PRICE $7.99 MAR. 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

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MARCH 16, 2015

5 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

19 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Amy Davidson on the Iran countdown; Chelsea Clinton’s alias; SoHo’s Hindu temple; Reggie Watts; Brooklyn, the musical.

JILL LEPORE 26 RICHER AND POORER How much inequality can a democracy bear? IAN FRAZIER 33 OF YOUNGER DAYS ADAM GOPNIK 34 IN THE MEMORY WARD The battle over the Warburg Library. PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE 42 WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED Gerry Adams, the I.R.A., and a murder.

FICTION SARAH BRAUNSTEIN 62 “ALL YOU HAVE TO DO”

THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE DANIEL MENDELSOHN 70 Newly discovered poems by Sappho. BOOKS THOMAS MALLON 78 Mario Vargas Llosa’s “The Discreet Hero.” 83 Briefly Noted

THE THEATRE HILTON ALS 84 “The Audience,” “Fish in the Dark.”

THE ART WORLD PETER SCHJELDAHL 86 Native American art at the Met.

THE CURRENT CINEMA ANTHONY LANE 88 “Cinderella,” “It Follows.”

POEMS LEE UPTON 38 “The Apology” CLIVE JAMES 50 “Star System”

liniers COVER “Hipster Stole”

DRAWINGS Benjamin Schwartz, David Borchart, William Haefeli, Matthew Stiles Davis, Edward Steed, Tom Toro, John O’Brien, Tom Chitty, Drew Dernavich, Jack Ziegler, Edward Koren, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Roz Chast, Trevor Spaulding, Paul Noth,WorldMags.net David Sipress SPOTS Marcellus Hall THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 1 WorldMags.netCONTRIBUTORS patrick radden keefe (“WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED,” P. 42) is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation and the winner of the 2014 National Magazine Award for feature writing.

amy davidson (COMMENT, P. 19), a staff writer, has a column on newyorker.com.

jill lepore (“RICHER AND POORER,” P. 26) is a professor of American history at Harvard. Her book “The Secret History of Wonder Woman” came out last fall.

adam gopnik (“IN THE MEMORY WARD,” P. 34) has been a staff writer since 1986. “The Table Comes First” is his most recent book.

clive james (POEM, P. 50) will publish two books of literary criticism, “Poetry Notebook” and “Latest Readings,” and “Sentenced to Life,” a collection of poems, later this year. He lives in Cambridge, England.

sarah braunstein (FICTION, P. 62) teaches in the M.F.A. program at the Univer- sity of Southern Maine. “The Sweet Relief of Missing Children” is her first novel.

daniel mendelsohn (A CRITIC AT LARGE, P. 70) is the author of seven books, includ- ing “Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture” and “The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million.” He teaches at Bard College.

thomas Mallon (BOOKS, P. 78) is a novelist, essayist, and critic. His next book, “Finale: A Novel of the Reagan Years,” comes out in September.

anthony lane (THE CURRENT CINEMA, P. 88), a staff writer, is the magazine’s film critic and the author of “Nobody’s Perfect: Writings from The New Yorker.”

liniers (COVER) is an Argentinean cartoonist. The third volume of his daily cartoon strip, “Macanudo,” is being published in English later this year.

NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more than fifteen original stories a day.

ALSO: DAILY COMMENT / CULTURAL COMMENT: VIDEO: The première episode of Opinions and reflections by Rebecca “Comma Queen,” a new series about Mead, Samantha Harvey, and others. all things grammar, with Mary Norris.

PODCASTS: On the Political Scene, PAGE-TURNER: Criticism, contention, Laura Secor and Steve Coll join Dorothy and conversation about books and Wickenden for a discussion about Iran the writing life. and Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. ELEMENTS: Our blog covering the worlds of science and technology. ARCHIVE: Every story since 2007, in easy-to-read text, along with thematic FICTION AND POETRY: Readings by collections of older stories. Sarah Braunstein and Lee Upton.

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CUOMO’S WAY PAY DAYS

Jeffrey Toobin’s Profile of Governor When reading James Surowiecki’s piece Andrew Cuomo is excellent, but it on above-market wages, one should note does not reflect his practice of de- that stagnation in workers’ pay goes ceit (“The Albany Chronicles,” Feb- hand in hand with the explosion of ruary 16th). In 2012, some of the peo- C.E.O. salaries (“A Fair Day’s Wage,” ple whom Cuomo had appointed to February 9th). In the past, executives a commission to review the Long Is- got rich in the course of their careers, land Power Authority’s response to a not all at once. They were paid to build storm did not endorse the recommen- their companies over time and develop dation he wanted (that LIPA should be relationships with workers and clients. disbanded). His response was to re- The rise of the blockbuster payout has write parts of the commission’s final encouraged C.E.O.s to go for big cor- report. In 2013, he claimed that the porate deals that often have no eco- Moreland Commission would be in- nomic rationale except to generate bo- dependent, and could investigate any- nuses for management, and which come one, but when the commission sub- at significant societal costs—including poenaed a firm that had made ads for extensive layoffs and reduced quality of the Governor’s campaign, Cuomo’s life in cities that formerly housed cor- staff demanded that the subpoenas be porate headquarters and manufactur- recalled; he also intervened when the ing facilities. But, with tens of millions commission sought to subpoena a of dollars in golden parachutes and other trade group that had supported him. incentive payments, top executives have He ultimately shut down the com- little reason to stick around and deal mission before it released a final re- with the aftermath of their decisions. port, as part of a back-room deal with Steven Bavaria the legislators whom the committee Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. was supposed to be investigating. 1 Cuomo later insisted that the com- SOCIAL STUDIES mission was under his control, in con- tradiction of his previous statements, Kelefa Sanneh, in his review of “The not to mention his own executive Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black order. Youth,” by Orlando Patterson and Ethan Matthew A. Feigin Fosse, seems to reveal the irrelevance New York City of sociology as a discipline to both the understanding of and the solution to Toobin mentions Cuomo’s disdain for problems in the African-American unions but not the extent to which community (“Don’t Be Like That,” Feb- he refuses to deal with them. I am a ruary 9th). Instead of developing clear professor at Queens College, of the hypotheses that could lead to testable, City University of New York. The robust, and replicable interventions, so- contract for CUNY professors ran out ciology, ostensibly a descriptive rather in the fall of 2010, the year that than a normative discipline, appears to Cuomo was first elected governor. The be caught up in doctrinal battles and union has been attempting to nego- anxiety over political correctness. tiate a new contract since then, but Saul Raw the state has not responded with a Brooklyn, N.Y. financial package. Because of the Tay- • lor Law, strikes by state workers are Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail illegal. As a result, wages at CUNY to [email protected]. Letters may be have been frozen for the past five years. edited for length and clarity, and may be pub- lished in any medium. We regret that owing to David Richter the volume of correspondence we cannot reply New York City to everyWorldMags.net letter or return letters. THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 3 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net WorldMags.netGOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

