seven dimensions, be the production’s high point (Ing- I don’t expect to see it again, and I was and she lists them: viscous, vibrational, vartsen, in an interview, called it the glad to have seen it once.

tactile, visual, contractual, ecstatic, and “object-orgy”), all twelve performers —Joan Acocella ZAGNOLI OLIMPIA BY ILLUSTRATION

12 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 DANCE

New York City Ballet and projected, become part of the stage designs. agistic drama, creating pieces as fascinating and In this second week of “Swan Lake,” there are two (BAM Fishman Space, 321 Ashland Pl., Brooklyn. frustrating as uneventful dreams. “Brand New notable débuts in the role of the Swan Queen: 718-636-4100. Sept. 27-30.) Sidewalk” comes in three not obviously related Tiler Peck and Megan Fairchild, alongside Chase sections, a central duet flanked by two solos. Gill’s Finlay and Gonzalo García, respectively. (The Alessandro Sciarroni frequent collaborators—the composer Jon Mo- men, too, are new to their princely duties.) On This Italian choreographer’s last contribution to niaci and the lighting designer Thomas Dunn— Thursday, the fall gala features four new works the French Institute Alliance Française’s Cross- make customary contributions to the faintly sur- by young choreographers, each of whom has been ing the Line Festival, in 2015, was an endurance real atmosphere, but elaborate costumes by Baille paired with a different fashion designer. (This test for dancers and audience members alike: Younkman play a larger-than-usual role, pointing idea has produced mixed results in the past.) For hours of Bavarian and Tyrolean folk dancing, re- up the tension between human performers and his new ballet, Justin Peck is using the “Pulcinella” peated over and over until the dancers tired out. abstract choreography. (Abrons Arts Center, 466 Suite, a concise version of Stravinsky’s comme- The surprise of the exercise was how endearing it Grand St. 212-598-0400. Sept. 28-Oct. 1.) dia dell’arte ballet “Pulcinella.” It is the second became. For this year’s festival, Sciarroni takes a time he has used a famous ballet score; the first, similar (though less exhaustive) approach to jug- Bouchra Ouizguen / “Corbeaux (Crows)” “Rodeo,” was a big success. Gianna Reisen, an- gling, in “UNTITLED_I will be there when you This “living sculpture,” involving a large group of other of the choreographers, is just eighteen, and die.” Four jugglers keep tossing and catching their women, keening and swaying in a kind of trance a recent graduate of the School of American Bal- pins—one, then two, then three, and more—while dance, is part of the Crossing the Line Festival. let. The other two pieces are by Troy Schumacher adding tricks. The stripping away of circus ele- The choreographer, Bouchra Ouizguen, is Mo- and Lauren Lovette. • Sept. 26-27 at 7:30, Sept. ments exposes the mesmerizing, fragile beauty. roccan, with a strong background in traditional 29 at 8, Sept. 30 at 2 and 8, and Oct. 1 at 3: “Swan (Ellen Stewart, 66 E. 4th St. crossingthelinefestival. North African dance. The performers are a mix- Lake.” • Sept. 28 at 7: “Not Our Fate,” “Pulci- org. Sept. 28-30.) ture of professionals and others, members of nella Variations,” “Composer’s Holiday,” and Ouizguen’s Marrakech-based company and local “The Wind Still Brings.” • Oct. 3 at 7:30: “Lit- André M. Zachery/ participants. (Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Park- urgy,” “Polyphonia,” “Odessa,” and “The Times Renegade Performance Group way. crossingthelinefestival.org. Sept. 30-Oct. 1.) Are Racing.” (David H. Koch, Lincoln Center. 212- Across centuries of slavery in the Americas, slaves 721-6500. Through Oct. 15.) escaped and formed hidden colonies of their own. Fall for Dance The idea that such communities persisted past The sprawling dance festival is back, offering Twyla Tharp Dance emancipation and that they might extend into five distinct programs, each containing an eclec- Tharp and her dancers return to the Joyce for the present and the future for black Americans tic mix of companies and styles, for just fifteen the second year in a row. This time, the program is behind “Untamed Space.” It’s a promising sub- bucks a pop. Among the offerings are premières consists of one new piece—a series of vignettes ject for Zachery, a choreographer skilled in pre- commissioned for the festival, including a solo set to Bob Dylan songs (outtakes, perhaps, from serving and formally heightening the ambiguity for the ballet star David Hallberg by Mark Mor- her failed Broadway show)—and two works from of volatile material. The technologically adept ris, a new tap composition by the innovator Mi- the seventies. One of the latter, “The Raggedy composer Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste contributes chelle Dorrance, and a new piece by the socially Dances,” hasn’t been seen in almost half a century. Afrofuturist sounds, and a trio of striking dancers conscious modern-dance choreographer Kyle The quintet, performed in Tharp’s characteristi- joins Zachery in translating the ideas into motion. Abraham. The first program features Christo- cally loopy, casual style, proceeds fluently from (Danspace Project, St. Mark’s Church In-the-Bowery, pher Wheeldon’s “Polyphonia,” performed by ragtime to Mozart and back. And “The Fugue,” Second Ave. at 10th St. 866-811-4111. Sept. 28-30.) Miami City Ballet, as well as an appearance one of Tharp’s first grand gestures, is a set of by the Trisha Brown Dance Company, a work by variations on a theme, inspired by the structure Beth Gill the South African contemporary choreographer of Bach’s “Musical Offering”—except that here Having established herself as a gifted artist of Vincent Mantsoe, and Dorrance’s new “Myelin- there’s no music but for the sound of the danc- spare formalism, Gill has lately been applying ation.” (City Center, 131 W. 55th St. 212-581-1212. ers’ feet smacking the ground. (175 Eighth Ave., that compositional sense to experiments in im- Oct. 2-3. Through Oct. 14.) at 19th St. 212-242-0800. Sept. 26-Oct. 1 and Oct. 3. Through Oct. 8.)

Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker & Salva Sanchis The Belgian doyenne de Keersmaeker isn’t one to shy from ambitious musical choices, but John CLASSICAL MUSIC Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme” is a doozy—sa- cred to many jazz fans, and seemingly distant 1 from the choreographer’s European aesthetic OPERA revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s crowd-pleasing and analytical approach. “A Love Supreme,” production of “La Bohème” offers the house which she made with Sanchis, a Spanish aco- début of the soprano Angel Blue, a former lyte and a former dancer with her troupe, Rosas, Metropolitan Opera Miss Hollywood and an Operalia finalist, is a reworking of a 2005 piece, reconceived for Even though James Levine has stepped down who has been generating interest with appear- four male dancers. The interplay between the as the company’s music director, he is still ca- ances in Europe and with her work as a pre- legendary recording and the loose-limbed con- pable of inspiring the orchestra’s players to senter for the BBC Proms. Her castmates in- temporary choreography is mercurial—now dis- greatness, particularly in the operas of Wag- clude Brigitta Kele, Dmytro Popov, and Lucas sonant, now consonant—and unstable enough ner, Verdi, and Mozart. His first assignment Meachem; Alexander Soddy conducts. Oct. 2 to engross. (New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St. of the season is Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte,” at 7:30. • Susan Froemke’s new documentary, 212-924-0077. Sept. 27-30.) which plays in Julie Taymor’s fairy-tale stag- “The Opera House,” tracks the monumental ing. The ensemble cast includes Charles Cas- undertaking to construct and open the Met’s “The Principles of Uncertainty” tronovo, Markus Werba, Kathryn Lewek, home at Lincoln Center, in 1966. It follows The choreographer John Heginbotham and the Tobias Kehrer, and the South African so- the players—Rudolf Bing, Robert Moses, and illustrator Maira Kalman have joined forces to prano Golda Schultz (in her company début, Wallace Harrison—who fought tooth and create a show loosely inspired by Kalman’s illus- as Pamina). Sept. 27 at 7:30 and Sept. 30 at nail to make it happen and includes an inter- trated book of the same name. The theme is life, 8. • After pulling off a hat trick with the op- view with the legendary Leontyne Price; the and death, and everything in between. Both col- eras of Donizetti’s so-called Tudor Queens première marks the first time that the New laborators gravitate toward small, offbeat mo- trilogy, in 2015-16, the American soprano Son- York Film Festival has held a screening in the ments that reveal our essential loneliness in the dra Radvanovsky was rewarded with the title Met’s auditorium. Oct. 1 at 6:30. (Metropoli- universe. The mood is more quirky than glum, in role in Bellini’s “Norma,” a touchstone of the tan Opera House. 212-362-6000.) part owing to the eclectic score by Colin Jacobsen, dramatic coloratura repertory. David McVic- performed onstage, alongside the dancers. Kal- ar’s new production also features Joyce DiDo- Kronos Quartet: “My Lai” man, too, joins the performers, listening, speak- nato and Joseph Calleja; Carlo Rizzi conducts. An ensemble long associated with break- ing, and even drawing. Her sketches, enlarged Sept. 28 at 8 and Oct. 3 at 7:30. • This year’s ing stylistic boundaries and addressing

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 13 CLASSICAL MUSIC sociopolitical concerns, Kronos bands to- For/With Festival Momenta Festival III: “Room with a View” gether with the singing actor Rinde Eck- What began when the inventive trumpeter Nate The third of four consecutive concerts from the ert and the Vietnamese multi-instrumental- Wooley commissioned new pieces from two prom- Momenta Quartet—which strides across the cen- ist Vân-Ánh Võ for the New York première inent experimental composers, Christian Wolff turies with ease—takes place at the gilded Te- of a monodrama by the composer Jonathan and Michael Pisaro, comes to fruition in a two- atro of Columbia University’s Italian Academy, Berger and the librettist Harriet Scott Chess- part festival celebrating iconoclasm and collabo- with two distinguished string players, the vio- man. Directed by Eckert and Mark DiChi- ration. Works by those composers, and by Annea list Samuel Rhodes and the cellist Marcy Rosen, azza, “My Lai” is based on the story of Hugh Lockwood and Ashley Fure, will span both eve- joining the young ensemble in works by three Thompson, Jr., the U.S. Army pilot whose nings. On the first night, Wolff and Pisaro will composers enraptured by Italian music and cul- conscience forced him to intervene in the present the public début of their improvising duo, ture: Britten, Claude Baker (a première), and notorious Vietnam War massacre of the title. as heard on their fascinating 2016 CD, “Looking Tchaikovsky (the string sextet “Souvenir de Flor- Sept. 27-30 at 7:30. (BAM Harvey Theatre, 651 Around”; the second night includes a roundtable ence”). Oct. 3 at 7. (Amsterdam Ave. between 116th Fulton St., Brooklyn. bam.org.) discussion. Sept. 29-30 at 8. (Issue Project Room, 22 and 118th Sts. For full schedule, and to reserve free 1 Boerum Pl., Brooklyn. issueprojectroom.org.) tickets, visit momentaquartet.com.) ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES

Miller Theatre: “Bach + Glass” Last week, local audiences took in the New York première of Philip Glass’s Concerto for Two Pianos; this week, Glass’s Piano Con- ABOVE & BEYOND certo No. 3 takes its first bow in Gotham. The occasion is Miller’s opening night, an event that emphasizes the theatre’s long-standing commitments to both contemporary music and the early-music repertory. Simone Din- nerstein brings guest-star glamour to a pro- gram offered by the Boston chamber orches- tra A Far Cry, performing the Glass première and Bach’s Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1058; Bach’s joyous Third Brandenburg Concerto rounds out the evening. Sept. 28 at 8. (Co- lumbia University, Broadway at 116th St. mil- lertheatre.com.) Parade of Boats cool canvas in pastel colors (“Receptionist”) by “Music Before 1800” Series: Blue Heron Since 2000, the Waterfront Alliance, a non- Wayne Thiebaud. (20 Rockefeller Plaza, at 49th Scott Metcalfe, the director of this vigorously profit organization, has taken on the noble St. 212-636-2000.) • Phillips holds a day of pho- expressive early-music chorus from Boston, is a task of restoring and maintaining New York tography auctions on Oct. 3, with a session de- well-known figure in New York as well. Louise and New Jersey’s various waterways, and also voted to images from the collection of the Joy Basbas’s lauded series kicks off its season with hosting events along shoreline parks and docks. of Giving Something foundation. This group “Ma Maistresse,” a quintessential Blue Heron The Parade of Boats, now in its tenth year, will of works from the foundation—the second to program, directed by Metcalfe, that celebrates showcase a fleet of historic ships, yachts, sail- be offered by the house—is particularly rich in the genius of the Flemish composer Johannes boats, and fireboats, in various stages of res- early-twentieth-century pieces by such lumi- Ockeghem. Oct. 1 at 4. (Corpus Christi Church, toration but all fully functional, that together naries as Stieglitz, Cunningham, and Moholy- 529 W. 121st St. 212-666-9266.) unfurl New York’s rich port legacy. A dinner Nagy. (450 Park Ave. 212-940-1200.) 1 following the parade will honor Donald Capoc- 1 cia, of the development firm BFC Partners, RECITALS and Peter Madonia, of the Rockefeller Foun- READINGS AND TALKS dation, among others, and a silent auction will David Greilsammer: “Labyrinth” help raise funds for the city’s piers and shores. 92nd Street Y The outstanding young Israeli pianist, an in- (Pier 61, Chelsea Piers at W. 21st St. waterfrontal- Denis Johnson published numerous volumes ventive programmer, would seem to be an liance.org. Oct. 3 at 6.) of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, the most cel- ideal musician for the Crypt Sessions series, 1 ebrated of which include his first novel, “An- which offers its concerts in the evocative crypt gels,” from 1983, and his masterpiece “Jesus’ of the Church of the Intercession, in Ham- AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES Son,” a collection of short stories centered on ilton Heights. He’ll perform short works by the lives of American addicts, several of which Mozart, C. P. E. Bach, and others in alterna- The upcoming “Contemporary Curated” sale at were woven into the acclaimed 1999 film adap- tion with the movements of Janáček’s myste- Sotheby’s—a newish category that homes in on tation, starring Billy Crudup. As a child, John- rious masterwork “On an Overgrown Path”; a the celebrity status of various tastemakers—is son, the son of a State Department official, was food-and-wine reception will be held an hour dominated by the collection of Santiago Barberi shuttled between Eastern Europe, Asia, and before the concert. Sept. 27 at 8. (Broadway at Gonzalez, a purveyor of fashionable crocodile the suburbs of Washington, D.C.; he’d settled 155th St. deathofclassical.com.) handbags to the rich and famous, who died ear- in northern Idaho before he died, this past May, lier this year, at the age of forty. The collection at the age of sixty-seven. “Denis reminded me Maryanne Amacher: “Adjacencies” is offered, on Sept. 27, under the header “Nei- of Dostoyevsky, a writer who was willing to The nomadic concert series Blank Forms con- ther Appearance nor Illusion,” quoting Nietz- plumb the darkest corners of his own psyche in tinues in its vital quest to preserve and pro- sche (as rendered by the mid-century Concep- order to honestly report on the nature of human- mote works by Amacher, an innovative com- tualist Joseph Kosuth, in a 1945 yellow-neon ity,” Lawrence Wright, who got to know John- poser and installation artist concerned with sculpture included in the sale). Postwar and son at a writing seminar in Russia, recalled, in both the physical and the metaphysical as- contemporary photographs go on the block a piece for this magazine. Many notable admir- pects of sound. The newest offering is a 1965 the next day. (York Ave. at 72nd St. 212-606- ers from the literature and film worlds, includ- work for percussion and electronics as recon- 7000.) • Before the red-hot contemporary-art ing Crudup, Arthur Bradford, Kevin Corrigan, structed by Amy Cimini and Bill Dietz, to be sales at which many millions are dropped on a Michael Cryer, Michael Cunningham, Michael performed by Ian Antonio and Russell Green- single canvas, the auction houses hold mid-sea- Dickman, Neal Huff, Emily McDonnell, Sam berg (of the consistently superb quartet Yarn/ son sales, like the one at Christie’s on Sept. 28, Messer, Deirdre O’Connell, Will Patton, and Wire) with sound diffusion by Daniel Neu- that feature more reasonably priced lots. This Michael Shannon, gather to pay tribute to the mann and Woody Sullender. Sept. 29-30 at one includes a hanging neon sculpture (“Sweet influential author at this memorial event. (1395

8. (The Kitchen, 512 W. 19th St. thekitchen.org.) Chocolate Nation”) by Jason Rhoades and a Lexington Ave. 212-415-5500. Oct. 2 at 7:30.) AMARGO PABLO BY ILLUSTRATION

14 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 F§D & DRINK

1 TABLES FOR TWO Barista Café or organizing and teaching BA R TA B La Morada people about their rights. La Morada fo- cusses on education, with weekly infor- 308 Willis Ave., at 140th St., the Bronx mation sessions and a small library that (718-292-0235) includes Mesopotamian myths and Boe- The first thing to say about this little thius. Hanging by the door is a banner Oaxacan restaurant in the South Bronx expressing solidarity with the victims of is that the food is excellent. A woman the recent earthquake in Oaxaca. (Mendez Oscar Wilde NYC from Mexico City recently swore that it said that her relatives there are all right, 45 W. 27th St. (212-213-3066) was some of the best Mexican cuisine but she is still worried for them.) Guests are Oscar Wilde, the author of “The Picture of Dorian she’d had outside her home country. In a welcomed by Mendez’s son, Marco Saave- Gray,” “The Importance of Being Earnest,” and city that has long bemoaned a dearth of dra, the co- author of “Shadows Then infinite witticisms seemingly ready-made for Face- Oaxacan fare, Natalia Mendez has been Light,” a book about undocumented youth. book—“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes”—is a revered cultural icon. Perhaps serving delicious examples of her native Other members of the family, includ- for the first time, though, he’s being revered in state’s cuisine in this heliotrope-painted ing Mendez and her daughter Carolina, NoMad, where a recently opened bar is named after room for almost a decade. A rainbow of who recently found fame on the television him. The other night, visitors were greeted by Wilde himself—he sits on a bench outside, dressed in a moles—red, green, black, even white, show “Chopped,” cook behind a long typically lavish bronze cast. Inspired by the aesthete, delicately spiced with chiles and chocolate counter. It’s hard to find fault with their the bar’s extravagance explodes inside, with a maze and cinnamon and pine nuts—are served parade of flavors. Sure, there are the stand- of marble objects bearing his quotations, intricate porcelain floor inlays, and an antique piano con- over tender dark chicken meat, and have out moles, but to order only these would verted into shelves. A second bronze Wilde leans gained Mendez a legion of fans. be to miss the Molcajete, a stone bowl on the bar, an open hand anticipating a drink and The South Bronx in 2017 is under threat filled with nopal cactus and spongy grilled an Instagram post. A server described the intense décor as similar to the owners’ other bars (Lillie’s from developers, as marauding downtown cheese and topped with two meats (the Victorian Establishment) but “on crack.” One execs, armed with glass and steel and con- pechuga asada chicken and cecina skirt drinker guessed that the place cost half a million crete, pock its surface with graceless new steak are the most popular), a creamy off- dollars to decorate; actually, it was eight times that. Is it in good taste? While some details might induce buildings. Meanwhile, the developer-in- menu flan, or a range of mouthwatering winces (the menu encourages drinkers to “get chief and his Republican Party are threat- tacos, tortas, and enchiladas. And who Wilde”), the whole enterprise is undeniably a sight ening to deport undocumented immigrants, could forget the tamales? These small, soft to behold, and isn’t attracting eyeballs the point of being over the top? Cocktails (for fourteen dollars) many of whom live in the area and are the parcels of doughy corn goodness taste are mostly solid—the Oscar Wilde’s Potent Elixir lifeblood of the community and our city. even better when slathered with some is a mélange of different alcohols from countries in Sitting at the heart of one of these rapidly chocolaty mole poblano. Once you start, which the author lived—and the bar food, particu- larly the Banger in a Blanket, is excellent. How gentrifying “SoBro” neighborhoods, La you want to try everything. The solution might Wilde feel about being the namesake of a bar? Morada is a crucible for the resistance. is to return often: the neighborhood may In a letter to his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, which The struggle in the Bronx takes many be changing, but La Morada isn’t going Wilde wrote while imprisoned for his sexuality, he said, “Most people are other people. Their thoughts forms, whether it’s spraying “COLONIZ- anywhere. (Dishes $3-$18.) are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry,

PHOTOGRAPH BY DOLLY FAIBYSHEV FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE JOOST BY ILLUSTRATION YORKER; THE NEW FOR FAIBYSHEV DOLLY BY PHOTOGRAPH ERZ” across a sign advertising the new Bagel —Nicolas Niarchos their passions a quotation.”—Colin Stokes

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 15

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT while addressing the United Nations his uncle and is reported to have or­ MADMEN THEORIES General Assembly, denounced Kim dered the murder of his half brother. Jong Un, the Supreme Leader of In the history of nuclear diplo­ n 1969, Richard Nixon, about eight North Korea: “Rocket Man is on a macy, no nation­state has ever given Imonths into his Presidency, grew suicide mission.” The President said up atomic weapons in response to frustrated with the North Vietnam­ that, while the United States has shrill threats. In a number of instances, ese leadership. The President wanted “great strength and patience,” if it however, countries have been coaxed to negotiate an exit from the Viet­ were “forced to defend itself or its al­ to mothball their nuclear programs nam War, but his adversary’s terms lies” it would “have no choice but to in exchange for political and eco­ were unyielding. Nixon thought that totally destroy North Korea.” Kim re­ nomic returns. After the fall of the he needed the Soviet Union to pres­ plied in kind. “I will surely and defi­ Berlin Wall, South Africa, Brazil, sure North Vietnam; he also believed nitely tame the mentally deranged Argentina, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and that Leonid Brezhnev would act only U.S. dotard with fire,” he said. Belarus voluntarily gave up their nu­ if he was convinced that the U.S. Never before have two leaders in clear weapons or abandoned advanced was about to do something crazy. In command of nuclear arsenals more programs. In 2003, Muammar Qad­ late October, Nixon ordered an oper­ closely evoked a professional wres­ dafi, the Libyan dictator, agreed, in ation code­named Giant Lance. B­52 tling match. It is unsettling that with exchange for economic opportuni­ bombers loaded with atomic weap­ both men it is hard to know where ties, to surrender his uranium­enrich­ ons took off from bases in California performance ends and personality be­ ment equipment. Nearly twelve years and Washington State and headed gins. Trump rages publicly at Kim, later came the landmark accord in toward the Soviet Union, then flew but, then, he rages at everyone, from which Iran agreed to freeze its nu­ in loops above the polar ice cap. Nix­ his staff to Meryl Streep. Kim may clear­weapons program and disman­ on’s hope was that Soviet intelligence not be suicidal, but he has executed tle parts of it, in exchange for relief would interpret the action as an im­ from sanctions. mediate, and utterly insane, threat of Sometimes leaders hold on to nuclear attack. The “madman nuclear nukes because they fear that without alert,” as the political scientist Scott D. them as a deterrent their countries Sagan and the historian Jeremi Suri might be invaded or destroyed. (That called it in a 2003 article, remained largely explains why Israel and Paki­ secret for years. H. R. Haldeman, stan have kept theirs.) Kim Jong Un Nixon’s chief of staff, recounted in his may well worry that if he gives up memoir how his boss described the his nuclear weapons his regime will tactic. “I call it the Madman Theory,” be overthrown. In 2011, NATO mem­ Nixon once told him. “We’ll just slip bers and other nations intervened to the word to them that ‘for God’s sake, protect a popular uprising against you know Nixon is obsessed about Qad dafi, which led to his being re­ Communism. We can’t restrain him moved from power and killed. As when he is angry—and he has his Evan Osnos heard repeatedly in hand on the nuclear button.’ ” Pyongyang in his recent reporting for Last week, about eight months The New Yorker, the lesson for North

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS into his Presidency, Donald Trump, Korea was clear: if you surrender a

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 17 nuclear deterrent, you embolden your was “ineffective and dangerous,” Sagan The result of such a calamity could enemies. and Suri concluded in their article. It conceivably be a war. It is not Trump’s fault that North is not clear if Brezhnev even under- Trump’s other gut-instinct foray Korea has crossed ominous nuclear stood what Nixon was trying to com- into global nuclear diplomacy—his thresholds this year. Three previous municate. Also, the nuclear-armed apparent intention to tear up or to Administrations have tried and failed American planes involved in Giant unilaterally renegotiate the Iran nu- to alter Pyongyang’s calculus. Since Lance risked crashing into one an- clear accord—is no wiser than his North Korea may have the capacity other. Trump and his advisers talk strategy in East Asia. Iran is abiding to reach American cities with nuclear- loosely about preparing for a “mili- by the agreement’s terms. There is no tipped missiles, it is crucial that we tary option” against North Korea. By new “crisis” to address. An American deter Kim by warning him that if he this they seem to mean a preëmptive withdrawal from the Iran deal would strikes first his country will face dev- war, even though military analysts be- not only encourage the worst elements astating retaliation. Such understand- lieve that such a conflict would claim in Iranian politics; it would also un- ings have composed the framework more than a million lives in South dermine U.S. relations with Russia, for nuclear deterrence for decades. The Korea in its opening phase, while also China, and European countries just U.S. may have to live with a nuclear exposing American cities to the pos- when their coöperation is needed to North Korea indefinitely, but history sibility of a nuclear attack. If Kim Jong pressure North Korea. “To overcome shows that, with sufficient patience, Un believes that Trump is rash enough the perils of the present,” the Presi- economic pressure, and negotiation, to initiate a first strike, he may accel- dent said at the U.N. last week, “we nuclear states will sometimes disarm. erate his missile and nuclear-bomb must begin with the wisdom of the To apply some version of the Mad- tests and deployments. North Korea’s past.” If only there were some evi- man Theory to the North Korean missile-testing binge this year has in- dence that Trump knew what that problem, however, as Trump seems creased the odds of an accident. One was, or how to use the power of his inclined to do, is foolish. The nuclear of Kim’s rockets could veer off course office to forge a less dangerous world. alert that Nixon attempted in 1969 and kill civilians in Japan or elsewhere. —Steve Coll

DEPT. OF PERSPIRATION cab lot near the Brooklyn Cruise Ter- FINNISH LINE minal, in Red Hook. He wore shorts and a T-shirt that read “Finland 100,” the official slogan of the hundredth an- niversary of Finland’s independence from Russia. “We knew there was a lot of chatter amongst Finns in America that we will be celebrating the centen- n the sauna, the body asserts itself: nial,” he said. “So we came up with this Iessential, unavoidable, a fleshy fact idea. If you think about Finland, what’s of being. In the Finnish tradition—the the one thing that comes to mind? A original, Finns will argue—you’re sauna. Can you name anything else naked, sitting near a wood-burning that’s recognizably Finnish?” stove in two-hundred-degree heat, in Meatballs? “Swedish,” Sivula said. a structure the size of a garden shed, “There are actually a lot of Finnish pouring water on hot stones for a scald- things, even in your home. Those scis- ing hit of löyly, sauna steam, like some sors that have orange handles? Fiskars? heat-seeking junkie. Stay long enough, That’s a Finnish brand.” Also, graphic have to first define the brand: What is and the mind may clear, the body may paper cups; Nokia cell phones; various it? Is it ‘pure nature’? Is it the one hun- melt; then löyly! Enlightenment. cruise ships; Kone, one of the world’s dred and eighty-eight thousand lakes Risto Sivula, a Finn from north of largest elevator companies; and a pat- we have?” He paused. “If you put Min- Helsinki who now lives in St. Paul, ented method for smelting copper. nesota and Iowa together, that’s about Minnesota, has, for the past eight “Finnish companies don’t really adver- the size of Finland, and about the shape months, been driving around the coun- tise being from Finland,” Sivula said. of it, too. And the Arctic Circle goes try with a portable sauna attached to He lowered his voice. “Not like our in about two-thirds up.” the back of his pickup truck. “We have neighbor to the west. Ikea everybody To the sauna (“sow-na,” as Finns about fourteen thousand miles on it so knows is Swedish. H&M: Swedish. will tell you), then. In Red Hook, two far, and about nine hundred and fifty Volvo: Swedish. Finns like to say, ‘We dozen people in swimsuits were lined people have taken a sauna.” got a nice paper cup for you!’ ” He let up. Mari Lipponen, a Finnish-Amer- On a recent Sunday, Sivula parked out a booming laugh. ican, had just emerged. “What Amer- the sauna (red-painted wood, with It’s a question of branding, he said. icans don’t get about saunas is it’s a re- white-trimmed windows) in a yellow- For Finland, he went on,“you would laxing, almost spiritual experience,” she

18 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 said. “My father was born in the sauna. “Ah, Swedish people, they don’t alumni and inviting them to come visit. In 1933, it was the cleanest place on know what they’re doing,” Erkkilä said. One Friday, David Levy, a sixty-sev- the farm.” “They’re trying very hard, but still,” en-year-old professor at the University “It was a place for birth and death,” Marttinen said. of Washington’s Information School, Anu Leinonen, a Finn who moved to 1—Anna Russell sat on a small plastic chair and told the New York two years ago, said. “We had class stories about growing up in Stuyve- a President in the seventies and eight- FORENSICS DEPT. sant Town and attending the school ies who used to lead his political meet- YO U R OW N BACK YARD in the early sixties, when it was called ings in the sauna. Putin would under- P.S. 61. Levy fiddled with his tortoise- stand the sauna. If Trump wants any shell glasses and showed a photo from hints on how to deal with the Russians, his fourth-grade class play, Gilbert and we can advise.” Sullivan’s “Iolanthe”; the picture usually Sivula quoted a popular statistic: hangs in the downtown apartment of his “Finland is a country of five and a half mother, who is a hundred and one. million people. We have three million bout two and a half years ago, Mir- Levy has written a scholarly book cars over there, and we have two mil- Aiam Sicherman’s fourth graders about the value of ephemera, “Scroll- lion saunas.” (Finland once promoted began fishing for treasure beneath the ing Forward,” so he was eager to help a sauna emoji as part of a patriotic wood-plank floor of their classroom the students find meaning in the stuff series.) “You can cook in there,” he said. closet, at the Children’s Workshop found beneath the floorboards. The “We used to make sausages all the time.” School, on East Twelfth Street. First, kids’ questions were more prosaic. Finnish saunas are hard to come by they worked surgically, using pencils, “Did you have break time and yoga?” in New York City. “So we have tried chopstick style, to tweeze out objects one girl asked. to be very creative,” Saku Nousiainen, that they spied through gaps in the “We didn’t even know what yoga who came to the United States from boards. Then they used coat hangers was,” Levy answered. Finland on a Fulbright scholarship to as hooks. Now teachers have pried up A girl in the back of the room raised study jazz, said. He ticked off the city’s a number of the planks, creating a a hand. “Did you like anyone?” The other so-called saunas, which he occa- full-on dig site, with strata dating back class dissolved into giggles. sionally patronizes: Mermaid Spa, in to the building’s construction, in 1913. “Oh, my God,” one boy said. “Don’t Coney Island; the East Village Rus- During free periods, the kids can choose make me puke.” sian baths; the Wall Street banya, on between playing dominoes, mucking Sicherman tried to steer them back Fulton Street. around in the compost bin, and kneel- to archeology. The class had recently Paula Wegman and Jackie Aude M., ing beside the opening to sift through uncovered some mid-century movie two non-Finnish Brooklynites in their the jumble of relics that have fallen out tickets. Levy tried to remember the thirties, hope to launch a mobile sauna of generations of jacket pockets and films he’d seen at the local movie house. startup in Bushwick and Ridgewood, backpacks. “ ‘Captain Underpants’?” one kid called HotBox. They were introduced They’ve unearthed a cultural fossil offered. to the Finnish practice by a friend. “You record spanning a century: political but- Another boy asked, “Did you drop feel amazing, like you could hit the tons, ticket stubs, spelling tests, wheat anything in the closet?” sack and have the greatest slumber pennies, flash cards, candy wrappers, “I don’t know,” Levy said. “You’ll you’ve ever had,” Wegman said. “New and a mummified pet, its species hard have to tell me.” Yorkers work hard, they play hard, but to discern. Some of those items are now Then it was time for the day’s dig- where do they relax?” on display at the City Reliquary, a mu- ging. The children stood on the few re- “It’s probably the truest sense of seum in Williamsburg, cradled by cot- maining floor planks, straddling the gulf community,” Aude M. said. “Just going ton batting in custom-made boxes, or where the flotsam had accumulated. in there super vulnerable, sweating your nestled between acid-free backing and Holding flashlights in rubber-gloved ass off, and really connecting.” clear film, “similar to a large-scale mi- hands, they rummaged in the dust, the Inside the mobile sauna, the tem- croscope slide,” Dave Herman, the mu- most common finds being broken plas- perature approached a hundred and seum’s founder, explained. tic forks and workaday pencil stubs. eighty degrees. Sami Marttinen, a trans- Sicherman, who is forty-five and “I think I found something!” one planted Finn, bent over a bucket of had her dark hair pulled back in a po- child yelled. It was a penny—from 2016. water with a ladle. “Some water?” he nytail, said that finding the artifacts Back to work. asked. “Heat?” has helped the students understand “Oh! It’s smelly!” a boy named Zion Noora Erkkilä, a Finn who works their place in history. “There’s nothing said, shoving floppy hair out of his at the United Nations, said, “Yeah, last about famous people here,” she said. face.“I hate this.” round.” “It’s the ‘them’ of fifty or a hundred A girl named Aletheia discovered Marttinen poured water on the years ago.” To get the kids to appreci- an old watch, its band as thin as a rib- rocks; the steam that burst forth was ate the changes that have occurred bon. She scratched at the crystal with blistering. A novice admitted that a in their East Village neighborhood, her fingernail and found it frozen at Swedish iteration hadn’t been as hot. Sicherman has been tracking down four o’clock. She gingerly added it to a