MARCH WEDNESDAY • THURSDAY • FRIDAY • SATURDAY • SUNDAY • MONDAY • TUESDAY 2015 11TH 12TH 13TH 14TH 15TH 16TH 17TH

For more than half a century, the American choral sound has been defined by the great college ensembles of the Upper Midwest, such as the St. Olaf Choir, with its lusciously layered tones. But recently art | Dance | Night Life young New Yorkers in groups like Roomful of Teeth (pictured above) have been blazing a new trail, movies | The Theatre forming intimately scaled ensembles of brave solo singers whose lean timbres resemble those of Classical Music the early-music and new-music vocal groups of Europe. On March 17, Roomful of Teeth collaborates with Above & Beyond the outstanding instrumentalists of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble at the Met Museum’s Temple of Dendur. They will perform “Drone Mass,” a world première by the Icelandic composer Jóhann Food & Drink Jóhannsson, whose sleek score for the film “The Theory of Everything” was nominated for an Academy Award. WorldMags.netPhotograph by Jonno Rattman Museums and Libraries the verve of Bahia. Through May Galleries—Downtown Metropolitan Museum 16. (Americas Society, Park Ave. at Jan Groover “Discovering Japanese Art: 68th St. 212-249-8950.) The New York photographer, who WorldMags.netAmerican Collectors 3 died in 2011, is best known for her and the Met” elegantly jumbled still-lifes. These The best collection of Japanese art Galleries—Chelsea stark, unpopulated landscapes were on the East Coast is housed at the Subodh Gupta made in the early eighties, on forays Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, The centerpiece of the Indian artist’s into Brooklyn’s industrial margins. but this centennial showcase of the new show is humbler and more The subjects—warehouse façades, Met’s holdings is strong and varied affecting than his more predictably parked trucks, empty lots—are far enough that New Yorkers can save grandiose efforts: a twelve-foot-wide from picturesque, but the plati- ART themselves the trip. The Met began jumble of salvaged aluminum sinks num-palladium process Groover collecting Japanese art in 1914, but and other kitchenware, including used gives the prints an exquisite arms and armor formed the bulk tiffin boxes and karahi, punctuated finish, with skies like burnished of its holdings until 1929, when the by faucets with running water. (The silver. Her work recalls the chill, widow of the sugar baron H. O. piece gains little from the coy Ma- matter-of-fact approach of Robert Museums Short List Havemeyer bequeathed the museum gritte-Duchamp face-off of its title, Adams and Lewis Baltz. Like them, Metropolitan Museum an impression of Hokusai’s “Great “This Is Not a Fountain.”) Gupta is Groover was interested in America “The Plains Indians: Artists of Wave”—so crisp it’s hard to believe gifted, but he falters when he goes the ordinary, which has a beauty Earth and Sky.” Through May 10. it’s from 1830—and a twelve-panel glam: the appeal of gold-plated rods all its own. Through March 28. Museum of Modern Art screen depicting a coursing river with stacked on a wooden table is merely (Borden, 560 Broadway, at Prince “Björk.” Through June 7. a vivacity typical of the Rinpa school, decorative. He’s better at the quotidian St. 212-431-0166.) MOMA PS1 along with works by Rembrandt and scale and intimate mood of a work “Wael Shawky: Cabaret Degas. (Another print collector was like “My Family Portrait,” in which Lynn Hershman Leeson Crusades.” Through Aug. 31. Frank Lloyd Wright, who sold the worn pots and pans are arranged on Since the nineties, the San Fran- Guggenheim Museum Met his portraits of Kabuki actors racks borrowed from his sister and cisco-based artist has been best “On Kawara—Silence.” Through when business was slow.) The Met’s brother. Through April 25. (Hauser & known as the director of some May 3. curators made frequent visits to Japan Wirth, 511 W. 18th St. 212-790-3900.) very distinctive films starring Tilda Brooklyn Museum after 1945, but the great transformation Swinton. But before Leeson trained “Kehinde Wiley: A New came in 1975, with the acquisition Chuck Samuels her lens on the indomitable star Republic.” Through May 24. of some four hundred objects from If the Canadian photographer’s sly, she turned it on herself. In 1974, Asia Society the Packard collection, a move so meticulously staged self-portraits look she created an alter ego named “Buddhist Art of Myanmar.” ambitious that Thomas Hoving, familiar, it’s because they’re all based Roberta Breitmore, who had her Through May 10. the museum’s director at the time, on famous female nudes by male own bank account, credit cards, Jewish Museum had to suspend purchases in other photographers, including Man Ray, and driver’s license. It was a private “Laurie Simmons: How We See.” departments. One of the best of Edward Weston, and Helmut Newton. performance without an audience, Opens March 13. these works may be the serenest: a Casting himself as a homoerotic icon, which was one of Leeson’s points: Museo Del Barrio Muromachi-era scroll painting of a Samuels throws the male gaze back Was a woman ever really known to “Under the Mexican Sky: Gabriel solitary man trudging through rain, on itself in works that are funny but anyone but herself? Now that the Figueroa, Art and Film.” Through oblivious to the lines of calligraphic more than just punch lines. Though artist is getting the attention she June 27. poetry falling around him. Through he has claimed his agenda is feminist, deserves (a major museum survey Museum of Biblical Art Sept. 27. his critique is confused by narcissism. just opened in Germany), we are “Sculpture in the Age of 3 Still, that doesn’t soften its bite. treated to this loose retrospective, Donatello.” Through June 19. Through March 28. (ClampArt, 531 which delights with its idiosyncra- Museum of the City Galleries—Uptown W. 25th St. 646-230-0020.) sies and philosophical strengths. In of New York “Moderno: Design for Living in addition to Leeson’s looking-glass “Everything Is Design: The Work Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela, “The Chinese Photobook” feminism, there’s an abiding interest of Paul Rand.” Through July 19. 1940–1978” This revelatory exhibition, co-cu- in science and the environment, In postwar Latin America, modern rated by the British photographer real-world concerns that she renders GALLERies SHORT LIST design was more than a look—it Martin Parr, rewrites the history both otherworldly and strangely Chelsea was a national enterprise, endorsed of Chinese photography through familiar in five decades’ worth of Nick Mauss by governments undertaking grand publications, weaving high art and paintings, collages, and sculptural 303 schemes of industrialization and low bureaucracy into one over- tableaux that reject signature style in 507 W. 24th St. 212-255-1121. urbanization. This robust exhibi- powering panoply. The early days favor of a wide-ranging and fantastic Through April 11. tion highlights the ways in which of post-imperial China saw local realism. Through April 5. (Donahue, Anicka Yi Brazilian, Mexican, and Venezuelan photographers like Lang Jingshan 99 Bowery. 646-896-1368.) The Kitchen designers imbricated art, archi- producing atmospheric landscapes 512 W. 19th St. 212-255-5793. Deborah Turbeville Through April 11. tecture, manufacturing, and craft, that simulated scroll painting. (He first in domestic objects (including also liked nude women and pandas.) The first New York show devoted to “The Painter of Modern Life” the covetable wooden furniture of Foreigners like Henri Cartier-Bres- the maverick fashion photographer Kern 532 W. 20th St. 212-367-9663. Venezuela’s Miguel Arroyo), then at son turned their lenses on China since her death, in 2013, highlights Through April 11. the grand scale of Brasília. Moderno as well; so did the Japanese Army, the atmospheric work she made usually meant Bauhausish, but, given which published books portraying at Versailles in the early eighties. “The Radiants” Bortolami national ambitions, tradition had its puppet state in Manchuria as a Given access to areas tourists never 530 W. 20th St. 212-727-2050. a role to play, too; the Mexican happy colony. Propaganda from the see, Turbeville recorded dusty Through March 29. furniture-maker Clara Porset inte- early days of the People’s Republic storerooms and broken statuary in grated woven agave fibres into her features smiling P.L.A. members and mottled, sepia-toned images. The Downtown designs, and Roberto Burle Marx, factory workers; with the Cultural mood is hushed, as if in anticipa- Hito Steyerl the landscape architect behind Rio’s Revolution arrived endless smiling tion of ghosts, embodied by pale, Artists Space famed modernist gardens, produced Maos and books with such titles languorous models who waft through 38 Greene St. 212-226-3970. bowls and plates painted with as “Medical Workers Serving the the ruined rooms like lost spirits. Through May 24. folkloric landscapes. But the tour People Wholeheartedly.” But truth In keeping with Turbeville’s style, Brooklyn de force here is by the underrated will out: in 2003, Li Zhensheng much of the work is unframed, “Destroy, She Said” Italian-Brazilian Lina Bo Bardi. published shocking images of collaged, or captioned in her own The Boiler As the dictatorship iced her com- public denunciations, which he had handwriting, like pages from a 191 N. 14th St., Greenpoint. missions, Bo Bardi yoked a log to been hiding under his floorboards. fragile scrapbook. Through March 718-599-2144. a tripod of branches, fashioning a Through April 2. (Aperture, 547 21. (Staley-Wise, 560 Broadway, at Through April 5. chair with the rigorWorldMags.net of Europe and W. 27th St. 212-505-5555.) Prince St. 212-966-6223.) 6 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net WorldMags.netmake his living in musical theatre, so he majored in DANCE vocal performance and took acting classes as well. After a while, it occurred to him that, in order to get a job in a musical, he would probably have to be able to dance, too, so he added dance classes. Of course, he then grew up to be a dancer, but Paul Taylor makes extensive use of his dramatic training. He often gets character roles, especially comic ones. (He does an excellent pimp, with a big, brown, disgusting cigar, in “Black Tuesday.”) But the thing that Taylor seems to ask of him most often is an unforced sort of poignance— cousin, in a strange way, to the comedy. In the heart- stabbing “Sunset,” the passage most likely to deprive you of your composure is a duet for Kleinendorst and Michael Trusnovec, as two soldiers going to the front. The men do little reaches and kicks and leaps, often side by side or follow-the-leader. Trusnovec seems to be teaching Kleinendorst something. “He’s a mentor,” Kleinendorst says. “This whole dance is about finding comfort wherever you can before you go off and maybe die. It is this very intimate thing that you can’t express.” They express it. divine comedy After Trusnovec, Kleinendorst is the company’s Robert Kleinendorst, of Paul Taylor’s American Modern Dance. most senior dancer. He is forty-one, with a wife (the as the curtain rises on Paul Taylor’s 1985 piece “Last Look”—it will be part of his former Taylor dancer Amy company’s current season at the Koch Theatre—you see, under a low, grimy light, a big pile Young) and a child. About of God knows what in the middle of the stage. It starts to move. It is a pile of human beings. half his time is spent on the Slowly, they crawl apart. One man stands out from the others. He rises; he falls; he rises and falls road, touring. After seventeen again and again, flinging his arms and legs so violently that he seems to be trying to cast them years of doing Taylor’s bone- off his body. The dancer here is Robert Kleinendorst. Much of Taylor’s best work depends on crunching work, he wakes up the performers looking human and inhuman at the same time, and no one in the company looks three to four times a night more human than Kleinendorst, down to the corny sideburns that he says the troupe’s set and because of pain. “I can’t dance costume designer Santo Loquasto is always trying to get him to shave off. (“I can’t. I’ve had them that much longer,” he says, so long I can’t imagine being without them.”) He is therefore perfect as the initial display item in almost with bewilderment. Go “Last Look.” If a man like this could suffer such a fate, none of us are safe. see him now. When Kleinendorst went to college—Luther CollegeWorldMags.net in Decorah, Iowa—he intended to —Joan Acocella 8 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY JONNY RUZZO Paul Taylor’s American Modern Compagnie CNDC-Angers Benanti and Derek Hough. The meditations unspooling like pri- Dance During the final seventeen years of opening number, set to Taylor Swift, vate thoughts from a larger group In its sixty-first year, the company Merce Cunningham’s life, Robert is by Mia Michaels, of “So You Think dynamic. Her sculptural use of the embarks on a major transformation.WorldMags.net Swinston was the great choreographer’s You Can Dance,” but direction and body is abetted by atmospheric, The Paul Taylor Dance Company right-hand man. Swinston directed choreography by Warren Carlyle, of expressive lighting. “Renewal” is a was devoted exclusively to the oeuvre the Cunningham company’s farewell “After Midnight,” give more cause for new evening-length work for eleven of the modern-dance master Paul tour (2010-11), and since 2013 he has hope. Jared Grimes, who tapped up dancers, made up of short sketches Taylor; now, under a new name, the transformed the performing arm of a storm in “After Midnight,” appears exploring the theme of reinvention, ensemble will branch out, presenting a French choreographic center into here, singing and dancing in an artificial revisiting and retooling material from works from the early days of modern a Cunningham offshoot, which now downpour. (Radio City Music Hall, earlier pieces. (Tribeca Performing dance, as well as more recent pieces by makes its U.S. début. The format is like Sixth Ave. at 50th St. 866-858-0007. Arts Center, 199 Chambers St. 212- younger choreographers. This season that of an Event, Cunningham-speak March 12-15. Through May 3.) 220-1460. March 13-15.) includes two guest appearances: the for a collage of choreography created José Limón Company will perform across decades. New elements include ABT Studio Company / ABT Martha Graham Dance Doris Humphrey’s stately “Passacaglia scene design by the French artist JKO School Company and Fugue,” from 1938, and Shen Wei Jackie Matisse (granddaughter of On Friday, American Ballet Theatre’s In recent years, most performances Dance Arts will dance Shen Wei’s Henri) and a score, played live by junior ensemble—a transition point by the Graham company have in- large-scale, abstract “Rite of Spring,” John King and Gelsey Bell. (Joyce between the school and full professional volved some sort of explication, so from 2003. But don’t worry, Taylor Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. status—presents a program of excerpts the show-and-tell format of the 92nd has not tired of making dances. The 212-242-0800. March 10-15.) and short works by Petipa, Antony Street Y’s Harkness Dance Festival three-week season also features a swath Tudor, and Merce Cunningham. On should fit the troupe like a glove. (An of repertory (including the beautiful “New York Spring Spectacular” Saturday, the students take over, with old glove, considering the historical “Beloved Renegade”) and two new It’s been nearly two decades since the an evening that includes Balanchine’s connections between the group and pieces, “Sea Lark”—a collaboration with Rockettes had a spring show. This one windblown “Valse Fantaisie” and an the Y.) Preceding a performance of the artist Alex Katz—and “Death and is about an old-fashioned tour guide excerpt from Fokine’s “Les Sylphides.” “Cave of the Heart,” Graham’s har- the Damsel.” There will also be live threatened by technology. Produced (Schimmel Center, Pace University, 3 rowing retelling of the Medea myth, music, for the first time in many years, by Harvey Weinstein, it boasts vocal Spruce St. 866-811-4111. March 13-14.) dancers will break down movement provided by the excellent Orchestra of cameos by Whoopi Goldberg, Tina motifs, demonstrating how Graham’s St. Luke’s. (David H. Koch, Lincoln Fey, and Amy Poehler; video cameos Amanda Selwyn Dance Theatre technique applies to these particular Center. 212-496-0600. March 10-15 by 50 Cent, Donald Trump, and Victor Selwyn often spins variations on characters. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd and March 17. Through March 29.) Cruz; and live appearances by Laura a poetic theme, with individual St. 212-415-5500. March 13-15.)

Diana Krall suggests everyone in the region grew in jazz. His ninetieth birthday is While Bob Dylan was dipping into up lazing in the sun, smoking grass, March 13, and he is celebrating Frank Sinatra’s catalogue for his new and listening to psychedelic jangle-pop with the guitarist Pat Metheny and album, “Shadows in the Night,” the of a certain vintage. Bright, cleanly the bassist Christian McBride. The jazz pianist and song stylist Krall strummed guitar chords accompany trumpeter Roy Hargrove joins him was remaking “Wallflower,” a rickety excellent vocal melodies—delivered on March 14, and the dancer Savion country waltz written by Dylan in alternately by Martin Frawley and Glover is on hand on the 15th. (Blue 1971 and recorded a year later by Julia McFarlane—that stick in your Note, 131 W. 3rd St. 212-475-8592.) Doug Sahm. It’s the title song of head without becoming cloying after NIGHT her new record, which also includes multiple listens. With Ultimate Painting, Jason Moran interpretations of material by the a darker, sixties-inspired slacker-pop The Village Vanguard, a jazz bastion Eagles, Elton John, the Carpenters, duo made up of former members of the and unofficial temple for the music, LIFE and other big acts of the seventies. U.K. rock groups Mazes and Veronica is marking its eightieth birthday. The The album was due to be released last Falls. (March 13: Rough Trade NYC, celebration starts on March 10—with fall, but it was postponed after Krall 64 N. 9th St., Brooklyn. roughtradenyc. Kenny Barron, Stanley Cowell, Fred came down with pneumonia. (March com. March 14: Mercury Lounge, 217 Hersch, and Ethan Iverson joining 12: Capitol Theatre, 149 Westchester E. Houston St. 212-260-4700.) Moran for solo piano performances—and Rock and Pop Ave., Port Chester. thecapitoltheatre. 3 it ends on March 15, with the Charles Musicians and night-club proprietors com. March 14: Beacon Theatre, Lloyd New Quartet. In between, lead complicated lives; it’s advisable Broadway at 74th St. 212-465-6500.) Jazz and Standards Moran and his Bandwagon ensemble to check in advance to confirm Herb Alpert and Lani Hall are presiding over programs devoted to engagements. Keb’ Mo’ The trumpeter, sixties pop icon, music the music of Thelonious Monk, poetry Few musicians emblematize the mogul, and educational philanthropist (featuring Elizabeth Alexander and James Bay blues like Kevin Moore. During his Alpert is joined by his wife, the vocalist Yusef Komunyakaa), folk music, and It may not be unusual for unknown twenty-year career as Keb’ Mo’, he Hall, for an evening that will draw comedy, reflecting the wide swath of musicians to rise to fame via the Inter- has won three Grammys, appeared on his new album, “In the Mood,” entertainment that originally filled the net, but Bay, a singer-songwriter from on “Sesame Street,” collaborated with which dresses songbook chestnuts in basement establishment. (178 Seventh Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, England, Martin Scorsese for the miniseries pop-funk finery. To be sure, the hale Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037.) has a particularly spectacular story. “The Blues,” and earned his own seventy-nine-year-old won’t ignore the At an open-mic night in London, Gibson signature acoustic guitar. peppy instrumentals that made him a Jacky Terrasson an audience member filmed Bay He even portrayed the legendary star with his Tijuana Brass ensemble, The pianist, who has moved in and out performing and uploaded the foot- bluesman Robert Johnson in the 1998 or “This Guy’s in Love with You,” the of the spotlight since his début, in the age to YouTube. The video caught documentary “Can’t You Hear the Bacharach-David gem that gave him nineties, has a new record, “Take This,” the attention of Republic Records, Wind Howl?” As closely associated a No. 1 hit in 1968. (Café Carlyle, on the recently rebooted, legendary and the label flew Bay to New York with the blues as he is, folk, pop, jazz, Carlyle Hotel, Madison Ave. at 76th label Impulse! Records. It includes and signed him. The young crooner and rock also inform his music, which St. 212-744-1600. March 10-21.) such time-honored jazz classics as “Take has a strong sense of balladry and is as accomplished as it is accessible. Five,” “Blue in Green,” and “Un Poco has since won the hearts of many (B. B. King Blues Club & Grill, 237 Roy Haynes Loco,” but the nervy stylist isn’t looking listeners, along with such accolades W. 42nd St. 212-997-4144. March 13-14.) Time is a slippery commodity in to the past—he enlisted a Malian per- as the 2015 Brit Awards Critics’ this venerable percussionist’s hands, cussionist and a human beatbox artist Choice. Bay’s début album, “Chaos Twerps but he never loses hold of it, and on the album. He celebrates its release and the Calm,” comes out next week. This Melbourne quartet is the latest it has been kind to him—he’s still March 13-15, at the helm of a quartet. (Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. band from the antipodes with the going strong after seven decades of (Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Broadway at 212-533-2111. March 16.) kind of upbeat, carefreeWorldMags.net sound that refashioning the role of the drums 60th St. 212-258-9595.) THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 9 WorldMags.net MOVIES

Now Playing Opening of the local solipsistic eccentrics for audiences, Aurelius’ successor, Cinderella Alice in the Cities (including a randy raconteur, played Commodus, played here by the Reviewed this week in The In this drama by the twenty-eight- by Noël Coward), the nightmarish flamboyant Christopher Plummer, Current Cinema. Opening year-old Wim Wenders, from 1974, images, the backdrop of student forsakes the Pax Romana and turns March 13. (In wide release.) Rüdiger Vogler plays the director’s protest and political crisis, and the Rome into an empire of camp. Sophia Champs alter ego, Philip Winter, a thirty- frenzied soundtrack, which features Loren ups the entertainment level as A documentary about boxing, something German journalist on the the music of the Zombies.—R.B. Aurelius’ daughter, especially when directed by Bert Marcus, American scene. Taking Polaroids (BAM Cinématek; March 15.) the dashing, heroic Stephen Boyd featuring Mike Tyson, Evander instead of writing a story, Philip makes her feel like a vestal virgin Holyfield, Mark Wahlberg, and loses his job and has to go home. Buzzard again.—Michael Sragow (Anthology Denzel Washington. Opening But first, in New York, he’s thrown The second shot of Joel Potrykus’s Film Archives; March 14.) March 13. (In limited release.) together with Alice van Damm (Yella second feature offers a cinematic high: The Cobbler Rottländer), a nine-year-old German a five-minute-plus closeup of a pale, Fifty Shades of Grey Adam Sandler stars in this girl abandoned by her mother (Lisa scruffy, moon-eyed, blandly insolent The setting is Washington State, the fantasy, as a shoemaker who Kreuzer), and takes her on an odyssey young man pulling a fast one. Marty place where love gets weird. Could gains the ability to see from his customers’ perspectives. from Manhattan to Amsterdam and Jackitansky (Joshua Burge) tells a there be something in the rain? Boy Directed by Thomas McCarthy; a series of German towns. Philip’s bank officer to close his account meets girl, but there’s always a hitch; co-starring Dan Stevens, Steve lonely road trip through the land of his and then reopens it immediately for in “Twilight,” the boy was a vampire, Buscemi, Dustin Hoffman, and fantasies morphs into a quasi-familial a fifty-dollar new-account bonus. A and now, in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Ellen Barkin. Opening March road trip through the land of his own temp at the same bank, Marty is a gloomy new film, the girl is swept 13. (In limited release.) unavoidable realities. Here, Wenders brazen master of gaming the system; off her feet, only to discover that Cymbeline crystallizes his style of existential he returns the bank’s office supplies the boy wants to tie her up by the Michael Almereyda sentimentality and heartwarming to a store for cash and calls consumer wrists. It’s like an R-rated game of directed this adaptation of blankness. His cool eye for urbanism hot lines to demand refunds—but Twister. The script was adapted by Shakespeare’s play, starring and design blends a love of kitsch when he steals small refund checks Kelly Marcel from the golden-tongued Ethan Hawke, Ed Harris, with a hatred for commercialism, meant for the bank’s customers, best-seller by E. L. James, but not and Milla Jovovich, set in contemporary Los Angeles. a historicist sensibility with a fear it’s a scam too far. Fearing arrest, quite adapted enough. Christian Opening March 13. (In limited of history’s ghosts. Wenders’s New Marty goes on the run. Potrykus Grey (Jamie Dornan) remains as release.) York time capsule includes a look constructs the character of Marty as dreary as ever, despite the snugness Run All Night at the ballgame organist playing at an Emma Bovary who’s in thrall to of his torture room and his peculiar Liam Neeson stars in this Shea Stadium and a glimpse under horror movies and headbanger rock, habit of sitting down to play Cho- thriller, as a hit man who the Rockaway boardwalk; his Am- a raging king of anomie and attitude pin, molto adagio, at the drop of a must challenge his former sterdam is charmless and grungy, in a suburban wasteland of no future. riding crop. As Anastasia Steele, the employer in order to save and his German towns blend grim (The director co-stars as Marty’s bashful student who yearns for him, his family. Directed by Jaume industry and grubby necessity. A only friend, Derek, a super-nerdy Dakota Johnson strives courageously, Collet-Serra; co-starring Joel jukebox playing Canned Heat, a colleague). Marty remains a blank and even finds traces of wit in the Kinnaman, Common, and Chuck Berry concert, and even John even as his violent fantasies break role, but she still bumps into the Genesis Rodriguez. Opening March 13. (In limited release.) Ford’s obituary lend a desperate touch through to reality, but his tenuous old, disheartening question: would of life to Wenders’s gray continent. connections to his family and the girl adore the boy if it weren’t Seymour: An Introduction In German and English.—Richard the countdown of his scant funds for his billions, his blinding white Ethan Hawke directed this documentary, about the Brody (MOMA; March 17.) sketch a chilling story. Potrykus’s shirts, and the ride she gets on his pianist and teacher Seymour puckishly outrageous visions are chopper? Warning: the film contains Bernstein. Opening March 13. Bunny Lake Is Missing short on insight, but they pack an whipping scenes, which some pastry (In limited release.) At first contact with an electric guitar, enduring hallucinatory power.—R.B. chefs may find distressing.—Anthony revivals and festivals Otto Preminger, born in 1906, got (In limited release.) Lane (Reviewed in our issue of 2/23 & Titles in bold are reviewed. a shock, which he conveys in this 3/2/15.) (In wide release.) jangled psychological thriller from The Fall of the Roman Empire Anthology Film Archives 1965, set in swinging London. A Physically, it’s a milestone: no Focus “Screenwriters and the young American woman, Ann Lake producer in the decades since has This comic thriller begins as a twist Blacklist.” March 11 at 6:45 (Carol Lynley), has just arrived assembled as vast an ocean of extras on the classic crime romance “Trouble and March 13 at 9:15: “Two with her journalist brother, Steven or as stunning an acreage of plaster in Paradise”: two smooth grifters, the Mules for Sister Sara” (1970, (Keir Dullea), and her four-year-old as Samuel Bronston did in his veteran Nicky (Will Smith) and the Don Siegel). • March 12 at 7 daughter, Bunny. On her first day Spanish studio, and no director in novice Jess (Margot Robbie), pick and March 14 at 9: “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here” (1969, at her new school, young Bunny Bronston’s stable could make better each other’s pockets and thus seal a Abraham Polonsky). • March 14 vanishes, although nobody—neither use of it than Anthony Mann did. In partnership made in heaven. Nicky at 2:45: “The Last Sunset” (1961, teachers nor students nor, for that the culturally aspiring movie world teaches Jess some secrets and recruits Robert Aldrich). • March 14 at matter, viewers—have seen her. The of 1964, it was possible to film the her for his high-class, quasi-corporate 5:15: “The Fall of the Roman dapper, ironic Superintendent New- same basic story as “Gladiator” and criminal team, which moves into Empire.” house (Laurence Olivier) takes over actually have the dying Emperor New Orleans to fleece the yokels on BAM Cinématek the investigation. His imputations Marcus Aurelius use a phrase like hand for a Super Bowl-like event. “Rendez-Vous with French regarding Ann’s sanity take over “Pax Romana.” Alec Guinness plays A compulsive gambler who risks Cinema.” March 11 at 8:30: the story, but the film’s real charge Aurelius as a weary intellectual who the team’s bankroll, Nicky is also “Stubborn” (2015, Armel lies elsewhere—in Preminger’s view wants a Roman peace that all for- a consummate professional who’s Hostiou). • March 12 at 8: of a jolting, disoriented age of rock eigners can join, not as slaves or as unwilling to take a chance on love. “Portrait of the Artist” (2014, Antoine Barraud). • “Black & and roll. The mental chaos of the clients but as citizens. Unfortunately But he and Jess meet again later in White ’Scope: American times is reflected in the behavior for Aurelius, but perhapsWorldMags.net fortunately Buenos Aires, when they’re working 10 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net opposite sides of a Formula One race. also of deeper traumas within. What an upright scion (Alfred Lunt, in Smith is breezy, canny, understated, matters here is not the plot, such as one of his few film appearances) Cinema.” March 13 at 2, 5, and Robbie hides scalpel-sharp wiles it is, but the unsavory knowledge who discerns Sally’s natural nobility and 8: “In Cold Blood”WorldMags.net (1967, behind a poker face, but the writers that everything we see—the movie through her greasepaint and antics. Richard Brooks). • March and directors, Glenn Ficarra and industry, the family unit—is coiled Harsh scenes of Sally scuffling along 14 at 6:45 and 9:30: “The Elephant Man” (1980, David John Requa, submerge the stars’ and bent in on itself. Hints of incest train tracks for want of fare contrast Lynch). • March 15 at 4 easy chemistry in a murky stew of and conflagration abound, and the with her near-metaphysical trans- and 9:15: “Bunny Lake Is clever yet absurd plot twists of a young refer to anybody older than formation into a grande dame for a Missing.” • March 15 at 6:15: nearly superheroic hyperbole. That themselves as “menopausal.” Cronen- salon entertainment. Griffith rarely “Advise and Consent” (1962, sound you hear is the high-fives in berg eases through this damaged displayed the range of his genius as Otto Preminger). the writers’ room, and that, unfortu- landscape with his usual aplomb, comprehensively or as generously. Film Forum nately, is where the filmmakers’ focus neither blinking nor shrinking; by Silent.—R.B. (Film Forum; March 16.) In revival. March 13-19 remains. With Adrian Martinez, as the end, despite that composure, you (call for showtimes): “The an able accomplice with no verbal can’t wait to get out of town. With ’71 Tales of Hoffmann” (1951, filter, and Gerald McRaney, as a Robert Pattinson, as a chauffeur. A raw young soldier (Jack O’Con- Michael Powell and Emeric crusty arm-twister with pride in his Written by Bruce Wagner.—A.L. nell) on his first deployment in the Pressburger). • The films of D. W. Griffith. March 16 at 7: craft.—R.B. (In wide release.) (3/9/15) (In limited release.) British Army, during the year of the “Sally of the Sawdust.” title, is separated from his platoon Film Society of Lincoln Gett: The Trial of Viviane Party Girl and stranded in unfriendly territory Center Amsalem This electrifying blend of documentary on the darkening streets of Belfast. “Rendez-Vous with Ronit Elkabetz is warmly admired and fiction draws straightforward O’Connell has few lines of dialogue, French Cinema.” March but still too little known outside her dramatic power from tangled relation- and his near-silence adds to his air of 12 at 9:30: “Gaby Baby native Israel. Her work as an actress, ships on camera and off. Angélique bewilderment, and to our sympathy Doll” (2014, Sophie in such films as “Late Marriage” and Litzenburger portrays herself, a for his plight. The hero falls back on Letourneur). • March 13 “The Band’s Visit,” suggests that in raven-haired, middle-aged, heavily his training and his wits, but they at 2 and March 14 at 6: her ability to compel and hold the bejewelled hostess at a German strip can bear him only so far through “Party Girl.” • March 14 at 9: “Fidelio, Alice’s eye she has few rivals; her blending club. Her frequent client Michel this alien zone. The writer, Gregory Odyssey” (2014, Lucie of intensity and containment brings Henrich (Joseph Bour), a retired Burke, and the director, Yann De- Borleteau). • March 15 at to mind the prime of Meryl Streep. French miner from just across the mange, deliberately steep us in the 4: “Portrait of the Artist” Elkabetz, with her queenly profile, border, proposes to marry her, and murk of sectarianism and the tangled (2014, Antoine Barraud). would make a daunting Cleopatra; the core of the plot involves her effort stratagems of undercover agents—so French Institute there is no bathos, however, in to surmount her own misgivings. much so that viewers hoping to learn Alliance Française meeting her, in this latest film, as The tempestuous Angélique is a about the early years of the Troubles The films of Benoît an embattled housewife. She plays mighty force of nature and a study in Northern Ireland may emerge Jacquot. March 17 at 4: Viviane, who is seeking a divorce in trouble. She has a mean streak from the film more perplexed than “Villa Amalia.” • March 17 from Elisha (Simon Abkarian) after and a hard past, and, in an effort they were at the start. Much of the at 7:30: “À Tout de Suite” (2004). thirty years of marriage, not because to overcome both and to make a movie is implausible, if you stop to of adultery or abuse but simply for new life with Michel, she circles the think about it; yet you don’t stop, so IFC Center lack of love. In her path stands wagons, bringing together her four stealthily do its shadows draw you “Rendez-Vous with French Cinema.” March 12 at 6: rabbinical law, which demands the real-life children—including Samuel in.—A.L. (3/9/15) (In limited release.) “40-Love” (2014, Stéphane husband’s consent—something that Theis, one of the film’s co-directors, Demoustier). • March 12 at the saturnine Simon will not give. and her teen-age daughter, who has Villa Amalia 8:10: “Party Girl.” The movie, which is the last part of been in foster care for ten years. A This taut melodramatic fantasy, from Museum of Modern Art a trilogy, after “To Take a Wife” and seasoned performer, Angélique is an 2009, radiates hot passions through The films of Wim Wenders. “Seven Days,” is written and directed instant, screen-grabbing star, and her Isabelle Huppert’s coolly controlled March 11 at 6:15: “Paris, by Elkabetz herself, together with family and friends are relaxed and acting. She plays Eliane Hidelstein, Texas” (1984). • March 13 her brother Shlomi. Almost all of captivating in their supporting roles a pianist and composer who performs at 4: “Wings of Desire” the film takes place inside a court- as themselves. Theis and the other under the apt name of Ann Hidden. (1987). • March 13 at 7 and room, at irregular intervals over five directors, Marie Amachoukeli and The musician is knocked off course March 15 at 6: “Faraway, years, but there is no sense of drag Claire Burger, build a grand and by the discovery that her longtime So Close!” (1993). • March 14 at 7:30: “The Goalie’s or slump; on the contrary, the action rumbling tale from Angélique’s daily lover Thomas (Xavier Beauvois) is Anxiety at the Penalty Kick” quivers with tension, impatience, struggles at home and at work. Their seeing another woman, and by her (1971). • March 17 at 1:45: comic heat, and, beneath it all, an intimate revelations of erotic crises coincidental reunion with Georges “Alice in the Cities.” irrepressible rage. In Hebrew.—A.L. and eye for symbolic details suggest a (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a long-un- Museum of the Moving (In limited release.) Maupassant story for modern times. seen childhood friend. Suddenly, Image In French and German.—R.B. (IFC Ann changes her life: she sells her “Required Viewing: ‘Mad Maps to the Stars Center, March 12; Film Society of apartment and her car, closes her bank Men’’s Movie Influences.” David Cronenberg goes to Hollywood. Lincoln Center, March 13-14.) account, ditches her cell phone, and March 14-15 at 5:30: “North His latest film lands him in new wanders through Western Europe’s pro - by Northwest” (1959, Alfred territory, although the terrors and Sally of the Sawdust vincial towns and remote landscapes. Hitchcock). obsessions that infect his characters In this rowdy yet sweet-toned comic Ultimately, she holes up in the villa are familiar enough. Julianne Moore, melodrama of carnival life, from 1925, of the title, a handmade cottage on unleashed, plays an actress named D. W. Griffith yokes the cinema’s a mountainside of an Italian island Havana, who is both plagued by youth to the age-old lore of the with a majestic view of the sea. But visions of her late mother (Sarah wandering trouper. The wide-eyed, her troubled past, and the traumas Gadon) and hellbent on grabbing a impulsive Carol Dempster stars as a of modern European history, burst in role in a forthcoming quasi-remake circus orphan, born in the proverbial and impose mournful structure on her of a movie for which her mother was trunk to an heiress who ran off with a romantic solitude. Huppert’s laser-like famous. No less fretful are Stafford showman and was disowned. Raised by gaze seems to tone and sharpen the Weiss (John Cusack), a self-help “Professor” McGargle (W. C. Fields, director Benoît Jacquot’s images. guru, and his wife, Christina (Olivia in his first starring role), a magician, He applies weighty backstory with Williams), who can barely cope with pickpocket, and shell-game sharper a light touch, sketches sumptuous movie OF THE WEEK their son Benjie (Evan Bird), already with a heart of gold, Sally becomes settings with painterly specificity, and A video discussion a star—and almost a monster—at his fiercely devoted sidekick—and reveals, with a thrilling briskness and of William Greaves’s thirteen. Then there is Havana’s thinks she’s his biological daughter. a breathless admiration, the negative “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: assistant, Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), Griffith revels in his actors’ slapstick power of a life made into art. In French Take One,” from 1968, in our freshly arrived in Los Angeles and aptitude, combining low comedy and Italian.—R.B. (French Institute digital edition and online. bearing the scars notWorldMags.net just of a fire but with a romantic drama involving Alliance Française; March 17.) 12 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 Openings and Previews An American in Paris Craig Lucas wrote the book for this musical THEWorldMags.net adaptation of the movie, with music and lyrics THEATRE by George and Ira Gershwin, directed and cho- reographed by Christopher Wheeldon. Starring Robert Fairchild, Leanne Cope, Veanne Cox, Jill Paice, Brandon Uranowitz, and Max von Essen. Previews begin March 13. (Palace, Broadway at 47th St. 877-250-2929.)