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 19 1 baggie with other recent finds: a ticket INK his standup specials, in his Comedy Cen- to a 1921 ball at Tammany Hall, a rusted DOODLES tral show, and in “Dean,” a recent film tin of watercolors, a sepia-toned snap- that he wrote, directed, and starred in. shot of a woman baking a cake while “Dean” is not entirely autobiographical, smoking a cigarette. Also: orphaned puz- but some of its plot points are: a grass- zle pieces, an empty candy-corn box la- is-greener oscillation between New York belled “Chic’Korn Feed,” a blank form and Los Angeles, the use of line draw- issued by the Health Department’s Bu- ings as therapy, and the untimely death reau of Dentistry to attest that a pupil emetri Martin is a comedian whose of a parent. When Martin was a junior had received a required dental exam. Si- Djokes often take the form of one- at Yale, his father died suddenly, of kid- cherman surveyed the spoils to see if liners (“Where my verb at?”) or rudi- ney cancer. “That was twenty-three years there was anything she wanted to add mentary drawings. “Constraints are big ago, and it’s still easily the worst day of to the exhibit at the museum. The rum- for me,” he said recently, over dinner at my life,” he said. “There’s a line in the pled Tammany Hall ticket made the cut. Bar Pitti, in the West Village. “How movie about how losing a parent is the As the kids finished up, Levy re- simple can I make this and still get a first thing you never get over. That was counted how he would buy bialys on laugh?” He reached into a backpack and my working title for a while—‘The First Fourteenth Street and Avenue A, back took out a spiral-bound notebook— Thing You Never Get Over.’ It was too when the neighborhood was predom- one of two he’d brought on the plane long, so I switched it to ‘Free Fall.’ But inantly Puerto Rican and Jewish. On from Los Angeles, where he lives. It that sounded like a Stallone movie, and hot nights, his family would eat Ital- was labelled “H-56,” in accordance with I thought it would be a disappointment. ian ices out of crinkly paper cups. He an idiosyncratic filing system. “Most of ‘Dude, have you seen “Free Fall”?’ ‘Yeah, would buy model-airplane kits at Jo- this is just nothing,” he said, flipping it’s just a guy being sad and doodling. Jo’s toy shop and construct them with through pages. In one drawing, a judge Don’t go.’ ” dabs of glue. (“I don’t think I knew that holds up a scorecard while a diver stands His second book of drawings, out anyone sniffed it,” he said.) on a diving board. Caption: “Psychic this month, is called “If It’s Not Funny The children told him about their judge.” Another drawing showed two It’s Art.” A few of the topics are timely, plans to make a time capsule to stow beverage coolers—one plain (“Cooler”), more or less—a credit-card-operated away in the floor for future students to the other decorated with lightning bolts wishing well, a couple having sex while discover. One boy said, “Probably when (“Cooler cooler”). He continued, “I try gazing at their phones—but, for the they find it, it’ll be—” He scrunched to get down every idea I have, no mat- most part, Martin avoids observational up his face, thinking. “Probably it’ll be ter how dumb, in case one day it’s use- humor in favor of puns (a strip club when they knock the building down.” ful for something.” with a sign that says “Sorry, we’re — Jessica Leigh Hester Martin’s drawings have ended up in clothed”), visual gags (skateboard- ing pallbearers), and a surprising num- ber of fart jokes. “When I started out as a standup, a lot of the other come- dians would give me shit for being too verbose—actually, for being the kind of guy who would use a word like ‘ver- bose,’ ” Martin said. “I remember one night Louis C.K. told me, ‘You’ve got to be able to get laughs in any room.’ So I tried to really simplify.” After dinner, Martin walked down West Third Street and pointed out the former location of the Boston Com- edy Club, reborn as a low-lit Szechuan restaurant. “The stage was against that wall,” he said, peering through the win- dow. In the nineties, Martin went to law school at N.Y.U. “I didn’t mind the classes so much—the word-puzzle as- pect—but I knew right away that I didn’t want to be a lawyer,” he said. So he dropped out and started per- forming at small clubs. He turned away from the Szechuan restaurant and kept walking, toward the Comedy Cellar. “Do you really care or are you just being a good listener?” In two blocks, he passed three people he knew: a publicist at Comedy Cen- the era of full disclosure. For those of defied being defined by her years: her tral (“I remember her being really good us who joined the magazine in the rapport with younger people, espe- at her job”), a fellow-comedian and later years of her tenure—which is to cially very young people, was imme- close friend named Lenny Marcus say, almost all of us—she was a col- diate and absolute. She adored ba- (“One of the few people who was at league of indeterminate seniority. bies, insisting on visiting the home both of my weddings”), and a woman It was not until Lillian witnessed of one young colleague the day after who greeted him warmly (“I hate to the way in which Nelson Mandela his firstborn son came home from the be this guy, but I honestly don’t know was fêted upon his ninety-fifth birth- hospital. “I like ’em fresh!” she said. who she was”). day, in 2013, that she realized that In 1960, she joined a group of At the Comedy Cellar, a doorman rec- to have reached her advanced age, twelfth graders from Bean Blossom ognized Martin and asked him if he with her accomplishments, was, in a Township High School, in Stines- wanted to perform. He demurred. “If I way, an accomplishment of its own. ville, Indiana, population three hun- Thereafter, her age became an open dred and fifty-five, when they arrived point of pride: she turned ninety-nine in New York City for a class trip, and in June. deftly chronicled their wary distaste Lillian joined The New Yorker in for the ways of the natives, observ- 1945, and she continued to appear in ing, “The three girls who didn’t want its pages for the next seventy-odd to go to Coney Island explained that years, which means that she was not they firmly believed that the class just a contributor but a creator—one should ‘have fun’ on its last night in of those whose style and tone be- the city, and not before.” came a standard to which later writ- In her fifth decade as a staff writer, ers aspired. That tone—acutely ob- in the mid-nineties, she sat down with servant, intimate, and very frequently a bunch of private-school tenth grad- amused—emerged in some of her ers on the Upper East Side. Ross al- earliest and best-known pieces, in- ways had an ear for the weird rhythms cluding her Profile of Ernest Hem- of spoken English, and she captured Demetri Martin ingway and the five-part series on their profanity-laced, world-weary, the making of John Huston’s “The sublimely innocent conversation—in go up, it feels like work,” he said. “I’d rather Red Badge of Courage.” (The Xe- a notebook; she didn’t believe in using hang out.” He made his way to a round roxes of her articles made for distri- recorders—for one of her best Talk table in the back—the comedians’ table. bution in the nation’s journalism of the Town stories. “The Shit-Kick- Rachel Feinstein, a comedian who classes, if piled on top of one another, ers of Madison Avenue” was one of has known Martin for years, welcomed would reach to the moon.) She was the earliest efforts among reporters him with a hug. “You have kids now, a master of the Talk of the Town to capture uptalk on the page: “You right?” she said. “I wanna see pictures.” form, with its comic distillation of three come to my house you know at Martin took out his phone and social mores. She was game for any- five? You bring all your clothes? I take scrolled through photos. thing, but also knew when to turn everything out of my closet and spread “Is that your wife?” Feinstein said. an assignment down. When she was everything out on the floor? We try “She’s hot. Nice work, dude.” pitched a Talk piece on the Hope on all the stuff?” Landing on another photo, Martin Diamond, in 2010, she said she didn’t She took young people seriously, said, “This is a drawing my son made. see a story in it. “It may be I’m the an art not always cultivated among I know it’s just scribbles, but I actually wrong one to look,” she wrote to her grownups. (She wrote a Talk story think it’s a pretty good composition.” editor. “The memory of the original about Lin-Manuel Miranda a de- 1—Andrew Marantz Harry Winston I wrote about in 1954 cade ago, when he was a mere strip- is too strong, the way he touched his ling of twenty-seven.) In so doing, POSTSCRIPT diamonds and talked about them as she provided an example of how to LILLIAN ROSS his children.” be taken seriously by younger peo- Ross, who spent decades in a re- ple—an objective that, for women lationship with William Shawn, the especially, becomes more challeng- second editor of this magazine, who ing as the years mount. Lillian was was married, adopted a son, Erik, who a generous champion of younger was born in 1965. Ebullient in moth- writers at the magazine, especially erhood, she sent a baby photograph younger writers who sought, like illian Ross came of age at a time to J. D. Salinger, a friend of long stand- her, to chronicle New York’s human Lwhen it was impolite to ask a lady ing. “He’s roaring with laughter,” Sa- comedy. In them—in us—she surely how old she was, and—quaintly, mi- linger wrote back. “Oh, if he can only recognized her mischievous, endur- raculously—that practice, as it per- hold on to it.” ing, shit-kicking self. tained to her, was observed well into It was appropriate that Lillian —Rebecca Mead

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 21 from power. In the Philippines, the dic- LETTER FROM MYANMAR tatorship of Ferdinand Marcos fell after Corazon Aquino, the widow of an as- sassinated critic of the regime, took up FALLEN IDOL her husband’s struggle. Democratic movements did not always triumph— As a dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi was a champion of human the Chinese government’s massacre of rights. Why won’t she defend them as a leader? student protesters near Tiananmen Square is the grimmest example—but, BY HANNAH BEECH in the last three decades of the century, the number of democracies in the world hen Myanmar’s military regime of her leadership of the Burmese pro- increased from thirty-one to eighty-one. Wreleased Aung San Suu Kyi from democracy movement. When a book of Various fates awaited these reform- house arrest, in 2010, she had been the her essays was published, soon after- ers. Havel and Mandela weathered the world’s most famous political prisoner ward, it had an introduction by Havel, inevitable compromises of office with for nearly two decades. Within a few who wrote that “she speaks for all of us their reputations intact, whereas Walesa, weeks, she received a phone call of who search for justice.” as Poland’s President, became known as congratulation from another former po- Havel and Suu Kyi were among the an erratic and unreliable leader. But none

Suu Kyi in 2012, soon after she was elected to parliament. Her rise fuelled humanitarian hopes worldwide. litical prisoner—Václav Havel, the dis- many dissidents around the world who, of them has undergone the kind of un- sident Czech playwright who, in 1989, from the mid-eighties to the early nine- expected and alarming metamorphosis had become his country’s first post- ties, emerged as icons of freedom, often that Aung San Suu Kyi has. Her moral Communist leader. The call was the toppling the regimes that had oppressed clarity and graceful bearing long made only time they ever spoke directly, but them. In South Africa, after nearly thirty her a potent symbol of human rights their political relationship had lasted al- years in prison, Nelson Mandela nego- and nonviolence. (There was a 2011 most as long as her captivity. In 1991, tiated an end to apartheid and then as- movie based on her life.) But since she two years into his term as President of sumed his country’s Presidency. In War- became the country’s de-facto leader, in Czechoslovakia, Havel had successfully saw, a shipyard worker named Lech 2016, she has remained impassive in the lobbied the Nobel Committee to award Walesa and a movement called Solidar- face of a series of human-rights abuses,

its Peace Prize to Suu Kyi in recognition ity swept the Communist government most egregiously the brutal oppression PANOS

22 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY MINZAYAR OO of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic mi- that more than two hundred Rohingya at the same time, we never expected that nority in the west of the country, near villages have been incinerated. Aung San Suu Kyi would have changed the Bangladesh border. Within Myanmar, the Rohingya are so much herself once she got into power.” Myanmar is a patchwork of a hun- uniquely despised by almost all other dred and thirty-five officially recognized ethnicities. Nearly ninety per cent of ung San Suu Kyi was just two ethnicities, dominated by the Bamar, the country is Buddhist, and most peo- Ayears old when, on July 19, 1947, from the country’s heartland, who make ple regard the Muslim Rohingya as il- armed men burst in on a meeting con- up sixty-eight per cent of the popula- legal immigrants; they are not included vened to oversee Burma’s transition to tion and most of the ruling élite. Armed in Myanmar’s official tally of ethnici- independence and killed her father and conflicts have simmered for decades ties. Suu Kyi has done nothing to com- eight others. Growing up in the shadow between numerous ethnic groups and bat this prejudice. Her government of her father’s legend, she was largely Bamar-led governments. In 1947, Suu has denied visas to a United Nations shielded from the turmoil of the post- Kyi’s father, Aung San, a Bamar gen- human-rights team charged with inves- independence years. At the Method- eral now regarded as the founder of the tigating the crisis, and international or- ist English High School, in Rangoon, modern nation, persuaded several groups ganizations have been prevented from she took classes in morality and geog- to put aside their differences in the in- delivering aid. raphy. Sao Haymar Thaike, a child- terest of ending colonial British rule. The U.N. High Commissioner for hood friend and the daughter of Bur- But he was assassinated shortly before Human Rights has called the security ma’s first post-independence President, independence, which went into effect crackdown “a textbook example of eth- told me that Suu Kyi was a serious, in January, 1948, and tribal conflicts soon nic cleansing,” and several of Suu Kyi’s bookish girl, raised by a “very strong, consumed the young nation. fellow Peace Prize laureates, including kindhearted” mother, Khin Kyi. In 1960, These civil wars gave the military an Desmond Tutu and Malala Yousafzai, Khin Kyi was appointed Ambassador excuse to seize power, which it did, in have urged her to condemn the violence. to India and took her daughter with 1962. (It later changed the country’s name Instead, she has described the Rohingya her. Two years later, Burma’s coup in- from Burma to Myanmar; changed the insurgents as “terrorists” and dismissed stalled a socialist military regime. name of the old capital from Rangoon the worldwide condemnation, saying Suu Kyi was fifteen when she left to Yangon; and built a new capital, Nay- that international outlets have created Burma, and she did not return, apart pyidaw.) The junta ruled ineptly and re- “a huge iceberg of misinformation.” Her from occasional visits, for twenty-eight pressively for nearly fifty years, amid office has accused the Rohingya of set- years. After attending school in New growing pressure for democratic reform. ting fire to their own homes in order to Delhi, she went to Oxford and stud- In 2015, when it allowed free elections provoke an outcry. In a speech last week, ied philosophy, politics, and econom- for the first time in a generation, Suu Suu Kyi refused to criticize the Army ics—she was an undistinguished stu- Kyi’s popularity propelled her party, the and offered a sustained exercise in moral dent—and then worked briefly for the National League for Democracy, to a equivalence. “There have been allega- U.N., in New York. In 1972, she mar- landslide victory. The N.L.D. and the tions and counter-allegations,” she said. ried Michael Aris, a young British ac- Army cautiously entered a power-shar- “We have to listen to all of them.” ademic who became an expert in Ti- ing agreement and, in 2016, formed a Recently, I travelled to Myanmar and betan Buddhism. The couple had two government that is civilian-led but still interviewed dozens of people to assess sons and eventually settled in Oxford, substantially dominated by the military. what had gone wrong. Many of them where Suu Kyi assumed a domestic On taking office, Suu Kyi emulated pointed out that Suu Kyi’s power is role, cycling to the market and sewing her father by announcing talks to re- sharply limited. She has no authority name tags on the boys’ clothes. But her solve the ethnic struggles. “Our coun- over the Army, while military officers father’s legacy had instilled in her a try is thirsty for peace,” she proclaimed. still control key areas of government and sense of destiny. She researched his life But some conflicts have intensified, have the power to reverse democratic and published a short biography, enu- and the Army has broken ceasefire reforms. Some believe that she has made merating his accomplishments. Before agreements. Journalists and activists a political calculation not to risk domes- she married Aris, she sent him a letter who are critical of the government have tic popularity for the sake of a hated and making it clear that her country came been jailed. Most urgently, the plight powerless minority; others regard her as first. “I only ask one thing, that should of the Rohingya has developed into a lacking political skills. There are also my people need me, you would help humanitarian catastrophe. Attacks on those who think that she shares the Ar- me to do my duty by them,” she wrote. Army and police posts by Rohingya my’s authoritarian reflexes and the anti- “Would you mind very much should militants last October, and again in Muslim prejudices of the Buddhist such a situation ever arise? How prob- August, have unleashed a ferocious Bamar majority. But almost everyone I able it is I do not know, but the possi- crackdown. In the past month, more talked to expressed surprise at the speed bility is there.” than four hundred thousand Rohingya and the scale of her transformation. “We The moment came in 1988. In March, refugees have fled across the border never expected that Aung San Suu Kyi Suu Kyi’s mother had a stroke, and Suu into Bangladesh, bringing with them would get us this far,” a former student Kyi rushed back to Burma to be with accounts of indiscriminate slaughter activist and political prisoner who once her. The years of military rule had caused and mass rape. Satellite images show served as her bodyguard told me. “But, widespread decay. A country that had

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 23 once had a robust education system Suu Kyi threw herself into activ- left the country, she would never be and some of the most fertile rice pad- ism. In May, 1989, giving in to public allowed back. She chose to stay in dies in Asia had become one of the pressure, the junta announced that Myanmar and never saw him again. world’s poorest, thanks to the regime’s general elections would be held the disastrous nationalization of the econ- next year. But soon afterward Suu Kyi n January, 2012, a little more than a omy. While she was there, student pro- was placed under house arrest, with- Iyear after Aung San Suu Kyi’s final tests against the junta flared up. Sol- out trial, for “endangering the state,” release from house arrest, another fe- diers fired on crowds, and hundreds and most of the N.L.D.’s leadership male prisoner of conscience was freed. of people were killed in a matter of was imprisoned. It still won an over- Her name was Wai Wai Nu, and she, months. A group of disaffected Army whelming majority, but the regime re- too, was from a political family. Her officers, lawyers, students, and writers fused to hand over power. Suu Kyi father, a former headmaster, had won asked Suu Kyi to be the leader of a spent fifteen of the next twenty-one a seat in parliament in the thwarted new political party, the National League years confined to her family’s lakeside 1990 elections. In 2005, when she was for Democracy. villa in Yangon; the military released an eighteen-year-old law student, Wai Suu Kyi had been out of the coun- her twice, only to confine her again. Wai Nu was convicted of various try for three decades and had no po- Hoping to neutralize her as a politi- trumped- up charges—the judge didn’t litical experience. But the N.L.D.’s cian, the generals inadvertently turned even bother to take any notes—and founders wanted a member of Aung her into an emblem of the struggle sentenced to seventeen years. Along San’s family to sanctify their mission, against them. with her sister, brother, mother, and fa- and Suu Kyi did not hesitate to accept. In 1999, Suu Kyi was faced with an ther, she was held in Yangon’s notori- She made her first major speech on agonizing decision. Her husband had ous Insein Prison. To wash, she was August 26th, at Shwedagon Pagoda, received a diagnosis of terminal can- given three cups of water, which was Burma’s holiest Buddhist site. In a clear, cer and asked the regime to let him later upped to five, for good behavior. confident voice, she invoked her fa- visit her. Repeated requests were de- But, whereas Suu Kyi is a patrician ther’s memory and called the upris- nied, but the generals offered to release Bamar, Wai Wai Nu is a Rohingya. I ing against the military “the second Suu Kyi, so that she could visit him, in first met her three years ago, in Yangon, struggle for national independence.” Oxford. She and Aris knew that, if she at the office of an N.G.O. she had set up, Women Peace Network Arakan. (Arakan is the old name for Rakhine State, a low-lying coastal area in west- ern Myanmar that is home to the Ro- hingya.) I climbed five flights of stairs, each shabbier than the last, and saw, through an opening in the stairwell, an empty basket being lowered down the side of the building on a long rope. A minute later, the basket went back up, filled with onions, ginger, and other in- gredients for a curry—an improvised dumbwaiter in a city whose tropical swelter makes stairs a trial. At the entrance to the office was a scattering of sandals, rhinestone- studded wedges, and frayed straw slippers. The workplace hummed with a kind of righ- teous energy. In careful cursive, young women covered a whiteboard with snip- pets of N.G.O.-speak English: “capac- ity building,” “women’s empowerment,” “vocational training.” Wai Wai Nu, who is thirty, and has an effervescent smile and animated eyes, told me that she grew up steeped in politics—“a little girl lis- tening to old guys talk.” Her earliest role model was Aung San Suu Kyi. “My fa- ther used to show me her picture, hid- den in his diary,” she said. In the mid- nineties, it was still possible to think that “Call me old school, but that bat flip at the end felt disrespectful.” Suu Kyi’s fight for human rights included

24 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 rights for the Rohingya. It had been mopolitan, lighter-skinned, and does lation of non-Rohingya Muslims, many decades since Rohingya had imagined not wear the veil. When we first met, of whom make up a prosperous mer- that any national political figure would she was still fairly hopeful about what cantile class. Since 2012, there have been do anything other than oppress them. might happen if Suu Kyi and the N.L.D. outbreaks of violence against Muslims Evidence of the presence of Rohingya came to power. She could overlook Suu in trading towns in central Myanmar. in Rakhine State—and of Muslims gen- Kyi’s refusal to use the word “Rohingya” Islamophobia is deep-seated, and it has erally—stretches back centuries. But and her evasiveness about the status of recently been fanned by extremist monks, Myanmar’s other groups regard them Muslims, assuming that she was sim- who point to the eclipse of Buddhism instead as a vestige of the colonial era, ply tailoring her campaign tactics to an by Islam in Afghanistan and Indone- when the country was incorporated electorate in the grip of growing reli- sia, and warn that Myanmar may be into British India and the gious tensions. “Of course, next. Monks command great respect, British brought non- Bud- we are disappointed,” Wai and even university-educated Burmese dhists from elsewhere in the Wai Nu told me. “But I be- have told me, in complete seriousness, colony to work in Burma. lieve we have no choice but that the high birth rate among some The Myanmar government to support her. Once a dem- Muslim groups is a form of jihad. forbids the use of the name ocratic party is in power, then I met a long-standing spiritual ad- Rohingya and most people we will have more chances viser to Suu Kyi, Dhamma Piya, at a call them Bengali. Generally and more hope.” monastery in Yangon, where he is the South Asian in appearance, Last week, I met with Wai abbot. He deplored the influence of they are easily identifiable to Wai Nu again, but outside Buddhist extremists and spoke proudly other ethnic groups. They Myanmar. She now believed of the role that monks had played in have a long-standing conflict that her people might be fac- every freedom movement since colonial with the Buddhist Rakhine people, who ing extinction. She told me she worried times. “Young people don’t understand have themselves been marginalized and that there was a plan to drive the entire anything except hating Muslims,” he oppressed by the Bamar élite. Rohingya community from the coun- complained. However, he went on to At the time of independence, in 1948, try. She had been monitoring Burmese say, “The truth is that many kalar”—a the Rohingya could still, by and large, social media, and was horrified by what pejorative epithet for Muslims—“don’t consider themselves just one of many she read. Burmese officials were saying know how to act well, because they don’t ethnic groups scrambling to find their that mass rape couldn’t have occurred have good education. Their behavior place in the new nation. Rohingya served because Rohingya women were too filthy. can be a little aggressive.” When I asked in parliament, and the ethnicity was in- “Because the civilian government is say- what kind of behavior he was referring cluded in a 1961 census. But the mil- ing these things, people are becoming to, he said that they often blocked traffic. itary junta espoused a xenophobic, more and more full of hate,” Wai Wai Buddhist ultranationalism has eroded Bamar- supremacist ideology, and, in the Nu said. “Before, it was a military dic- the center ground of Burmese politics. following decades, the Rohingya were tatorship, so no one believed them when In the 2015 elections, the N.L.D., anx- systematically demonized, many of them they said awful things. But now it’s the ious to avoid accusations that it was a stripped of basic rights. In 1982, a new civilian government of Daw Aung San “Muslim party,” refused to field a sin- citizenship law began to recategorize Suu Kyi saying these ignorant things gle Muslim candidate. For the first time them as Bengali aliens. Although Ro- and that legitimizes the hate.” since independence, no Muslims cur- hingya politicians like Wai Wai Nu’s fa- rently serve in parliament. And Suu ther could still run for parliament, in- enneth Roth, the executive direc- Kyi’s government has made no attempt stitutional discrimination became more Ktor of Human Rights Watch, thinks to revoke laws that limit the number overt. Rohingya could no longer attend that it is naïve to be disappointed in of children Muslims can have and that the best schools, and those who could Aung San Suu Kyi. He noted that, as create obstacles for marriages between not afford to pay off local officials found early as 2012, she had gone out of her Muslim men and Buddhist women. their freedom to move around the coun- way to avoid meeting him, despite his On a rainy day in Yangon, I visited try curtailed. Desperate for work and organization’s decades of support for a retired oil engineer named Tin Myint, increasingly stateless, the Rohingya her cause. “We were already beginning whose father, a Muslim, had been in began turning to traffickers to smuggle to criticize her on the Rohingya issue,” Aung San’s cabinet and was assassinated them out of the country. They boarded he said. “I guess she didn’t want to be alongside him. It was the beginning of barely seaworthy boats to Thailand, Ma- in the company of someone who dared Ramadan, and I felt self-conscious nib- laysia, and Indonesia; hundreds died to criticize her.” Roth sees Suu Kyi’s re- bling on the toddy-palm cake his house- along the way. In recent years, the gov- fusal to speak out against the ethnic keeper had set out for me. But Tin Myint ernment has confined around a hun- cleansing of the Rohingya as a political sipped tea with me, the need to put a dred thousand displaced Rohingya to calculation. “She’s thinking, It’s not guest at ease apparently outweighing internment camps, where they have lit- worth it, these people are too unpopu- strict observance of the fast. “We can- tle access to food or medicine. lar for me to bother defending,” he said. not flaunt our religion, have different Wai Wai Nu is not a typical Ro- The charged atmosphere is also per- dress, different foods,” he said. “I tell my hingya. She is well-educated and cos- ilous for Myanmar’s substantial popu- community this always.” He expressed

26 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 no particular concern for the Rohingya. mock surprise. “I don’t know why.” My N.L.D. is run with a military emphasis “Muslims in Yangon have little connec- interpreter (a friend who is at work trans- on loyalty and hierarchy. Few members tion with them,” he said. lating George Orwell into Burmese) dare to publicly criticize it, let alone its We spoke about the assassination, in understood why: as a child in Rakhine leader, for fear of expulsion. One Cab- January, of Ko Ni, a prominent Muslim State, he had been forced to work on inet minister proudly told me, “For the lawyer who was a friend of his. Ko Ni one of Khin Nyunt’s road crews. He most important decisions, the most im- had been a legal adviser to the N.L.D. told me later that sitting so close to the portant person must decide.” The cul- and, like several other Muslims in the man made him tremble inside. ture of deference means that there is al- Party, was close to Suu Kyi. The killing, “I thought the N.L.D.’s slogan, ‘Time ways a backlog of vital decisions at the which was attributed to a group of ren- for Change,’ was very good,” Khin Nyunt State Counsellor’s door. egade ex-Army officers, horrified Yan- told me, holding my hand in a fleshy Although the N.L.D. has recruited gon, and thousands of people, of many grip. “Daw Aung San Suu Kyi knows young talent, party leaders are notable faiths, flocked to the funeral. Suu Kyi, the importance of discipline, so I have for their age and time served in prison. however, did not attend. Nor did she a lot of hope for this country.” “She is surrounded by people who are send flowers or condolences to his fam- He saw Suu Kyi’s expediency as a too high level, not grassroots,” Sao Hay- ily, and, for a month, she made no pub- positive development. “Before, she mar Thaike, the childhood friend, told lic comment. In the months since Ko confronted the military, so it was not me. “She doesn’t have many good advis- Ni’s death, I asked more than a dozen harmonious,” he said. “Now she is try- ers. She only has her own thoughts. Peo- Burmese Muslims how her silence made ing to be good with Min Aung Hlaing,” ple are scared to give her information.” them feel, and they all hesitated to crit- the head of the armed forces. “It seems For all Suu Kyi’s opposition to the icize her. Each of them said something like she has realized that she has to junta, she remains a child of the mili- similar to what Tin Myint said as we negotiate.” tary. The armed forces of today have sat drinking tea: “She must have had He was right that Suu Kyi has little their origin in the Burmese Indepen- her reasons.” alternative but to work with the people dence Army, which her father founded, she once campaigned against. The eu- in 1941, in order to rid the country of mong the millions who cast their phoria that surrounded her ascent ob- the British. In her Shwedagon Pagoda Avotes for Suu Kyi’s party in 2015 scured how extensive the military’s power speech, Suu Kyi reminded her listeners was a pale, bespectacled former general remains. The Army controls the min- of this history. “Let me speak frankly,” named Khin Nyunt, who used to be the istries for defense, home affairs, and bor- she said. “I feel strong attachment for most feared man in Myanmar. In the der affairs, and a quarter of the seats in the armed forces. Not only were they mid-eighties, he became the chief of parliament are reserved for men in uni- built up by my father—as a child I was intelligence, establishing a Stasi-like form. Even ministries that are in civil- cared for by his soldiers.” She retains spy network and overseeing the arrests ian hands, such as finance, are full of many of the military’s values, frequently of thousands of people. He was also in holdovers from the previous regime, and stressing the importance of discipline charge of a forced-labor scheme, which much of the country’s budget is reserved and unity. In 2013, a year after she first compelled people in ethnic areas, many for military use. Myanmar’s constitu- won a parliamentary seat, she surprised of them children, to work on the Ar- tion, written by the military in 2008, observers by appearing among the gen- my’s infrastructure projects. In 2003, presents additional difficulties. It allows erals to view the military parades that he became Prime Minister and ex- the Army to declare a state of emer- mark Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day. perimented with reform. He signed gency and seize power, and it also con- I spoke to Jody Williams, who, in ceasefires with ethnic militias and busi- tains a clause that makes Suu Kyi inel- 2003, was the first Nobel Peace Prize ness deals with neighboring countries. igible for the Presidency. (Her current laureate to be allowed to visit Suu Kyi. Whereas Than Shwe, the longtime junta official title, State Counsellor, is a work- (Williams, the founder of the Interna- chief, so loathed Suu Kyi that he for- around.) Suu Kyi wants to amend the tional Campaign to Ban Landmines, bade all mention of her name in his Constitution and become President, but won the prize in 1997.) She noticed that presence, Khin Nyunt arranged a dia- this requires military support. Her de- Suu Kyi took a pragmatic view of the logue with her. fenders often cite the precariousness of generals who had curtailed her freedom. After only a year in office, he was her constitutional position as a reason “She said something to the effect of, ‘If ousted by rival factions in the regime, for her reluctance to speak out about we let the military go with big bank ac- and he spent more than seven years Army abuses. While pushing the mili- counts, then that’s fine with me,’ ” Wil- under house arrest. I met him at the tary for constitutional reform, she must liams told me. “It’s not an uncommon compound where he had been confined. also avoid antagonism and a return to way to think, but it was surprising to On its grounds, he runs an art gallery military rule. hear.” Williams was even more struck and handicrafts store, which sells gaudy But her failure to condemn the mil- by what wasn’t said: “There was abso- photographs of tourist sites, chunks of itary is not merely a matter of pragma- lutely no discussion of human rights, of petrified wood, and cheap jade brace- tism. The Party she leads was co-founded all the things that had made her into a lets. A coffee-shop venture failed for by a former commander-in-chief of the global icon.” lack of customers. “People are afraid to armed forces, and several of Suu Kyi’s Williams’s skepticism deepened come here,” he told me, shrugging in closest advisers are ex-officers. The when Suu Kyi visited New York, in 2012,

28 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 and met with members of an N.G.O. that Williams had co-founded. “She was hostile to any question about human rights in her country,” Williams told me, recalling how a young Burmese ac- tivist had been dismayed after Suu Kyi stormed out of the meeting. “She was so excited to see her heroine,” Williams said. “When Aung San Suu Kyi dis- played such hostility, the poor young woman just kept saying, ‘I can’t believe this, I can’t believe this, this is Aung San Suu Kyi?’ ” Williams has come to think that both the earlier veneration of Suu Kyi as a secular saint of human rights and the current shock at her transformation are based on misinterpretation. “She allowed herself to be misread,” she said. Wil- liams suspects that Suu Kyi’s aims have remained consistent since the period after 1988, when she returned to her homeland, assumed the mantle of her father, set her sights on leadership, and was robbed of victory. “Once she de- ¥¥ cided to be in the student movement, and then they won the election and it force him to confess that the N.L.D. ing a whole lot,” Kenneth Roth, of was taken from her, her mind went like had been responsible for the violence. Human Rights Watch, told me. “Havel a laser beam to getting into power,” Wil- “I could hear the screams of others as came to his position by saying a lot, by liams said. “That’s been her single am- they were tortured, but I stayed silent,” being a moral voice. Aung San Suu Kyi bition, other issues be damned.” he said. He was held for months in a didn’t say much at all. She was a moral tiny room so water-logged that he could symbol, and we read into that symbol once asked Aung San Suu Kyi what not lie down. certain virtues, which turned out to be I quality she most valued in people, and After Suu Kyi was permanently re- wrong when she actually began speak- she responded, “Loyalty.” Many people leased from house arrest, Kyaw Soe Lin ing.” Suu Kyi was not an intellectual, attest to this. In Naypyidaw, I met the went to visit her. She held out a small like Havel, or a freedom fighter, like N.L.D. parliamentarian Kyaw Soe Lin. plastic wrapper. It was from a packet of Mandela, or an organizer, like Walesa. In 2003, during one of Suu Kyi’s peri- snacks he had given her on the day of And, unlike her father, she did not die ods of liberty, he was assigned to be her the massacre. “She told me that she kept before her legend could be tarnished. driver on a national tour. On May 30th, the bag of snacks to remember me by,” In November, 2010, Suu Kyi’s younger her convoy was attacked by well-armed he said. “Every day, she would eat a lit- son visited Myanmar for the first time assailants, in what is presumed to have tle and then put it away.” Eventually, since her release. He hadn’t seen her been an assassination attempt ordered there was nothing left in the bag, but in a decade. Before he returned to En- by a hard-line military faction. Some she kept it for eight years. gland, he went to a pet shop in Yan- seventy people were killed and Suu Kyi’s For her entire life, Suu Kyi has been gon and bought her a brown-and-white neck was cut by flying glass. True to the faithful to the memory of a father she puppy. Suu Kyi lavished attention on principles of nonviolence, she ordered never knew and to a country that she’d the dog, and foreign dignitaries dis- her guards not to fight back. Kyaw Soe seen little of between the ages of fifteen covered that bringing gifts for it tended Lin drove as fast as he could through and sixty-five. The intransigence and to get meetings off to a good start. several roadblocks but was eventually the certitude that may now cause her to Since then, it has grown into an ag- stopped at one. be remembered as an enemy of freedom gressive creature that growls and snaps After the incident, Suu Kyi was are the same qualities that served her at anyone who dares approach its owner. placed under house arrest again. Kyaw well in captivity. In the years alone in Suu Kyi is oblivious of the dog’s mean Soe Lin and seventeen others were flown, her house, her distance from active pol- streak, and enjoys decking it out in handcuffed and hooded, to a remote lo- itics made her a perfect vessel for the sunglasses and kissing it when it sees cation near the Indian border. He was hopes of her countrymen and for the her off at the airport. “I hate that dog,” punched, kicked, and burned with cig- idealistic projections of the wider world. one of her closest friends told me. “But arettes and candle wax—I could see the “Aung San Suu Kyi has the benefit she loves it like a child, because it’s scars on his forearms—in an effort to of having become an icon without say- faithful to her.” 