The Evening Richard Maxwell and New York City Players present this new work, written and directed by Maxwell. Previews begin March 12. Opens March 15. (The Kitchen, 512 W. 19th St. 212-255-5793, ext. 11.)

Finding Neverland Diane Paulus directs a new musical based on the movie, from 2004, about the life of J. M. Barrie, with a book by James Graham and music and lyrics by Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy. Starring Matthew Morrison (“Glee”) and Kelsey Grammer. Previews begin March 15. (Lunt-Fontanne, 205 W. 46th St. 877-250-2929.)

Hand to God Steven Boyer stars in this play by Robert Askins, transferring to Broadway after a successful Off Broadway run, in which a shy Christian boy at a puppet ministry is shocked to discover that his puppet, Tyrone, has a volatile personality. Previews begin March 14. (Booth, 222 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.)

It Shoulda Been You Tyne Daly, Harriet Harris, Lisa Howard, and Sierra Jim Fletcher stars in “The Evening,” presented by New York City Players, at the Kitchen. Boggess star in this new musical comedy, directed by David Hyde Pierce, in which two very different families clash at the wedding of their children. With a book and lyrics by Brian Hargrove and music Dynamic duo by Barbara Anselmi. Previews begin March 17. (Brooks Atkinson, 256 W. 47th St. 877-250-2929.) Richard Maxwell has found his Robert De Niro. The King and I Kelli O’Hara and Ken Watanabe star in Rodgers and for fifteen years, the actor Jim Fletcher has worked with the important Hammerstein’s musical, based on the novel “Anna theatre director and writer Richard Maxwell, whose shows require an uncommon degree and the King of Siam,” by Margaret Landon, set in eighteen-sixties Bangkok. A British schoolteacher of silence from the performers. In a Maxwell work—his fourteenth full-length piece, “The contends with the King of Siam, whose children Evening,” premières at the Kitchen on March 12, co-presented by Performance Space 122— she tutors. Bartlett Sher directs the Lincoln Center part of the story is what the characters don’t say as they walk, measuredly, from one side of Theatre production. Previews begin March 12. (Vivian Beaumont, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.) the stage to the other, often turning away from a fellow-performer and gazing off into the distance, as though dreaming of someplace else. When Fletcher looks out into space, he can Skylight communicate longing, certainly, while making sure that we also see his Rodin-like solidity, Carey Mulligan and Bill Nighy reprise their roles in the play by David Hare, after a run in London which refutes the adolescent jumpiness or feyness that most leading men convey on and off last year. Stephen Daldry directs the drama, in Broadway. which a young teacher is visited by her former Born in 1963 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Fletcher has worked with a diverse array of artists, lover, a restaurateur whose wife has just died. Previews begin March 13. (Golden, 252 W. 45th from the theatre collective Elevator Repair Service (he played Gatsby in the epic “Gatz”) St. 212-239-6200.) to the choreographer Sarah Michelson. When the actor, who is usually a head or two taller 3 than the other players, takes the stage, you know you’re in for something interesting: sexiness, Now Playing sometimes, a sense of tragedy and humor for sure, but also a cogent dissection of masculinity, The Audience with a focus on the discord between what a man looks like and what he feels. Helen Mirren stars in this play, by Peter Morgan, “The Evening” is a Dante-inspired work about maleness (Maxwell’s father died while about Queen Elizabeth II. Stephen Daldry directs. (Reviewed in this issue.) (Schoenfeld, 236 W. 45th he was writing it), in which a martial artist and his manager discuss broken dreams while a St. 212-239-6200.) young woman with a checkered past tends bar. The three-person cast includes Brian Mendes and the sculptor Cammisa Buerhaus; Fletcher plays the manager, a role that he may reprise Brooklynite Ten years ago, an asteroid struck Brooklyn, giving later in the intended trilogy, of which “The Evening” is the first play. By casting Fletcher, six hipsters superhuman powers, which they’ve Maxwell is being as specific as his pared-down scripts look and sound. By now, Fletcher is since used to transform the borough into a kind Maxwell’s De Niro; together, they make the most of Fletcher’s silent-movie-expressive face of Eden. But there’s trouble in paradise when the least powerful of the superheroes, Avenging Angelo and the focussed drift of his mind. (Nick Cordero), decides to turn his limited gifts WorldMags.net—Hilton Als against the people of Kings County, at the same ILLUSTRATION BY MARC ASPINALL THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 13 time that the most powerful of the six, the airborne mistake twice, and nearly suffocates her young son Astrolass (Nicolette Robinson), quits the group to (Ryan, in a double role), also named John, with become an average girl. What’s wonderful about her overbearing attention. Under the direction of WorldMags.netPeter Lerman and Michael Mayer’s musical cartoon Jonathan Silverstein, Baldwin and Ryan are superb is the love story between Astrolass and a mortal in this tiny but powerful musical. They both give store clerk, Trey Swieskowski (Matt Doyle), who funny, nuanced performances, and the result is a wants nothing more than to have the power to save moving portrayal of how deeply family members lives; when they sing Lerman’s wistful love songs, can love and hurt one another. (Clurman, 410 it’s as if they were angels rather than superheroes. W. 42nd St. 212-239-6200.) Unfortunately, the silly Avenging Angelo subplot renders the work mediocre. (Vineyard, 108 E. 15th Little Children Dream of God St. 212-353-0303.) Jeff Augustin has written a sprawling play, which the director Giovanna Sardelli and her crew have Fashions for Men innovatively and expertly fit into an intimate space. The phrase “generous to a fault” could easily It’s part fable, part thriller, part romance, part ghost have been coined to describe Peter Juhász, the story, and it endeavors to explore big philosophical openhearted but foolish main character in Ferenc questions in a setting both mundane and supernat- Molnár’s 1917 comedy, receiving a delightful revival ural. Sula (Carra Patterson), following a harrowing under Davis McCallum’s direction at the Mint, with journey from Haiti, finds her way to an apartment the original English translation niftily spruced up building in Miami, where she promptly gives birth by the company’s artistic director, Jonathan Bank. to the baby she’s been carrying for eleven months. Juhász (Joe Delafield) is the owner of a high-end She’s aided by Carolyn (Deirdre O’Connell), another clothing store in Budapest (exquisitely realized by resident, who credits the paternity of her eleven Daniel Zimmerman’s set and appointed by Joshua children to God. Sula’s newborn is healthy but Yocom’s props). He’s on the brink of professional “creepy,” everyone agrees, and Sula worries that he and personal ruin as nearly everyone in his circle— has been infected by a vodun curse she has carried customers, employees, wife—takes brutal advantage from her homeland. This leads to a theological of his good nature, praising him while bleeding him debate between the two women, just one of many dry. Delafield may be a bit too young for the role, unexpected encounters pulled off by the fine cast. but he projects a confidence turning to confusion, Most affecting, perhaps, are the interactions between resignation, and bitterness that is truly touching. Carolyn, a plainspoken health-care worker, and The cleverly structured play has good, satiric fun Manuel (Gilbert Cruz), a bitter, lonely terminal at its tender center, with especially fine comic turns case. In the hands of these two accomplished actors, provided by Kurt Rhoads, as the shopkeeper’s noble the characters give as good as they get, illuminating patron, and by Jeremy Lawrence, as a loyal long- the heart of the play. (Roundabout Underground, time employee who hears, sees, and knows all. (311 111 W. 46th St. 212-719-1300.) W. 43rd St. 866-811-4111.) Rocket to the Moon Fish in the Dark Clifford Odets’s 1938 drama, directed by Dan Larry David stars in this comedy, which he wrote. Wackerman, opens with Ben Stark (Ned Eisenberg), Anna D. Shapiro directs. (Reviewed in this issue.) a bighearted Manhattan dentist, promising his (Cort, 138 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200.) bitter, controlling wife (Marilyn Matarrese) that he won’t expand his practice—something that would Hamilton be financially risky but emotionally fulfilling. It’s Lin-Manuel Miranda’s complicated, valuable musical, not much of a surprise, then, that Stark soon falls directed by Thomas Kail, does everything it can to in love with his beautiful nineteen-year-old dental stand outside the American-musical canon—and assistant (Katie McClellan), and is torn between then doesn’t. The Founding Fathers Aaron Burr his worn-out commitments and his dreams. Though (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and Thomas Jefferson (Daveed Eisenberg, in his late fifties, does an excellent job Diggs), along with George Washington’s aide- playing an American Everyman in hard times in de-camp John Laurens (Anthony Ramos) and this Peccadillo production, he’s too old to play a Hamilton (Miranda), in eighteenth-century-style good guy who’d seriously consider running off knee britches and waistcoats, rap and sing about with a teen-ager. McClellan, however, is perfectly Hamilton’s beginnings. Then it’s 1776, and America cast as a young woman so full of life and hope is struggling for independence from King George III that she makes most of the downtrodden men (the take-no-prisoners Brian d’Arcy James). Once around her feel alive and hopeful, too. (Theatre at Hamilton works his way into Washington’s inner St. Clement’s, 423 W. 46th St. 866-811-4111.) circle, becomes the Treasury Secretary, and meets his future wife, the rich and socially prominent Eliza The World of Extreme Happiness Schuyler (played by the genteel and dull Phillipa China’s one-child policy was enacted in 1980, and Soo), the show’s radicalism is slowly drained, and the most shocking, insidious effect was the subse- the resulting corpse is a conventional musical. By quent widespread subordination, neglect, and even burying his trickster-quick take on race, immigrant murder of baby girls. So when Sunny (Jennifer ambition, colonialism, and masculinity under a Lim) is born to a peasant family at the start of commonplace love story in the second half of the Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig’s play, in 1992, her mere show, Miranda hides what he most needs to display: survival is something of a miracle. Twenty years his talent. (Reviewed in our issue of 3/9/15.) (Public, later, she is plying a soul-killing factory job in the 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.) city of Shenzhen, sending money home so that her younger brother (there were loopholes in the John & Jen policy) can go to school. Directed by Eric Ting, the In the first act of this Keen Company revival of production attempts to lighten Sunny’s grim journey Andrew Lippa and Tom Greenwald’s 1995 two-person through a society and an economy heavily stacked musical, John (Conor Ryan) and his older sister against her, with comic supporting characters and Jen (Kate Baldwin) are growing up in the fifties parallel references to the adventures of the beloved and sixties with an abusive father. They make a Chinese literary character the Monkey King. But, pact to always stick together, and then Jen breaks ultimately, the dialogue—formal, stilted, and sympathy- the pact, with tragic results. In the second act, resistant—works against it. (City Center Stage I, 131 Jen, WorldMags.netnow grown up, vows not to make the same W. 55th St. 212-581-1212.) 14 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 cLASSicalWorldMags.net MUSIC

dance of death Thomas Adès’s latest work is a meditation on an ancient theme. the british composer thomas adès, who will conduct the American première of his vocal-orchestral work “Totentanz” with the New York Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall (March 12-14), is still a relatively young man, having just turned forty-four. Yet he is securely established as a modern master, each new piece assuming the trappings of an event. Such a reputation could easily lead to professional caution, to an audience- savvy recycling of familiar gestures. Fortunately, Adès’s latest creations are anything but circumspect: they are wilder, stranger, and bolder than the intricate, insolent scores with which he first made his name, in the nineteen-nineties. The opening bars of “Totentanz” give us winds shrieking in their upper registers, hectoring brass, whistles and whipcracks from the percussion section, and a splattered G-major chord that lands like a dissonance. It is a sound at once grand and gaudy, majestic and mordant. The music fits the subject. “Totentanz,” which is scored for mezzo-soprano (Christianne Stotijn), baritone (Mark Stone), and orchestra, is a setting of an anonymous text that appeared alongside a frieze by the fifteenth-century German artist Bernt Notke—a cavalcade of figures both exalted and humble, their arms linked by prancing skeletons. The frieze, housed in the Marienkirche in Lübeck, was destroyed by Allied bombs in 1942, but a photograph preserves its macabre wit, as does the poem. (“The more you gain promotion, / The more your life’s uncertain,” Death says to the Parish Clerk.) Fifteen people, from an imperious Pope to a helpless infant, go successively to their doom. The procession is structured so that it never feels episodic; a symphonic continuity ties the character sketches together, and a violent, splenetic climax erupts in the wake of the comeuppance of the Merchant. As Death moves down the social scale, the tempo slows, the orchestra thins out, and lyricism comes to the fore. Adès drops his caustic mien when he portrays those without power: a young maiden is accompanied by crystalline harp and piano, by murmuring winds, by an air of heartbreak. The final section, “Death and the Child,” enters the realm of Mahler’s “Wunderhorn” songs, a shivery, shadowy D major. But the orchestra delves into regions darker and grimier than Mahler’s—the sub-crypt of a ruined world. WorldMags.net—Alex Ross ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY ALAN LOVE THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 15 Opera exceedingly lovely “La Donna del American Classical Orchestra Miller Theatre: “Michael Metropolitan Opera Lago” has made a belated entry into In an exceptionally meaty program, Gordon + Bach” Originally seen in 2007, “Lucia di the annals of the Met, and, with such the excellent period-performance The “Bach, Revisited” series at Co- Lammermoor” was the firstWorldMags.net of three singers as Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego orchestra, its chorus, and its conductor, lumbia University selects composers Met productions by Mary Zimmer- Flórez, John Osborn, and Daniela Thomas Crawford, offer three hunks who, in their highly individual ways, man, and its deeply contextualized Barcellona in the leading roles, it is of Classical-era repertory: Schubert’s amplify the stylistic parameters of the stagings have aroused very mixed well worth hearing. Michele Mariotti Ninth Symphony, the “Great”; Mozart’s Master’s work. Gordon, a post-min- feelings among devoted operagoers. leads the orchestra with quicksilver Mass in C Major, “Coronation”; and imalist composer of enduring gifts But this one, with its Victorian-era grace. (March 14 at 1. This is the final an excerpt from Beethoven’s oratorio (and a founder of Bang on a Can), setting, has proved to be a worthy performance.) (Metropolitan Opera “Christ on the Mount of Olives” (along will enjoy performances of his works survivor. The latest revival features House. 212-362-6000.) with the “Egmont” Overture). The “Hyper” and “Dry” by Ensemble Albina Shagimuratova, who has 3 vocal soloists include the soprano Signal and guest artists, who also turn appeared several times at the house Sherezade Panthaki and the tenor their attention to two Bach concertos as Mozart’s Queen of the Night, in Orchestras and Choruses Marc Molomot. (Alice Tully Hall. (including the Harpsichord Concerto the title role, with the honey-voiced Venice Baroque Orchestra lincolncenter.org. March 12 at 8.) in G Minor, BWV 1058, with Kristian tenor Joseph Calleja as her beloved Chris Thile is not the world’s only 3 Bezuidenhout). (Broadway at 116th and Luca Salsi as her disapproving superstar mandolin player; Avi Avi- St. 212-854-7799. March 12 at 8.) brother; Maurizio Benini conducts. tal, solidly educated in the classical Recitals (March 16 at 7:30.) • Also playing: tradition, is a worthy competitor. Alina Ibragimova: the Bach Chamber Music Society of The Bartlett Sher production of “Les He comes to Carnegie’s Zankel Hall Solo Sonatas and Partitas Lincoln Center Contes d’Hoffmann,” already revived with the wonderful Italian orchestra, Ibragimova, an impressive young The Escher String Quartet, a finely this season as an effective vehicle for whose rough-edged elegance reflects violinist currently making the calibrated young American ensemble, the young superstar tenor Vittorio the spirit of the city from which rounds of the great European takes the big stage at Alice Tully Grigolo, returns with a completely it hails. Concertos by Marcello, orchestras, takes on four of the six Hall, performing three especially new cast, led by the Met’s éminence Geminiani, Paisiello, and Vivaldi masterworks (including the Partita in introspective works by Schubert grise, James Levine. The fine lyric (including “Summer,” from “The D Minor, with the “Chaconne”) in (the Quartet No. 13 in A Minor, tenor Matthew Polenzani takes the title Four Seasons”) are on the program. a thrice-repeated concert at the Park “Rosamunde”), Sibelius (“Voces role; Karine Deshayes is Nicklausse; (212-247-7800. March 11 at 7:30.) Avenue Armory’s lovingly restored Intimae”), and Berg (the “Lyric Laurent Naouri sings the Four Villains; Board of Officers Room. (Park Ave. Suite”). (212-875-5788. March 15 at 5.) and Audrey Luna, Susanna Phillips, TENET at 66th St. armoryonpark.org. March and Elena Maximova portray the The esteemed early-music choral 10-11 at 7:30 and March 13-14 at 8.) The Piano Music ill-fated subjects of Hoffmann’s erotic ensemble, singing one on a part this of Pierre Boulez obsessions. (March 11 and March 14 at time, teams up with the singer and Sasha Cooke and Julius Drake A concert of the grand master of 8.) • Vittorio Grigolo makes a second organist Eric Dudley (also a member The radiant American mezzo-soprano, modernism’s music for keyboard should foray into French opera this season of Roomful of Teeth) to perform a now entering mid-career, joins the draw a league of apostles to Zankel by singing Des Grieux in Massenet’s Lenten concert, the book of motets for eminent accompanist in a recital Hall this week. In advance of Boulez’s “Manon,” an extraordinarily lithe Holy Saturday by the eccentric and that moves confidently across the ninetieth birthday, two formidable and sumptuous score. The sparkling deeply expressive Renaissance master centuries, showcasing songs by virtuosos, Pierre-Laurent Aimard Diana Damrau is Manon, one of Gesualdo. The vocal movements will Haydn, Liszt, Mahler (“Lieder eines and Tamara Stefanovich, perform opera’s most headstrong and reckless be interspersed, in authentic style, Fahrenden Gesellen”), Granados, and nearly all of it, including Book II of young women, and Russell Braun is with improvisational organ solos. Kevin Puts (the world première of “Structures” (for two pianos) and all Lescaut; Emmanuel Villaume. (March (Good Shepherd Church, 152 W. 66th “Of All the Moons”). (Zankel Hall. three of the Sonatas for Piano. (212- 12 and March 17 at 7:30.) • Rossini’s St. tenetnyc.com. March 12 at 7.) 212-247-7800. March 12 at 7:30.) 247-7800. March 16 at 7:30.)

above beyond

NYC Craft Beer Festival: bowls. Christie’s sales begin on four auctions on March 17, beginning “peony” bowl from the Song Dynasty. Spring Seasonal March 15, with a two-day spread with a sale of Indian, Himalayan, and In the final sale of the day, devoted to The craft-beer revival is like a happy of Chinese ceramics, followed by Southeast Asian Art—particularly rich in works of art bearing inscriptions, one hour that never ends—this is the tenth a group of seventeenth-century Indian miniatures—from the collection of the most curious lots is a group of edition of the biannual event. Driven Chinese porcelains from a private of the late Claus Virch. (Virch was a “oracle bones”: these carved skeletal by a renewed interest in the fermented collection on March 16. (The house sometime curator of nineteenth-century remains and shells, dated from the beverage, the gathering features will host a symposium on the subject and European paintings at the Metro- thirteenth to the eleventh century seventy-five breweries from around of seventeenth-century porcelains politan Museum.) This is followed by B.C., represent some of the earliest the nation. More than a hundred on March 14.) But the highlight of Chinese art and porcelain, including surviving examples of writing in China. and fifty brews will be available for the week is the first installment of a particularly handsome ivory-colored (York Ave. at 72nd St. 212-606-7000.) tasting, with an emphasis on seasonal a five-part jamboree devoted to the and limited releases. Artisanal food, holdings of the late Robert Hatfield Readings and Talks music from the High and Mighty Ellsworth, a.k.a. “The King of Ming,” “A Celebration of International Poetry” Brass Band, and cocktail-making tips on March 17. The better to showcase The Poetry Society of America inaugurates this new series, with an event from Jonathan Pogash will also be on the collection of this prominent scholar presented in collaboration with the Polish Cultural Institute of New York. tap. (Lexington Avenue Armory, 68 and dealer—whose treasures include The Polish poet Tomasz Różycki will be joined by his translator, Mira Lexington Ave. handcraftedtasting. priceless thirteenth-century Buddhist Rosenthal, as well as by the American poet Matthew Rohrer. (Kosciuszko com. March 13-14.) and Hindu bronzes, Chinese furniture, Foundation, 15 E. 65th St. poetrysociety.org. March 11 at 7.) and Japanese screens—the house will Auctions and Antiques recreate interiors from his art-filled, 92nd Street Y The New York auction circuit em- twenty-room Fifth Avenue apartment The food writer Mimi Sheraton, a contributor to this magazine, whose latest barks on a week of Asian art sales, in its galleries. (20 Rockefeller Plaza, book is “1,000 Foods to Eat Before You Die,” talks with the restaurateur a category encompassing everything at 49th St. 212-636-2000.) • Sotheby’s Danny Meyer about their culinary bucket lists. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. from Himalayan mandalas to Ming covers much of theWorldMags.net same ground in 212-415-5500. March 11 at 7:30.) 16 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