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 29 SKETCHBOOK BY ROZ CHAST

30 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017

or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that LIFE AND LETTERS is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. CATHER PEOPLE Visitors to the Cather Prairie are a varied lot. In June, I encountered a woman Visiting the prairie that inspired America’s great novelist of landscape. who was struggling to maintain a farm in Kansas after her parents’ death. The BY ALEX ROSS previous day, Laura Bush, the former First Lady, had gone for a walk in the n Webster County, Nebraska, the prai- the orphaned young settler Jim Burden tall grass, with members of the Secret Irie rolls in waves, following the con- delivers a rhapsody that many Cather Service standing watch. tours of a tableland gouged by rivers fans can recite by heart: The occasion that brought the three and creeks. At the southern edge of the of us to town, along with several hun- I wanted to walk straight on through the county, a few hundred feet north of red grass and over the edge of the world, which dred other Cather People, as locals call the Nebraska-Kansas border, is a six- could not be very far away. The light air about the literary tourists, was the opening of hundred-acre parcel of land called the me told me that the world ended here: only the National Willa Cather Center, a Willa Cather Memorial Prai- seven-million-dollar facility rie. Cather spent much of her with a climate-controlled ar- childhood in Red Cloud, six chive, apartments for scholars, miles up the road, and for many museum exhibits, and a book- people who love her writing, store. The complex is the dream and perhaps for some who don’t, project of the Willa Cather the Cather Prairie is one of the Foundation, which is based in loveliest places on earth. You Red Cloud. Bush was the key- park at the top of a hill and fol- note speaker, and she recounted low a path down to a gulch, how Cather’s “strong, self-re- where a creek widens into a liant women” had appealed to pond. At the bottom, you no a girl growing up in West Texas. longer see traces of modern civ- Bush recalled her grandmother ilization, though you can hear Jessie Hawkins, who had driven trucks on Route 281 as they a dairy truck and learned to clamber out of the Kansas flats. lay brick. At this festive occa- The land here was never plowed, sion, Bush omitted the most and with careful cultivation it Cather-like element of her preserves the prairie as Cather grandmother’s story: when roamed it, in the eighteen-eight- Hawkins was young, her father ies—an immemorial zone of killed himself on his farm, with grass, trees, birds, water, and a shotgun. Mr. Shimerda, Án- wind. You can picture one of tonia’s father, does the same. Cather’s pioneer women—Al- Bush quoted another indelible exandra Bergson, the canny farm Cather sentence: “There are owner in “O Pioneers!”; Thea only two or three human sto- Kronborg, the budding operatic ries, and they go on repeating soprano in “The Song of the themselves as fiercely as if they Lark”; Ántonia Shimerda, the had never happened.” buffeted heroine of “My Ánto- Red Cloud, which has a pop- nia”—coming over the top of The Nebraska plains gave Willa Cather the stuff of epics. ulation of about a thousand and the hill. When I was last there, retains a farm-oriented econ- in June, the sky was a blaring blue and the ground and sun and sky were left, and if omy, belongs to a select company of lit- the hills were a murmur of greens. The one went a little farther there would be only erary towns that are permanently in- air was hot and heavy enough that sun and sky, and one would float off into them, scribed with a writer’s identity: places like the tawny hawks which sailed over our thoughts evaporated from my mind. I heads making slow shadows on the grass. . . . like Hannibal, Missouri (Mark Twain) lay under a cottonwood tree and listened I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I and Oxford, Mississippi (William Faulk- to leaves and grass swaying . . . did not expect anything to happen. I was some- ner). Cather depicted Red Cloud in six Et cetera, et cetera. The only person thing that lay under the sun and felt it, like of her twelve novels. The town is called the pumpkins, and I did not want to be any- capable of doing justice to the Willa thing more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we Hanover in “O Pioneers!”; Moonstone Cather Memorial Prairie is the woman feel like that when we die and become a part in “The Song of the Lark”; Black Hawk who engendered it. In “My Ántonia,” of something entire, whether it is sun and air, in “My Ántonia”; Frankfort in “One of LIBRARIES UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN ARCHIVES & COLLECTIONS, SPECIAL

32 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 Ours”; Sweet Water in “A Lost Lady”; second-story theatre where Cather fell in publication, in 2013, of “The Selected and Haverford in “Lucy Gayheart.” There love with the stage; you can drive out to the Letters of Willa Cather,” edited by An- is always a main street running through rural cemetery where the writer’s paternal drew Jewell and Janis Stout. In January, the town center, with the wealthier res- grandparents are buried. You cannot, how- when Cather’s letters enter the public idents to the west and the poorer ones ever, see Cather’s own grave. That is found domain, the Willa Cather Archive, at to the east. The railroad always cuts across in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, where she the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, will to the south. Often there is a one-and- liked to work in the autumn months. begin to publish her complete correspon- a-half-story house off the main street, Buried beside her is Edith Lewis, her dence online, drawing on a collection of where, up in an attic room, a girl dreams longtime companion. The absence of more than three thousand items. The of being somewhere else. One of the first Cather’s remains in Red Cloud is signifi- letters echo her voice—“confident, ele- achievements of the Cather Foundation, cant. When tour groups arrive at the old gant, detailed, openhearted,” as Jewell in the nineteen-sixties, was to preserve railroad depot, which is now a museum, and Stout describe it. She was, they admit, the family home, and up in the attic you they see a prop coffin in the stationmas- a “rather histrionic character.” She is can see the wallpaper that Cather in- ter’s office. This is a cue for guides to dis- abrupt, candid, self-pitying, given to du- stalled when she was a child—a pattern cuss Cather’s 1905 story “The Sculptor’s bious generalizations (“People who go of “small red and brown roses on a yel- Funeral,” in which the body of a cele- and have grotesque accidents are clowns”), lowish ground,” as she writes in “The brated artist is brought back to his home- and relentless toward her publishers Song of the Lark.” town, amid innuendos about his “lady- (“The blue behind the lettering seems Cather transplanted entire Red Cloud like voice” and his “trapseing to Paris.” to me rather dark and heavy for a jacket,” households into her fiction, often with Such talk elicits a rant from a heavy- she writes to Knopf ). Although illness physical characteristics and personali- drinking lawyer with a generous heart: and loss shadow her final years, the fire ties intact. Many of the families Cather “It’s not for me to say why, in the inscru- never dies. In 1943, she compliments a wrote about still live in the area. In June, table wisdom of God, a genius should college student on his style, but the words I stayed at the Kaley House, an opu- ever have been called from this place of “the world beautiful” elicit a rebuke: “That lently restored bed-and-breakfast owned hatred and bitter waters.” Cather—who is the only bad phrase in your letter. But by Jay Yost, who grew up in Red Cloud never publicly identified as gay and never it is bad. It is what I call ‘women’s club and now works as a private banker in pretended to be straight—may have fore- phraseology.’ You could have said that New York. When Yost and his husband, seen a similar scene at her own burial, better, had you tried.” Wade Leak, are in town—Yost is on the and chosen not to be brought home. The Nebraskan was first a Virginian. Cather Foundation board—they con- In the decades after her death, in 1947, She was born in 1873, in Back Creek Val- vene mildly raucous gatherings of local Cather was in danger of falling into the ley, near Winchester, on the north end family and friends. The first night I was ranks of regional writers, the rhapsodists of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her back- there, I met Brad Sherwood, of Omaha, of limited geographies. Increasingly, ground was deeply Southern. Three of a great-grandson of Carrie Miner, whose though, scholars treat Cather as a major her uncles had fought for the Confed- family inspired the prosperous, upright modernist who rivals Woolf and Joyce eracy in the Civil War, and several of the Harlings in “My Ántonia.” At the Cather in complexity. These days, especially, her family’s African-American servants had Center the following day, I spoke to tense relationship with the mythology been enslaved in her great-grandparents’ Antonette Willa Skupa Turner, the of the American heartland commands household—histories that Cather brought ninety-seven-year-old granddaughter of attention. Laura Bush rightly said that to life in her final novel, “Sapphira and Annie Sadilek Pavelka, the Czech im- Cather helped forge a Western identity, the Slave Girl,” published in 1940. Cath- migrant who inspired Ántonia herself. but it was not the same West that male er’s father, Charles, managed a sheep Turner, an uproarious woman with a bards of empire extolled. Cather intro- farm; when the barn burned, in 1883, the raspy voice, didn’t immediately remind duced a new way of seeing, placing us in family moved to Nebraska, following me of Cather’s weathered heroine, but landscapes of “obliterating strangeness,” other members of the wider Cather clan. she exuded elemental force. of saturating color and light. When you They first lived on a homestead north “Miss Cather caught my family very walk the Cather Prairie, you move not of Red Cloud, then in town, where well,” Turner bellowed at me. “How my only backward in time but also out into Charles Cather made a respectable liv- grandmother took life! She never had symbolic terrain, one in which the self ing selling farm loans and insurance. Less any teeth, but she’d eat meat no matter becomes a “something,” in which a mo- than fifteen years earlier, only a few white what. She said she’d live her whole life ment of supreme bliss is indistinguish- families had occupied the area; now a the same way again, even with all its trib- able from death. community of twenty-five hundred peo- ulations, because that’s the way the Lord ple had sprung up. wanted it to be. But the book gets one he talk in Catherland these days is The transfer west came as an enor- thing wrong—in the scene where Jim Tabout the letters. Cather’s will for- mous shock: Cather felt as if she had Burden kills the snake. My grandmother bade verbatim quotation from her cor- been cast out of civilization. “It was a killed the snake!” respondence, probably in an attempt to kind of erasure of personality,” she later You can tour the Cather home, with keep scholars at bay (“information vam- said. Jim Burden, who replicates Cath- its dusty Victorian décor; you can visit pires,” she called them). The Cather es- er’s childhood journey in “My Ántonia” the Red Cloud Opera House, a modest tate lifted that restriction to allow the and also goes back East as an adult, feels

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 33 similarly: “Between that earth and that peanness. Several sources mention that meisser, at the piano, showed himself sky I felt erased, blotted out.” Yet Cather Cather studied piano with a music teacher master of the situation and called forth soon made peace with this strange new named Schindelmeisser. This man served loud applause.” By 1886, though, he was life; erasure permitted self-invention. as the model for the character of Wunsch, back in Kansas. After that, the trail At around the age of fifteen, she flirted in “The Song of the Lark”—a dissolute grows thin. Notices of unclaimed let- with a male persona, signing her name but impassioned immigrant musician ters suggest that he passed through William Cather, Jr., or Wm. Cather, who is among the first to glimpse the Kansas City and Macon, Missouri. He M.D. She settled on the given name talent of Thea Kronborg, destined to be- was in Nashville in 1898. The name does Willa, a variation of her baptismal name, come a leading Wagner singer. After dig- not appear in the 1900 census. He was Wilella; she later added the middle ging through newspaper archives, cen- known to be a heavy drinker, and alco- name Sibert. On display at the Cather sus records, telephone directories, and holism is likely the best explanation for Center is the family Bible, open to the shipping manifests, I concluded that he his erratic career. In “The Song of the page on which a mature editorial hand was Albert Schindelmeisser, the son of Lark,” Wunsch’s drinking eventually has changed Wilella to Willa, added Louis Schindelmeisser, a distinguished forces him to leave town, but his ac- Sibert, and altered her date of birth German composer and conductor of the knowledgment of Thea Kronborg’s tal- from 1873 to 1876. mid-nineteenth century, and an ally of ent encourages her to pursue singing. The young Cather was a fury of en- Wagner and Liszt. From this roughshod Europe of the thusiasms, scouring her corner of the The life story that can be recon- mind, Cather also emerged with a com- world for information. As she rode her structed from circumstantial evidence plex understanding of American iden- pony from farm to farm, she found te- is a rather sad one, suitable for one of tity. Her symphonic landscapes are in- nacious clusters of European immi- Cather’s darker prairie tales. Schin- flected with myriad accents, cultures, grants: Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, delmeisser came to America in 1862, personal narratives—all stored away in Czechs, and Germans. Through them, when he was twenty, and got a job teach- a prodigious memory. When she went she absorbed a far more variegated cul- ing at Lawrence University, in Wiscon- off to college, at the University of Ne- tural experience than she would have sin. In an article for the Lawrence col- braska, she was already an imperious encountered in Virginia. The immi- lege paper, he wrote, “Of all arts music cosmopolitan, entirely unafraid to make grants did not come from high social is the most pure and elevated, the most her views known. She had thought of stations, but many carried with them ennobling in its influences.” By 1870, studying science or medicine, but her considerable learning. Jim Burden de- however, he had left the college and es- command of prose pulled her toward clares, “There was not a man in Black tablished a pattern of being unwilling writing. In 1893, she published her first Hawk who had the intelligence or cul- or unable to stay in one place for any journalistic piece for the Lincoln Ne- tivation, much less the personal distinc- length of time. He worked in Kansas braska State Journal: thus began a two-de- tion, of Ántonia’s father.” and Iowa as a teacher and a piano tuner, cade run as a literary critic, drama and There was also music. Not long ago, then popped up in Red Cloud in 1884 music critic, all-purpose reporter, and while researching Cather’s lifelong love and 1885. A notice of an event at the editor. She went on to Pittsburgh, ed- of Wagner’s operas, I came across a hith- Baptist church, to which the Cather iting a women’s magazine, and ended erto unseen trace of Red Cloud’s Euro- family belonged, said that “Mr Schindle- up in New York, working at McClure’s, the great American magazine of the Gilded Age. Cather was a mercurial but brilliant critic, veering between ecstatic raves and brutal takedowns. The takedowns were disconcerting to performers who came to town expecting a docile press. The “meat-ax young girl,” she was called. An unlucky actress was characterized as an “unattractive, putty-faced, backachy, headachy little minx.” One actor, she wrote, “stops just where elocution ends and acting begins.” Her reporting was not always trustworthy. In a piece about the painter Edward Burne-Jones, she claims to have interviewed Burne-Jones’s former valet; no such person seems to have existed. But the writing tends to be more distinctive than in her apprentice fiction of the same period. The prairie figures in some of Cath- “We’ll never have to fold fitted sheets again.” er’s early stories, but she focusses more often on artists, actors, singers, and writ- Cloud, I spoke to Melissa Homestead, with a parting “singularly cool.” Other ers—denizens of the transatlantic world a scholar at the University of Nebraska- male friendships show erotic tensions. that she herself joined in short order. Lincoln who is working on a highly an- Godfrey St. Peter, the solitary intellec- These are evocative tales, but the sketches ticipated book about Cather’s relation- tual of “The Professor’s House,” is plainly of high-society types are sometimes ship with the Nebraska-born, New York- smitten with his student Tom Outland, breathless and thin. When the prairie based editor Edith Lewis. The two with whom he liked to “sit and talk half does enter the picture, as in the 1904 women met in 1903, at the home of a through the warm, soft nights.” story “A Wagner Matinée,” Cather re- mutual friend in Lincoln—Lewis later In the end, however, sex does not gains her lordly confidence: “The world wrote of Cather’s “transparently clear, dominate Cather’s imagination. True there was the flat world of the ancients; level, unshrinking gaze”—and began romance lies elsewhere: in her charac- to the east, a cornfield that stretched to living together in 1908. Homestead told ters’ relationships with work, art, nature, daybreak; to the west, a corral that reached me, “Everyone wants to know what and the land. In “O Pioneers!,” Alexan- to sunset; between, the conquests of peace, kind of relationship this was. I have dra is said to be the first person who has dearer bought than those of war.” She been through all Cather’s surviving let- ever looked on her corner of Nebraska made her first European trip in 1902, in ters, and there is no ‘smoking gun.’ ” with “love and yearning”—to see it as a the company of a wealthy Pittsburgh Homestead, who is lesbian, laughed at place to be nurtured, not as territory to friend, Isabelle McClung, with whom the phrase. “But what’s apparent, over be conquered. In sharp contrast to most she was evidently in love. On a train ride and over, is that she and Lewis were women’s fiction of the day, the story of through rural France, Cather experienced thought of as a unit. She would write, Alexandra is not one of marriage but of an epiphany: on seeing a “reaper of a ‘Miss Lewis is coming with me.’ Peo- profession. Likewise, “The Song of the well-known American make,” she imag- ple send their regards to both of them. Lark” is, as Joan Acocella wrote in this ined a girl sitting on it, between her fa- So the question is: What kind of evi- magazine in 1995, a Künstlerroman—a ther’s feet. She understood that Nebraska dence is needed to establish this as a novel about the emergence of an artist. had already given her the stuff of epics. lesbian relationship? Photographs of This is not to say that Cather is a fem- “O Pioneers!” appeared in 1913, and her the two of them in bed together? She inist. She exalts her exceptional women mature career began. was an integral part of Cather’s life, cre- but is often scathing toward ordinary atively and personally.” ones, and toward feminists themselves. he area around Red Cloud has long Homestead is impatient not only with One of her less lovely efforts is a satir- Tbeen known as the Divide—a geo- those who dismiss the possibility of ical assault on the religious pretensions graphical term for a plateau bordered Cather’s lesbianism but also with those of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Cather’s sto- by rivers. Cather titled one of her first who scan her work for evidence of her ries were revolutionary all the same, important prairie stories “On the Di- closetedness. O’Brien made much of a abandoning the stereotypical register of vide.” Cather scholars have not been remark Cather made, in her 1922 essay the female voice. able to resist using the word in a sym- “The Novel Démeublé,” that fiction “The great fact was the land itself,” bolic sense. The late David Porter bor- depends on “whatever is felt upon the Cather declares in “O Pioneers!” Hu- rowed it for his 2008 study, “On the page without being specifically named mans merely scratch at its surface. Per- Divide,” which documents Cather’s there . . . the inexplicable presence of the haps this enormous empathy for the painstaking construction of her public thing not named.” For Homestead, this natural world is, after all, a displace- image, and in particular her attempt, emphasis on secretiveness is misleading. ment of desire, though the feeling goes largely successful, to straddle the di- She told me, “People picture her as full too deep to be psychologized away. An vide between commerce and art. In of shame, destroying letters left and right. overwhelming attachment to place is 1926, Porter shows, she went to the trou- Yes, almost all her letters to Lewis are often a sign of immovable conserva- ble of inventing an interview with her- missing. But three thousand letters is tism, and Cather can get dangerously self—a scene of a journalist badgering still a lot, and the relationship with Lewis close to blood-and-soil lingo, as when the author as she waits for a train in is all over them. If she wanted to hide Ántonia’s strapping sons are compared Grand Central Terminal. (It’s as if the it, she did a bad job.” to “the founders of early races.” But her younger Cather were buttonholing the There is little trace of sexual attrac- conviction that the land belongs to no elder.) Her world contains other figu- tion between women in Cather’s writ- one—“We come and go, but the land rative divides: between America and ing, but male homosexuality surfaces is always here,” Alexandra says—under- Europe, the Romantic and the mod- more than once. “The Sculptor’s Fu- cuts any tendency toward nationalism ern, country and city, the political left neral” is one instance; another is “Paul’s and tribalism. and the political right. Case,” the widely anthologized story of That philosophy put Cather at odds The divides of gender and sexuality a young aesthete who chooses self-an- with the Western, in which maverick remain the most contested ground. The nihilation over the dreariness of a rou- men claim the wilderness as their own. Cather biographer Sharon O’Brien tine existence. We can read between the The most influential Western at the opened discussion of the lesbian ques- lines when Cather reveals that Paul’s turn of the century was “The Virgin- tion in a 1984 essay, prompting a wave night on the town with another young ian,” by Owen Wister, a Harvard grad- of queer-studies readings and an inev- man begins “in the confiding warmth uate who was sent West to toughen itable backlash. At a luncheon in Red of a champagne friendship” and ends up and returned with a quasi-erotic

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 35 adulation of the cow-puncher—the goal in sight. This failure is also a tri- wrote about them. I don’t get it. I’d be cowboy. The nameless hero of “The Vir- umph, because you sense so strongly proud if Cather made fun of my great-un- ginian” is introduced thus: “Lounging the presence of the thing not named. cle!” Even in Red Cloud, some locals still there at ease against the wall was a slim think there’s something off about Cather young giant, more beautiful than pic- n Red Cloud, a ceremonial ribbon was and the people she attracts. If you stop tures. His broad, soft hat was pushed Icut. The National Willa Cather Cen- by the lunch counter at Olson’s gas sta- back; a loose-knotted, dull-scarlet hand- ter was declared open, and Laura Bush tion, you might hear a farmer grunting kerchief sagged from his throat; and one was whisked away by the Secret Service. at his paper, “I don’t like this Cather stuff.” casual thumb was hooked in the car- At the reception, the atmosphere was The idea that the red-blue divide tridge-belt that slanted across his hips.” one of mild jubilation, mixed with a cer- would complicate Cather’s reputation is With one fond stroke, Wister created tain amazement that the project had ironic, because she largely steered clear the cowboy style. He was also a repul- come to pass. In the crowd was Marga- of politics. Her 1931 story “Two Friends” sive racist who halted his narrative to ret Ickis Fernbacher, Cather’s grandniece, tells of the broken friendship of two pros- praise the superiority of Anglo-Saxon who was probably the only person pres- perous citizens, one Democrat and the stock and to claim that the Declaration ent who had met the author. “I have this other Republican. They play checkers in of Independence enshrined “the eter- memory of being in the presence of this— the general store and debate issues great nal inequality of man.” this great presence,” Fernbacher told me. and small, until the advent of William Cather undoubtedly read “The Vir- “But I honestly don’t know if I actually Jennings Bryan, the barnstorming Ne- ginian.” In the Cather Center archive, I do remember it or whether my mother braska populist, causes an irreparable rift. noticed a copy resting on the library told me about it.” The Democrat grows fanatical; the Re- shelves: the inscription indicates that The journalist Matthew Hansen, publican grows resentful, even though Cather had given it to a family member whose uncle is Jay Yost, my bed-and- McKinley defeats Bryan in the election in 1912. In a 1915 letter, she pointedly ob- breakfast host, reflected on how the town of 1896. Cather knew Bryan from her serves that the “cow-puncher’s experi- had changed. He grew up in Red Cloud journalistic days; she was fascinated by ence of the West was not the only ex- and then moved to Omaha, where he his oratory but skeptical of his progres- perience possible there.” Wister was a writes for the World-Herald. “I gradu- sive economic agenda. In “Two Friends,” tourist; Cather was the real Virginian. ated from high school in 1998,” he told she subtly sides with the Republican, In her rendering of the Great Plains and me. “Back then, it felt pretty dead—stores who cannot understand the change that the West, women achieve independence closed, buildings boarded up. As teen- politics has wrought in his friend. Ulti- from restrictive roles; people of many agers, we’d ride up and down the empty mately, she belongs to no party, occupy- countries coexist; and violence is futile, streets. Now there’s a coffee shop, a wine ing the high middle ground. with guns most often fired in suicidal bar—it’s all kind of surreal to me. The The next morning, I had breakfast at despair. As the scholar Susie Thomas next project is to build a hotel, so we can the home of Dennis and Sally Hansen, writes, Cather “created an alternative to handle tour groups. The town gets ten Matthew’s parents. They live in a mod- the male mythology of the West.” In thousand Cather tourists a year, and it ern, spacious house outside town, with place of Wister’s slouching cowboy, “O could get more.” plate-glass windows that look out on the Pioneers!” gives us a “tall, strong girl” Political support would speed these family farm and on a swimming pool with a “glance of Amazonian fierceness,” projects along, but literary infrastructure backed by pine trees. In the distance, wearing a man’s coat. She holds the same is not high on Nebraska’s current list of Matthew’s eighty-six-year-old grandun- pose at the end, silhouetted against the cle could be seen operating a lawnmower. landscape and gazing westward. The Hansens gave me advice on what “My Ántonia” is the most complex to see in the area: the Cather family cem- of the prairie novels because the narra- etery; the site of their homestead; the tive passes through the consciousness of spot by the road where Francis Sadilek, a male narrator. Jim Burden’s gaze is an the prototype for the unhappy Mr. objectifying, romanticizing one. Ánto- Shimerda, was buried. “Don’t forget the nia is made into an icon of tenacity: she Dane Church and cemetery,” Sally said. survives her father’s suicide, the closure “That’s where Dennis’s folks are, and of the family farm, humdrum work as a that’s where we’ll be buried.” I thought hired girl, predatory males. Yet the full priorities. Burke Harr, a Democratic state about those words during the drive back reality of her life escapes Jim’s grasp. He senator from Omaha, told me that he to Omaha. As much as I love Cather’s keeps in mind a succession of pictures and others were trying to organize state writing, I will never know what it means of her earthy vitality—“like the old funding for the hotel development, but to live a life in one inalienable place. woodcuts in one’s first primer”—but his that they had encountered obstacles. final glimpse of her, “waving her apron,” “There are some people who don’t like am a recent convert to the ranks of feels rote. As the scholar David Laird it that attention is being paid to Cath- I the Cather People. I majored in En- says, Jim’s way of telling the story can- er’s relationship with Miss Lewis,” Harr glish and American literature in college, not capture the “streaming immediacy” said. “And, believe it or not, there are fam- but paid little attention to Cather, who of a life lived day by day, with no great ilies who are still angry about how Cather was not in fashion. About a decade ago,

36 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 I began reading the stories that cen- tered on music. Then I read everything else. When I got to “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” the 1927 novel that Cather considered her best, I felt dis- mayed that I had lived without it for so long. It is difficult to explain how Cather conjured one of the supreme English-lan- guage novels from scattered stories of the founding of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. Her principal characters, Bishop La- tour and Father Vaillant, based on Jean-Baptiste Lamy and Joseph Mache- beuf, amble through a loose succession of scenes, undertaking missions in the Southwest. Cather’s prose, more chis- elled than in her earlier fiction, refracts “Just as I suspected. These things make everything louder.” these tableaux into “something in the style of legend,” as she said. Latour emerges as a strange sort of passive saint, •• one who performs the miracle of seeing the world clearly and fondly. Miracles, Death” woodcuts, in which Death sum- tered eight hundred people. The vis- he explains, result from “our perceptions mons men and women both mighty and tas around that shiver-inducing place, being made finer, so that for a moment humble, a bishop among them. At the which a small group of Acoma still in- our eyes can see and our ears can hear end of the book, as Latour falls ill, he is habit, have hardly changed since Cather what is there about us always.” Early on, visited by Eusabio, a Navajo Indian saw them almost a century ago, and, he watches a flock of goats, which look whose acute intelligence and noble coun- as usual, her description is definitive: back at him “with their mocking, intel- tenance match Latour’s. Eusabio has the “This mesa plain had an appearance ligent smile.” Their bright coats remind aspect of the figure of Death who comes of great antiquity, and of incomplete- him of the Apocalypse, of the whiteness to take the Bishop away—not in retri- ness; as if, with all the materials for of those washed in the blood of the bution but in reconciliation. world-making assembled, the Creator Lamb. Such abrupt epiphanies arrive A few years ago, on a trip to New had desisted, gone away and left ev- routinely, charging Latour’s experience Mexico, I spent a day or two retracing erything on the point of being brought of daily life. Latour’s steps. This is a familiar stage together, on the eve of being arranged “Death Comes for the Archbishop” of Cather infatuation. “I seem fated to into mountain, plain, plateau. The stands apart from other Cather West- send people on journeys,” she wrote country was still waiting to be made erns because of the prominence given to a reader in 1943, noting “the num- into a landscape.” to Hispanic and Native American char- ber of people who have gone a-jour- I then drove north to the Valles Cal- acters. One troubling aspect of Cather’s neying in New Mexico on the trail of dera—a vast, craterlike formation that prairie narratives is that Native Ameri- the ‘Archbishop.’ ” As David Porter ob- was created by volcanic eruptions more cans scarcely appear in them. What serves, she was especially drawn to ma- than a million years ago. The caldera Cather writes of Alexandra in “O Pio- jestic masses of rock, like the mesa does not figure in Cather’s writing, but neers!”—“For the first time, perhaps, pueblo at Acoma (“Archbishop”); the it is connected to her in my mind. My since that land emerged from the wa- cliff dwellings of Walnut Canyon and grandfather, the geologist Clarence Sam- ters of geologic ages, a human face was Mesa Verde (“The Song of the Lark,” uel Ross, explored the area in the nine- set toward it with love and yearning”— “The Professor’s House”); and the teen-twenties, on horseback, and de- is, on reflection, outrageous. In “Arch- promontory of Quebec City (“Shad- scribed its volcanic history. It was a place bishop,” however, reverence for the land ows on the Rock”). I like to think that he loved, and his ashes are scattered there. predates the white invaders. Cather com- she pictured herself as Brünnhilde in I have only dim memories of him: he ments that Indians have no desire to Wagner’s “Ring,” stranded on a rock was born in 1880, when Cather was six, master nature, instead “accommodating and surrounded by fire. and died in 1975, when I was seven. I re- themselves to the scene in which they I visited the Bishop’s cathedral in call a severe, taciturn man who looked found themselves.” The same cannot be Santa Fe, which looks centuries older at me with a certain curiosity. Before I said of Latour, who spends his later years than it is. I drove to the San José de la went to New Mexico, my father told me overseeing the construction of a cathe- Laguna Mission, with its brilliantly that “Death Comes for the Archbishop” dral in the Romanesque style. Cather colored adobe altar, and to Acoma, was my grandfather’s favorite book. It is said that the novel’s title comes from where the Acoma Pueblo lived in proud the one thing I know about his inner Hans Holbein the Younger’s “Dance of isolation until conquistadors slaugh- world; somehow, it is enough. 

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 37 PROFILES A WOMAN’S WORK

Gloria Allred’s crusade for equal rights, in court and in the spotlight.