FOOD& DRINK

BAR TAB Livingston manor 42 Hoyt St., Brooklyn (347-987-3292) New York abounds with old things made new—just consider this storefront on Hoyt Street, in Tables for Two downtown Brooklyn. Some sixty years ago, it was the Garfield luncheonette, café clover where bemused detectives once watched a thief crawl over the 10 Downing St. (212-675-4350) transom with sixteen eggs in his pockets and a slice of cake jammed in a city where you in his mouth. More recently, the site could theoretically eat a different preparation of pork belly belonged to a bodega—narrow, dusty, every night, there are two things that might make Café Clover a tough sell. The first is smelling of cat food—adjacent to that the menu was designed with the help of a nutritionist aiming to shave off calories a one-stop shop where checks are wherever possible. The second is that this temple of wellness is situated at Manhattan’s cashed, shoes repaired, and keys most vexed spot, at least for restaurants: the corner of Sixth Ave. and Downing St., where copied. The latter establishment remains (basic needs endure), but a triangular room with the feel of a cruise-ship bow has thwarted the ambition of so recently it was out with the bodega many chefs. and in with the craft-beer-and-cocktail The oddly shaped space has been made to look as lovely as it can be; Aegean-blue joint. The bar is named for both banquettes help. And, sure enough, all the usual health foods are in attendance: flax, chia, nearby Livingston Street and the sunflower seeds. In fact, these three are combined into an aggressively gluten-free cracker, Catskill trout-fishing hamlet where served in lieu of bread, with butternut-squash hummus. Whence the cracker’s binding the Manor’s owner, Matt Roff (also agent? Hard to say, because it disintegrates into a hundred tiny pieces when subjected of the Crown Inn and Franklin Park), vacationed as a child. “The vibe within to the mildest of stress tests: a dip. As long as you’re prepared to eat your vegetables, and the bar is a marriage of old school then eat them again, the meal picks up from there, with a memorably sweet tarragon and new school, semi-modern meets dressing on a gem-wedge salad; baby beets and apples toughened up with hardy little semi-antique,” Roff said the other day. sprigs of lovage; the unexpected addition of blood orange to ribbons of kale. That there’s So it is that such throwbacks as wood a bowl of the distinctly unglamorous celery root on almost every table, tossed with reclaimed from a Virginia elementary rutabaga in an Indian-inspired dressing, is a testament to the power of cumin to make school and a bourbon-and-ginger- just about anything interesting. spiked egg cream called the Bugsville Fizz coexist with neoteric features Sometimes the judicious distribution of calories renders things a little flat: halibut like a hearty dark lager from Catskill quivering like a poached egg on grilled salsify tasted as white as it looked, and, even Brewery (est. 2014), a duck-rillette though it would make things easier for everyone, spaghetti squash is never going to banh mi, and a woman guilelessly convincingly stand in for pasta. (It comes with organic Scottish salmon and black- confessing, “I never really got into trumpet mushrooms.) “Thoughtfully portioned options,” says the bottom of the menu, ‘Seinfeld,’ I think because I was too which sounds vaguely threatening, even Bloombergian, but turns out to be just fine, young.” really—how much more of the cauliflower “steak” in a pool of romesco do you want? —Emma Allen Even if most diners are there to feel better about eating out after SoulCycle or ModelFit, the kitchen’s use of unusual ingredients guarantees a worthwhile discovery or two. White lentils, for instance, in a truffle risotto. Or teff, from Ethiopia, served as a remarkably light multilayered crêpe cake, making a persuasive case for toppling quinoa as ancient grain of choice. The cake comes with an excellent mascarpone mousse and an espresso chocolate sauce. Enjoy in moderation. —Amelia Lester ILLUSTRATION BY JEANNIE PHAN BY ILLUSTRATION Open daily for dinner. Entrées $19-$39. WorldMags.net PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVIDE LUCIANO THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 17 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net WorldMags.net

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT ATOMIC CLOCKS

n 1950, Bruno Pontecorvo, an Italian physicist who had lines. For several years, Iran has been said to be one, two, or I been working on British and Canadian nuclear projects, three years away from having the capacity to build a bomb. The vanished while vacationing on the Mediterranean. As Frank Administration’s goal is to prevent it from getting any closer. Close writes in a new book about him, “Half-Life,” Ponte- The rough outline of the deal, judging from leaks and the corvo wasn’t heard from again until 1955, when he resurfaced Administration’s briefings, is that Iran would allow intrusive in Russia. There were many wild rumors about what he was inspections, limit its nuclear-fuel-production capacity, and working on for the Soviets, among them an “atomic fog.” But give up fuel stockpiles. In return, the United States and its Freeman Dyson, reviewing the biography in The New York allies would lift sanctions. The deal, reportedly, would have Review of Books, asks how much rogue physicists like Ponte- a ten- or fifteen-year sunset clause, although the State De- corvo really mattered: “Perhaps the spies accelerated the pro- partment has indicated that some improvements in inspec- duction of the first Soviet bombs by two or three years, but tions would remain. From Netanyahu’s point of view, Iran would those bombs soon became obsolete and were superseded by then be able to pick up where it left off, and from a position new designs invented without the help of spies.” of greater strength, with its economy “unshackled,” as he put Dyson, as a physicist, must appreciate that the significance it. Iran has cheated before and might try to again (although of two or three years in the life of a nuclear-weapons program a deal would make it easier to detect any covert programs), can be relative. Last Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Is- and it could still be sponsoring militias and terror. There are raeli Prime Minister, speaking to a joint session of Congress, legitimate concerns, but one thing that Netanyahu did not at the invitation of John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, present was any real alternative to the deal. dismissed a potential deal that the Obama Administration is “Folks, simply demanding that Iran capitulate is not a pursuing, which would effectively keep Iran from having the plan,” Secretary of State John Kerry said, after Netanyahu’s means to build a bomb for ten or fifteen years. The time gained speech. He was in Montreux, Switzerland, where he and other would be meaningless if Iran was not first representatives of the P5+1 (the perma- fundamentally incapacitated and trans- nent members of the United Nations formed, Netanyahu said. “A decade may Security Council and Germany) were seem like a long time in political life, but engaged in talks with the Iranian For- it’s the blink of an eye in the life of a na- eign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. tion.” (The two weeks between Netanya- Obama spoke of America’s “unbreakable” hu’s speech and the Israeli elections may bond with Israel, but he, too, emphasized seem like an indecorously short time in that the deal was the best way to stop a political life.) Speaking about Iran’s “ten- bomb—“Nothing else comes close. Sanc- tacles” and its “gobbling up” of other coun- tions won’t do it. Even military action tries, he suggested that President Obama would not be as successful.” didn’t know what he was doing. Former A problem with the anti-diplomacy House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who shook position is the one that Dyson confronts: her head as she watched the speech (more building a bomb has ceased to be a great than fifty Democrats stayed away), said puzzle; nuclear programs no longer rely that she was “saddened by the insult to on physicists disappearing mysteriously the intelligence of the United States.” from Italian beaches. When Netanyahu And yet, despite Netanyahu’s postur- said that the deal, by freeing Iran to be ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS ing, there is a serious question about time- WorldMags.netmore “aggressive,” would “spark a nuclear THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 19 arms race” in the region, he was acknowledging that there are bachev—and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In Iran, the any number of countries that, without too much difficulty, could relationship between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President acquire a nuclear bombWorldMags.net if they had the money and the politi- Hassan Rouhani, whose election held some promise for re- cal will. (Saudi Arabia, certainly, has the budget.) At worst, hos- formers, is opaque, though Rouhani seems to be pushing the tile disruptions of the Iranian program could accelerate it by talks. The terms are relative here, too; last week, Rouhani called pushing the country’s leaders to abandon the restraints Iran has Israel a warmonger. But the world made it through the de- already accepted. At best, they would do on a small scale some- cades of the Cold War in large measure because of imperfect thing that a deal would do better—create more time. arms agreements with dubious partners. If we rely only on A key concept in the negotiations is “breakout time”; that financial and military threats, nonproliferation will fail. is, how quickly Iran could assemble the materials for a bomb In an indication of the complexity of the moment, Iran and if it reneged on a deal. Mostly, this is a question of obtaining the United States have a shared goal in Iraq: to take the city enriched uranium, or having the centrifuges to produce it. of Tikrit back from ISIS. Netanyahu warned Congress not to The more centrifuges a country has spinning, the shorter the be “fooled” into thinking that Iran could be a friend in this breakout time. At the moment, Iran has about nineteen thou- fight. “One calls itself the Islamic Republic. The other calls sand, which it says serve only civilian energy needs; the ex- itself the Islamic State,” he said. “In this deadly game of pectation is that a deal would reduce that number, so that the thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel.” On the breakout time would be a year or more. way back from Montreux, Kerry stopped in Riyadh, in part Breakout time is a concept that might also be applied to to reassure the Saudis about the operations in Iraq. (The Sau- politics. What difference can two or three—or ten or fifteen— dis oppose ISIS, but they, like ISIS, are Sunni, and Iran is Shi- years make? Between 1949, when the Soviet Union tested its ite.) If a deal were to be struck, all the other challenges re- first crude fission bomb, and 1953, when it exploded a hydro- lated to Iran would remain, Kerry said, “except that we will gen bomb (perhaps with help from Pontecorvo) the leader- have taken steps to guarantee that Iran will not have a nu- ship shifted from Stalin to Khrushchev. The years from 1982 clear weapon.” At least, for a useful period of time. to 1991 saw four general secretaries—from Brezhnev to Gor- —Amy Davidson

WHO GOES THERE? naud Française.) One is less sure what Chelsea Victoria Clinton—less a trench- ALIAS to make of the news that Chelsea Clin- coat and sunglasses, as aliases go, than ton, with plenty of time to think, has Capri pants and a hairband. been checking into hotels as Diane Reyn- Diane Reynolds—honey, don’t we olds, the same name under which, as the know her from somewhere? Probably so. Times reported last week, she carried out In Ashland, Ohio, she might have helped her correspondence on clintonemail. you buy a house. Fifty miles east, in Tall- com, her mother’s private e-mail server. madge, she may be your certified public hree Fridays ago at Balthazar, the You kind of want to have them all accountant. She’s an addiction counsel- TSoHo brasserie, a large clouded- over for eggs Benedict: Charles Morin lor near Portland; a physician’s assistant glass mirror detached from a wall and (Winston Churchill’s nom de palette, bor- in Bangor; a nurse in Brooklyn; a dietet- landed on some people who were hav- rowed from a recently dead landscape ics clinical coördinator in Ypsilanti. You ing breakfast. One of them was a man— painter), George Fox (Eliot Spitzer’s might have read one of her poems in the debonair, in a fine scarf and a dark phony identity at the Mayflower Hotel), Cortland Review, or bought a vintage coat—who identified himself to police Lou Sarah (a character created by Sarah bomber jacket from her on Etsy. Diane officers responding to a 911 call as -Ar Palin to hype Sarah Palin on Facebook), naud Française. He was wheeled out of Carlos Danger (Anthony Weiner’s am- the restaurant on a gurney and taken to orous alter ego), his possible relative Nick Bellevue. Doctors examined him; he was Danger (the proprietor of a secret e-mail unharmed. Later, it emerged that he was account maintained by the former North not M. Française but Arnaud Monte- Carolina governor Mike Easley). Poli- bourg, until last August the French ticians, like anyone, burrow into pseud- Minister of the Economy. One guesses onymity when they want to hide them- that he tendered the false surname out selves or something else, when they don’t of embarrassment, not wanting to be want the world to know where they are known, newly arrived on the East or what they’re doing. But, unlike the Coast—he was spending the week as larkish handles of Hollywood celebri- the Syngman Rhee 1910 Lecturer at ties, as revealed by the Sony hackers Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School— (Tom Hanks, a.k.a. Johnny Madrid; as the guy who went to Balthazar and Sarah Michelle Gellar, a.k.a. Neely got crushed by an antique. (Instead, he O’Hara), the fake names of politicians will have to live down the embarrass- seem to yield strangely earnest self-rep- ment of having christened himself Ar- resentations.WorldMags.net Diane Reynolds. It’s so Chelsea Clinton 20 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net Reynolds is a character in “The Day the “I am out of the office until 03/10/2015.” on a mountaintop, wearing only a tiger Loving Stopped,” a 1981 television movie (Diane Reynolds, Toronto, data scientist.) skin. Rebuffed, Parvati tried to woo him starring DominiqueWorldMags.net Dunne and Ally There was another person in the news on his own terms. She took up an aus- Sheedy as Judy and Debbie, sisters who last week who did not use the precise terity regime—fasting, meditating for are upset about their parents’ divorce. name with which he was born: a thirty- years in the wilderness. It worked. Shiva Diane was the eighteenth most popular two-year-old black man who, according was impressed, and he came out of baby girl’s name in America in 1947, the to the Justice Department’s report on the seclusion. year that Hillary Diane Rodham was Ferguson Police Department, was sitting The Hindu ceremony of Shivaratri born. It is unclear, though, why Chelsea in his car cooling off after playing bas- honors their marriage. Devotees fast chose Reynolds. Presumably, she was not ketball. This was in 2012. An officer and stay up all night to celebrate it with memorializing the late Irish Prime Min- pulled up and demanded the man’s iden- chanting. “It’s a long haul,” the yoga ister Albert Reynolds, who, according to tification; he accused him of being a pe- teacher Eddie Stern said the other day, Bill Clinton, “worked hard and risked dophile, ordered him onto the pavement, at the Broome Street Temple, in SoHo. much as Taoiseach to advance the North- and prepared to search his car. The man “But, once you get late into the night— ern Ireland peace process,” or referring objected. The officer arrested him, -re 2, 3, 4 A.M.—the whole atmosphere’s to the sex-offending ex-congressman Mel portedly at gunpoint. The man was pretty profound.” Stern, who is pale, Reynolds, whose prison sentence was charged with eight different violations, with a shaved head, had just arrived, commuted by her father. Maybe she and this eventually caused him to lose late, from giving Madonna a yoga les- dreams of being Mrs. Ryan Reynolds. Is his job as a government contractor. One son. Would Madonna be coming to the she in the pocket of the aluminum-foil of the charges was Making a False Dec- ceremony? “She said she might stop by,” lobby? (Chelsea Clinton Fake E-Mail laration: his name was Michael, and he Stern said. Stern is an expert in Ashtanga Name Generator: your mother’s middle had originally given it as Mike. yoga, having trained with Shri K. Pat- name and the first thing you see when —Lauren Collins tabhi Jois, who developed the technique. you open the kitchen drawer.) It seemed 1 He founded the Hindu temple, in his a question that only the experts could ALL-NIGHTER DEPT. Manhattan yoga studio, in 2001, to cre- resolve. OM SWEET OM ate “a little slice of India,” he said. Since E-mails from real Diane Reynoldses, then, it has become an unlikely spiritual- upon being informed that Chelsea Clin- pilgrimage site, attracting a mixture of ton had assumed their name: Indians, downtown yoga ladies, and ce- “Get out! I’m politically involved and lebrities (Gwyneth Paltrow; Mike D, think that’s GREAT!” (Diane Reynolds, Real- of the Beastie Boys; Julian Schnabel; tor, Peabody, Massachusetts.) Russell Brand). The evening’s Shivaratri “Wow!” (Diane Reynolds, wedding pho- legend: In ancient India, a noble- ceremony was bittersweet: it would be tographer, Dallas-Fort Worth area.) A woman named Parvati had a crush the Temple’s last. The space had been “Well, if I hadn’t done a bit of research on the god Shiva. But he wasn’t open to sold to developers, who want to turn it after getting your e-mail, I would have sworn this was a phishing scam!” (Diane Reynolds, dating. His previous wife had died, and into a hair salon. “It’s an emotional time,” family therapist, Santa Monica.) he was an ascetic; he meditated all day Stern said. More than a hundred and fifty yogis had R.S.V.P.’d for the all- nighter, and he said they’d be drifting in and out. It was 5 P. M., and Stern’s helpers were rushing around, making chai and rice for the guests. Near the back of the room, a white-and-gold shrine, like a cabin, housed a statue of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. A Hindu priest and other robed men sat on the floor in front of a mural depicting Shiva. Stern joined them and began to chant, as a crowd showed up. First came the after-work shift: San- gita, a paralegal whose parents are from Calcutta, said that she was there because “my mom’s been pushing it. I think she wants me to find a husband.” Rebecca Dias, a former yoga teacher from Chel- sea, said that she was hoping to bring “auspiciousness” into her life. The robed men chanted. A kirtan WorldMags.netsinger played a harmonium and sang, accompanied by her brother, on a tabla. for bringing us all together!” he an- friend had brought him and he’d dug “Om namah Shivaya,” many followers nounced. Dias was jubilant. “I’m proud the vibe. “It reminds me of Seattle, like, chanted, while others WorldMags.netdiscreetly checked that I made it this far,” she said. Lobu- 1992,” he said. their Instagram accounts. During a bath- glio nodded. “I got a third wind!” he said. Watts is forty-two years old. His full room break, one of the robed men, Neeraj “I’m going home to catch up on e-mails.” name is Reginald Lucien Frank Roger Karhade, introduced himself. He works —Lizzie Widdicombe Watts. He was born in Stuttgart, Ger- in private equity. “I learned Sanskrit as 1 many; his mother is French, and his fa- a child,” he said. “I come from a long UP LIFE’S LADDER ther was a U.S. Air Force officer. He went line of priests.” Beneath his robe, he wore SIDEKICK to Great Falls High, in Montana. “First, a black T-shirt that spelled out “Broome I was in drama, where you find the weird- Street Temple” in the shape of the Ra- est, smartest kids and the smartest, cut- mones logo. est girls,” he said. “Then I tried student At twelve-thirty, Stern rang a bell. council and was on the football team, “Hari om! ” he announced. “Here we not because I loved football but because are at the halfway point.” He spoke I wanted to experience football as a con- about the ritual, explaining that Shiva eggie Watts is weird, but weird works struct. ” At eighteen, he moved to Seat- is the god of consciousness, so it makes R for Reggie Watts. Example: his tle, and played in bands (Action Buddy, sense to honor him with an all-nighter. 2012 TED talk. He starts out speaking Ironing Pants Definitely, and others) be- “It’s a discipline to stay up all night,” gibberish, which morphs into a British fore landing in New York, in 2004. he said, and retold the story of Parva- accent (“there is no time other than the A man with Alanis Morissette hair ti’s suffering. “At the heart of her aus- collapsation of that sensation of the mir- and a handlebar mustache introduced terities was a deep, profound love for ror of the memories”), and is followed Shiva. Discipline without love is fanat- by a gruff “Ya know what I’m sayin’?” icism. And love without discipline can Ya don’t, but that’s the point. Watts, seem wishy-washy.” The crowd mur- the soon-to-be house bandleader of mured its assent. “The Late Late Show with James Cor- The late shift was arriving. Massimo den,” on CBS, could be called a come- Lobuglio, an environmentalist wearing dian or a musician. In his signature act, trendy glasses, wanted to bring “more he improvises monologues and songs love, less B.S.” into his life. An art teacher over beats that he records onstage and named Suzanne said that she’d been in- loops using an effects pedal. The result trigued by the ceremony’s reputation for is like watching a “Saturday Night Live” helping women with romance. “I tried audition on acid. to do online dating,” she said. “But I The other day, Watts was due at the don’t have time.” Still no Madonna. Tiger Lounge, a secret rehearsal space The night marched on: more chant- beneath a dive bar in Williamsburg. ing, more offerings. By two-thirty, the The room reeked of incense, its walls room was full of yawns. By three-thirty, covered with graffiti. Watts lumbered Dias looked wilted. “I’m struggling,” she in and bellowed to the room, “Hello, I Reggie Watts said. Lobuglio slumped against a wall. am Lathrup McGillicutty,” but his dis- At 4 A.M., there was a long bout of chant- tinctive hairdo (poufy ’fro, poufy beard) himself as Yazan, the Tiger Lounge’s ing: “Om namah Shivaya.” Throats grew gave him away. He offered a hand to manager. “Did you bring that?” he asked sore. Bottoms felt numb. Even Stern shake—he keeps his pinkie nails long; Watts, pointing to a fancy beverage. seemed to be in a funk. “Real estate one was painted red, the other black— “Yeah, man,” Watts said. “It’s all nat- stresses me out,” he said, reflecting on and addressed how he’d found the place. ural, Stevia-sweetened, green coffee the Temple’s relocation issues, during a “Fifteen years ago, I worked for a small beans, unroasted, longer prolonged en- chai break. (Madonna had sent her re- Salisbury-steak TV-dinner-manufac- ergy, healthier for you. It’s dope. It’s the grets at 12:46 A.M. “ ‘I just finished my turing company called Swanson’s, and shit! It’s got electrolytes.” He did not rehearsal, and I’m totally exhausted,’ ” they would include brownies, which sound like someone who needed more Stern said, reading her message. “I said would always remain kind of gooey caffeine. we’d say a prayer for her.”) even though you put them in the oven On his way out, Yazan said, “Watch At five-fifteen, it was still dark out- for a long time,” he began. “And I re- out for that guy, on the wall over there.” side. A little girl—Pranathi Bhat, the member my grandmother coming over Watts stomped over. “Is it a la cucara- priest’s daughter—was led up to a mi- with a shawl, and she said, ‘You guys cha?” He impersonated a cockroach, using crophone, where she rubbed her eyes look so cozy here, but you know what a girlish voice: “Look what I can do! I and sang a song: “Om mangalam.” The would really work? You should find a can lay really flat!” men in robes tinkled bells and lit can- place in New York,’ and so I found this Watts abandoned the bug, and talked dles, celebrating the celestial marriage. place.” He blinked. His interlocutor about his role on “The Late Late Show.” Stern perked up. “Thank you, Lord Shiva, laughedWorldMags.net nervously. Nah, Watts said, a “I don’t really know much about what’s THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 23 going on. Except that I’m supposed to vegan bakeries and bicycle collectives. as two boys tried on X-ray glasses. “I be coming up with a theme song,” he That, anyway, is the version put for- like these big cans,” he said, eying bar- said. “Hopefully, it’s goingWorldMags.net to sound like ward by the new musical “Brooklynite,” rels labelled “Moon Base” and “Toxic ‘Sanford and Son.’ Or Mumford. One which recently opened Off Broadway. Ooze.” “We just need some bigger stuff of the ‘and son’s.” His band will have The show is the rare musical based on stage left in our last scene.” A couple five members. “I’m still looking for a a store. (“Walmartopia,” a Fringe Festi- popped in looking for paint samples, female bass player. I don’t want it to be val hit in 2006, is another.) Its inspira- and an employee directed them to a just a bunch of fucking dudes. Badass tion is the Brooklyn Superhero Supply hardware store down the street. Man- is first, but I also want it to visually look Company, which opened in Park Slope delbaum said that the store gets a lot of diverse.” eleven years ago and specializes in capes, construction workers mistakenly look- He went on, “I honestly have not seen masks, ray guns, invisibility coating, and ing for supplies. “They’ll just walk in an entire talk show, probably since ’95. other crime-fighting accoutrements. Be- and give us a Sherwin-Williams num- They all kind of bleed together. Plus, I hind a secret moving wall—designed to ber,” he said. don’t have cable. I know a lot about fake elicit “whoa”s—is a spacious after-school Mayer bought two T-shirts and a talk shows.” Since 2012, Watts has done student center run by 826NYC, part of “neutron device” and headed back to his thing on the mock late-night show Dave Eggers’s tutoring and writing ini- Manhattan. Later that afternoon, six- “Comedy Bang! Bang!” Corden, who is tiative. When the theatre producer teen students from the after-school British, and is known for the BBC sit- Amanda Lipitz first saw the hidden-door program, aged between nine and six- com “Gavin & Stacey,” as well as for reveal, she said recently, “It sang.” teen, attended a matinée of “Brook- starring in “One Man, Two Guvnors” Lipitz and the producer Margo Lion lynite,” at the Vineyard Theatre. After on Broadway, has even less relevant ex- brought the idea to the married novel- the show, Mayer and Lerman sat on- perience. He told Stephen Colbert, of ists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Wald- stage and answered their questions. his upcoming program, which will be man, and hired Michael Mayer, the di- “How long did it take you to write?” taped in Los Angeles, “It’s going to be rector of “Spring Awakening” and Sarah, who lives in Bay Ridge and wore a complete disaster.” “Hed wig and the Angry Inch.” The prob- a butterfly headband, asked. “I hope so,” Watts said, dreamily. “I lem: “You can’t write a show about a “Over three years,” Mayer said. love terrible chaotic things. ‘The Mup- place,” Mayer said the other day, visit- “But not every day,” Lerman added. pet Show’ never went right! ing the store before a preview. Their first Chelsea (Bed-Stuy) asked about the “So why did I decide to take this draft was about the tutoring program, audition process. Mayer said that some show?” he asked himself. “No. 1 was so until Waldman concluded that it was of the actors had worked with him be- I can possibly lose weight and get in too “spinachy.” (“No one wants to see a fore, on such projects as “American Idiot,” shape”—his nutritionist is in L.A. “The musical about tutors,” Mayer said.) So a title that made the kids giggle. Adrian second was I’ll have extra time to pur- they scrapped the idea and invented a (Coney Island) asked, “Did you pick Kid sue my own ideas, and thirdly was being Brooklyn inhabited by superheroes, in- Comet, like, instantly?” on the show.” He added, “If I were cluding Captain Clear (invisibility), Kid Brianna (East New York) asked, younger, I think I would’ve been a lit- Comet (speed), Astrolass (flight), and “Who made your amazing but out-of- tle more idealistic and, like, fuck TV Avenging Angelo, endowed with a super- the-blue costumes?” Mayer called over and corporations. But, at the same time, human ability to find a parking space. the costume designer, Andrea Lauer. people are people. Everything is made Eventually, the team brought on the Brianna had a follow-up question: “What of people.” songwriter Peter Lerman, and Chabon happens if the actors or actresses grow —Emma Allen and Waldman got sidetracked with other an inch or two?” 1 projects. In his staging, Mayer lifted el- Katie (Park Slope) asked why there THE BOARDS ements of the shop, including utility