BY JIA TOLENTINO

few years ago, Marisa Woytek, On March 4th, a veteran of the Ma- sual sharing of intimate photographs, a a lance corporal in the Ma- rines named Thomas Brennan broke meeting with the House Armed Ser- A rines, decided to help other the story on Reveal, the Web site of the vices Committee, and a meeting with women deal with a problem she’d al- Center for Investigative Reporting. the commandant of the U.S. Marine ready dealt with several times herself. Nearly every national news organiza- Corps. In April, Woytek testified, in She was going to get their photographs tion picked it up; Woytek spoke to the uniform, before the Senate, and later removed from private Facebook groups Washington Post the next day. “Even if that month she met with the comman- like Just the Tip of the Spear. (The I could, I’m never reenlisting,” she told dant. In May, the Protecting the Rights name refers both to a ploy to coax a the paper. Her e-mail and social-media of Individuals Against Technological woman into having sex and to a mili- accounts were flooded with threats. Her Exploitation (PRIVATE) Act passed tary tactic.) Woytek didn’t consider father, a cop in San Bernardino, e-mailed unanimously in the House. The bill herself a feminist, but she was sick of the attorney Gloria Allred. “His favor- awaits a Senate vote. It would make military sexism. The Marine Corps is ite saying is ‘Don’t start the fight, finish nonconsensual sharing of intimate pho- the only branch of the armed services it,’ ” Woytek told me recently. “He’s a tographs a violation of the Uniform that still segregates basic training by big Gloria fangirl.” Allred called her Code of Military Justice. gender; in 2014, nearly eight per cent the next day. Two days after that, of female marines reported having been Woytek and Butner flew to Los An- n June, I visited the law offices of sexually assaulted within the previous geles, and held a press conference in IAllred, Maroko & Goldberg, high year. On Just the Tip of the Spear’s Allred’s office. It was International up in a granite-and-glass building on Facebook page, underneath the screen- Women’s Day, and Allred was dressed the corner of Crescent Heights and shot of a uniformed marine named in red for the occasion. Wilshire, just outside Miracle Mile. I Erika Butner, there were typical com- This was the first step in what Allred took a seat in an airy room where Allred ments. “Would smash,” one male ma- calls “creative lawyering.” There was no holds press conferences—a familiar rine wrote. Another asked, “Who has litigation on the table. Instead, she was dark-wood bookcase, lined with bound her nudes?” Woytek messaged Butner aiming to influence the court of pub- volumes, occupied one wall. Allred and offered to help. She contacted the lic opinion by getting the victim’s per- swept in moments later, wearing a group’s secretive administrators, who, spective in the news. Lately, not a day bright-pink bouclé suit jacket. Woytek by then, had become used to her take- goes by without Allred’s name being and Butner followed her, in business down requests. They agreed to pull mentioned in the news somewhere, as casual, with tattoos poking out from Butner’s photo. my Google alerts can attest. (Allred beneath their sleeves. Butner’s forearm Woytek and Butner became friends. also receives these alerts; in the past was inked with a line from “Star Wars”: In the fall of 2016, they learned about a few months, she has occasionally for- “DIE REBEL SCUM.” It was Woytek’s new Facebook group, called Marines warded them to me, with the note first day as a civilian, and she was prac- United. In this one, men weren’t only “Please see below.”) The approach at- tically vibrating with expectant verve. reposting pictures of female colleagues tracts criticism from people who say Allred distributed salads and sand- but also plundering them—hacking that Allred is more interested in the wiches and asked if everyone had a social-media accounts, trading nude im- spotlight than in justice. It also works. muffin. “I’m a mother,” she said. “I’m ages from past and present relationships. Less than a week after the press con- always afraid everyone’s going to starve The group had nearly thirty thousand ference with Woytek and Butner, there to death. I don’t want that on my watch.” members; many of the women in the was a Senate Armed Services Commit- We talked about the latest develop- photographs were identified by name, tee hearing, in which Senator Kirsten ments in the case. A few dozen men rank, and posting. Under a photo of a Gillibrand, of New York, excoriated the involved with the Facebook groups had female drill sergeant, an active-duty ma- Marines for their apparent inaction. been disciplined. A couple of marines rine wrote, “10/10 would rape.” In Jan- (Marines United was still up and run- had gotten pay reductions. Meanwhile, uary of this year, Woytek called a Ma- ning; the military had known about sim- other Facebook groups had arisen. (In rine Corps tip line to report the group, ilar groups since at least 2013.) Allred July, a marine pleaded guilty in the first and Butner e-mailed the Naval Crim- then held another press conference with court-martial related to Marines United. inal Investigative Service. Neither heard Woytek and Butner, and outlined three Two days later, a story broke about a new back. The group continued to grow. goals: legislation banning nonconsen- shared drive, which included photos

38 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 PHOTOGRAPHS (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): LEIGH VOGEL/GETTY; DEBORAH PETTO/THE BOSTON GLOBE/GETTY; TASOS KATOPODIS/AFP/GETTY; MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY; DEBORAH PETTO/THE BOSTON GLOBE/GETTY; KRIS CONNOR/GETTY

ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY to beproject legitimate can seenasadecades-long expandtheboundaries of victimhood. career Allred’s THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 39 of an unconscious naked woman.) “Oh, voice has the texture of pavement— ducers erupted in astonished giggles. “You we’re not done,” Allred said, almost dark, rough, reassuring, consistent. She are so iconic, Gloria!” one of them said. mischievously. has a dry sense of humor, which, these “All I can say is wow,” another told her. While she got up to make a phone days, tends to emerge in a bemused “It’s four-twenty-nine,” Allred said call, I asked Woytek and Butner if their tone or a sly look, and in a general will- triumphantly, brandishing her phone friends had been skeptical of the deci- ingness to play herself as a character. and catching my eye. She had a call sion to work with Allred. They’d heard Once, when I asked her about her beach scheduled at four-thirty. all the criticism, they told me—that house in Malibu, she said, “Did you ask Three hours later, just about everyone she was an ambulance chaser, that she me if I live there? I have a physical res- at the firm—there are eleven other law- was more interested in money and idence there, but my answer to your yers, along with paralegals and assistants— media attention than in her question is what Mother had deposited their coffee mugs in the clients. “People think she’s Jones once said: My home is office kitchen and gone home. Allred was telling us what to say, or pres- wherever my shoes are, and still working. The firm has three shifts of suring us, and she’s never!” my shoes are wherever there’s secretaries to cover its workday. Allred Woytek said. “She shoves the a wrong to right. ” has no hobbies and few indulgences. She press out of the way for us— After Allred and the ma- is stylish but doesn’t like shopping. She like, ‘No, you can talk to me! ’ rines left to wrap up their doesn’t cook. (“If I cook, I could be help- And I’m, like, ‘Thank you! meeting privately, a camera ing someone else during that time,” she Thank you!’ ” crew from the L.G.B.T. mag- told me.) She works on Saturdays and As Allred sat back down, azine The Advocate mate- Sundays. She told me that she hasn’t taken I asked if they felt like differ- rialized in the conference a vacation since the eighties. (When I ent people, pre-Allred room. They had come to film asked her law partner Nathan Goldberg and post. Woytek nodded. “I’m em- a documentary segment with Allred, about this, he said, “I do remember a va- powered,” she said, welling up. “I’m a and they started setting up their gear. cation, but it was in the seventies.”) She feminist.” “Does she need powder?” one pro- maintains her stamina without caffeine, Allred clasped her hands, electrified. ducer asked. her equilibrium without alcohol. She lost “Yay!” she shouted. “And she wouldn’t “I don’t think so,” another said. “That interest in dating a long time ago. have said either thing before!” foundation she’s got on—she knows Shortly before eight, she led me “I have tears in my eyes,” Woytek what she’s doing.” through the office’s cream-colored hall- said, sheepishly. The crew didn’t need to prep her; ways, decorated with tasteful prints of “Stop!” Butner wailed. She had also they began filming as soon as she floral paintings in gilded frames. “I teared up. walked back into the room. With the wanted it to be light, because I feel that “Really, I’ve grown as a woman, not Hollywood Hills behind her and the people come in with very heavy prob- just as a person,” Woytek said. bright lights illuminating her frosted lems,” she said. The walls outside her “I’ve always been a feminist,” Butner and immovable hairdo, Allred ran corner office are covered with large pho- said. “But, if we didn’t have Gloria, I through an abbreviated history of her tos of Allred with former Presidents don’t know where this would’ve gone.” work for the gay community. In 1983, (Reagan, Clinton, Obama) and dozens Allred smiled, beatifically, and said, she sued the Los Angeles restaurant of diplomas, posters, honors, and awards. “They have become the women they Papa Choux, which had denied service The inside of her office is like a rococo were meant to be.” to a lesbian couple. In 1989, she repre- educational museum, half dedicated to sented Paul Jasperson, a man with AIDS the storied career of Gloria Allred and loria Allred may be the most fa- who’d been turned away from a nail half to the history of women’s rights. Gmous practicing attorney in the salon in West Hollywood. (She con- Suffragist memorabilia are everywhere. United States. She has attained that re- tinued with the lawsuit after Jasperson Above a red velvet bench is a large an- nown less through litigation—though died.) In 2004, she represented Robin tique crest that reads “Dieu et Mon she has done plenty of that—than Tyler and Diane Olson in the first chal- Droit.” There are political cartoons com- through a blend of high-profile legal lenge to California’s prohibition of memorating her victories; framed press advocacy and public relations. The men- same-sex marriage. She won all three clippings; a Lucite plaque that says “BE tion of Allred to another trial lawyer cases, establishing anti-discrimination REASONABLE, DO IT MY WAY.” She often elicits a discreet pause, then a legal precedents. She remains close to walked over to a four-foot-long tele- slightly raised eyebrow, followed by Tyler and Olson, who surprised her scope and tilted it toward the window. something like “Gloria is really, really with lunch at Nobu this summer on “This is so I can watch what the bad great at what she does.” What she does, her seventy-sixth birthday. guys are doing,” she said. as far as the public can see, is show up “I am honored to be part of this bat- Allred has an affinity for props. In 1981, in front of TV cameras, five feet two, tle, and I will continue to be for the rest she presented John Schmitz, a California in her black turtleneck, with her gold of my life—and, if possible, from the great state senator who had introduced anti- jewelry and her brightly colored jacket beyond as well,” she told The Advocate, abortion legislation, with a black leather and her clients by her side, and deliver her owl-brown eyes locking on the cam- chastity belt. He responded by calling her her message with bulldog aplomb. Her era. The segment concluded, and the pro- a “slick butch lawyeress.” The following

40 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 year, he held a press conference on the augmentation, Lorenzana had said in female farmworkers in California for first day of Passover to discuss Yasir Ara- an interview that she wanted to look whom she negotiated a $1.68-million fat’s plans for peace in the Middle East; like “tits on a stick.” Allred eventually settlement in a class-action sex-discrim- Allred showed up with an aquarium of dropped Lorenzana as a client, but the ination suit, in 2008, Allred answers by live frogs and shouted, “A plague on the association stuck. Benjamin Wallace- saying that she’s not a philosopher; or house of Schmitz!” Her most famous stunt Wells wrote, in The Atlantic, “What by explaining that she operates on in- may be one from 1987, after she filed a Allred seems to be offering clients such stinct; or by dismissing the commentary complaint against the Friars Club of Bev- as Lorenzana is shelter, in victimhood, as boring and unoriginal; or by saying erly Hills for not allowing women access from their own poor choices.” Michelle that she thinks everyone should have to its recreational facilities. She burst into Goldberg wrote, at Tablet, that there access to justice, and that’s that. “I’m the club’s steam room, wearing a nine- was a “tragic tension at the heart of controversial because the status of women teenth-century bathing suit, waving a tape Allred’s work. Few have done more to is controversial,” she told me. She be- measure, and singing the Peggy Lee hit advocate on behalf of sexual-harassment lieves that she could not engage with “Is That All There Is?” victims. And few have done more to people’s disdain for her cases and still Allred has an unusual relationship make harassment seem laughable.” keep up the pace of her work and the to the question of what is proper and Allred’s career can be seen as a de- tunnel vision required to maintain it. what is not. She expects her clients to cades-long project to expand the bound- The charge of ambulance chaser, at conduct themselves with integrity, but aries of legitimate victimhood. Her cli- least, does not appear to be accurate. she is unconcerned with the decisions ents include Ginger Lee, one of Anthony “I’ve been with the firm for forty-one they made prior to whatever matter Weiner’s sexting correspondents, and years,” Nathan Goldberg told me, “and brought them her way. This stance makes Amber Frey, one of the mistresses of I can categorically state that we have her a committed, effective champion Scott Peterson, the California salesman never sought out a client.” The screen- (some clients call her Mama Gloria); it who was sentenced to death for mur- writer and “Army Wives” creator Kath- also attracts criticism from feminists dering his pregnant wife. (Allred repre- erine Fugate, who eight years ago be- who say that presenting such a wide as- sented Frey during the murder trial.) came part of Allred’s very small inner sortment of women as equally in need Allred sees these women as victims circle—she came to her office to try to of justice undermines the cause of fair of male entitlement who are seeking secure the rights to a client’s story and treatment. In 2010, in the Los Angeles the justice they deserve. Other people they ended up ordering takeout and Times, Sandy Banks defined Allred’s see them in the same way they might talking into the night—told me, “She feminist framework as “rights without see Allred: craven, self-interested, and should have a bumper sticker that says responsibilities.” vaguely in bad taste. When asked about ‘GLORIA ALLRED: I DON’T CALL ANY- At the time, Allred was deep in a criticism from feminists, or whether it’s BODY.’ ” Most of the firm’s cases are tabloid-friendly phase of her career. She reasonable to draw a dividing line some- private. But Allred’s temperament, lo- had recently, on behalf of the former where between Lorenzana and, say, the cation, and media instincts have led to child star and labor activist Paul Pe- tersen, filed a petition seeking a finan- cial guardian for the children of Nadya Suleman, better known as Octomom. (After giving birth to octuplets, Suleman had courted interview and reality-TV- show offers. “We believe that the ba- bies are entitled to remuneration,” Allred said.) She had represented two of Tiger Woods’s former mistresses, who were seeking compensation from Woods in the form of an apology or, perhaps, a settlement. (Allred negotiated ten mil- lion dollars for Rachel Uchitel, report- edly just before Uchitel was scheduled to hold a press conference about Woods. Uchitel was forced to give back most of the money after Woods claimed that she had violated a confidentiality agree- ment. She then threatened to sue Allred for malpractice.) Allred had also taken on the case of Debrahlee Lorenzana, a woman who claimed that Citibank fired her for being “too hot.” Before her second breast “O.K., so clearly the sanctions didn’t work.” a self- perpetuating sort of expertise. For many people, hers is the single name that comes to mind when considering SIGNS FOR THE LIVING the ambitious pursuit of victims’ rights. She is the person you call if you’re a Sometimes, after the last snow in May, cop with a daughter who’s been ha- after the red-winged blackbird clutches the spine rassed by her military colleagues, or if of the cattail, after he leans forward, droops you’re a sixty-year-old woman who’s his wings, and flashes his epaulets, I imagine finally ready to accuse Roman Polanski shouldering the yellow center lines of the road. of molesting you when you were a teen- ager. There is no shortage of the Glo- Near the recently thawed pond, within a long ria Allred type of case. channel of construction, a man holding a sign. One side says slow, the other stop. ive days after I visited Allred in Los Joy and sorrow always run like parallel lines. FAngeles, I sat in the back of a court- room in Norristown, Pennsylvania, a Inside the house, when I leave the lights on, half-hour drive from Philadelphia, and small white moths come like a collection of worship, watched a bank of journalists whisper pulsing their wings up and up the window, as Allred walked in and took her seat. as if in a frenzied trancelike dance, It was 8:30 A.M. on Monday, June 5th, some dervishes, others the penitent on shaky knees. and the criminal trial of Bill Cosby was about to begin. He stood accused of The first few years after my husband’s suicide three counts of felony indecent aggra- I wanted to be the penitent. vated assault against Andrea Constand, I thought I deserved all the pain I could feel. who had been the director of women’s- The drill of roadwork in late summer basketball operations at Temple Uni- was a welcome grinding music. versity, Cosby’s alma mater, in January, Now the yellow center lines are flung like braids behind me. 2004, when the incident in question took place. Each count carried a maxi- —Didi Jackson mum sentence of ten years in prison. The Cosby case had become a high- profile proving ground both for Allred’s seventies mounted a broad anti- rape to trial in multiple ways. She had bol- media-centered strategy and for the story movement, feminist legal theorists stered Constand’s credibility by encour- of righteous victimhood which she has fought judicial provisions that discrim- aging women to come forward and put forward throughout her career. Con- inated against rape victims. (These in- publicizing their accounts. “She was stand first reported the incident in 2005. cluded rules requiring that the victim able to help construct a narrative that Cosby had invited her to his house, she physically resist her attacker and pro- made it very difficult, at least outside said, then offered her pills, and assaulted vide corroborating evidence, as well as the courtroom, to be dismissive of what her after she was incapacitated. At the cautionary instructions to juries about otherwise would have been dismissed,” time, the Montgomery County district the danger of false accusations.) At the Tuerkheimer said. attorney conducted interviews and de- Cosby trial, the fact of cultural prog- Cosby and Allred have lived much of cided not to pursue the case, citing a ress—and its attendant backlash—felt their lives in strange and striking prox- lack of evidence. But Constand was not ever-present. I talked to more than a imity. Born four years apart, they both the first woman to accuse Cosby of rape, few journalists and casual observers grew up poor in Philadelphia, and at- and, in the years following, many other who seemed glad that our conception tended high schools down the block from women came forward. It took a resur- of sexual assault has expanded but who each other. They both received master’s gence of media attention—rooted in hesitated to apply new standards ret- degrees in education and later became Cosby’s celebrity status, the salacious roactively—who said things like “He famous and wealthy in Los Angeles. For nature of the accusations, and a new wave definitely did it, but, back then, every- most of the two and a half decades that of mainstream sympathy for sexual- one else did it, too.” Deborah Tuerk- Allred spent in Philadelphia, she was an assault victims—to prompt the current heimer, a law professor at Northwest- energetic extrovert with no idea, she says, district attorney to file charges, in 2016, ern, told me recently, “Over all these that women occupied a secondary place shortly before the statute of limitations years, there may have been a reluctance in the world. She was born Gloria Ra- was set to expire. to hold Cosby accountable for acts that, chel Bloom on July 3, 1941, to two dot- In recent decades, the cultural un- at the time, didn’t seem like sexual as- ing Jewish parents, Morris and Stella. derstanding of sexual assault and the sault. But now these acts have a differ- Stella was English; she and Morris had legal procedures governing its adjudi- ent meaning. People like Gloria have met, Gloria says they told her, “in Bal- cation have progressed in rough corre- advanced an outcry.” Tuerkheimer noted timore, on a streetcar named desire.” Both spondence. As activists in the nineteen- that Allred had helped push the case left school after the eighth grade. Morris

42 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 worked six days a week as a door-to- the University of Pennsylvania. In 1960, Allred sat in the courtroom and scrib- door salesman, hawking Fuller brushes at nineteen, she married a tall, attrac- bled notes on a legal pad. One day, her and photographic enlargements, and the tive senior, from a patrician family, phone rang, and she was booted from family (Gloria was the only child) lived named Peyton Bray. In her sophomore the courtroom; a Page Six item about in a row house in southwest Philly. They year, she got pregnant and gave birth to it was all over my Twitter feed when I didn’t attend synagogue together—Mor- their daughter, Lisa. (Allred writes that next checked my phone. Each after- ris was too busy, and Stella explored many Bray left her side while she was in labor noon, she walked out onto the steps of religious ideas, going to a church one and went out for a beer.) She soon found the courthouse, and the cameras as- week and an Ethical Culture meeting herself hemmed in by domestic routine. sembled in front of her in an enormous the next—but Gloria went there for Sun- “When I wasn’t caring for Lisa, I was flashing scrum. day school, and was confirmed. Her par- cleaning, studying, or sleeping, in that The prosecution had proffered thir- ents were determined to do well by her: order,” she writes. She and Bray fought teen of the accusers as “prior bad-act wit- on days when they had only enough frequently; they divorced in 1962. He nesses,” hoping to establish Cosby’s money for one movie ticket, Morris would was later diagnosed as having bipolar modus operandi. In pretrial proceedings, send her into the theatre and wait for disorder, and eventually committed sui- Cosby’s defense team had argued that her in a nearby park. When Gloria was cide. When I asked Allred about it, she Allred, who represented ten of the thir- in junior high, she and her mother would couldn’t remember the year. “You’d have teen, had organized this campaign her- put on “American Bandstand” and dance to ask Lisa,” she said. (Bray died in 2003.) self. Allred, they said, had contacted law around the living room after school. Allred’s parents helped her raise enforcement on behalf of her clients; she At fourteen, Gloria was admitted to Lisa while she finished college. In 1968, had flown to Philadelphia to speak with the Philadelphia High School for Girls, Gloria married William Allred, who the district attorney. On the Sunday after which was, at the time, one of only a adopted Lisa. They divorced in 1987, and, the trial began, I met Allred for dinner handful of all-girls public schools in the after graduating from law school, Lisa at the restaurant in the Doubletree Hotel country, and highly competitive. The took her grandparents’ last name. As where she’d been staying. Picking at a women who ran the school modelled a Lisa Bloom, she has followed her moth- caprese salad, she responded to the de- matter-of-fact female ambition that er’s professional trajectory, becoming a fense’s allegations. “I didn’t say if any of seemed, during Gloria’s protected ado- lawyer who specializes in women’s-rights that was true. But if it is true—a big so lescence, galvanizing but hardly defiant. cases that often involve celebrities and what. Why shouldn’t I speak to law en- On the first day of her freshman year, frequently appearing on cable news forcement if my client has information she met Fern Brown—now Fern Brown shows. (They have their differences: that could help with a case?” (Barbara Caplan—who was seated next to her in Bloom loves animals and travel and goes Ashcroft, a law professor at Temple and homeroom. Brown’s eyes were still di- to Burning Man every year with her a former chief of the Montgomery lated from an ophthalmology appoint- husband and three kids.) Earlier this County sex-crimes unit, told me that sex ment, and she was straining to see the year, Bloom represented the three women crimes are often reported by someone teacher. In an anecdote she’s had to re- who accused Bill O’Reilly of other than the victim—a late to dozens of journalists and gala at- sexual harassment. “I came mother, a friend, a civil law- tendees over the years, Caplan remem- up with the media and legal yer.) The defense attorney bers Allred leaning over and saying, “You strategy to take him down,” Angela Agrusa noted the look like you need help. Can I help?” she told me. “We made a similarities in the women’s They became best friends. video of us calling in the accounts, and suggested that “We were different in high school,” complaints to the Fox News this reflected Allred’s manip- Caplan told me. “I was very studious, a hotline. You can’t let these ulations, rather than Cosby’s big nerd. She was a cheerleader, class trea- stories die—you have to pattern of behavior. The thir- surer.” In Allred’s memoir, “Fight Back keep them in the news.” Ad- teen witnesses were win- and Win,” published in 2006, she recounts vertisers pulled away from nowed down to one, Kelly the story of a boy asking her how she O’Reilly, and he was ousted Johnson, whose alleged as- could be a cheerleader at an all-girls high from the network. Bloom also represents sault had occurred most recently, in 1996. school: “ ‘What’s there to cheer about?’ two of Cosby’s accusers, including the Johnson, who is represented by Allred, he asked.” Caplan describes Allred as “al- actress Janice Dickinson. was the prosecution’s first witness. She ways a limelight person,” the most pop- Allred represents thirty-three of them. had worked at William Morris as an as- ular girl at every synagogue dance. Allred’s (There are nearly sixty. Allred has taken sistant to Cosby’s agent. Cosby took an memory is slightly different. “All I did Cosby’s deposition in a civil suit brought interest in her career, she said, and this was study,” she told me. Girls High was against him, in California, by Judy Huth, led to an invitation for lunch in a hotel rigorous, and she wasn’t a proto-Gloria which is set to go to trial in 2018.) Half bungalow. There he gave her a pill that Allred yet. Except, she added, after think- a dozen Cosby accusers came to Nor- incapacitated her, and molested her. When ing about it, she did receive a class award ristown to observe the trial. On the first Johnson was on the stand, the defense at- for Most Persistent. Also, her French day, two of them squealed when they torney Brian McMonagle asked her again teacher nicknamed her Jeanne d’Arc. saw Allred in the bathroom, and ran and again, with slight variations, whether After high school, Allred enrolled at over to give her a hug. During the trial, Allred had written the statement that she

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 43 gave at their initial press conference. Each lars a week. When she found out that story,” Fugate told me. “That’s what time, Johnson said no. He then asked if a male assistant buyer earned ninety, motivates her.” She added, “It’s not the Allred had told her what to say on the she asked about the discrepancy and act, either—it’s the aftermath. It’s the stand, if she had fed her certain words. was told that her colleague needed to female nurse who told her that she “No,” Johnson said again, looking bewil- earn a family wage. (He was a bach- hoped she’d learned her lesson. When dered. McMonagle’s cross-examination elor, Allred says.) She left Gimbels she talked about that, it was the only eventually brought her to tears. and took the exam to become a public- time in seven or eight years of friend- Johnson’s story had obvious parallels school teacher, and began teaching at ship that I’ve ever seen her eyes flare. with Constand’s: a work relationship, an Benjamin Franklin High, which had That’s what she wants to protect her offer of pills. Both women knew that an all-male and mostly black student clients against. Gloria will never allow Cosby wielded power over their profes- body. Bray wasn’t paying child sup- herself to be spoken to like that again.” sional lives and they behaved accord- port, and she had a hard time mak- I asked Allred, at the hotel restau- ingly. They both testified that they had ing ends meet. Shortly before she rant, if she’d felt, while she was in the never been interested in sexual contact moved to Los Angeles, in 1966—“I hospital, like she needed a champion, with him, nor had they consented to figured, if I was going to be poor, then and if she’d then decided to become such a thing. There was not much dis- I’d be poor where it’s warm,” she the champion she’d lacked. “No,” she agreement about the basic facts of the writes—she hired an attorney, and said. “I was just stunned. This was not case—the jury’s calculations depended Bray was arrested for nonpayment. something I had anticipated for my- on whether small inconsistencies, both The charge was dropped soon after- self, not something anyone had ever perceived and actual, in Constand’s tes- ward; Allred doesn’t remember why. talked about with me.” Though she timony made her seem like a liar, and In L.A., Allred and her daughter was raising her daughter to be out- whether her story, much of which Cosby moved into a rented house just south spoken—“I was born a baby feminist, had corroborated, met the jurors’ under- of the 101. They shared it with one of and I was radicalized after that,” Bloom standing of sexual assault. Allred’s girlfriends, who had three told me—Allred didn’t talk about her In a police interview, Cosby described daughters and had recently left her trauma initially. She didn’t tell Caplan his behavior that night by saying, “I go husband. She started teaching at an- for a long time, or her mother. Then, into the area that is somewhere between other mostly black high school, in in the eighties, she decided to disclose permission and rejection. I was not Watts. This was a year after the riots. her abortion to a journalist at the Phil- stopped.” Over dinner, Allred repeated Allred still didn’t think of her life as adelphia Inquirer. “I thought, If I’m the line to me, incredulous. “ ‘Somewhere “cause-oriented,” she told me. During going to be ashamed as a women’s- between permission and rejection’? What her first year in California, she went rights attorney, what hope do we have?” is that? I always say—you’re either to Acapulco for a vacation. One night, Before Allred moved to Los Ange- pregnant or you’re not. There’s no in- a local physician asked her out to din- les, she had dated a law student and de- between.” I asked her if she’d ever talked ner. He had to make a few house calls veloped an interest in what he was study- about consent growing up. “Absolutely first, he said, and they stopped by a ing; she picked up an application to Penn’s not,” she said. “We didn’t talk about rape, motel. He took her to an empty room, law school but discarded it because of or abortion, or child support, or sexual pulled out a gun, and raped her. She the steep tuition. In L.A., she was intro- harassment, or sex discrimination, or any- didn’t report the crime to the police, duced to William Allred by a mutual ac- thing. It was like the Cave Age.” She re- fearing that she wouldn’t be believed. quaintance. He ran an aircraft-manufac- called one day during a period when she Soon after returning home, she dis- turing outfit called Donallco, which he’d was teaching in Philadelphia and com- covered that she was pregnant. founded in the fifties. After they were muting to N.Y.U. for her master’s de- It was seven years before Roe v. Wade, married, they moved to a house in Bur- gree. In a philosophy class, she brought and abortion was illegal in California. bank, where Gloria invited her students up the lack of rights for black Ameri- She made an appointment for one and over for pool parties. She left her school cans, and her professor asked her, What went alone, as instructed. She began to work at the Los Angeles Teachers As- about women’s rights? “What rights don’t hemorrhaging after she got home, and sociation, organizing teachers during the women have?” she remembered saying. the man who had performed the pro- East L.A. student walkouts, and then re- “All he said was ‘You’ll find out.’ ” cedure declined to offer guidance. Allred turned to teaching and earned a creden- was afraid to go to the hospital. She sat tial at U.S.C. to become a high-school llred majored in English at Penn, at home, feverish and bleeding; even- principal. “I wanted to be a principal in Aand wrote her undergraduate tually, her roommate called an ambu- Watts,” she told me, “but this was the honors thesis on Ralph Ellison, Alex lance, which took her to a hospital ward time of the Black Power movement, and Haley, and James Baldwin. She grad- filled with other women who had had they wanted African-American princi- uated as a single mother, “flat broke, illegal abortions. She didn’t realize until pals in those high schools. I agreed with recently divorced, and undecided about later that patients around her had died. them—and when they offered me a po- how to make my way in life,” she writes A nurse told her, as she was recovering, sition in the Valley I said, Thanks but in her memoir. She took a job as an “This will teach you a lesson.” no thanks.” assistant buyer at a Gimbels depart- “If you were to write a screenplay She decided to go to law school, and ment store, earning seventy- five dol- of her life, that’s the catalyst for the enrolled at Loyola. Bloom remembers

44 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 her mother as “extra grateful to be in law school, doing what she was meant to do.” Allred befriended two classmates, Mi- chael Maroko and Nathan Goldberg, who shared her interest in social justice. In 1976, a year after graduating, and with financial support from William, the three of them started a firm. Their expertise developed quickly: discrimination, ha- rassment, sexual abuse, employment. In 1980, Allred successfully fought against Los Angeles County’s practice of shackling pregnant female prisoners during labor and childbirth. In 1984, she sued the Los Angeles archdiocese on behalf of Rita Milla, a devout woman from a low-income family who claimed that she had been regularly forced into sex with Catholic priests. Abuse by priests was not widely discussed at the time; it was another decade and a half before the Boston Globe’s landmark in- vestigative series confirmed the Church’s methods of systematic concealment. Allred fought the case for years, and ultimately proved Milla’s claims. In 1985, she and Maroko settled another high- “The meaning of existence is this thirty-two-dollar jar of salt.” profile case: A group of Holocaust de- niers had offered fifty thousand dollars •• to anyone who could produce evidence that Jews were gassed at Auschwitz. After a man named Mel Mermelstein, hired a public-relations consultant. you probably have the wrong Allred. who had survived the camp, provided In 1985, federal investigators opened Bye.” When I called back, he said he his own testimony, other eyewitness ac- an inquiry into Donallco, which was didn’t want to comment on anything. counts, and ashes from Auschwitz, the suspected of selling counterfeit aircraft “It’s all in the past,” he said. group published a letter accusing him parts. In 1986, Gloria asked William of perpetrating a hoax. Mermelstein for a separation. They divorced the fol- n Monday of the second week of sued, and eventually received a ninety- lowing year, after William was convicted Othe trial, Cosby’s defense team thousand-dollar settlement, a formal on charges of conspiring to defraud called a single witness, a laconic police apology, and an on-the-record acknowl- the government. (Allred, Maroko & sergeant named Richard Schaffer. Mc- edgment of the truth of his story. Goldberg represented William during Monagle asked Schaffer about a 2005 Allred became well known in Los his criminal trial.) Following a hear- document he had created, called “Ques- Angeles. Fugate remembers being in ing after the divorce, Gloria was awarded tions for Andrea,” in which Schaffer ex- college in the early eighties and think- four million dollars. William contested pressed curiosity about why Constand ing of Allred as a sort of local Wonder the judgment in a bankruptcy hearing, had agreed to meet Cosby at a casino Woman figure. “There would be a news in 1992. “It’s the height of hypocrisy before the night of the alleged assault. story on TV, man after man after man for her to do this,” he told the Los An- Then, seven minutes after beginning its talking about it, and then, suddenly, geles Times. “I put her through law case, the defense rested. The two sides this petite, dark-haired woman would school, and now she’s going to take ev- presented their closing arguments, and take the stage, with this air of bravery,” erything I ever earned.” He added, “I the jury began deliberating that night. she said. In her structured eighties out- don’t think feminists would approve of On Tuesday, the jurors returned to the fits, Allred cut a bold and recognizable that. Feminists believe in equal rights courtroom to ask the judge, Steven T. figure. She walked in the gay-pride pa- for men and women.” When I asked O’Neill, several questions, including a rade, shouted into megaphones at pro- Gloria about his comments, she told request for clarification concerning the tests, and posed for photographs to me, “I’ve never seen that article. I’m phrase “without her knowledge.” Judge publicize and commemorate her work. not aware of any such quotes.” Even- O’Neill said that he could not define Goldberg told me, “It was obvious that, tually, I reached William on the phone. the charges any further. for Gloria, media was very intuitive.” “A reporter for The New Yorker?” he That night, I spotted Allred in the He pointed out that the firm has never said, after I identified myself. “I think courthouse. It had been a long, hot day,

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 45 and the journalists were getting sloppy— isn’t particularly religious, but she be- come,” she said, expressing her hope complaining, charging their phones next lieves in the Jewish concept of tikkun that the court would allow more bad- to the bathroom, eating takeout on the olam, that it is the job of individuals to act witnesses to testify when they re- floor. Allred was sitting ramrod straight repair the world. “Each one of us has tried the case. She praised the courage on a little bench, sending e-mails on her the responsibility of turning a negative of the women who had come forward. laptop. She was supposed to take the experience into a positive experience,” For a moment, she smiled, as if consol- train to Washington, D.C., on Thurs- she had told me the previous week, in ing a dear friend. day, to testify at a city-council hearing Los Angeles. “Maybe that’s why these The Cosby trial will begin again next about a potential extension of the crim- bad things happened. Maybe that’s the April, with a new defense team, led by inal statute of limitations for rape and purpose—if there is a purpose, and I Thomas Mesereau, a Los Angeles law- sexual assault, but she was waiting for don’t know that there is. But a human yer whose past clients—Michael Jack- the verdict. “I need to be here for the being likes to think there is.” son, Mike Tyson, Robert Blake—are accusers,” she said. Extending the statute of limitations more or less the opposite of Allred’s. The D.C. hearing was part of a larger will not lessen the inherent difficulty of (The two lawyers have publicly sparred effort initiated by several of these women. securing a conviction in a sexual-assault in the past.) Regardless of the outcome, Frustrated that they couldn’t file charges case. The crime is uniquely tough to ad- Cosby’s career is over, and his legacy is against Cosby because the statute of judicate: it frequently occurs in private, in ruins. There is a growing sense among limitations had expired, they had asked without witnesses; the challenge of con- women that it is now possible to name, Allred if an extension would help. It vincing a twelve-person jury of guilt “be- shame, and prosecute sexual predators— wouldn’t help them, she said, but it would yond a reasonable doubt” will remain and that they will find public support help other people—and, if they found prodigious even as attitudes toward the if they do. In his closing argument for a legislator in their states willing to spon- crime change. But there are many ave- the defense, McMonagle had shouted, sor a bill, she’d help them advocate for nues that lead to a more victim-friendly “We know why we’re here! We’re not change. She and her clients have suc- world. In her office, Allred had talked here because of Andrea Constand.” He cessfully won statute-of-limitations ex- about how outlawing the nonconsensual pointed to the journalists in the back of tensions in Nevada and Colorado. distribution of nude photographs wouldn’t the courtroom. “We’re here because of Thanks to their efforts in California, stop the practice. “The fact that rape is them banging the drum!” there is now no statute of limitations a crime doesn’t mean that rape is no lon- for rape, sexual assault, and child- ger going to happen,” she said. But, when t would seem that we have entered molestation cases in that state. Allred an act is recognized as criminal, that in Ia new era of women’s empowerment, is proud that her clients are working to itself can “serve as a disincentive. It will were it not for ample evidence to the change the law; she hopes that some of mean that there are consequences.” contrary. Last November, for instance, them will think about running for office. After a week of deliberation, the the United States elected Donald Trump Allred was approached years ago by peo- Cosby jury failed to reach a verdict, and President. Allred has tussled with Trump ple who wanted her to run for a seat in a mistrial was declared. Allred held a before. In 2012, she represented a trans- the California State Senate; she didn’t press conference outside the courthouse, gender woman named Jenna Talackova, seriously consider it, she told me. She flanked by two accusers. “Justice will who had been barred from competing in the Miss Universe pageant, which Trump bought in 1996. (He sold it in Septem- ber, 2015, during his campaign.) At a press conference, Allred pointed out that Talackova hadn’t asked Trump for any proof that he was a naturally born man. In a comment to TMZ, Trump took the reference to his genitalia a step further: “I think Gloria would be very impressed with me, I really do.” Talackova was ul- timately allowed to compete, but Trump wouldn’t drop it. On Twitter, he asked, “Is Gloria a man or a woman????---- few men would know the answer to that one.” Two years later, one of Allred’s clients was in the greenroom before an appear- ance on Fox News, and Trump popped in. “Gloria is absolutely relentless,” he said. “Never, ever, ever, ever, ever fire her,” he added, magnanimously, in an an- ecdote that Allred later relayed to the Daily Beast and repeated to me. At a Thai restaurant near her office, Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s New York of women’s-rights attorneys, seeking I asked Allred if the election had lawyer, has filed several motions argu- representatives from every state. “It changed her sense of moral progress in ing that Trump has Presidential immu- can’t just be people who have interest,” the United States. “The election was a nity. In a brief filed in July, he argued she said. “They have to have successes, heartbreaker,” she said. “But that’s the that Trump’s statements about the ac- I think.” way it’s always been for gender prog- cusers should be seen as campaign rhet- The world has changed since Allred ress, which has always been behind ra- oric intended to secure a victory, and first started practicing. She has antici- cial progress—two steps forward, one should not be taken literally. He also pated, and helped create, a variety of step back.” She was a delegate for Hil- cited statements from Allred at her cultural shifts: the advent of unapolo- lary Clinton, with whom she is friendly. pre-Inauguration press conference—she getic, mainstream, professionalized fem- The two have more than a few quali- had likened the suit to Paula Jones’s inism; a valuation of victimhood; a broad ties in common. They are both prom- sexual-harassment case against Bill embrace of personal branding; a tabloid inent feminists whose ambition has Clinton—as evidence that the primary energy that consumes even the White grated on the public. (Which is to say goal of the lawsuit is to trigger impeach- House; a society in which ordinary that they are both prominent, ambi- ment proceedings. Allred seems happy women have begun to feel confident ac- tious feminists.) They speak like peo- to give that impression. She smiles when cusing powerful men who abuse them. ple who long ago found the story they she talks about the prospect of taking On September 19th, in partnership wanted to stick to. Each seems tem- Trump’s deposition in the matter. “I look with the New York law firm Cuti Hecker peramentally incapable of absorbing forward to him telling the truth, as I Wang, Allred filed an opposition brief the charge of self-interest, having woven expect any witness under oath to do,” in her lawsuit against Trump, arguing self-interest together so tightly with an she told me. Her smile got bigger. “And that the President has no immunity for interest in the public good. if he doesn’t—if he’s not truthful about unofficial acts and that this suit would On November 8th, Allred was in a material fact, and he knows he’s not not interfere with the performance of downtown Los Angeles at an Election being truthful about a material fact— his duties. The brief supplies seventeen Night party for supporters of the Clin- then that would constitute perjury, a statements from Trump discrediting ton campaign. As the electoral map high crime or misdemeanor for which Zervos or other accusers. “Lies, lies. No started turning red, young women at he could be impeached.” witnesses, no nothing. All big lies,” the event came up to her, sobbing, ask- Since her initial press conference with Trump said at a rally in West Palm ing her what they should do, what could Zervos, Allred has been saying that, if Beach, last October. “Words matter,” be done. “They expected me to have the Trump retracted what he said about the brief states. Later, it goes on, “De- answer,” she said. Allred prides herself Zervos, “we would dismiss the case, and fendant is not above the law.” There is on supplying answers, and options, for we would not seek damages or attor- also the occasional flash of wit: “Defen- women in crisis. But that night she ney’s fees.” Trump wouldn’t have to dant is of course correct that his office didn’t have one. testify under oath about his sexual is singularly important.” One answer that Allred provided for behavior. “But,” she added, “we would Whenever I asked Allred whether herself, later, was to sue the President- need an acknowledgment that what she she enjoyed what she did, she always elect. During the campaign, more than said was true.” turned back to the idea of duty. But I a dozen women accused Trump of past got the distinct sense that sometimes, sexual misconduct. He responded by y all accounts, Allred refuses to con- at least, she finds her work fun. At the saying, “All of these liars will be sued Bsider retirement. “You’d have to drag Doubletree in Norristown, during the after the election is over.” Allred picked her kicking and screaming out of the Cosby trial, she was assigned a room up four new clients. Three days before office,” Bloom told me. One day in Au- adjacent to McMonagle’s and directly the Inauguration, she held a press con- gust, I spoke to Allred shortly after she across from a conference room where ference with Summer Zervos, a former went to court in Los Angeles to repre- the defense was prepping. When I met contestant on “The Apprentice,” who sent a transgender woman who had been her in the lobby, she told me about this, alleged that Trump had harassed and assaulted and then immediately flew to then leaned in close and asked, “Should groped her at the Beverly Hills Hotel a small town in Texas to represent a we go?” We took the elevator upstairs in 2007 and then took back a job offer minor who had been sexually abused by and walked slowly past the room’s big after she rebuffed him. They announced a police detective. “I would be exhausted windows. Allred, in the mode of os- that Zervos was suing Trump for def- if I couldn’t work,” she said. Fugate told tentatious inconspicuousness, shook amation. On January 21st, Allred walked me, “One day, she’ll just have a heart at- with silent laughter as we passed the with Zervos in the Women’s March on tack at her desk while she’s in the mid- huddled team. She stage-whispered, Washington, flanked by other Trump dle of something, and that’ll be that.” “You’ve got to block me so they don’t accusers. “It changed Summer,” Allred I asked Allred who will carry on her see!” A few hours later, when we fin- said. “It’s a very scary thing to have a work when she is gone—her daughter, ished dinner, Allred deadpanned that lawsuit against the President of the perhaps? “I hope the next Gloria Allred she was going to go back upstairs and United States, particularly this Presi- is many, many young lawyers,” she re- surprise them. She would hold a sign dent. But the Women’s March showed plied. Within the National Trial Law- up to the conference-room window, Summer that she was not alone.” yers’ Association, she’s forming a group saying “Time’s up!” 

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 47 U.S. JOURNAL IS HEALTH CARE A RIGHT?

It’s a question that divides Americans. But it’s possible to find common ground, too.

BY ATUL GAWANDE

s health care a right? The United nosed with chronic-fatigue syndrome and fact, the whole idea that government States remains the only developed depression. She became addicted to the would get involved in the financing of I country in the world unable to come opioids prescribed for her joint pains and health care bothered him. One person’s to agreement on an answer. Earlier this was started on methadone. Her liver began right to health care becomes another year, I was visiting Athens, Ohio, the to fail. In 2014, she was sent two hun- person’s burden to pay for it, he said. town in the Appalachian foothills where dred miles away to the Cleveland Clinic Taking other people’s money had to be I grew up. The battle over whether to re- for a liver-transplant evaluation. There, justified, and he didn’t see how it could peal, replace, or repair the Affordable Care after more than two decades of Maria’s be in cases like this. Act raged then, as it continues to rage deteriorating health, doctors figured out “Everybody has a right to access health now. So I began asking people whether what the problem was: sarcoidosis, an care,” he allowed, “but they should be they thought that health care was a right. inflammatory condition that produces contributing to the cost.” He pointed out The responses were always interesting. hardened nodules in organs throughout that anyone could walk into a hospital A friend had put me in touch with the body. The doctors gave her immuno- with an emergency condition, get treated, a forty-seven-year-old woman I’ll call suppressive medication, and the nodules and be billed afterward. “Yes, they may Maria Dutton. She lived with her hus- shrank away. Within a year, she had weaned have collectors coming after them,” he band, Joe, down a long gravel driveway herself off the methadone. said. “But I believe everybody should con- that snaked into the woods off a rural “It was miraculous,” she said. In mid- tribute for the treatment they receive.” road. “You may feel like you are in the dle age, with her daughter grown up and Like her husband, Maria leans con- movie ‘Deliverance,’ ” she said, but it wasn’t in the Army Reserves herself, Maria got servative. In the 2016 election, Joe voted like that at all. They had a tidy, double- her life back and returned to school. All for Donald Trump. Maria voted for Gary wide modular home with flowered wall- along, she’d had coverage through her Johnson, the Libertarian candidate. But paper, family pictures on every surface, a husband’s work. “They have amazing in- on health care she was torn. Joe wanted vase of cut roses on a sideboard, and an surance,” she said. “I think one year the Obamacare repealed. She didn’t. absurdly friendly hound in the yard. Maria insurance paid out two hundred thou- “I am becoming more liberal,” she said. told me her story sitting at the kitchen sand dollars. But we paid out, too.” “I believe that people should be judged table with Joe. This was an understatement. Between by how they treat the least of our society.” She had joined the Army out of high a six-thousand-dollar deductible and At her sickest, she had been one of them. school and married her recruiter—Joe is hefty co-pays and premiums, the Dut- But she was reluctant to say that health eleven years older—but after a year she tons’ annual costs reached fifteen thou- care is a right. “There’s where the conser- had to take a medical discharge. She had sand dollars. They were barely getting vative side comes in and says, ‘You know developed severe fatigue, double vision, by. Then one day in 2001 Joe blacked what? I work really hard. I deserve a lit- joint and neck pains, and muscle weak- out, for no apparent reason, at a Girl tle more than the guy who sits around.’ ” ness. At first, doctors thought that she Scout meeting for their daughter and A right makes no distinction be- had multiple sclerosis. When that was fell down two flights of stairs, resulting tween the deserving and the undeserv- ruled out, they were at a loss. After Joe in a severe concussion. It put him out ing, and that felt perverse to Maria and left the military, he found steady, secure of work for six months. Given the health- Joe. They both told me about people work as an electrical technician at an in- care costs and his loss of income, the they know who don’t work and yet get dustrial plant nearby. Maria did secre- couple ran out of money. Medicaid coverage with no premiums, tarial and office-manager jobs and had a “We had to file for bankruptcy,” Joe no deductibles, no co-pays, no costs at daughter. But her condition worsened, said. He told me this reluctantly. It took all—coverage that the Duttons couldn’t and soon she became too ill to work. them more than five years to dig out of dream of. “I didn’t even have enough energy to the hole. He considered the bankruptcy “I see people on the same road I live fry a pound of hamburger,” she said. “I’d “pretty shameful,” he said, and had told on who have never worked a lick in their have to fry half of it and then sit down, almost no one about it, not even his fam- life,” Joe said, his voice rising. “They’re rest, and get up and fry the rest. I didn’t ily. (This was why they didn’t want me living on disability incomes, and they’re have enough energy to vacuum one room to use their names.) He saw it as a per- healthier than I am.” Maria described of the house.” Eventually, she was diag- sonal failure—not the government’s. In a relative who got disability payments

A right doesn’t distinguish between the deserving and the undeserving, and, for many in my Ohio home town, that rankled.

48 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY GEOFF MCFETRIDGE THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 49 and a Medicaid card for a supposedly ties, and losing his job selling motor- their own deer, fix their own cars (also bad back, while taking off-the-books cycles, during the great recession. He grow their own weed, fight their own roofing jobs. went through a year of chemotherapy and, fights, get their own revenge). People here “Frankly, it annoys the crap out of later, three years without a job. He can fig- are survivors. me—they’re nothing but grasshoppers ure out how to fix and build almost any- Monna French was one. She was fifty- in the system,” Joe said, recalling the fable thing, but, without a college degree, he three years old and the librarian at Ath- about the thriftless grasshopper and the had few employment options. Hundreds ens Middle School. She’d been through provident ant. of job applications later, though, he was a lot in life. She had started a local taxi The Duttons were doing all they could hired as an operator at our town’s water- company with her first husband, but they to earn a living and pay their taxes—taxes treatment plant, where I visited him. couldn’t afford health insurance. When that helped provide free health care for The plant was built in the nineteen- she gave birth to her daughter Maggie people who did nothing to earn it. Mean- fifties. We walked among giant pipes and then to her son, Mac, the couple had while, they faced thousands of dollars in and valves and consoles that controlled to pay cash, pray that there’d be no un- medical bills themselves. That seemed the flow of water from local ground wells affordable complications, and try to leave wrong. And in their view government through a series of huge pools for filtra- the hospital the next morning to avoid involvement had only made matters worse. tion, softening, and chlorination, and extra charges. When Monna and her hus- “My personal opinion is that anytime out to the water towers on the tallest band divorced, litigation over the busi- the government steps in and says, ‘You ridges surrounding the town. The low ness left her with no income or assets. must do this,’ it’s overstepping its bound- hum of the pump motors churned in “I had twenty-six dollars, two kids, aries,” Joe said. “A father, mother, two the background. and a cat,” she said. kids working their asses off—they’re mak- People don’t think about their water, She held down five part-time jobs, ing minimum wage and are barely get- Tim said, but we can’t live without it. It working as a teaching assistant for three ting by—I have no problem helping them. is not a luxury; it’s a necessity of human different schools during the day, bartend- If I have someone who’s spent his whole existence. An essential function of gov- ing at night, and selling furniture at Odd life a drunk and a wastrel, no, I have ernment, therefore, is to insure that peo- Lots department store on weekends, while no desire to help. That’s just the basics.” ple have clean water. And that’s the way her parents helped with the kids. Finally, he sees health care. Joe wanted govern- she got the librarian job. It was classified uch feelings are widely shared. They’re ment to step back; Tim wanted govern- as clerical work and didn’t pay well. But Swhat brought the country within a ment to step up. The divide seemed un- it meant that her family had health in- single vote of repealing major parts of bridgeable. Yet the concerns that came surance, and a roof over their heads. She President Obama’s expansion of health- with each viewpoint were understandable, also met Larry, an iron worker and Viet- care coverage. Some people see rights as and I wondered if there were places where nam veteran, who became her second protections provided by government. But those concerns might come together. husband. He had two children, but he others, like the Duttons, see rights as pro- Before I entered the field of public was older and they were grown. Together, tections from government. health, where it’s a given that health care Monna and Larry had a child of their Tim Williams, one of my closest child- is a right and not a privilege, I had grown own, named Macie. Then, thirteen years hood friends, disagreed with the Dut- up steeped in a set of core Midwestern ago, Maggie, at age sixteen, was killed tons. Tim is a quiet fifty-two-year-old beliefs: that you can’t get something for in a car accident. Seven years ago, Larry’s with the physique of a bodybuilder—he nothing, and that you should be reluc- son, Eric, who had spina bifida and mul- once bench-pressed me when we were tant to impose on others and, likewise, tiple medical needs, died suddenly in his in high school—and tightly cropped gray to be imposed upon. Here self-reliance sleep, at the age of forty. hair that used to be flame red. He sur- is a totemic value. Athens, Ohio, is a place After twenty-two years as a librarian, vived metastatic melanoma, in the nine- where people brew their own beer, shoot Monna still makes only sixteen dollars and fifty cents an hour. Her take-home pay is less than a thousand dollars a month, after taxes and health-insurance contributions. Her annual deductible is three thousand dollars. Larry, now seventy-four, has re- tired, and his pension, military benefits, and Medicare helped keep them afloat. For all her struggles, though, Monna is the kind of person who is always ready to offer a helping hand. When I visited her, there were stacks of posters on her porch, printed for a fund-raiser she was organizing for her daughter’s high-school marching band. She raised money for her township’s volunteer fire brigade. She was the vice-president of her local union, one of the largest in the county, which I asked her what made it different. rights include physical security, water, represents school-bus drivers, clerical staff, “We all pay in for that,” she pointed shelter, and health care. Meeting these custodians, and other non-certified work- out, “and we all benefit.” That made all basics is, he maintained, among govern- ers. She’d been deeply involved in con- the difference in the world. From the ment’s highest purposes and priorities. tract negotiations to try to hold on to moment we earn an income, we all con- But how much aid and protection a so- their wages and health benefits in the tribute to Medicare, and, in return, when ciety should provide, given the costs, is face of cutbacks. we reach sixty-five we can all count on ultimately a complex choice for democ- “I don’t know anything about health it, regardless of our circumstances. There racies. Debate often becomes focussed care,” she protested when I asked her for is genuine reciprocity. You don’t know on the scale of the benefits conferred and her thoughts on the subject. In fact, she whether you’ll need more health care the costs extracted. Yet the critical ques- knew a lot. And, as she spoke, I thought than you pay for or less. Her tion may be how widely shared I glimpsed a place where the health-care husband thus far has needed these benefits and costs are. divide might just allow a bridge. much less than he’s paid for. Arnold Jonas is another Monna considered herself a conser- Others need more. But we all childhood friend of mine. vative. The notion of health care as a right get the same deal, and, she felt, Blond, ruddy-faced, and sport- struck her as another way of undermin- that’s what makes it O.K. ing a paunch at fifty-two, he ing work and responsibility: “Would I “I believe one hundred per has rarely had a nine-to-five love to have health insurance provided cent that Medicare needs to job and isn’t looking for one. to me and be able to stay home?” Of exist the way it does,” she said. The work he loves is in art and course, she said. “But I guess I’m going This was how almost everyone design—he once designed a to be honest and tell you that I’m old I spoke to saw it. To them, Medi- project for the Smithsonian— school, and I’m not really good at accept- care was less about a universal right than but what usually pays the bills is physi- ing anything I don’t work for.” about a universal agreement on how much cal labor or mechanical work. He lives She could quit her job and get Med- we give and how much we get. from paycheck to paycheck. (“Retirement icaid free, she pointed out, just as some Understanding this seems key to break- savings? Ha! You’re funny, Atul.”) Still, of her neighbors had. “They have a card ing the current political impasse. The deal he has always known how to take care that comes in the mail, and they get ev- we each get on health care has a profound of himself. “I own my house,” he told me. erything they need!” she said. “Where impact on our lives—on our savings, on “I have no debts.” does it end? I mean, how much respon- our well-being, on our life expectancy. In This is a guy who’s so handy that the sibility do tax-paying people like me have? the American health-care system, how- cars he drives are rehabbed wrecks re- How much is too much?” She went on, ever, different people get astonishingly built from spare parts—including the old “I understand that there’s going to be a different deals. That disparity is having a Volvo that he drove to the strip-mall percentage of the population that we are corrosive effect on how we view our coun- Mexican restaurant near my family’s going to have to provide for.” When she try, our government, and one another. house, where we were catching up. But was a young mother with two children when I asked him about health care he and no home, she’d had to fall back on he Oxford political philosopher could only shake his head. welfare and Medicaid for three months. THenry Shue observed that our typ- “I just try not to think about it,” he Her stepson, Eric, had been on Medi- ical way of looking at rights is incomplete. said. He hadn’t seen a doctor in at least caid and Social Security Disability In- People are used to thinking of rights as a decade. He got a health-care plan surance before he died. Her eighty-three- moral trump cards, near-absolute require- through an insurance-agent friend, but year-old mother, who has dementia and ments that all of us can demand. But, could only afford one with minimal requires twenty-four-hour care, was also Shue argued, rights are as much about benefits. He wasn’t sure whether he’d got on Medicaid. “If you’re disabled, if you’re our duties as about our freedoms. Even an Obamacare subsidy. “I don’t read the mentally ill, fine, I get it,” Monna said. the basic right to physical security—to fine print, because it’s going to be com- “But I know so many folks on Medicaid be free of threats or harm—has no mean- pletely confusing anyway.” All he knew that just don’t work. They’re lazy.” Like ing without a vast system of police de- was that the plan cost him a hundred and the Duttons, she felt that those people partments, courts, and prisons, a system ten dollars a month, and the high de- didn’t deserve what they were getting. that requires extracting large amounts of ductible (however many thousands of But then we talked about Medicare, money and effort from others. Once costs dollars it was, it was well beyond his sav- which provided much of her husband’s and mechanisms of implementation enter ings account) made doctors’ visits almost health care and would one day provide the picture, things get complicated. Trade- out of the question. hers. That was different, Monna told me. offs now have to be considered. And say- “I am lucky I can get my teeth looked Liberals often say that conservative vot- ing that something is a basic right starts at because I’m dating a dental hygienist. ers who oppose government-guaranteed to seem the equivalent of saying only, “It But”—here he showed me his white- health care and yet support Medicare are is very, very important.” toothed grin—“I can’t date a dental hy- either hypocrites or dunces. But Monna, Shue held that what we really mean gienist and a cardiologist.” like almost everyone I spoke to, under- by “basic rights” are those which are nec- Arnold, with his code of self-reliance, stood perfectly well what Medicare was essary in order for us to enjoy any rights had eliminated nearly all sources of inse- and was glad to have it. or privileges at all. In his analysis, basic curity from his life. But here was one that

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 51 was beyond his control. “The biggest worry provide basic services like trash pickup, are somewhere in the middle of that line. I have would be some sort of health-care a sewer system, roadways, police and fire But instead of moving forward you find need,” he said. A serious medical issue protection, schools, and health care. Do that you are falling back. Ahead of you, would cost him his income. As an inde- people have a right to trash pickup? It people are cutting in line. You see immi- pendent contractor, he isn’t eligible for seemed odd to say so, and largely irrele- grants and shirkers among them. It’s not unemployment benefits. And, having vant. The key point was that these necessi- hard to imagine how infuriating this could passed the age of fifty, he was just wait- ties can be provided only through collec- be to some, how it could fuel an Amer- ing for some health problem to happen. tive effort and shared costs. When people ica First ideal, aiming to give pride of So did he feel that he had a right to get very different deals on these things, place to “real” Americans and demoting health care? No. “I never thought about the pact breaks down. And that’s what those who would undermine that iden- it as a matter of rights,” he said. “A lot of has happened with American health care. tity—foreigners, Muslims, Black Lives these things we think are rights, we ac- The reason goes back to a seemingly Matter supporters, feminists, “snowflakes.” tually end up paying for.” He thinks that innocuous decision made during the Sec- Our political debates seem to focus the left typically plays down the reality ond World War, when a huge part of the on what the rules should be for our of the costs, which drives him crazy. But workforce was sent off to fight. To keep place in line. Should the most highly ed- the right typically plays down the reality labor costs from skyrocketing, the Roo- ucated get to move up to the front? The of the needs, which drives him crazy, too. sevelt Administration imposed a wage most talented? Does seniority matter? In his view, everyone has certain needs freeze. Employers and unions wanted What about people whose ancestors were that neither self-reliance nor the free mar- some flexibility, in order to attract de- cheated and mistreated? ket can meet. He can fix his house, but sired employees, so the Administration The mistake is accepting the line, and he needs the help of others if it catches permitted increases in health-insurance its dismal conception of life as a zero-sum fire. He can keep his car running, but he benefits, and made them tax-exempt. It proposition. It gives up on the more en- needs the help of others to pave and main- didn’t seem a big thing. But, ever since, compassing possibilities of shared be- tain the roads. And, whatever he does to we’ve been trying to figure out how to longing, mutual loyalty, and collective look after himself, he will eventually need cover the vast portion of the country that gains. America’s founders believed these the help of others for his medical care. doesn’t have employer-provided health possibilities to be fundamental. They held “I think the goal should be security,” insurance: low-wage workers, children, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness he said of health care. “Not just finan- retirees, the unemployed, small-business to be “unalienable rights” possessed cial security but mental security—know- owners, the self-employed, the disabled. equally by all members of their new na- ing that, no matter how bad things We’ve had to stitch together different tion. The terms of membership have had get, this shouldn’t be what you worry rules and systems for each of these cate- to be rewritten a few times since, some- about. We don’t worry about the Fire gories, and the result is an unholy, expen- times in blood. But the aspiration has Department, or the police. We don’t sive mess that leaves millions unprotected. endured, even as what we need to fulfill worry about the roads we travel on. And No other country in the world has built it has changed. it’s not, like, ‘Here’s the traffic lane for its health-care system this way, and, in the When the new country embarked on the ones who did well and era of the gig economy, it’s its experiment in democracy, health care saved money, and you poor becoming only more prob- was too primitive to matter to life or lib- people, you have to drive lematic. Between 2005 and erty. The average citizen was a hardscrab- over here.’ ” He went on, 2015, according to analysis by ble rural farmer who lived just forty years. “Somebody I know said the economists Alan Krueger People mainly needed government to in- to me, ‘If we give every- and Lawrence Katz, ninety- sure physical security and the rule of law. body health care, it’ll be four per cent of net job growth Knowledge and technology, however, ex- abused.’ I told her that’s a has been in “alternative work panded the prospects of life and liberty, risk we take. The roads are arrangements”—freelancing, and, accordingly, the requirements of gov- abused. A lot of things are independent contracting, tem- ernment. During the next two centuries, abused. It’s part of the deal.” ping, and the like—which we relied on government to establish a He told me about a friend who’d un- typically offer no health benefits. And system of compulsory public education, dergone an emergency appendectomy. we’ve all found ourselves battling over infrastructure for everything from run- “She panicked when she woke up in the who deserves less and who deserves more. ning water to the electric grid, and old- hospital realizing it would cost her a age pensions, along with tax systems to fortune,” he said. “Think about that. A he Berkeley sociologist Arlie Rus- pay for it all. As in other countries, these lot of people will take a crappy job just Tsell Hochschild spent five years programs were designed to be universal. to get the health benefits rather than listening to Tea Party supporters in Lou- For the most part, we didn’t divide fam- start an entrepreneurial idea. If we’re isiana, and in her masterly book “Strang- ilies between those who qualified and talking about tax breaks for rich people ers in Their Own Land” she identifies those who didn’t, between participants to create jobs and entrepreneurialism, what she calls the deep story that they and patrons. This inclusiveness is likely why not health care to allow regular lived and felt. Visualize a long line of a major reason that these policies have people to do the same thing?” people snaking up a hill, she says. Just garnered such enduring support. As he saw it, government existed to over the hill is the American Dream. You Health care has been the cavernous

52 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 exception. Medical discoveries have en- abled the average American to live eighty years or longer, and with a higher qual- ity of life than ever before. Achieving this requires access not only to emergency care but also, crucially, to routine care and med- icines, which is how we stave off and man- age the series of chronic health issues that accumulate with long life. We get high blood pressure and hepatitis, diabetes and depression, cholesterol problems and colon cancer. Those who can’t afford the requi- site care get sicker and die sooner. Yet, in a country where pretty much everyone has trash pickup and K-12 schooling for the kids, we’ve been reluctant to address our Second World War mistake and es- tablish a basic system of health-care cov- erage that’s open to all. Some even argue that such a system is un-American, step- ping beyond the powers the Founders en- visioned for our government.

n fact, in a largely forgotten episode Iin American history, Thomas Jeffer- “He spent the last half hour trying to piratesplain sea shanties to me.” son found himself confronting this very matter, shortly after his Inauguration as our third President, in 1801. Edward Jen- •• ner, in England, had recently developed a smallpox vaccine—a momentous med- Meanwhile, vaccination programs in En- ering care from our foundational agree- ical breakthrough. Investigating the lore gland, France, and Denmark had dra- ment that, when it comes to the most that milkmaids never got smallpox, he matically curbed the disease and mea- basic needs and burdens of life and lib- discovered that material from scabs pro- surably raised the national life expectancy. erty, all lives have equal worth. The pros- duced by cowpox, a similar condition that So, at Jefferson’s prompting, and with pects and costs for health care in America afflicts cattle, induced a mild illness in Madison’s unhesitating support, Con- still vary wildly, and incompre hensibly, people that left them immune to small- gress passed the Vaccine Act of 1813 with according to your job, your state, your pox. Smallpox epidemics came with a virtually no opposition. A National Vac- age, your income, your marital status, your mortality rate of thirty per cent or higher, cine Agent was appointed to maintain gender, and your medical history, not to and wiped out upward of five per cent of stocks of vaccine and supply it to any mention your ability to read fine print. the population of cities like Boston and American who requested it. The govern- Few want the system we have, but New York. Jefferson read Jenner’s report ment was soon providing free vaccine for many fear losing what we’ve got. And we and arranged for the vaccination of two tens of thousands of people each year. It disagree profoundly about where we want hundred relatives, neighbors, and slaves was the country’s first health-care enti- to go. Do we want a single, nationwide at Monticello. The President soon be- tlement for the general population. And payer of care (Medicare for all), each state came vaccination’s preëminent Ameri- its passage wasn’t in the least controversial. to have its own payer of care (Medicaid can champion. Two centuries later, the Affordable for all), a nationwide marketplace where But supplies were difficult to produce, Care Act was passed to serve a similar we all choose among a selection of health and the market price was beyond the purpose: to provide all Americans with plans (Healthcare.gov for all), or personal means of most families. Jefferson, along access to the life-preserving break- accounts that we can use to pay directly with his successor, James Madison, be- throughs of our own generation. The law for health care (Health Savings Accounts lieved in a limited role for the federal narrowed the yawning disparities in ac- for all)? Any of these can work. Each has government. They did not take expand- cess to care, levied the taxes needed to been made to work universally some- ing its power and its commitments lightly. pay for it, and measurably improved the where in the world. They all have their By the time Jefferson finished his two health of tens of millions. But, to win supporters and their opponents. We dis- terms as President, however, city and state passage, the A.C.A. postponed reckon- agree about which benefits should be governments had almost entirely failed ing with our generations-old error of yok- covered, how generous the financial pro- to establish programs to provide vaccines ing health care to our jobs—an error that tection should be, and how we should for their citizens. Thousands of lives con- has made it disastrously difficult to dis- pay for it. We disagree, as well, about the tinued to be lost to smallpox outbreaks. cipline costs and insure quality, while sev- trade-offs we will accept: for instance,

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 53 between increasing simplicity and in- would see fewer than half of its students twenty-four hours, with Formica tables creasing choice; or between advancing earn a bachelor’s degree. Her job was and plastic cups, and a late-night clien- innovation and reducing costs. therefore to try to help all of her students tele that was a mixture of townies and What we agree on, broadly, is that the reach their potential—to contribute in drunken students. I ordered a cheese- rules should apply to everyone. But we’ve their own way and to pursue happiness burger and onion rings. Mark ordered yet to put this moral principle into prac- on their own terms. something healthier. (He asked me not tice. The challenge for any plan is to avoid But, she said, by eighth grade profound to use his last name.) The son of a state the political perils of a big, overnight switch divisions had already been cemented. The highway patrolman, he had graduated that could leave many people with higher honors kids—the Hillary Clintons and from Athens High School five years ahead costs and lower benefits. There are, how- Mitt Romneys of the school—sat at the of me. Afterward, he worked as a cable ever, many options for a gradual transi- top of the meritocratic heap, getting at- installer, and got married at twenty- three. tion. Just this June, the Nevada legislature tention and encouragement. The kids with His wife worked at the Super Duper gro- passed a bill that would have allowed the greatest needs had special-education cery store. Their pay was meagre and they residents to buy into the state’s Medicaid support. But, across America, the large were at the mercy of their bosses. So, the plan—if the governor hadn’t vetoed it. A mass of kids in the middle—the ones next year, they decided to buy a conve- similar bill to allow people to buy into without money, book smarts, or athletic nience store on the edge of town. Medicare was recently introduced in Con- prowess—were outsiders in their own Mark’s father-in-law was a builder, gress. We need to push such options for- schools. Few others cared about what they and he helped them secure a bank loan. ward. Maintaining the link between health felt or believed or experienced. They were They manned the register day and night, coverage and jobs is growing increasingly the unspecial and unpromising, looked and figured out how to make a decent difficult, expensive, and self-defeating. But down upon by and almost completely sep- living. It was never a lot of money, but deciding to build on what’s currently work- arated from the college-bound crowd. Life over time they built up the business, open- ing requires overcoming a well of mistrust was already understood to be a game of ing gas pumps, and hiring college stu- about whether such investments will re- winners and losers; they were the desig- dents to work the counter part time. They ally serve a shared benefit. nated losers, and they resented it. The were able to make a life of it. My friend Betsy Anderson, who taught most consistent message these students They adopted a child, a boy who was eighth-grade English at Athens Middle had received was that their lives were of now a twenty-five-year-old graduate of School for fifteen years, told me some- less value than others’. Is it so surprising the local university. Mark turned fifty- thing that made me see how deep that that some of them find satisfaction in a seven and remained a lifelong conserva- well is. When she first started out as a politics that says, essentially, Screw ’em all? tive. In general, he didn’t trust politicians. teacher, she said, her most satisfying ex- But he felt that Democrats in particular periences came from working with eager, met with Mark, a friend of Arnold’s, didn’t seem to recognize when they were talented kids who were hungry for her I at the Union Street Diner, uptown pushing taxes and regulations too far. help in preparing them for a path to col- near the campus of Ohio University, Health-care reform was a prime exam- lege and success. But she soon realized which makes Athens its home. The diner ple. “It’s just the whole time they were that her class, like America as a whole, was a low-key place that stayed open coming up with this idea from copying some European model,” he said. “And I’m going, ‘Oh shit. This is not going to end up good for Mark.’ ” (Yes, he sometimes talks about himself in the third person.) For his health coverage, Mark trusted his insurance agent, whom he’d known for decades, more than he trusted the government. He’d always chosen the minimum necessary, a bare-bones, high- deductible plan. He and his wife weren’t able to conceive, so they didn’t have to buy maternity or contraceptive coverage. With Obamacare, though, he felt forced to pay extra to help others get benefits that he’d never had or needed. “I thought, Well, here we go, I guess I’m now kick- ing in for Bill Gates’s daughter’s preg- nancy, too.” He wanted to keep govern- ment small and taxes low. He was opposed to Obamacare. Then, one morning a year ago, Mark’s back started to hurt. “It was a workday. “And it’s just a ten-minute walk to much nicer apartments.” I grabbed a Tylenol and I go, ‘No, this isn’t going to work, the pain’s too weird.’ ” it. He was no longer interested in repeal- victims’ names. As for the lives suppos- It got worse, and when the pain began ing protections for people like him. edly saved because of outbreaks that didn’t to affect his breathing he asked his wife In this, he was like a lot of others. In occur—if you don’t trust the government’s to drive him to the emergency room. 2013, before the implementation of the vaccines, you don’t necessarily trust the “They put me in a bed, and eight min- A.C.A., Americans were asked whether government’s statistics, either. utes later I’m out,” he recalled. “I’m dying.” it was the government’s responsibility to These days, trust in our major profes- Someone started chest compressions. A make sure that everyone had health-care sions—in politicians, journalists, business defibrillator was wheeled in, and his heart coverage, and fifty-six per cent said no. leaders—is at a low ebb. Members of the was given a series of shocks. When he Four years after implementation, sixty medical profession are an exception; they woke up, he learned that he’d suffered per cent say yes. still command relatively high levels of cardiac arrest. “They said, ‘Well, you’re “But that doesn’t mean I have to sign trust. It does not seem a coincidence that going to Riverside’ ”—a larger hospital, on for full-blown socialism—cradle-to- medical centers are commonly the most in Columbus, eighty miles away. “And I grave everything,” Mark said. “It’s a bal- culturally, politically, economically, and went back out again.” ance.” Our willingness to trust in efforts racially diverse institutions you will find He’d had a second cardiac arrest, but like health reform can be built on expe- in a community. These are places devoted doctors were able to shock him back to rience, as happened with Mark, though to making sure that all lives have equal life once more. An electrocardiogram we must recognize how tenuous that trust worth. But they also pride themselves on showed that he’d had a massive heart at- remains. Two sets of values are in ten- having some of the hardest-working, best- tack. If he was going to survive, he needed sion. We want to reward work, ingenu- trained, and most innovative people in to get to Columbus immediately for emer- ity, self-reliance. And we want to protect society. This isn’t to say that doctors, gency cardiac catheterization. The hospi- the weak and the vulnerable—not least nurses, and others in health care fully live tal got him a life-flight helicopter, but because, over time, we all become the up to the values they profess. We can be high winds made it unsafe to fly. So they weak and vulnerable, unable to get by condescending and heedless of the costs took him by ground as fast as an ambu- without the help of others. Finding the we impose on patients’ lives and bank lance could go. On the procedure table, a balance is not a matter of achieving pol- accounts. We still often fail in our com- cardiologist found a blockage in the left icy perfection; whatever program we de- mitment to treating equally everyone who main artery to his heart—a “widow-maker,” vise, some people will put in more and comes through our doors. But we’re em- doctors call it—and stented it open. some will take out more. Progress ulti- barrassed by this. We are expected to do “The medicine is just crazy good,” mately depends on whether we can build better every day. Mark said. “By twelve-thirty, I was fixed.” and sustain the belief that collective ac- The repeal of the Vaccine Act of 1813 After that, he needed five days in the tion genuinely results in collective benefit. represented a basic failure of government hospital and several weeks at home to No policy will be possible otherwise. to deliver on its duty to protect the life recover. Although he had to take a pile and liberty of all. But the fact that pub- of drugs to reduce the chance of a recur- ight years after the passage of the lic vaccination programs eventually be- rence, he got his strength back. He was EVaccine Act of 1813, a terrible mis- came ubiquitous (even if it took genera- able to resume work, hang out with his take occurred. The Agent accidentally tions) might tell us something about the buddies, live his life. sent to North Carolina samples contain- ultimate direction of our history—the It was only after this experience that ing smallpox, instead of cowpox, causing direction in which we are still slowly, fit- Mark realized what the A.C.A. had given an outbreak around the town of Tarboro fully creeping. him. Like twenty-seven per cent of adults that, in the next few months, claimed ten On Mark’s last day in the hospital, under sixty-five, he now had a preëxist- lives. The outrage over the “Tarboro Trag- the whole team came in to see him. He ing condition that would have made him edy” spurred Congress to repeal the pro- thanked them. “But I didn’t thank them uninsurable on the individual market be- gram, rather than to repair it, despite its for taking care of me,” he said. “I fore health-care reform went into effect. considerable success. As a consequence, the thanked them for when I was smok- But the A.C.A. requires insurers to ac- United States probably lost hundreds of ing, drinking, and eating chicken wings. cept everyone, regardless of health his- thousands of lives to a disease that several They were all here working and study- tory, and to charge the healthy and the European programs had made vanish- ing, and I appreciated it.” less healthy the same community rate. ingly rare. It was eighty years before Con- “That’s what you thanked them for?” “This would have been a bad story for gress again acted to insure safe, effective “Yeah,” he said. “Because if Mark wasn’t Mark,” he said. “Because the same time supplies of smallpox vaccine. going to stop this, they were going to you’re being life-flighted is the same time When I told this story to people in have to keep working hard. Something you lose value to an employer. Your in- Athens, everyone took the repeal to be a had to happen because Mark was clog- come is done.” clear mistake. But some could understand ging up.” And those people did keep He no longer opposed the require- how such things happen. One conserva- working hard. They were there getting ment that people get insurance coverage. tive thought that the people in North ready for Mark, regardless of who he Fire insurance wouldn’t work if people Carolina might wonder whether the re- would turn out to be—rich or poor, spend- paid for it only when their house was on ports of lives saved by the vaccine were thrift or provident, wise or foolish. “I said, fire, and health insurance wouldn’t work if fake news. They saw the lives lost from I am glad they do this every day, but people bought it only when they needed the supposed accident. They knew the I’m hoping to do it only once.” 

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 55 FICTION

56 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY TODD ST. JOHN t was winter, which meant that a unspeakable catastrophes. Intense and privately you did not call them missing. pelvic frost had fallen across the land. respectful partners in their architectural Thousands of people had not suddenly I Or maybe just across Roy and Ida’s firm. Mutually committed cattle prod- left their homes that morning and van- apartment. And, in truth, the frost had ders of each other’s darker, stranger ished into the mountains. When you long since matured into a kind of bodily brains, torturing out each other’s best watched the footage of the bombing, aloofness, just shy of visible flinching, ideas, before the chemical repulsion and the dark slab of glass folding over itself when they passed each other in the halls, bed-death had struck. Maybe by old age like a blanket, then erupting into a pale- or when they co-slept in the intimacy- they’d return to form, be ideal dance brown flower of smoke, and you calcu- free bed they’d splurged on. Why not partners again, if only they could stay lated the typical occupancy, not just of have the best sleep of your life next to alive long enough. the office tower but of the surrounding the dried-out sack of daddy you’ve long The problem was today and tomor- plaza, with its underground restaurants taken for granted, whose wand no lon- row and the next fucking huge bunch of and shops, its perimeter of cafés, along ger glows and quivers for you and for days, the entirety of their middle age, with the time of day, the number thirty whom you no longer quietly melt? really, which shouldn’t be just a rotten was a violent piece of wishful thinking, You had to track the erotic cooling footbridge you had to navigate, with a heavy, heavy, heavy on the wish. back into summer, or the prior spring, creepy old troll beating off underneath “10k+,” Roy had texted Ida from and, well, didn’t the seasons and the years it. Roy was technically handsome, but wherever he was the day it happened. just dog-pile one another when you tried he preened, and he moped, and he fished He wasn’t wrong. It emerged that to solve math like that? Ida wasn’t par- for so many compliments that Ida was explosives had been buried in the foun- ticularly concerned, because, whatever, fished out, empty, unable to smear any dation of the tower when it was being there was a clarity to the coldness, right? favorable speech over his prim, needy built, two years before, by some slither- And screw Roy if he’d fallen down a body. For some time he’d been taking ing motherfuckers on the construction brightly colored porn hole, pummelling himself to the gym with more ambition crew. Stashed down there the night be- himself to images of animated young- and lust than he showed for their col- fore the footings were poured, appar- sters slithering around in grownup crotch laborative design work, and he was all ently, and then triggered when the build- gear in a cartoon fairyland. Browser his- cut up now, a strange, Photoshopped ing was finished and stuffed to the gills tories weren’t her favorite literary genre, musculature slipped over his bones like with people. In burning daylight, a time but she knew how to read them. Any- a bronzed wetsuit. She should have of high commerce, maximum human way, if her husband’s use-case viability wanted to handle the new body he’d traffic. Not a government building, so on the marital graph had taken a nose- built, use it to snuff out her baser urges, far as anyone knew. Just as dense a clus- dive, then so, too, had her own burden. not that Roy offered it to her, but she ter of people as any in the Midwest, ex- She had her friends, she had her work asked that he keep it covered. In loose- cepting one or two zones in downtown on the memorial, and she had the show- fitting layers, please. It stank of his not-so- Chicago. And so, and so. They had the erhead. When she and Roy first got hidden effort to attract a mammal out- perpetrators on video, brutes in hard married, whenever ago, Ida’s mother side the home. To sport with it and lick hats. Except that they were skinny and had told her that if people don’t visit its fur, no doubt. Plus, she had tolerated they laughed a lot and were often seen you don’t have to host. Period, full stop. her husband better when he wasn’t such hugging one another. Four of them had And even though Ida’s take on this ad- a vain custodian of the ephemeral—one walked off the job on the same day, be- vice now was off-label, it applied just mustn’t fawn over that which will rot, fore the building had even started to fine to her touchless union. The body someone important must have once said. rise up out of the concrete. How that unloved, the body unhandled and un- very act—quitting in a group, never to seen. The body as a ghost-in-training hat consumed them both right be seen again—hadn’t been some sort for whatever soiled world came next. Wnow was the situation in St. Louis, of security trigger was beyond Ida, but Anyway, wasn’t left-alone the best place for which their firm had been ceremo- whatever, hindsight was a foul drug. to wind up? niously commissioned to design the me- And now everyone was asking, Who Maybe old age and the cold blue morial. Months after the bombing, the were these men and where had they death of the groin would solve that. city was still digging out. Thirty dead gone? Oh, please, Ida thought, when- Maybe Ida would inherit a sweet and souls, the news had said when it hap- ever this particular investigation blis- useless Roy, post-pornography, sitting pened. But everyone knew that num- tered onto the screen. The St. Louis politely behind a drool cloth, swaddled ber wasn’t real. It was low by a couple Four. The villains of Missouri. Can we in food-stained sweaters. She’d feed him of decimal points. For days, the toll did please not believe that finding these until he cooed and maybe sometimes not breach a hundred, which seemed men will matter at all? Please? they would run out of gruel and she impossible. Where did these cautious would watch his hunger grow, watch estimates come from? Maybe from ac- “ errorism” wasn’t really the term his eyes turn small and sad. Would it be tual bodies. Maybe this meant that the Tanymore. Ida found that it soured so terrible? The sexual urge would be other, more plentiful dead were simply in her mouth, like a German word for merely an embarrassing spasm of the nowhere to be found, in the same way some obscure feeling. “Tax” seemed to past. They’d been friends once, before that wind can’t be found. What you did be a finer way to put it. A tax had been they’d got into designing memorials for was you factored in the missing, and levied in St. Louis. In New Orleans last

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 57 year, in Tucson three years back. Et cet- Ida kept a map pinned above her desk want to photograph it. You shouldn’t be era. A tax on comfort, safety. A price paid because she thought she might see some- able to draw it. That’s my problem.” for being alive, for waking up. Occasion- thing in the pattern of fallen cities: a “Gosh, that really is your problem.” ally, the tax collector came. Not just oc- story. Detectives did this to solve crimes. “I don’t know,” she said, gesturing at casionally. Quite a lot these days. You She thought it might tell her what to the sky, which was not particularly pretty could run out of breath trying to name build. But sometimes, when she and Roy or interesting that afternoon. It was not all the cities that had been hit in this marvelled at it, it seemed to them like the kind of sky you would ever take a country. The collector came, and people a coloring book that hadn’t been filled picture of, and Ida found that compel- were subtracted from space. Buildings in all the way yet. Sure, there were some ling. “Is there a better memorial than withered into rubble. One’s imagination spaces still to shade, whole cities left that? The sky?” needed to frequently dilate strangely untouched, but “Ha,” Roy said. “It’s good. It’s moody. in order to accommodate not that many. And there Maybe it’s a bit obvious, though?” the ways and means, and was always tomorrow. “Isn’t the sky just a gravestone,” Ida otherwise smart men and St. Louis should not said, “and we’re all buried under it?” women were busy with their have been high on the list “Ooh. Not bad. I see what you did scuffed crystal balls trying of targets, maybe not on the there. But, no offense, why are we talking to figure out what was next, list at all, but that seemed about this?” and how, and how. As if this to be the point these days, Ida had to do this, to think too forecasting ever . . . oh, for- in the year of our sorrow. grandly or wrongly in order to maybe get it. Soon you knew not The years and years of it. get closer to what was called for. “It’s to be surprised, and this A new and unspoken list almost like,” she said, “what if you had awareness was chilling. A of vulnerable sites had to design the afterlife exactly as you re- low hum could be heard during the day, emerged: sweet zones, soft parts of the ally think it is. Not something aspira- the night. You walked in a space that American body that could be knifed tional, some bullshit heaven. Not a re- might not really be there. There was no open and spilled out by the most skilled ligious fantasy. The truth.” longer anything proverbial when it came urban surgeons the world had ever seen. “Yeah?” Roy said. “As in . . . oblivion? to danger, nothing to invent, no more You want to build an oblivion theme park?” fiction of dark days to come. The dark ix months after the St. Louis attack, He didn’t care about any of this right days were here. They were now. SRoy and Ida had been invited to sub- now, Ida could tell, and maybe he had In light of this, it was somehow Roy mit a proposal, and they’d gone through a point. and Ida’s calling to honor the site with a their usual tangled brainstorm, smooth- “I assume you don’t believe in, well, memorial. Or to try to, to actually com- ing over the sharper ideas of their ju- anything?” When she thought back to pete for this kind of work, squirming nior staff, whiteboarding a design that their first conversations in grad school, through town halls and public debates, would appear sufficiently nonthreaten- prickly and intense and flirty, she wasn’t spinning a story about their vision, which ing in the space, a kind of tranquillizing sure if this had ever come up. Was that was only ever a humble story to the effect maze of low walls and open rooms for possible? She had adored and then ad- that nothing anyone did could ever be visitors to throw themselves around in mired him for so long, and now she enough. Their track record so far wasn’t and grieve. Roy called it the sanatorium knew him inside and out, and she felt the worst, which was not much of a feel- aesthetic, and he wasn’t that far off. she understood him to the core. Was it good fact for either of them, even if a sort One day, as the deadline loomed, possible that he harbored private, un- of undertaker’s renown had attached it- they walked along the great lake, which knowable ideas about his own death self to their firm over the years. They was flat and black, even as the wind and whatever might happen after? made their mark by designing large pub- pounded them. They started, brokenly, “O.K., let’s assume that you’re ag- lic graves where people could gather and to drill down toward what they might nostic,” Ida said. “We die and there’s also where maybe really cool food trucks possibly build, what it would look and nothing.” would park. There was money for this, sound like, what sort of feelings they “Sometimes there’s nothing before and money for this, and money for this. were trying to create. Usually, you had you die,” Roy cut in. “Don’t forget that.” Hooray. Except that now Ida found it to dance around the stakeholders to de- “O.K., let’s say that you want to make hard to view any other kind of design termine the emotional bolus of a work, an experiential piece that invites peo- commission—for a vanilla-white office as they called it. But the stakeholders ple to inhabit that sort of emptiness. building in their own downtown Chi- for this project? Only the entire popu- How do you do it?” cago, for example—as anything other than lation of the United States of America. Roy looked up. “How? As in, how a future headstone, a kind of sarcopha- Ida didn’t want to aim high, she do certain Midwestern architects make gus that would briefly house living, glis- started to say, so much as she wanted a credible design of the one true after- tening people before they were lowered to aim into a kind of hidden space. “I life? Seriously. Are we really having this into the earth or scattered out over the don’t want you to be able to picture it conversation?” lake in a burst of powder. If you were an when I talk about it,” she told Roy. “You He seemed to give it some thought, architect, you designed tombs, for before shouldn’t be able to photograph it. I but there was something unnatural about or for after. What was the difference? mean, like the lake—you wouldn’t even how theatrically he pondered, as if he

58 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 already knew what he was going to say allow for a subterranean feeling with- but was pausing for effect. This was the out actually trapping people under- Roy who spouted off on arts panels, who ground. Haunt the viewers but don’t was about to spray fine, floral bullshit stress them out. And almost every day, across the auditorium. sometimes in the afternoon and some- “I like the question,” he said. “It re- times in the very early morning, they veals something important, and I see walked the city together, looking at space where you’re going with it. If you make and light, growing ever more certain of a space like that, you connect visitors what they didn’t want the memorial to be. with the dead, which is a pretty big ar- Fucking Roy was kind and gracious, tistic win.” suppressing his own ideas while gener- Ida winced. Big artistic win. ously fielding every wild and unbuild- “In the end,” Roy said, “the question able notion from Ida, perhaps knowing falls apart because the answer is just too that her interest in reality, in plausibil- easy. It’s too obvious. Why not just kill ity and practicality, could be low. She them? Then they’ll get the real and true couldn’t help herself; she went on and afterlife. Who needs to simulate any- on about the mourners. They were still thing when you have the real thing? here, she was saying, in this world, but Someone already designed death. We they were pulled elsewhere, to the place were beaten to the punch.” where their loved ones were. Wherever He smiled at her and very nearly that was. Survivors lived in both places. seemed to be gloating. That was what she wanted this monu- O.K. God. “This isn’t a battle of wits, ment to say. She wanted it to feel like Roy,” she said. But then she wondered that, the tension between two worlds. if maybe it was, and that was what was “That’s some Schrödinger’s-cat bull- wrong. Partly. When one person thinks shit,” Roy said. “And I love it. That’s it’s not a contest. what I want, too. That’s exactly right.” They stopped and looked out over For a little while they walked arm in the lake. arm, and for a little while things seemed “I was hoping we could produce work different. But what had they really agreed without a body count, though. A mod- on? Ida wondered. What were they even est goal.” talking about? “Oh, you mean because too many Roy must have known the whole people have died already?” time that there was no building design “Jesus, Roy.” behind this idea, that time was really “None of this works if I can’t be hon- fucking upon them and something had est with you,” he whispered. to take shape on paper. The office was “There are other reasons that none waiting to pounce at their go-ahead, of this works,” she said. and he needed to ring the bell. Ida re- “Ida, I was joking. I was trying to be alized that he’d been slowly laying the funny.” groundwork for his own plan, which But why? she didn’t say. To what end? maybe he’d had in his head all along. And aren’t we supposed to be doing this It was simple and obvious and proba- together? bly inevitable, and he told it to her in “I don’t know, Roy. Can we think pieces, over a period of a few days. It about a tranquil space, not heavy on was to be a hollow square glass mu- physical material, not oppressive and seum, low on the plaza, with a center thick, that isn’t just a New Age wank that could not be accessed or even seen. space with wind chimes and shit? Can A black void where the building and we do that?” the shops had been. Right. There were Roy admitted that this sounded details and details and details, and a good, that this was something they narrative had to be written, because, could shoot for. well, yeah, but this was a square with a hole in it. To Ida, it resonated just a he memorial planning went on for wee bit of other memorials, built and Tweeks. They mocked up models, unbuilt, which was probably shrewd strung wire through their studio and on Roy’s part. He wanted their work tuned it to different tensions, just to ex- to get made, whereas sometimes she plore suspended structures that might suffered the classic ambivalence of an

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 59 architect. Maybe her designs had a kill “Oh, some feelings aren’t honest?” were made of glass, which, however switch on purpose. “None of them are, Ida. It’s fake, right? badass that would have been, they They went home and had dinner, It’s a drug spout in the ground. Or it’s a weren’t—Roy went out to St. Louis. and that night Roy was already calling gas stream pulsing from the ass of a me- Roy was the face, the body, the organ- it a lock, getting renderings done, and chanical bird flying a figure eight around ism. Maybe he had sweet young peo- speccing out site maps and plans and the fucking burial ground. Isn’t that the ple he fucked; Ida couldn’t be sure. He all the shit that had to happen even to idea, that we can’t make people feel ex- caught the temperature of the place get this thing ready for the review board. actly what we want with our structures, and tried to decode the deeper desires so we fucking poison them instead?” of the city, which could then be met here was really just one more thing “Poison.” or thwarted so that the appropriate Tto deal with for now, and they had “Sure, it’s poison. In high enough tension might infuse the final project. both been dreading it. They had to finally doses.” He photo-documented and did fly- sit down and look at bids from the phar- “Like water, then. Like oxygen.” overs and he stuck his finger into the maceuticals, which were fighting their “Exactly like water and oxygen. A client’s collective rotten body to deter- way onto the proposal, vying to be the perfect comparison. You just read my mine where the hard command center providers of the chemical component mind.” was. These kinds of projects often blew that every memorial these days was more “I couldn’t help it. The door to your up in your face. You were fired while or less expected to have: a gentle mist face was open and the text was scroll- you slept. So Roy, with his temper and to assist the emotional response of vis- ing inside. Impossible to miss.” his charm and his perfect little body, itors and drug them into a torpor of Roy shook his head. “On the other stayed out there and fought like a mon- sympathy. Not garment-rending sym- hand, why not put people in a more grel to keep them in the game. pathy, but something more dignified. A pensive or reflective state? Why not even Ida spent that time at the drafting mood was delivered via fog. Discreetly, stoke their anger a bit?” table, sketching mostly, working from and mildly, with micro-doses misting “Because those are the moods they the gut, ignoring what she knew in order through carefully arranged spouts, the bring to us. Those are the moods we to make way for what interested her far way an outdoor mall in the summer correct.” more—what she didn’t know. For in- might be air-conditioned. You didn’t see “O.K., do you hear how that sounds, stance, she knew that she felt tremen- it and you didn’t smell it. You strolled Ida? We correct their feelings? Really?” dous sorrow for the dead and thought through a field or a plaza or a series of “You make that sound dirty.” about them often, if vaguely. What she dark marble tunnels, whatever, sipping “I guess I’m not sure why we’re even didn’t know was why she wasn’t crip- the sorrow-laced air, and, when you arguing about this,” Roy said. He sounded pled with grief, stupefied at the scale of finally departed, a kind of low-grade ca- defeated. “I don’t think the ingredients the atrocity, unable to move or speak. tharsis had been triggered. You were are within our purview. I don’t think we This was a mystery. bursting with feeling. Big artistic win. can edit those parameters.” She wanted to draw a purely empty It was sponsorship and it was gross, “Not with chemicals, we can’t,” Ida space, which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. but because it was essentially invisible, said. Heavy lines were required, of all things, and because people genuinely seemed “Meaning?” and not just for framing the so-called to seek it out—attendance had unde- “Look, I don’t care how happy or void, as people in her profession loved niably spiked—Roy and Ida had been blissed-out or in touch with the one true to say, but for actual fucking substance. looking the other way and letting it hap- good earth you are, if you walk into a cer- She had to ready the space for haunt- pen, and now they really didn’t have a tain space, situated on a certain site, and ing. Purity was called for. This was a choice. It was an inevitable shortcut, or that space has been shaped to the nth tombstone for a city, a funeral for a feel- even a stage of evolution, in architec- fucking degree, your mood, if we want it ing of safety that was now gone. Leav- ture, assisting the public’s reaction and to, will freaking collapse like a lung.” ing a blank page was not the same thing. securing that most prized of currencies: “I don’t know. Drugs are stronger That was a cop-out, and, anyway, you human fucking feeling. How to create than buildings.” couldn’t shit on the client that way. it, how to create it? And why not use “Maybe we make our buildings more Partly because she herself was the cli- all the help you could get? potent, then,” Ida said. “We increase the ent, and Roy was the client, and so was But here was Roy saying that he dosage.” everyone they knew, and everyone they didn’t want to agree to anything yet, Roy smiled at her. He raised an empty didn’t. Now you had to view the world, and fuck these companies for trying to hand in a toast. Such a small and deli- the air itself, as something that could leverage a sacred memorial with their cate hand. “Cheers,” he said, and he be torn away to reveal an eerier sort of God-damned money. “Maybe we only softly pawed the air. place. Maybe that sounded like bull- consent to a zoned dispensary this shit, but sometimes, sometimes, this time,” he said. “There should be an fter they won the bid, with a forty- process—if followed strictly and with- area, cordoned off, where the feelings Aeighth-iteration proposal that was out concern for hovering meddlers— are more intense.” mildly tolerated by all—a black gran- led to a wild, unstable kind of vacuum “Intense how?” ite labyrinth, inset with dark transpar- that you were not always prepared to “Like, harder, more honest.” encies, as if panels of the stone itself be sucked into, Ida thought, even if you

60 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 What Ida envisioned, she told Roy, was a series of soft columns swelling WHITE GAYS out of the plaza, but almost impercep- tibly. You almost wouldn’t even know Privilege is a man they were there. taking up two seats on the train. “You know how there are some peo- Now four, putting his feet up. ple who think that if they could only sharpen their vision they would see It is also my not having ghosts?” Ida asked. to describe his leather loafers for you “I didn’t know that,” Roy said. to fill in the white space of his body “Interesting.” straight and able The plaza itself, Ida went on, would be poured from a spongy material, so that and also my body’s proximity visitors might feel as though they were to his, socially and physically, sinking as they walked along. Playground on this train he is taking from rubber, maybe? The columns would be the Hamptons and I am taking slablike but ephemeral—Ida emphasized from the Pines. And how this word: “You know, very nearly not there,” she told him—fabricated out of a my finding him handsome kind of stable, nearly elastic, she didn’t keeps him handsome, know how else to put it, smoke. that if he were to look my way, “You can admire them as sculpture— his would be worth more to me they will be beautiful, and up close the than any other gaze. smoke will reveal a texture, sort of like porcelain, with streaks and veins and What I’m trying to say is imperfections in the surface. But, from proximity is the problem with White Gays. farther away, they may just look like I’m one of them, so I can say that. clouds. Rogue clouds that have fallen or just got too low to the ground.” Proximity, because it promises Roy was quiet for a while. She thought the possibility of arriving she could hear him typing. “That sounds where all the room in the world nice,” he finally said. “Aside from won- waits to be claimed. dering how this remotely relates to the approved plan, am I supposed to be ask- Privilege is a tease, we forget, ing how you’ll achieve this?” what we learned in grade school. “Other than the obvious way?” Even spread in his lap, Roy was rummaging at the other everything for the taking end of the line. Talking to someone or taken from someone. watching TV. Ida listened into the room and listened and listened, on the verge —Jameson Fitzpatrick of hearing something clear. Maybe he was falling from an airplane. She wasn’t even kidding. There was so much wind were curious, even if you felt you couldn’t morial you made. That sort of verbal around him. be shocked. posturing was for students and the sim- “I mean, how serious are you?” he That was what she tried to draw, and peringly boneless teachers who floated said. “This sounds maybe more specu- that was ideally what she and Roy tried over them, gushing endless praise out lative? Which is cool. Which is, you to build, even though “build” was a of their open necks. know, I know it’s part of your process, strange word, and you sounded like a Roy phoned from St. Louis, early but I’m living in reality right now. I’m punk if you said “erase,” or something in the process, and even though a work- in an actual hotel room. In the actual pretentious like that. Like, in my work, ing design had been approved, the un- real world. I’m talking to the board, I erase the landscape in order to reveal the derstanding—Ida’s understanding, any- or, really, they’re talking to me, very true terrain of the world. Yeah, uh, no. way—was that certain, uh, changes sternly—they are literally holding my Maybe it didn’t make sense, none of it, could still be made, and these changes hand like I’m a child—and I’m talking but it didn’t have to. Sometimes it just could, caveat, significantly alter and to the mayor and the city and the state, had to sort of look pretty and make you enhance and improve the original, and in my downtime I am fucking hav- sad and thoughtful. That was Memo- shit-sucking plan, which she suddenly ing elevator sex with the donors, who rial Theory 101. In the end, no one cared thought might belong, in miniature, are huge hairy creatures with indeter- what you thought, or said, about a me- on the wall of a Starbucks. minate genitalia, because they get to

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 61 have whatever little thing they want with contractors, along with political a curious creature. Who is that? I’d from me.” tensions that Ida couldn’t even fathom— really like to know.” “How nice for you.” and then, just as they were saying good As she said this, she pictured some- “I don’t have a choice, Ida. Seriously, night, Ida said she needed to ask him one, something, crawling over her hus- how possible is this, your sticky smoke? a question. band’s body. The most gorgeous living Are we really spitballing this idea right Roy was still distracted; he would thing. now, at this fucking late date? Am I sup- always be. Some muscle in his face Roy said nothing. Maybe he turned posed to be telling people that this is produced the word “yeah,” but other- off the television, or maybe something what we are doing?” wise nobody was home. After finding else caused a rapid drop in room tone, “Well, whatever you do, please don’t out what he needed to know from Ida, because now the sheer silence was stag- refer to it as sticky smoke. It sounds like he’d moved on to gather information gering. It was shocking to Ida. Like a carnival attraction. With a little bit of from other sources. This was Roy you’d need a machine to achieve that work, we can find some seductive lan- spreading himself so thin that you kind of quiet. The world had been guage. That’s never so hard.” could see through him. At least in per- scrubbed of noise, just because she’d said She wanted to laugh. Never so hard. son he knew to tilt his face into pos- a bunch of words. That was what a spell It was the hardest thing in the world. tures of interest, taming his little man- was, maybe. Had a mere sentence of There wouldn’t be language for this. Not nequin body. So Ida was silent for a hers ever had such an effect before? She in her lifetime. while. She heard the same dull mur- could hear Roy breathe; she could hear “Jesus, Ida. The tech—and you fuck- mur in the background. A voice or a the churn of his body. ing know this very well—doesn’t allow bird or the wind, or just some subvo- “I don’t know what you’re talking for what you’re talking about. I mean, cal turbulence on the phone line. It was about, Ida.” right? Suddenly I’m the bad guy be- almost pretty. It wasn’t like she expected a differ- cause of physics?” “What?” Roy said, suddenly impa- ent answer, or particularly cared. Con- Ida sighed. “That’s not why you’re tient. “What do you want to ask me?” fessions and denials were equally trou- the bad guy, Roy.” “I just wanted to know . . . who’s that bling. Answers in general were so often They covered other topics, because with you?” disappointing. Was there any speech at they had a stupid business to run, and “What?” all that didn’t, in the end, cause a little so many details to haggle over—zon- “Next to you, Roy. Just look. In the bit of dejection? ing and permissions and negotiations bed. Touching you while you talk. What “No, I guess you don’t,” she said. “I mean, if I could show you, I would.” “Show me, Roy. Switch over to video. Show me the room and the closets and the hallway. That’d be great. Thanks.” “Uh, O.K. I’ll have to call you back. I’ll call you back.” She laughed out loud, but it came out a little bit off, like a shout. “Good night, Roy,” she said. “Sleep well.” And she hung up. The apartment was cold and she couldn’t wait to crawl under the covers. “Oh, and by the way,” Ida said to no one, as she readied herself for bed. “You can bleed smoke into a clear skin, no prob- lem.” She laughed softly. It was not as strange as it might have been to be talking out loud to herself. “You’d want to use a large-field polymer, of course. Totally transparent and ridiculously thin. I guess it’s a kind of windowpane balloon, in a way, but its contours can be fixed non- spherically, which gives it any shape you want, including tufts and wisps and what- not, like a cloud. A sort of scientific ver- sion of a balloon animal. Low-tech, really. And what you get is a shape made of smoke with the barest hint of skin—a person, a column, a cloud, anything. You “All in favor of telling Anderson about that thing stuck to his lip, say aye.” could even make a maze, and fill the walls of the maze with dark black smoke. name, each life, hollowed out in space. one, as far as she could see, was speak- “So, yeah,” she whispered, turning Of course it was too late. You couldn’t ing or performing. It was just her hus- out the light in her empty apartment. simply plant grass in St. Louis and de- band, alone in the square, clapping his “That’s how you’d do it, if you were to sign the simplest of headstones. There hands as hard as he could. do it. The physics aren’t an issue. But, were too many dead. A technical prob- Mostly Ida watched the birds, which honestly, I’m not sure anymore that that’s lem. But a headstone could shrivel into seemed bizarrely determined, almost the way to go.” a narrow granite pin, with a name in- angry, certain of something that she It was late and she was very tired. scribed vertically. Didn’t that solve the would never know. There was a theory She could hardly even hear herself, as issue? Of course it didn’t, because no of bird vision that came to mind: that she started to fall asleep. one even knew what the issue was. And, birds saw the world through a grid, bi- “I just can’t honestly say that it’s the whatever slick and welcoming thing sected down to the finest detail. Not a right idea for this particular project.” she and Roy built for the plaza, there mosaic so much as a shattered image, would still be a graveyard beneath it, with white tracers boiling in the spaces hen Roy came back from St. the way there is a graveyard beneath in between, or so Ida imagined, so that WLouis he didn’t come home. Ida everything. It would just take genera- all the bird really saw was a kind of lu- wouldn’t have minded seeing him, to tions of people to find it, clawing down minescent netting. Aglow or afire or shake hands maybe, to perform some into the earth year after year until they whatever. No need to poeticize it, but soft footwork that might approximate touched stone. still. Sort of hard not to. You didn’t see closure, but Roy had apparently made the mouse, if you were a bird, but a his decision, and soon some sweethearts fog of birds passed over the Eber- mouse-shaped mesh of light that con- from the office came for his things, op- A lee Plaza in St. Louis on the morn- tained it. She was butchering the sci- erating with a list, leaving behind only ing the memorial opened. ence, she knew, but this was the general an old pair of shoes. The transaction Ida sat at some distance from the idea. A kind of shining wire bag we’re was either respectfully nonverbal, Ida ceremony. Roy had said that she was, of all trapped in, which might explain some thought, or calmly hostile. Was there course, expected to be there, and here shit, right? Or, Ida thought, deepen the much of a difference? It was interesting she was, alone on a bench with a per- mystery. It was a structural view of space, when a set of feelings went so unspo- fect view of what she had wrought. and it treated objects as an afterthought. ken for so long that they drifted into The birds didn’t go away. They Objects described the light, not the other the unknown. Did they expire or fes- swished and darted and soon struck a way around. Yes, it was speculative, since, ter? Maybe one day she’d find out. steady, gliding orbit over the plaza, a what the fuck, it posited the sensory ex- Construction was under way on the kind of dark and clotted halo, like perience of a God-damned bird, but it memorial, and the opening wasn’t that barbed wire in the air. Had they come seemed to have been endorsed by some far off, but rather than hover in St. Louis for the sweet sedatives that were no of the more distinguished eggheads from and fret, micromanaging the develop- doubt pumping into the area from un- expensive, self-regarding universities. ment of their sorrowful mall, as she’d derground cylinders? Would the dos- One particular scientist claimed that started to think of it, Ida stayed in Chi- age be too strong for a bird, and was this bird vision revealed the true, un- cago and took walks along the lake. More there any concern about this? Was any- mediated world, something that we hu- often than not, she ended up in one of one in charge of the most basic shit? mans couldn’t handle. We humans! Ida the older graveyards of the city. For re- Ida sat, by chance, just across from thought. Us! Is there anything we can search, she told herself. She had no the long, snaking plywood wall of the handle? Our desire for sense and order, family dead in these places, no one to missing. The weather over the past two our sentimental belief that we are not mourn. Everyone she grieved for these years had done a job on the wall. It was hurtling through space in tiny pieces, days was unknown to her, which made mostly stripped of posters by now. The has served as a kind of biological pro- her grief seem more like self-pity. Was remaining posters were scarred and paganda for our visual apparatus, lead- that true of all grief? Who the fuck wind-bleached and almost impossible ing to the sentimentalized, so-called knew. She toured the marked paths and to decipher. On a few, the photos had whole world on view in front of us. cut across the grass when she could, be- eroded but the text had endured, so there In other words, fear, and more fear, cause that was where you could start to were blank sheets that simply said “Miss- and, yeah. Wouldn’t there one day, just feel something, however fleeting. Some- ing,” with nothing below, as if it were by chance, Ida thought, be a little per- times there were woods to traverse, and the white space itself that had vanished son who came along and didn’t feel then she’d burst out into a patch of graves and could no longer be found. afraid? Someone who saw this world of on the other side. More dead to con- When the ceremony began, she saw speeding pieces just as it was? Wasn’t sider. Folks who died long before she Roy. He looked good. Half the size of that bound to happen, and what on was born. Cemetery design had not the large, sweaty men who surrounded earth, she thought, as she watched ev- changed in some time. The aesthetic him, as if he were a child encircled by eryone walking past her into the mi- was pretty resilient. Maybe it wasn’t an monsters. He was shaking hands, talking, rage, was taking so long? ♦ aesthetic. Just an instinct for shelter. laughing, and several times, as Ida She marvelled at the sight lines, at the watched from the bench, she saw Roy NEWYORKER.COM effortlessly endless rows of dead, each applauding vigorously, even though no Ben Marcus on how to honor a catastrophe.

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 63 THE CRITICS

BOOKS SHOT OF COURAGE

Ulysses S. Grant, defended.

BY ADAM GOPNIK

t is one of the more improbably dra- minutes has endured: Washington ing coalition of self-styled Northern Imatic moments in American let- won his war and fathered his coun- “reformers” and the openly revanchist, ters. Henry Adams, as he reports in try; Grant won his war but screwed anti-Grant Southerners—misguided his memoirs, was breathlessly waiting over his. The brilliant general be- progressives making common cause in the Capitol Building in 1869 for came the miserable President, fuel- with true reactionaries against a well- word of the Cabinet appointments ling the descent from glory into the meaning middle—and also with a that would be made by the newly Gilded Age. Journalists still cite the general battle fatigue that afflicted elected President Grant. Foreseeing a Grant Administration as among the the nation. renaissance of civic virtue after the most scandal-ridden and corrupt in The first pages of the book tell of sufferings of the Civil War, Adams— American history. His tomb, on New Grant’s rise from a hardscrabble life whose great-grandfather was the York City’s Riverside Drive, had be- in Point Pleasant, Ohio. It is a style second President, and whose father come, by the nineteen-nineties, so ne- of American Misery familiar from had been Lincoln’s Ambassador to glected that it was a national symbol Mark Twain—the Scotch-Irish-Amer- Great Britain—expected his reform- of chaos. Things are better now, but ican style, mirthless and Methodist ist vision and his intellectual cohort a quick survey of a Manhattan office and mercenary. Ulysses’s father, Jesse to be brought forward to rule, as the showed that, while almost everyone Grant, was a hard-pushing small-time Alexander Hamilton–Thomas Jeffer- had made a school trip to the Lin- entrepreneur who started out as a tan- son generation had been after the tri- coln Memorial, not one had stopped ner. (Working in the tannery, among umph of the Revolution. to visit Grant’s Tomb. the bloody skins and the giant rats Instead, he heard, one after another, In a new biography, “Grant” (Pen- that gnawed on them, left young the names of mere time-servers and guin Press), Ron Chernow, whose pre- Ulysses permanently unable to eat hack politicians and unknown cronies vious subjects include Washington less-than-well-done meat.) All sons of the General. Crushed (at least in and Hamilton (improbably launch- are made in their father’s shade, and memory), he felt that a line had been ing the greatest musical-theatre work Grant’s pushy, braggart, loudmouthed crossed, permanently separating the of our age), strenuously disputes the father produced a quiet, outwardly high-minded, essentially intellectual conventional view. Though he does obedient, and inwardly resistant son, inheritance of the Revolution from the usual justice to the military saga who came to hate showing off. This the American future. “Grant’s nomi- of the Civil War, and Grant’s decisive crippled Ulysses in most areas of nations had the singular effect of mak- part in it, his book aims to rehabili- life, where some kind of thrusting or ing the hearer ashamed, not so much tate Grant as a politician and as Pres- self-positioning is essential, but war- of Grant, as of himself,” he writes in ident. He makes a convincing case time demonstrated the difference be- his great third-person autobiography, that Grant actually behaved nobly, tween showing off and getting the job “The Education of Henry Adams.” even heroically, while in the White done, between those who look good His hopes that Grant would be George House. He pressed the cause of black on the parade ground and those who Washington had been delusional folly, equality under the law, and was con- look good on the battleground. Adams decided: “The progress of evo- sistently on the right side of Recon- Grant did poorly at West Point; lution from President Washington to struction-era issues—winning more decently as a young officer in the President Grant alone was evidence heartfelt praise from Frederick Doug- Mexican War; not so well as an offi- enough to upset Darwin.” lass than Lincoln ever did. The rea- cer when the conflict was over (te- Though partial and prejudiced, to son Reconstruction failed, and ended dium took its toll, and he was forced put it mildly, Adams’s vision of Grant with the reimposition of an apartheid to resign from the Army for being

as the author of America’s fatal five system, had to do with an exasperat- drunk on duty); and then terribly as JOHN ST. TODD ABOVE:

64 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 President Grant’s lapses were minor, Ron Chernow argues, compared with his widely overlooked furtherance of racial justice.

ILLUSTRATION BY HUGO GUINNESS THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 65 a would-be businessman in St. Louis, ing that for the duration of his visit feeling better we would of licked you.”) forced at last to sell firewood on the he could easily stay sober and make a Many people, Chernow among them, street. When the Civil War came, good impression. have pointed out that his binges al- Grant, a mild abolitionist (his wife, Grant’s drinking is a persistent ways corresponded with the absence Julia, owned slaves), strove to get the theme in the book. Lincoln’s line on of his difficult but much-loved wife. right kind of commission. He over- it is famous; when warned that Grant In the end, one wonders if the drink- came the resistance of those who re- was drinking hard, he is said to have ing wasn’t actually a sounder way of membered the drinking and didn’t replied, “Can you send a barrel of dealing with the pressures than the think he looked as if he’d dried out, whatever whiskey he drinks to all my compulsive, sleepless worrying that and, in 1861, was put in command of other generals?” One of the unsung other generals did. the 21st Illinois Volunteer heroes, properly sung in Infantry Regiment. “Well, “Grant,” was John Aaron wo incidents stand out in Cher- I’ll be damned. Is that our Rawlins, whose job, basically, Tnow’s fluent and intelligent nar- Colonel?” one of the soldiers was to be Grant’s aide-de- rative as the decisive moments in said when Grant showed up, camp in charge of alcohol, Grant’s war. One was at Vicksburg, in a small, sad, beat-up-look- plaintively urging the Gen- 1863, where one side or the other would ing guy in rumpled civilian eral to climb back on the end up owning the Mississippi River. clothes. He tamed the troops, wagon when he fell off. (“I Grant enjoined Admiral David Dixon and began to fight. again appeal to you in the Porter, of the often forgotten Union Chernow tells all this rap- name of everything a friend, Navy, to run all his gunboats down- idly and well; his talent is an honest man, and a lover river, in the middle of the night, past suited to Grant’s story. He of his country holds dear, to formidable Confederate batteries, to writes the way Grant fought: lacking immediately desist from further tast- encircle the Vicksburg fort. It was an elegance of means, he covers an im- ing liquors of any kind,” began one audacious gamble, but it worked. The mense area of ground, thoroughly and forlorn letter.) other was after the Battle of the Wil- relentlessly, capturing his objectives Grant, Chernow makes clear, derness, in 1864, when Grant, having one by one. (He does take some sty- was an addict, who fought his addic- been given the Army of the Potomac listic casualties: a single sentence gives tion, with various degrees of success, and leading his forces into Virginia, us Grant and William Tecumseh Sher- throughout his life, and finally intu- got badly beaten up by Lee’s troops man as “damaged souls” about to re- ited that he could manage his prob- in extremely hostile terrain. Instead of deem “tarnished reputations” in the lem best by bouts of binge-drinking turning back or pausing, Grant pressed “brutal crucible of war.”) He is ex- followed by long episodes of absti- on, having, as Lincoln put it, grasped traordinarily good on what could be nence. Grant drank in a very Amer- the “awful arithmetic”: he could lose called, unpejoratively, the Higher ican way—not like the sociable, men, and battles of this kind, indefi- Gossip of History—he can uncan- southern-European kind of drink- nitely, and Lee could not. Even after nily detect the actual meaning be- ing, or even the clubbable, compet- the Battle of Cold Harbor, ten miles neath social interactions. In “Ham- itive drinking of the nineteenth- northwest of Richmond—a senseless ilton,” he could tell in a second when century British Army. This was hard- massacre of men as bad as the worst Hamilton was making sly reference edged, solitary drunkenness in search assaults at the Somme, which it an- to Jefferson’s Sally Hemings intrigue, of oblivion. ticipated—Grant pressed on. or when his hero’s enemies were coyly The remarkable thing about Grant The antiheroic nature of the two alluding to Hamilton’s own adulter- was that he could stop. He would start moments—war by deception and then ies. Here he grasps the meanings of up again at some point, but he could by determination, more than by stra- Grant’s interactions with other officers stop. It would be picturesque to say tegic coups—raises the big question: under their gruff military cover, know- that he drank to escape the bloody Was Grant a great general? The an- ing when Grant is obliquely threat- landscapes he was making—at Shi- swer can seem obvious: he won the ening someone and when he is really loh, you could walk across a field of war. But, as we know of football coaches, praising him. When Charles Dana, corpses without your boots touching sometimes greatness is really luck working for the Secretary of War, vis- the mud—but Chernow, wisely, doesn’t compounded. Those closest to Grant ited Grant’s headquarters during his make that claim: Grant drank because couldn’t make up their minds if his command—an incident that Grant he drank because he drank. James propensity for sullen, silent brooding refers to in a single sentence in his Thurber understood that kind of indicated that he was taking in every- memoirs—Chernow understands that drinking, which may be why the fun- thing or nothing. Adam Badeau, his this was a checkup inspection, autho- niest thing ever written about Grant military secretary, who later wrote a rized by headquarters, to see just how is Thurber’s “If Grant Had Been history of his campaigns, said once that bad Grant’s drinking was, and that Drinking at Appomattox.” (It ends Grant’s aides “could never measure his Grant, instead of keeping his inspec- with a dazed, hungover Grant mis- character or be sure when he would tor at a distance, embraced him and takenly surrendering to Robert E. Lee: act. They could never follow a mental welcomed him into the tent, know- “We dam’ near licked you. If I’d been process in his thought. They were not

66 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 sure that he did think.” (Vince Lom- ry’s brother, had to admit that “Grant able to remember perfectly a quarter bardi’s auxiliaries said something sim- had his army as firmly in his hand as century later, down to the last log ilar about the coach—that when he ever. . . . He has effected this simply cabin—he concluded that a move at wasn’t winning games you could hardly by the exercise of tact and good taste.” night, to the right, would find “no nat- tell if he was even quite alive. Peculiar It was the general as good boss in- ural obstacle.” This was too uncon- intelligences work in spasmodic ways.) stead of great leader—even if the boss ventional at the time: “I was silenced The argument against Grant’s mil- was one who cajoled the employees, so quickly that I felt that possibly I itary greatness, made by the famous by tact and good taste, into getting had suggested an unmilitary move- military historian and theorist Basil themselves killed for the benefit of ment.” A more frontal approach was Liddell Hart, was that Grant was an the head office. The model puzzled tried, and it failed. Even when he chose unimaginative placeholder who basi- Lee, who could not understand the a frontal assault himself, as at the Wil- cally got a lot of people killed—who military rationale for a mass murder derness and Cold Harbor, it was be- grasped the arithmetic without tak- like Cold Harbor—the simple fact cause the terrain allowed, in his view, ing charge of the field. Sherman, in that the North had men to waste and for no other tactic. Hart’s view, was the real genius of the the South did not—and who always Grant genuinely enjoyed the te- Civil War, a man who understood how said, pointedly against Grant, that the dium of preparation. A fascinating set to win wars while avoiding battles. skilled but ineffective George (Little piece in his memoirs describes Union He turned a sidewise skirmish into a Mac) McClellan was the best general soldiers putting up telegraph poles and devastating campaign that got Lin- he ever opposed. wires immediately upon making camp. coln reëlected. Grant had other strengths on the It’s not a Napoleonic scene, but tele- The alternative view is that Grant field. In his memoirs, we see him think- grams helped win the war. The break- was a great instinctive Clausewitzian ing always on many levels at once, at- through at Vicksburg, a mysterious who believed in forcing the decisive tending to geographic, strategic, and act of audacity even in Chernow’s ac- battle no matter how brutal, and who logistic questions, not sequentially but count, becomes less mysterious if one strenuously avoided any peripheral en- simultaneously, in a single paragraph. reads Grant’s anti-dramatic account of gagement. He got his army in front His close eye for the ground always it: the Navy boats had been reinforced of the other guy’s and bulldozed the led to a tactical plan, and then the tac- with water-soaked bales to reduce the other guy until he quit. Sherman was tical plan was reinforced by the most chances of cannonballs starting fires, able to do what he did only because mundane-seeming logistical ques- and, anyway, the experiment of run ning Grant was doing what he was doing. tions—so he recalls that his troops the batteries had been tried before. It As Lincoln, with his usual flair for outside Vicksburg, though reasonably is a very Grant-like touch to have pro- seeing the point and saying it right, well fed, lacked bread, and began to tected the boats from fire with hay observed, Grant held the beast while cry out in unison, “Hardtack! Hard- and grain, needed for food after the Sherman skinned it. (In his memoirs, tack!” In fact, one might say that his encirclement began—a provisioning Grant quietly but firmly lets the reader strictly military, as opposed to orga- and a tactical problem solved at the know that in Georgia Sherman was nizational, genius lay in trying to make same time. Throughout the war, Grant doing what Grant had told him to battles terrain-first instead of tactics- also seems to have grasped another do.) If holding meant losing a lot of first. This is made most vivid in his basic truth—that while Civil War men, he would. When he had the op- memoirs when, recalling the exasper- weaponry, large and small alike, was portunity to fight a more resourceful, ating run-up to the Battle of Corinth, utterly lethal when massed together, less wasteful kind of war, as in the se- in the fall of 1862, he tried to talk ter- it was, when fired singly at specific quence of hit-and-run battles that led rain to his then superiors: moving targets, as likely to miss as to up to Vicksburg, he did. hit. This accounts both for his confi- Our centre and right were, at this time, ex- John Keegan, whose “The Mask tended so that the right of the right wing was dence that Admiral Porter’s boats could of Command” contains the best study probably five miles from Corinth and four from get past the Vicksburg guns and for of Grant as a general, credits him with the works in their front. The creek, which was his own confidence on the parapets inventing “unheroic” leadership. Ev- a formidable obstacle for either side to pass on and the battlefield, where he felt safe erything Grant did was designed to our left, became a very slight obstacle on our enough to mix with the men and to right. Here the enemy occupied two positions. minimize his personal example and One of them, as much as two miles out from lead occasionally from in front. to maximize his “corporate” leader- his main line, was on a commanding elevation ship. It was the beginning of the bu- and defended by an intrenched battery with he postwar Grant is a tougher reaucratic mind at arms, of the kind infantry supports. A heavy wood intervened Tnut with a harder historical shell, of role that Dwight Eisenhower and between this work and the [Union] forces. . . . In and Chernow has at it with a grati- the rear to the south was a clearing extending Omar Bradley later inhabited. Grant a mile or more, and south of this clearing a fying vigor. Grant was elected more treated his men with courtesy and a log-house which had been loop holed and was or less by acclamation in 1868, after general sense of solidarity (within the occupied by infantry. Andrew Johnson’s tumultuous term, limits of command hierarchy), and and his Cabinet choices, Chernow in- was popular with them. It worked. Taking stock of this position— sists, can be entirely vindicated against Even Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Hen- which, like a hundred others, he was Adams’s ancient contempt. Chernow

68 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 quotes Rutherford B. Hayes, the fu- Grant in 1872 on a confused platform ture President, as saying that he was of good government and support for “enraptured” by Grant’s freedom from renewed “home rule” in the South. party hacks: “His cabinet looks like a They displayed a now-familiar refusal revolution. . . . It is an attempt to put to believe that the real source of per- fitness and qualifications before what sistent racial resentment among their is called ‘claims’ and ‘political services.’ ” fellow-countrymen was persistent Why, then, Adams’s famous dis- racial resentment. missal? Chernow makes a reasonable In truth, everything else was over- case that it was mostly class resent- shadowed by the violence directed ment. “My family is buried politically,” against the former slaves of the South Adams admitted, and he was right to by its former soldiers. Nathan Bed- think so; Grant wrote elsewhere that ford Forrest’s new Ku Klux Klan acted Adams’s family “did not possess one “by force and terror,” as Grant wrote, noble trait of character that I ever heard “to deprive colored citizens of the right of.” With class animosities disguised to bear arms and for the right to a free as high-minded mistrust, Adams’s ballot; to suppress schools in which anti- Grant virus communicated itself colored children were taught and to to other “reformers,” who saw in Grant’s reduce the colored people to a condi- readiness to use the normal spoils sys- tion closely akin to that of slavery.” tem of civil-service appointments a Chernow vindicates Grant’s response. form of rampant corruption. Grant pushed and signed the Ku Klux What they missed, Chernow notes, Klan Act of 1871, which allowed the was Grant’s remarkable advances in federal government to move against hiring minorities to federal positions. Klan violence when the states would Small incidents of nepotism, Cher- not, and issued a military order allow- now maintains, have “overshadowed ing federal troops to disperse “bands this far more important narrative.” of disguised marauders” on their own Grant’s open affirmative action on authority. behalf of the Jews—he “appointed What’s more, he sent the coura- more than fifty Jewish citizens” at one geous Attorney General Amos Ak- friend’s request alone, “including con- erman, himself a Georgian, south to suls, district attorneys and deputy post- enforce it. The Klan, Akerman said, masters”—was doubly significant given “was the most atrocious organization that, in a fit of anger at a handful of that the civilized part of the world opportunistic merchants in the midst has ever known” and its acts “amount of the war, he had imposed an anti- to war, and cannot be effectually Jewish ukase in one district under crushed on any theory.” Only direct occupation. action would do it. He went to South Reading Chernow on Grant’s pa- Carolina, at extraordinary personal tronage practice, one may also start to risk, to supervise the campaign, and cast a skeptical eye on the notion that brought in more than eleven hundred “identity politics” is in any way a new- convictions, with Southern juries, comer to progressive coalitions. Wor- against the K.K.K. Chernow con - rying about providing significant spoils cludes, “In 1872, under Grant’s lead- to minorities—and women, too, who, ership, the Ku Klux Klan had been though unable to vote, were still sub- smashed in the South.” jects of patronage—was half the po- In the long run, of course, these litical work that Grant had to do. His measures hardly helped. Though the campaign theme for his eventual Klan, in its original incarnation, had reëlection sounds positively Clinto- been crushed, its politics had not, and, nian, in Chernow’s summary: “He had by the end of the eighteen-seventies, appointed a prodigious number of apartheid enforced by at least the threat blacks, Jews, Native Americans, and of sporadic white terror was back in women, and delivered on his promise place. Did this represent a subsequent to give the country peace and pros- failure of nerve on Grant’s part or a perity.” A group of reform Republi- tragedy of history that no one could cans—Henry Adams’s father among have avoided? One sometimes hears them—formed a party to run against it argued that, if Lincoln had lived,

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 69 the path to radical Reconstruction the corruption of the Grant era in- tune, and got swindled by a plausible would have been smoother. Through volved mutations in the two great con man, losing all the money he had the force of his character and the pres- changes that the Civil War had al- made. Afflicted with throat cancer, he tige of his name, the argument goes, ready wrought in the country. fought as hard as he had fought at the Lincoln might have obtained a more First, there was the growth of the Wilderness in order to save his fam- unified national consensus on racial small government offices that the sud- ily from poverty by writing his mem- equality without, somehow, enraging den creation of big armies always in- oirs, in an ambitious subscription- the Southern power structure. volves (the notion that one can have publishing scheme fathered by Mark This badly misconstrues Lincoln’s a big military and a small government Twain. (Chernow dismisses the com- genius, which was never for concili- is not the least of American illusions), mon belief that Twain played an ac- ation but always for drawing the max- which led to a huge number of ap- tive role in the book’s composition.) imally tough line with minimal out- pointments to make and taxes to pay The memoirs were a hit—and they ward hysteria. Lincoln’s response to and graft to get. The expanded gov- are not really as short on character anal- secession was to fight one of the hard- ernment produced the “rings” that be- ysis and motive as their clipped, taci- est wars mankind had ever fought, devilled Grant, most notoriously the turn sentences would suggest. The prose and to find people, like Grant, will- Whiskey Ring—a group of distillers is a model of the American stoical, with ing to fight it that hard. The only and Treasury Department agents who a very special note of wry mockery bur- way to establish Reconstruction on colluded to avoid tariffs on alcohol, a ied within it. Of the egocentric Gen- something like an egalitarian foot- scheme in which some of those clos- eral Gouverneur Warren, who always ing—the truly Lincoln-like solu- est to the President were entangled. wanted the rest of the Union Army to tion—would have been to have a per- Second, there were the new tycoon- bend to his needs, Grant writes, “His manent occupying army in most of driven Wall Street businesses that had ideas were generally good, but he would the South and to enforce de-seces- become as inseparable from the Re- forget that the person giving him or- sionism as we later supported de- publicans as their original abolition- ders had thought of others at the time Nazification in Germany. Short of ism had been. In 1869, Gould, the ar- he had of him.” Some of Grant’s sen- that, there was going to be an abso- chetype of the Wall Street buccaneer, tences still startle with their compressed lute inequality of forces between engineered a famous “corner” (that is, poetry: “He had sixty thousand as good Northerners who didn’t live there and a near monopoly) in gold—with Gould soldiers as ever trod the earth; better white Southerners who did, surrounded actually having a crony marry Grant’s than any European soldiers, because by the people they feared, and who poor spinster sister-in-law, according they not only worked like a machine still controlled the sources of power. to his partner, hoping that the family but the machine thought.” There is There were hardly any Jews left in connection would make the President psychological shrewdness on every page, Germany after the Second World pressure the Treasury not to sell gold but almost no rumination on larger War, but Mississippi in the Recon- and lower its price. causes. It is tough, observant, here- struction era was a black-majority Chernow presents a convincing and-now narration, and in that way state. A hundred years later, the same case that neither the rings nor the a potent literary model even for the apartheid regime persisted, and the corners ever touched Grant directly— Hemingway era. only way to begin to remedy it was the Treasury continued to sell gold A student of American prose could with infusions of federal troops. Lin- despite the arranged marriage—and hold up Adams’s Grant-bashing mem- coln might have done this, but it that, in any case, the scandals have oir against Grant’s own memoir to seems more likely that he, too, would been oversold to history by a toxic define the two furthest points of Amer- have been exhausted by the perpetual combination of snobbish New En- ican recollection: one discursive, mor- recurrence of Southern revanchism. gland mandarins and sinister revan- dant, allusive, and hyperbolic—exag- chist rednecks. Grant, as is the way geration of affect is the key to Adams’s ore telling, in its way, than the with generals in politics, mistrusted “education”—the other pointed, re- Multimate failure to enforce vot- politicians but trusted former officers duced, and understated. (Lincoln’s ing rights in the South was Akerman’s and big businessmen. Eisenhower was speeches, Grant’s memoirs, and Ste- resignation from Grant’s Administra- another of the type. Generals are used phen Crane’s stories are the triple pil- tion, in December of 1871, and the rea- to judging men only by their suc- lars of American stoical prose to this sons for it. Ackerman had clashed with cesses—good character being an un- day.) What the two old enemies have the country’s new tycoons—notably trustworthy guide to battle-winning— in common, significantly, is a natural railroad barons like Jay Gould—and and so tend to imagine that a rich taste for irony: Grant’s understate- they wanted him out. Big capital lean- man has made good by energy and ments, like Adams’s self- mortifications, ing on government to get its way: this discipline, rather than, as is just as are meant to make the narrator seem became the model of the period. An often the case, luck and cupidity. modest while showing that he sees epoch is usually better mirrored in its Grant’s last years are first famously through everything. Grant underplays vices than in its virtues; civic virtues pathetic and then famously heroic. savage battles to escape the preten- are constant, whereas each corrupt pe- After leaving office, in 1877, he moved sions of heroic rhetoric; Adams over- riod is corrupt in its own way. And to New York, eager to make his for- dramatizes his internal “lessons” to

70 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 mock the earnest pretensions of in- tellect to master the commercial world. BRIEFLY NOTED Grant’s battles have no heroism; they just happen. Adams’s education keeps sending him back to Go. The Lowells of Massachusetts, by Nina Sankovitch (St. Mar- A failure or a forerunner? Grant’s tin’s Press). In 1639, Percival Lowle emigrated from England world is, in certain respects, painfully to Massachusetts, giving rise to a dynasty of influential Amer- familiar, peopled by such figures as icans, especially poets, including Robert Lowell. First distin- the military man whose managerial guishing themselves in professions key to the nascent colo- skill is assumed to indicate integrity; nies—law, politics, the ministry—the family veered toward the the tycoon who is assumed to have arts. In the Romantic era, James Russell wrote of being racked none; and a press that is engaged in with grief over the death of his wife, who was “half of earth bouts of unfocussed self- righteousness, and more than half of heaven.” Amy, who, in 1926, posthu- damaging the well-meaning and the mously won a Pulitzer Prize, challenged audiences at her read- malevolent alike. Coming to the close ings by saying, “Clap or hiss, I don’t care which, but do some- of Chernow’s book, one will think thing!” Sankovitch relies too heavily on the imagined thoughts that we have had, since Grant’s Pres- of her subjects, but her skillful blending of context and detail idency, very much the same politics, makes the vicissitudes of one family emblematic of a nation’s. with the same two political parties. One is a progressive party that ac- The End of Advertising, by Andrew Essex (Spiegel & Grau). “No- commodates what is now called iden- body actually likes advertising,” writes the author of this fast- tity politics, reaching out to a coali- paced history by a self-proclaimed “real-life Roger Sterling,” tion of people—those black, Jewish, the ad exec on the TV series “Mad Men.” Essex warns that the Native American, and Irish petition- widespread adoption of ad-blocking software may doom a nearly ers Grant tried to favor—who think trillion-dollar industry, and that ads must change or die. Branded the world is getting better and who infrastructure projects, such as CitiBike, appeal to consumers support some kind of benevolent gov- through civic enrichment, but, according to Essex, similar proj- ernment protection. The other is a ects have even greater potential: a sponsored renovation of the reactionary party rooted in a core base Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, for example, could “reinvent ad- of revanchist Southern whites who vertising” and “make America great again.” believe that the world is getting worse, want to keep black people from ex- The Dark Dark, by Samantha Hunt (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). ercising too much political power, Each of the stories in this collection harbors a surreal twist. and hate the federal government that An F.B.I. agent is driven to suicide by his love for a human- helps them. oid female robot whose “perfection is alarming”; thirteen Sometimes the progressive, or gov- pregnant teen-agers quietly discuss the intimacies of their ernment-good, party (Grant’s Repub- condition as they float through the air down the hallway of licans) reaches out to fringe elements their high school; a young woman metamorphoses into a of the reactionary, or government-bad, deer whose hooves make it impossible to turn the knob of party (the Democrats of his day), who her bedroom door and escape. Hunt lingers over such mo- are in economic distress, as in the ments just long enough to suggest that the phantasmagori- nineteen- thirties; sometimes elements cal can be found in any situation, no matter how banal. of the reactionary party reach out to former elements of the progressive The Mapmaker’s Daughter, by Katherine Nouri Hughes (Del- party who are newly fearful of social phinium). In the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century, change, as now. But the two parties in a woman of Venetian birth gained power as the privileged 1877 looked remarkably like the two consort of Sultan Selim II. Nurbanu Sultan (as she became parties today. The names are switched, known), the narrator of Hughes’s absorbing historical novel, and the violence permitted against the defends her status against the vicious intrigues of Topkapi minority in the South is at least more Palace. “It is fair to say about eunuchs that they are vindic- limited than it was, but they still super- tive, babyish, condescending, and easily bored,” she reflects intend a system in which the same at one point. According to custom, when a new sultan as- two peoples are very much locked in cends, his brothers are strangled. When Selim dies, Nur- conflict—with a Wall Street economy banu must decide how far she will go to secure her son’s as the engine that drives it, left too reign—and enlarge her own influence. Hughes’s Nurbanu often alone as it routinely overheats is alert to her political and sexual vulnerabilities, and un- and explodes. Of this second, endur- sparing as she reflects on the manipulations and sacrifices ing postbellum country, Grant remains that have marked her life. The result compellingly inter- very much the Washington.  laces public history and intimate conjecture.

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 71 context of an elegy about murdered BOOKS black boys, is what you say when you’ve had to point out the obvious too many times. These poems can’t make his­ SPOKEN FOR tory vanish, but they can contend against it with the force of a restor­ Danez Smith’s poetry of reclamation. ative imagination. Smith’s work is about that imag­ BY DAN CHIASSON ination—its role in repairing and sus­ taining communities, and in mak­ ing the world more bearable. Poets, very broadly speaking, are sometimes disparaged as solo fliers, and few as idiosyncratic as Smith want to bend their gifts to the thriving of non­ literary communities. Smith, who is African­American, H.I.V.­positive, and genderqueer, goes by plural pro­ nouns. Their poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy. Smith’s style has a foot in slam and spoken word, scenes that reach people who might not buy a slim volume of poems. But they also know the magic trick of making writing on the page operate like the most ecstatic speech. And they are, in their cadences and man­ agement of lines, deeply literary. In the poem above, with its ampersands and strong enjambments, its know­ ing alliterative excesses, I hear Ge­ rard Manley Hopkins, the Jesuit priest who jury­rigged his verse to express personal turmoil, and Hart Crane, whose gentleness was expressed in an American idiom full of thunderclap, and Allen Ginsberg, who loved and learned from them both. The addi­ tion of Smith’s star turns a random cluster of points into a constellation, the way new work of this calibre always does. he American poet Danez Smith’s Starting without having “started,” Tthird book, “Don’t Call Us Dead” Smith’s lines suggest the discourses t the center of many of these (Graywolf ), opens with “summer, some­ that they suspend. History “is what Apoems is the black queer body where,” a stunning elegy that contains it is,” since it can’t be changed. Even as it moves through a range of con­ a tense refusal: though “it knows what it did,” it’s like temporary American spaces, some somewhere, a sun. below, boys brown a stubborn child: nobody can coax it comparatively safe, many potentially as rye play the dozens & ball, jump into confessing. These phrases cut in lethal. The mind that tracks it—imag­ in the air & stay there. boys become new all kinds of directions, threatening the ining its outcomes, adjusting to its moons, gum-dark on all sides, beg bruise exasperated truce that they establish. setbacks, processing its sudden drives -blue water to fly, at least tide, at least A history that “is what it is” doesn’t and imperatives—is a wild and un­ spit back a father or two. i won’t get started. sound like it can be so blithely dis­ predictable instrument. In an extraor­ history is what it is. it knows what it did. missed; “i won’t get started,” in the dinary poem about sex and death, “strange dowry,” Smith finds them­ Smith has a rare talent for mapping the body and its authority onto the page. selves in a strobe­lit bar, checked

72 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY RUNE FISKER out by potential lovers. Here is the forgotten by a reader who gets off poem’s opening: on the death models in the back of the book. bloodwife they whisper when i raise my hand for another rum coke the ill savior of my veins proceeds me, my he word “boy”—sometimes sex­ digital honesty about what Tualized, sometimes not, but al­ queer bacteria dotted my blood with ways uttered with a kind of tragic holi­ snake mist & shatter potions ness and reverence—chimes through­ they stare at my body, off the app, unpixelated & poison pretty flesh out these poems. A boy’s will is the men leave me be, i dance with the ghost wind’s will, according to Longfellow, i came here with in a gorgeous phrase that Robert Frost a boy with three piercings & muddy adapted for the title of his first book. eyes smiles & disappears into the strobes the light spits him out near my ear, against That dream of waywardness is liable my slow & practiced grind to get a black boy killed, but Smith’s imagination operates as though it still Once “off the app”—a proxy that exists somewhere. The elegy that opens stipulates the precise terms of erotic the book, “summer, somewhere,” after transaction—we’re in a whirlwind it benches history, suggests a ritual in with the ill but “pretty” body at its which martyred boys can “say our own center. The “snake mist & shatter po­ names when we pray.” Guarded by tions” of H.I.V. mean that a person prayer, simple acts of innocence be­ is, for that evening and in that bar, come, again, plausible: “we go out for the poison in his blood. The “boy with sweets & come back.” three piercings” is in the same boat, I hope this book brings fans of Smith’s and so the night becomes “cum won­ astonishing performances, all readily der & blood hallelujah” before, in the available online, to the printed page. morning, a cruel “seven emails: meet­ Smith’s performance of their poem “dear ing, junk, rejection, junk, blood work white america” was a viral hit, viewed results.” Many poets would end the by more than three hundred thousand poem after the elation, or moralize people after it was featured on the “PBS the morning after. Smith gives us the NewsHour.” It’s a prose poem; I might whole arc of the experience, in a lan­ not have guessed. How to convert that guage whose pleasure shines through performance to the page, when so much even the bleakest details. of its power rests in Smith’s delivery? Spontaneity is the great virtue of In this moving, unsettling work, the this work, but calculation is a survival question is not simply one of craft. It’s skill. The open­endedness of “strange about how the body and its authority dowry” is matched, in this book, by a can be manifested in writing, with only grim determinism. In “it won’t be a the spindly trace of letters to stand in bullet,” Smith’s advantages over “the for it. What does written poetry do that kind of black man who dies on the spoken word cannot? For one thing, it news” are offset by H.I.V., which tar­ forces you, the reader, to say aloud, to gets black men by a different standard embody, the words, while leaving a of intention: gap for the inevitable differences of race or gender identity, of illness and in the catalogue of ways to kill a black boy, health, that might sometimes seem un­ find me buried between the pages stuck together bridgeable. They might be unbridge­ with red stick. ironic, predictable. look at me. 1able; but they are not unimaginable.  The ghastly alternative to turning up “on the news” is to be “buried,” the From Yahoo News. way the classifieds or the obits are The young competitors have spent “buried” in the paper, in a “catalogue” months poring over word lists and dictio- naries, probing the depths of entomology in of potential deaths. An individuated an attempt to answer one nagging question: life, complete with choices that feel what strange word is Carolyn Andrews like one’s own, isn’t a possibility: Smith going to come up with next? is waiting to be used, discarded, and “Thorax”?

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 73 ries, depending on how you proceed THE ART WORLD and where you focus. I took it ran- domly, as a picaresque culminating in a visit to the museum’s ground-floor BEYOND BEAUTY sculpture court. There, permanently on view, is a full-sized cast of Rodin’s “The Auguste Rodin sent sculpture tumbling into modernity. Burghers of Calais” (1889), to my mind the most stunning of modern monu- BY PETER SCHJELDAHL ments. It depicts six wealthy men who, in 1347, volunteered to be executed by a besieging English force as a price for mercy to their fellow-citizens. Milling at odd angles to one another on uneven ground, naked beneath robes or draped sheets, the burghers are he- roes whose shared moment of heroism— stepping forth for sacrifice—is over. Each man is now terribly alone. One appears resigned, one writhes in despair, and an- other, tasked with surrendering the key to the city, attempts defiance while pal- pably trembling on the verge of tears. The youngest pleads with an older one who turns angrily away; but another, forgetting himself, offers comfort. En- larged hands and feet emphasize the bodies to counterbalance the faces. Light pools and, as you move, flows on the black patina. Rodin wanted the monu- ment placed at ground level in Calais, but the city’s officials weren’t ready for so radical an overture to common hu- manity. They hoisted the humble and humbling burghers onto a ceremonious pedestal. (It’s too bad, but understand- able, that the Met must protect the work by installing it on a low plinth.) Rodin was a child of the working class. (His father was a police clerk.) I think that this explains a lot about he hundredth anniversary of the the show) overbear? Sure. There’s a stub- him—and about his reception, to this Tdeath of Auguste Rodin prompts born tinge of vulgarity about Rodin, in- day—as it does about his close friend “Rodin at the Met,” a show of the Met- separable from his strength. But roll your Pierre-Auguste Renoir (the son of a ropolitan Museum’s considerable hold- eyes as you may, your gaze is going to tailor). Both men came to art by way ings in works by the artist. But no occa- stop, again, and widen at the sight of one of tradecraft: architectural ornament sion is really needed. Rodin is always or another work of his. What does it is in Rodin’s case, decoration of ceram- with us, the greatest sculptor of the nearly a touch that thinks. He—or his hand, as ics in Renoir’s. Their training in com- four centuries since Gian Lorenzo Ber- his mind’s executive—wrenched figurative mercial aesthetics, aimed to please, dis- nini perfected and exalted the Baroque. sculpture from millennia of tradition and tinguished them from their more Matter made flesh and returned to mat- sent it tumbling into modernity. privileged and urbane Impressionist ter, with clay cast in bronze: Rodin. A team of Met curators led by De- and Post-Impressionist contemporar- (There are carvings in the show, too, but nise Allen has installed about fifty ies. They loved flesh, which Rodin sen- made by assistants whom he directed. bronzes, plasters, terra-cottas, and carv- sualized and Renoir prettified, both He couldn’t feel stone.) You know he’s ings by Rodin, along with works by re- shamelessly. Rodin had no avant-gardist great even when you’re not in a mood lated artists, in the grand foyer of the desire to reject academic convention, for him. Are “The Thinker” and “The museum’s galleries of nineteenth-cen- which, nonetheless, rejected him. He Kiss” kind of corny? I’ve felt that. Does tury painting and filled one room with was refused, three times, admittance the grandiosity of “Monument to Bal- a chronological survey of his drawings. to the École des Beaux-Arts, proba-

zac” (for which there is a small study in The ensemble tells a number of sto- bly because of his early fondness for RESOURCE ART/ART OF MUSEUM STEICHEN/METROPOLITAN EDWARD

74 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 eighteenth-century rococo—too It is what excites—and stops—his hand. old-fashioned for the academy’s reign- The effect is timelessly startling. Aban- ing neoclassicists. He was doomed to doning the refinement of “The Age of independence. He worked as a crafts- Bronze,” it shrugs off beauty, which re- man, in Belgium, while living with Rose quires a degree of detachment. Rodin Beuret, a seamstress. (They had a son didn’t behold his subjects or present in 1866 and, despite Rodin’s many in- them for admiration. He had at them, fidelities, married in 1917, the last year and they have at us. of both their lives.) On a trip to Italy, The kinetic appeal of Rodin’s most in 1875, works by Michelangelo and original works is complicated by some- Donatello set Rodin’s imagination afire. thing like wit, if wit can be said to im- He was ready for Paris. part power. A primary case in point is Rodin’s breakthrough work, “The “The Walking Man” (modelled before Age of Bronze” (modelled in 1876), 1900), for which he plunked the rough made when he was thirty-six, is beau- torso of one uncompleted sculpture onto tiful: a nude youth, life-sized, rests his the fully articulated legs of another. The weight on one leg, lifts his face with legs appear to stride, with momentum eyes closed, clutches the top of his head conveyed by a twist at the hips. But with one hand, and half raises the other, they can’t do it. Both feet are flat on the clenched as if grasping something. ground. Try assuming the posture your- (The model had held a staff to keep self, as I did at the Met. (People will his arm up.) When the enigmatic work stare. So what?) Your rear foot feels stuck was first shown, in 1877, Rodin titled it in something. Walking becomes lurch- “The Conquered Man,” to elegize his ing. The effect is simple, but it electrifies nation’s recent defeat in the Franco- as the sign of an intelligence that com- Prussian War. But no one was eager to prehends, and can gainfully subvert, the be reminded of that. In addition, the fictive language of figuration in sculp- figure’s extreme naturalism, which ture. You get, in a flash, that Rodin could caused an immediate public sensation, have played no end of Picasso-like games gave rise to rumors that Rodin hadn’t with givens of the medium, had he been sculpted it but had cast it from an ac- more of a sophisticate. tual body. Stung on both counts, he As it is, Rodin’s reputation was long subsequently steered clear of contem- qualified, in the twentieth century, by porary political references and made an imputation of laggard taste, like his figures either larger or smaller than that of the painter Pierre Puvis de Cha- life. Meanwhile, his initial notoriety vannes, several of whose suavely exe- morphed, by quick stages, into inter- cuted Arcadian scenes complement national fame, crowned by the triumph the show. Did Rodin drag Romantic of a show of his work at the 1900 Paris and Symbolist longueurs and boiler- world’s fair, the Universal Exposition. plate mythology into the stern light In 1880, Rodin was commissioned of modernity? Yes. He could title even to design the portal for a museum of an inventive, violently erotic figure— decorative art in Paris. The museum headless, with spread legs—“Iris, Mes- was never built, and Rodin’s Dante- senger of the Gods” (modelled in 1890). inspired, megalomaniacal melee of a But I would be for forgiving him that, hundred and eighty figures, “The Gates if it needed forgiveness. His retention of Hell,” was still unfinished when of old tropes is no more inherently finally cast after his death. It spawned sentimental than the myth of progress many of his touchstone sculptures: con- that led some modernists to snoot him. stituent figures, cast in varying sizes. Indeed, his ready access to the past in “The Thinker,” a presiding presence in art, combined with the absolute au- “The Gates,” ponders damned souls, dacity of his stylings, recommends him apparently, while displaying a set of to a moment—our own—that is dis- muscles that might as easily juggle illusioned with formal development them. But Rodin wasn’t much for mus- while hungering for authenticity. If culature generally. The physical organ you give Rodin the chance, he will that most galvanized him was the skin, show you possibilities of transcendence not just as the outside limit of the body that aren’t only close at hand but iden- but as the inner limit of the outer world. tical with it. 

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 75 he was jailed for stealing a piece of THE THEATRE meat from a rich man’s house. Hester hungers for revenge against the person who ratted her son out and longs to MOTHER! return her child to his rightful place: her nurturing bosom, in which beats a Suzan-Lori Parks’s “Scarlet Letter” spinoffs. heart that can kill and does kill. Though there is still some tenderness in her BY HILTON ALS soul, Hester has seen too much dam- age to trust the world; hers is a wounded early twenty years ago now, the century, the proud and beautiful Hes- consciousness. She works and works Nplaywright Suzan-Lori Parks cre- ter Prynne has a child whose father to free her son (who she thinks is still ated two works for the stage that re- she refuses to name. For this, she is os- incarcerated), but whenever she be- main masterpieces of the form. The tracized by her judgmental and bitter lieves she’s got enough coins to buy his first, “In the Blood,” had its première community and forced to wear a let- release, the female gatekeeper at the at the Public, in New York, in 1999; ter “A”—for “Adulterer”—on her chest. town treasury raises the price. “Fucking A” was staged by Parks at a In “Fucking A” (directed by Jo Bon- Hester is not friendless, though. She smaller venue, in Houston, in 2000. ney), Hester Smith (Christine Lahti), has Canary Mary ( Joaquina Kalu- The plays, which are now in kango), the town whore— revival under the joint title another female pariah— “The Red Letter Plays” (at who’s in love with the Mayor the Signature), present (Marc Kudisch) and can’t different landscapes and let go of her hope that he story lines, but they have a will eventually love her, too. number of technical simi- He is married to the equally larities—including the use lovesick First Lady (Eliza- of monologues, projected ti- beth Stanley), who wants to tles, and songs—and both have a child. But when will examine a woman’s dream that happen? The Mayor, of motherhood and the chal- who speaks and moves like lenges of mothering with- a military officer, gets off out societal support or faith. on his own exaggerated The plays’ protagonists, both masculinity, which he per- named Hester, bend low or forms with verve for his stand tall in a political cli- all-female audience. mate in which the power- So many frustrated dreams less are given an even rawer in this story of romance-as- deal than they could have blight—and yet love or the imagined, but Parks never dream of love won’t let any- gives up on her characters; one go. One place where she shows how pain wears the women find shelter is on them, but also how they in talk—Parks’s well-crafted outwit life—which is to say English—and in “Talk,” a life that is dominated by a kind of patois that she male-generated puritanism. has invented. The women Before writing these plays, joke freely as subtitles are Parks notes in the Playbill, projected on the wall of she joked to a friend that Saycon Sengbloh and Christine Lahti as troubled mothers. Hester’s sitting room, like she was going to create a thought bubbles. The play piece based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s an abortionist, lives and works in a is about language as a specious but “The Scarlet Letter”—which she hadn’t nameless town that feels murky and necessary form of communication, read at the time—and call it “Fucking closed off. Hester’s “A”—for “Aborter”— and how it can push the soul into cri- A.” After reading the novel, she wrote has been branded on her chest. Her sis when words are buried, history two plays, and to see them one after bloody work never ends. Women come twisted. Parks emphasizes those frus- the other is to understand how Haw- to her to evade the thing that would trating obfuscations by breaking the thorne’s book gave Parks permission make them even more vulnerable than play up into blocks and songs. While to explore her own gothic sensibility. In they already are—motherhood—just watching, I wondered if this Brech- “The Scarlet Letter,” which is set in Pu- as it has made Hester vulnerable. She tian “distancing” made me feel more ritan Massachusetts in the seventeenth doesn’t know where her son is; as a boy, or less implicated in the proceedings,

76 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY JOÃO FAZENDA and I liked not knowing. Parks’s lan- and she’s in love with the syntax and guage always has that effect on me; cadences of Texan speech. The poetry she refuses to be only one thing on the of her language reminds us that En- page, so how can we feel only one glish drama began as verse, and there’s thing? Language is confusing, any- a great deal of Shakespeare in her work way: do we ever really say what we as well; from him, she learned how sec- mean, let alone write it? When Hes- ondary characters can introduce new ter’s son, Monster (the outstanding ideas while helping move the primary and sexy Brandon Victor Dixon), narrative along. Beckett is an influence, finally reappears at their home, mother too, particularly his works, like “Krapp’s and son speak at cross-purposes, which Last Tape,” that emphasize the notion kills, at least temporarily, the thing of voice as story. But Parks’s voice is they’ve both been searching for: a body entirely American in tone, driven by to love that will love them in return. rhetoric and plain speaking, or the way That’s the currency they’re after, even that plain speaking becomes rhetori- though time has robbed them of so cal in a story about love—and all Parks’s much that they never get to share, let stories are about love. alone spend, what their hearts have There’s a great gulf in the mind be- been saving. tween reading a play and seeing it, and Hester La Negrita (Saycon Seng- I wonder if the disappointment I felt bloh) has a great deal of love, in “In the at both shows had to do with how I’d Blood” (directed by Sarah Benson). But, first imagined these essential works— although this mother of five children and how far short of that these pro- fathered by five different men is rich ductions fell. Perhaps the greatness of in reciprocated affection, she is blocked Parks’s language shut the directors out, from the power of knowledge, because before they even got started. There she has no written language: the only isn’t a lot of air in her scripts, and I letter she can write is “A.” Hester and can see how an actor could feel cowed her children live under a bridge, where by them. Of the performers here, Lahti, people throw trash and someone has Kalukango, Dixon, and Jocelyn Bioh scrawled the word “slut” on the wall. (who plays Hester La Negrita’s smart, Hester asks her bright son Jabber (Mi- talkative daughter) seemed the most chael Braun) what it says, but he loves relaxed with the words. I was inter- her too much to tell her, and in this ested in the way that Lahti was able way Parks teaches us the power of shut- to use her body to show how Hester ting up—how we can sometimes save Smith’s slow manner was born out of one another with silence. Hester La necessity: her gruesome instruments Negrita’s “A” isn’t stitched onto her are heavy in more ways than one, as is clothing, but her illiteracy is a stigma her letter “A.” I suppose what I missed that invites all sorts of figures—a wel- in both shows was a sense of desper- fare worker, a preacher, and others—to ation—of the Hesters actually being believe that they’re superior to this stal- in the shit, as opposed to playing it. wart, poetic woman because they can There are glimpses of this, though. write their hate, while she can only Sengbloh, who seemed to be strug- speak her love, which is like a defiant gling with her lines the night I saw scrawl across their smugness. “In the Blood,” had some explosive moments at the end of the drama. But, didn’t see either of these plays when over all, Parks’s complicated view of I they were first staged, but I read them motherhood—is it fulfillment or de- then and was amazed, not for the first struction, biology or destiny, liberation time, by Parks’s gift for theatrical syn- or prison, or all these things?—isn’t thesis. She never tries to deny her played out enough. Despite the play- influences—Adrienne Kennedy and wright’s distancing devices, we should Ntozake Shange, among others—in never feel too far from the funky smell order to compete with them. She picks these women emit as they try to make up where they left off, making major it in a compromised world without pieces about black women in America compromising their romantic dream in her own voice, which is many voices. of life with their children in the glow Parks spent part of her youth in Texas, of a better day. ♦

THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 77 he delivers, but the rewards are meagre, THE CURRENT CINEMA and his wife, Lucy (Sarah Wright), is expecting a child, so how to pump up his pay? Enter three business­minded UNRELIABLE HISTORIES gentlemen from Colombia, one of them named Pablo Escobar (Mauricio Mejía), “American Made” and “Victoria & Abdul.” whose argument is that, since Barry is so often, you know, in the neighbor­ BY ANTHONY LANE hood, why not fly a few packages back to America on their behalf? t the start of “Fargo” (1996), the flight, with his co­pilot dozing beside If you already feel bowed down with ACoen brothers, keeping the straight­ him and the passengers in repose, he plot, be advised that “American Made” est of faces, informed us, “This is a true switches off the autopilot and tips the is just hitting its stride. Liman and his story,” and proceeded to unwrap a pack plane into a lurching plunge. Order is screenwriter, Gary Spinelli, tend to of delicious lies. Moviegoers, of all peo­ soon restored, but, for a few seconds, chivvy us through the narrative with in­ ple, should know that truth is not to be as the oxygen masks drop down, we decent haste, only to pause awhile and trusted; yet we are credulous creatures, race through the possibilities in our savor the scene as if enjoying a fine cigar. with a sweet tooth for the authentic, minds: Is Barry suicidal? Could he be The jungle airstrip, for instance, from and so, week after week, directors con­ a terrorist on the sly? Then we real­ which Barry must depart with his pre­ cious cargo is stomach­heavingly short, and we glimpse the graves of pilots who have come to grief; during Barry’s maiden effort to take off, shredding the treetops as he goes, the camera picks out Escobar and his pals, beside the runway, happily gambling on whether their latest recruit will make it or die. Life, to them, is as light as a banknote. At this point, when I saw the movie, everyone in the theatre laughed at the sight of them, and it’s clear that Liman has got us right where he wants us. The impetuous pace of the film is at one with its moral shamelessness, and, with­ out thinking, we sign up for both. No surprise, then, that as the geopol­ itics of the time turn sleazy and wild Barry gets sucked in afresh. We wouldn’t In Doug Liman’s film, Tom Cruise is a drug-running pilot recruited by the C.I.A. want him to be anywhere else. He says yes when asked to run guns down to the tinue to reassure us that what we are ize: No, he’s bored. He does this sort Contras, in Nicaragua, and then, later, about to witness is rooted in fact. Two of thing for fun. when asked to run planeloads of Con­ new films maintain the tradition. Doug What a way to kick off a movie. The tras back to the United States, for secret Liman’s “American Made” declares it­ scene is suspended between darkness military training. And yes again when self to be “based on a true story,” while and lightheartedness, and touched with the drug lords mention that, as a mat­ Stephen Frears’s “Victoria & Abdul” a hint—or a promise—that the latter ter of fact, they could use more guns offers first the tagline “Based on real may prove more dangerous. Barry is an themselves; can Barry possibly spare a events” and then, after a pause, the sim­ Icarus in aviator shades, and you won­ few? And so on, and on, until he is mak­ pering suffix “Mostly.” der how high he might dare to soar. ing so much lucre that, back at home, Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), the hero Enter Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson), a in Mena, Arkansas, he and Lucy hardly of “American Made,” has a tale to tell, C.I.A. agent who has noted Barry’s tal­ know where to stash it all. Some of it so preposterous that he himself seems ents, such as they are, and now proposes gets buried in the woods; some sits rot­ unsure whether to believe it. He even that he serve his country by flying low ting in the stable, and you have to go warns us, in voice­over, of the direc­ over other countries, in Central Amer­ around a horse to reach it. There’s a lovely tion in which it’s about to veer—“Shit ica, and photographing secluded camps freeze­frame of our hero opening a closet gets crazy from here on”—thus firing that are said to house Communist guer­ and reeling back as his ill­gotten gains, our interest all the more. We join the rillas. Barry agrees to help, and a twin­ stuffed into bags, crash down on him. craziness in 1978, when Barry is a young prop plane is provided. He gets fired at It’s an eighties reboot of the stateroom pilot with T.W.A. On a nocturnal from the ground, and is lauded for what sequence from “A Night at the Opera”

78 THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY DIEGO PATI„O (1935), when Margaret Dumont opens film suggests, and out of it, too, so what strictive to a fault. At one end of a vast the door and a torrent of waiters, maids, will it take, either on the private or the table, with noble guests arrayed on ei- and Marx Brothers falls out. In Liman’s national scale, to wipe such confidence ther side, sits the lonely monarch, snor- version, the humans are replaced by loot. away? That is a question worth putting ing. Suddenly, she awakes and locks eyes It is this mood of unreflective over- not merely to Barry, who is sought si- with a strapping attendant, Abdul Karim kill, rather than any aggregation of de- multaneously by the F.B.I., the D.E.A., (Ali Fazal), who has just arrived from tails, that stamps “American Made” as the A.T.F., and Arkansas State Police, Agra, India. He is swiftly engaged as her a period drama. We don’t feel smoth- but also to Ronald Reagan, a fellow footman and then as her munshi, or ered in huge hair styles, and Lucy’s paragon of good cheer. He presides, in teacher, schooling her in the beauties of dresses aren’t there to make a statement, frequent clips, over this unquenchably Urdu. She seems rejuvenated, but her like the women’s braying attire in “Amer- chipper and heartless yarn, and would joy is not shared by her private secretary ican Hustle” (2013). Liman has more have frowned at the glum note that is (Tim Pigott-Smith), the Prime Minis- potent ploys at his disposal, like the cin- struck at the end, when we are shown ter (Michael Gambon), or her wastrel ematography of César Charlone, who archival footage of the Senate investiga- of an heir (Eddie Izzard), who will suc- shot “City of God” (2002), and who en- tion into the Iran-Contra affair—the ceed her as Edward VII. dows the new film, especially in its early chief counsel at which, it so happens, Directed by Frears and written by patches, with the hot-but-faded glow was Arthur L. Liman, the father of the Lee Hall, the film is a sequel of sorts that you get from an old transparency. man who made this film. Quite true. to John Madden’s “Mrs. Brown” (1997), (“Kodachrome, they give us those nice in which Dench was a younger Vic- bright colors,” Paul Simon sang, in 1973.) t goes without saying that the aging toria. Both movies tell of an inconve- Above all, there is Tom Cruise, whose IQueen Victoria, in “Victoria & nient crush, but the new one feels stuck career was in the ascendant, with “Risky Abdul,” is played by Judi Dench. The in the groove, with a single theme— Business” (1983) and “Legend” (1985), in acting aristocracy of Great Britain is the unlikely half-romance, crossing the frantic years covered by the second as adamantine, in its way, as the Royal the borders of age and race, and half of “American Made.” Because he Family, and any other performer would, thwarted by the prejudices of the es- has changed so little in the interim, and one presumes, have been forbidden by tablishment—returning from scene to mounted so uncanny a resistance to the parliamentary statute. Dench com- scene. The film’s attempt to portray onslaught of time, we feel, with a jolt, mands the role with ease and without the Queen as more politically enlight- that we are gazing up at a star as he vanity—allowing a blob of cream to ened than her courtiers is kindly but both was and still is. Astronomers may disfigure the imperial visage, say, as she unconvincing, and many of the actors flee the cinema in confusion. gobbles her profiteroles at a banquet. bark and behave as if participating in Yet Liman, to his credit, is not con- Her Majesty eats fast, and when she’s a spoof. As for what Frears really makes tent to revel in the shine of his leading finished everyone else must stop. of this ceremonious palaver, I would man. “American Made” joins that small The action, if that is not too flatter- refer you to his innovative use of the band of Cruise movies, like “Magnolia” ing a noun for the march-past of mildly Jell-O-Cam. We find ourselves planted (1999) and “Collateral” (2004), which diverting episodes to which we are immediately behind the royal dessert, summon the nerve to dig around—to treated, begins in 1887. Victoria, widowed sharing its point of view as it is borne test the armor of his geniality, and to de- since 1861, is, by her own account, can- aloft, richly colored and quivering, into construct that celebrated grin. God help tankerous and fat; each morning, she Victoria’s presence. The Empire is us, he even gets a tooth knocked out! submits to a discussion of her move- starting to wobble.  (Two other characters remark upon the ments—a delicate matter, pertaining loss, aware that it’s as rare as an eclipse.) both to her bowels and to her social en- NEWYORKER.COM You can smile your way into trouble, the gagements for the day. Both seem re- Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER, OCTOBER 2, 2017 79 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by Mick Stevens, must be received by Sunday, October 1st. The finalists in the September 18th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the October 16th 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

“Hold on, the Senate Committee on Women’s Health is getting out.” Chris Janssen, San Jose, Calif.

“Describe him.” “It was green when I went through it.” Tom Mardirosian, New York City Robert Gluck, Herndon, Va.

“Never mind. It looks like they fixed the copier.” Craig Moreland, Okemos, Mich.