had been so many jokes about Park SUPER belts, secret-identity glasses (“I’m a spec- Slope. tacles whore”), and immortality in a can. “Well, yeah, because Park Slope “Where’s antimatter?” he said, scan- is notoriously, like, the safe place—” ning the shelves. Mayer said, struggling. “Do you live “We might be out,” Joshua Mandel- there? Have you ever been mugged?” baum, 826NYC’s executive director, said. “I don’t think a mugger would try to Mayer had just demonstrated the Cape mug me,” Katie said flatly. et’s review the gentrification of Brook- Tester, a platform rigged with fans that “See? That’s what we’re talking about.” L lyn: ten years ago, the Gowanus create a billowing effect, while reciting Adrian raised his hand again. “Why Asteroid landed in Prospect Park, im- the official vow of heroism: “Ever vigi- did you put in those parts where the buing a group of passersby with awe- lant, ever true.” The shop has a black- people are in love?” some superpowers. This band of heroes, and-white industrial look, but for his set “The kissing parts?” Mayer said. calling themselves the League of Vic- Mayer favored a candy-colored palette, “Well, we have to do some stuff for the tory, now spend their days putting out closer to the “Batman” and “Wonder adults, too.” With that, the kids left to subway fires, stopping muggers, and Woman” TV series of his youth. He catch the subway back to Brooklyn. generally keeping Brooklyn safe for beganWorldMags.net snapping photos with his phone, —Michael Schulman 24 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net data are patchy, and different countries ANNALS OF SOCIETY measure differently. The Luxembourg WorldMags.netIncome Study, begun in 1983, harmo- nizes data collected from more than RICHER AND POORER forty countries on six continents. Ac- cording to the L.I.S.’s adjusted data, Accounting for inequality. the United States has regularly had the highest Gini index of any affluent -de BY JILL LEPORE mocracy. In 2013, the U.S. Census Bu- reau reported a Gini index of .476. The evidence that income inequal- ity in the United States has been grow- ing for decades and is greater than in any other developed democracy is not much disputed. It is widely known and widely studied. Economic inequality has been an academic specialty at least since Gini first put chalk to chalkboard. In the nineteen-fifties, Simon Kuznets, who went on to win a Nobel Prize, used tax data to study the shares of income among groups, an approach that was further developed by the British econ- omist Anthony Atkinson, beginning with his 1969 paper “On the Measure- ment of Inequality,” in the Journal of Economic Theory. Last year’s unexpected popular success of the English transla- tion of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-first Century” drew the pub- lic’s attention to measurements of in- equality, but Piketty’s work had long since reached American social scien- tists, especially through a 2003 paper that he published with the Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, in The Quarterly Journal of Economics. Believ- ing that the Gini index underestimates inequality, Piketty and Saez favor Kuz- nets’s approach. (Atkinson, Piketty, or about a century, economic in- tween 1947 and 1968, the U.S. Gini Saez, and Facundo Alvaredo are also Fequality has been measured on a index dropped to .386, the lowest ever the creators of the World Top Incomes scale, from zero to one, known as the recorded. Then it began to climb. Database, which collects income-share Gini index and named after an Italian Income inequality is greater in the data from more than twenty countries.) statistician, Corrado Gini, who devised United States than in any other democ- In “Income Inequality in the United it in 1912, when he was twenty-eight racy in the developed world. Between States, 1913-1998,” Piketty and Saez and the chair of statistics at the Uni- 1975 and 1985, when the Gini index used tax data to calculate what percent- versity of Cagliari. If all the income in for U.S. households rose from .397 age of income goes to the top one per the world were earned by one person to .419, as calculated by the U.S. Cen- cent and to the top ten per cent. In 1928, and everyone else earned nothing, the sus Bureau, the Gini indices of the the top one per cent earned twenty-four world would have a Gini index of one. United Kingdom, the Netherlands, per cent of all income; in 1944, they If everyone in the world earned exactly France, Germany, Sweden, and Finland earned eleven per cent, a rate that began the same income, the world would have ranged roughly between .200 and .300, to rise in the nineteen-eighties. By 2012, a Gini index of zero. The United States according to national data analyzed according to Saez’s updated data, the Census Bureau has been using Gini’s by Andrea Brandolini and Timothy top one per cent were earning twenty- measurement to calculate income in- Smeeding. But historical cross-country three per cent of the nation’s income, equality in America since 1947. Be- comparisons are difficult to make; the almost the same ratio as in 1928, al- though it has since dropped slightly. Robert Putnam focusses on the widening gap betweenWorldMags.net rich kids and poor kids. Political scientists are nearly as likely 26 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY to study economic inequality as econ- income inequality, because it’s increased omists are, though they’re less inter- dramatically under their policies.” No ested in how much inequalityWorldMags.net a market doubt there has been a lot of talk. “Let’s can bear than in how much a democ- close the loopholes that lead to inequal- racy can bear, and here the general think- ity by allowing the top one per cent to ing is that the United States is near- avoid paying taxes on their accumu- ing its breaking point. In 2001, the lated wealth,” Obama said during his American Political Science Association State of the Union address. Speaker of formed a Task Force on Inequality and the House John Boehner countered American Democracy; a few years later, that “the President’s policies have made it concluded that growing economic in- income inequality worse.” equality was threatening fundamental The reason Democrats and Repub- American political institutions. In 2009, licans are fighting over who’s to blame Oxford University Press published both for growing economic inequality is that, a seven-hundred-page “Handbook of aside from a certain amount of squab- Economic Inequality” and a collection bling, it’s no longer possible to deny of essays about the political conse- that it exists—a development that’s not quences of economic inequality whose to be sneezed at, given the state of the argument is its title: “The Unsustain- debate on climate change. That’s not able American State.” There’s a global to say the agreement runs deep; in fact, version of this argument, too. “Inequal- it couldn’t be shallower. The causes of ity Matters,” a 2013 report by the United income inequality are much disputed; Nations, took the view—advanced by so are its costs. And knowing the num- the economist Joseph Stiglitz in his bers doesn’t appear to be changing any- book “The Price of Inequality”—that one’s mind about what, if anything, growing income inequality is responsi- should be done about it. ble for all manner of political instabil- ity, as well as for the slowing of eco- obert Putnam’s new book, “Our nomic growth worldwide. Last year, R Kids: The American Dream in when the Pew Research Center con- Crisis” (Simon & Schuster), is an at- ducted a survey about which of five dan- tempt to set the statistics aside and, in- gers people in forty-four countries con- stead, tell a story. “Our Kids” begins sider to be the “greatest threat to the with the story of the town where Put- world,” many of the countries polled nam grew up, Port Clinton, Ohio. Put- put religious and ethnic hatred at the nam is a political scientist, but his ar- top of their lists, but Americans and gument is historical—it’s about change many Europeans chose inequality. over time—and fuelled, in part, by nos- What’s new about the chasm be- talgia. “My hometown was, in the 1950s, tween the rich and the poor in the a passable embodiment of the Amer- United States, then, isn’t that it’s grow- ican Dream,” he writes, “a place that ing or that scholars are studying it or offered decent opportunity for all the that people are worried about it. What’s kids in town, whatever their back- new is that American politicians of all ground.” Sixty years later, Putnam says, spots and stripes are talking about it, Port Clinton “is a split-screen Amer- if feebly: inequality this, inequality that. ican nightmare, a community in which In January, at a forum sponsored by kids from the wrong side of the tracks Freedom Partners (a free-market ad- that bisect the town can barely imag- vocacy group with ties to the Koch ine the future that awaits the kids from brothers), the G.O.P. Presidential the right side of the tracks.” swains Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Inequality-wise, Port Clinton makes Rubio battled over which of them dis- a reasonable Middletown. According liked inequality more, agreeing only to the American Community Survey that its existence wasn’t their fault. “The conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, top one per cent earn a higher share of Port Clinton’s congressional district, our income, nationally, than any year Ohio’s ninth, has a Gini index of .467, since 1928,” Cruz said, drawing on the which is somewhat lower than the work of Saez and Piketty. Cruz went A.C.S.’s estimate of the national aver- on, “I chuckle every time I hear Barack age. But “Our Kids” isn’t a book about Obama or Hillary Clinton talk about the GiniWorldMags.net index. “Some of us learn from THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 27 numbers, but more of us learn from ufacturing, followed by seven and a half Negro families moved into formerly ‘all- stories,” according to an appendix that hours at a local canning plant. A min- white neighborhoods.’ ” Thurgood Mar- Putnam co-wrote withWorldMags.net Jennifer M. ister in town helped Don apply to uni- shall, the director of the N.A.A.C.P.’s Silva. Putnam, the author of “Bowling versity. “I didn’t know I was poor until Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Alone,” is the director of the Saguaro I went to college,” Don says. He grad- spoke in Ohio in 1958, after which a Seminar for civic engagement at Har- uated from college, became a minister, sympathetic Cleveland newspaper wrote vard’s Kennedy School of Government; and married a high-school teacher; they that Marshall “will never be named to Silva, a sociologist, has been a postdoc- had one child, who became a high- the Supreme Court.” In 1960, the Ohio toral fellow there. In her 2013 book school librarian. Libby, another mem- N.A.A.C.P. launched a statewide voter- “Coming Up Short: Working-Class ber of Putnam’s graduating class, was registration drive. One pamphlet asked, Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty” the sixth of ten children. Like Don’s “Are you permitted to live wherever you (Oxford), Silva reported the results of parents, neither of Libby’s parents please in any Ohio City?” Putnam ac- interviews she conducted with a hun- finished high school. Her father worked knowledges that there was a lot of rac- dred working-class adults in Lowell, at Standard Products, a factory on Maple ism in Port Clinton, but he suggests that, Massachusetts and Richmond, Vir- Street that made many different things whatever hardships the two black kids in ginia, described her account of the out of rubber, from weather stripping his class faced because they were black, structural inequalities that shape their to tank treads. Libby won a scholarship the American dream was nevertheless lives as “a story of institutions—not in- to the University of Toledo, but dropped theirs. This fails to convince. As one of dividuals or their families,” and argued out to get married and have kids. Twenty those two kids, now grown, tells Putnam, that those inequalities are the conse- years later, after a divorce, she got a job “Your then was not my then, and your quence of the past half century’s “mas- as a clerk in a lumberyard, worked her now isn’t even my now.” sive effort to roll back social protec- way up to becoming a writer for a local In any case, the world changed, and tions from the market.” For “Our Kids,” newspaper, and eventually ran for Port Clinton changed with it. “Most Silva visited Robert Putnam’s home countywide office and won. of the downtown shops of my youth town and interviewed young people All but two of the members of Put- stand empty and derelict,” Putnam and their parents. Putnam graduated nam’s graduating class were white. Put- writes. In the late nineteen-sixties, the from Port Clinton High School in 1959. nam’s wistfulness toward his childhood heyday of the Great Society, when in- The surviving members of his class are home town is at times painful to read. come inequality in the United States now in their mid-seventies. Putnam The whiteness of Port Clinton in the was as low as it has ever been, the same and Silva sent them questionnaires; nineteen-fifties was not mere happen- was probably true of Port Clinton. But seventy-five people returned them. Silva stance but the consequence of discrimi- in the nineteen-seventies the town’s also spent two years interviewing more natory housing and employment prac- manufacturing base collapsed. Stan- than a hundred young adults in nine tices. I glanced through the records of dard Products laid off more than half other cities and counties across the na- the Ohio chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., of its workers. In 1993, the plant closed. tion. As Putnam and Silva note, Silva which included a branch in Port Clin- Since then, unemployment has con- conducted nearly all of the interviews ton. The Ohio chapter’s report for 1957 tinued to rise and wages to fall. Be- Putnam uses in his book. tween 1999 and 2013, the percentage “Our Kids” is a heartfelt portrait of of children in Port Clinton living in four generations: Putnam’s fellow 1959 poverty rose from ten to forty. graduates and their children, and the Silva found David hanging out in a kids in Port Clinton and those nine park. His father, currently in prison, other communities today and their par- never had a steady job. David’s parents ents. The book tells more or less the separated when he was a little boy. He same story that the numbers tell; it’s bounced around, attending seven ele- just got people in it. Specifically, it’s mentary schools. When he was thir- got kids: the kids Putnam used to know, teen, he was arrested for robbery. He and, above all, the kids Silva inter- graduated from high school only be- viewed. The book proceeds from the chronicles, among other things, its failed cause he was given course credit for depressing assumption that presenting attempt to gain passage of statewide Fair hours he’d worked at Big Boppers Diner the harrowing lives of poor young peo- Housing legislation; describes how “cross (from which he was fired after gradua- ple is the best way to get Americans burnings occurred in many cities in Ohio”; tion). In 2012, when David was eigh- to care about poverty. recounts instances of police brutality, in- teen, he got his girlfriend pregnant. “I’ll Putnam has changed the names of cluding in Columbus, where a patrolman never get ahead,” he posted on his Face- all his subjects and removed certain beat a woman “with the butt of his pis- book page last year, after his girlfriend identifying details. He writes about them tol all over her face and body”; and states left him. “I’m FUCKING DONE.” as characters. First, there’s Don. He that in Toledo, Columbus, “and in a num- Wealthy newcomers began arriving went to Port Clinton High School with ber of other communities, the Associa- in the nineteen-nineties. On the shores Putnam. His father worked two jobs: tion intervened in situations where vio- of Lake Erie, just a few miles past an eight-hour shift at Port Clinton Man- lenceWorldMags.net flared up or was threatened when Port Clinton’s trailer parks, they built 28 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 mansions and golf courses and gated communities. “Chelsea and her family live in a large white homeWorldMags.net with a wide porch overlooking the lake,” Put- nam writes, introducing another of his younger characters. Chelsea was the president of her high school’s student body and editor of the yearbook. Her mother, Wendy, works part time; her father, Dick, is a businessman. In the basement of their house, Wendy and Dick had a “1950s-style diner” built so that Chelsea and her brother would have a place to hang out with their friends. When Chelsea’s brother got a bad grade in school, Wendy went all the way to the school board to get it changed. Chelsea and her brother are now in college. Wendy does not ap- pear to believe in welfare. “You have to work if you want to get rich,” she says. “If my kids are going to be successful, I don’t think they should have to pay other people who are sitting around doing nothing for their success.” Aside from the anecdotes, the bulk of “Our Kids” is an omnibus of social- science scholarship. The book’s chief and author- itative contribution is its careful presen- tation for a popular audience of impor- tant work on the erosion, in the past half •• century, of so many forms of social, eco- nomic, and political support for families, American prosperity, it also undermines Kids” is that while Wendy and Dick schools, and communities—with conse- our democracy.” Chelsea is interested in were building a fifties-style diner for quences that amount to what Silva and politics. David has never voted. their kids in the basement of their lake- others have called the “privatization of The American dream is in crisis, front mansion, grade-grubbing with risk.” The social-science literature in- Putnam argues, because Americans their son’s teachers, and glue-gunning cludes a complicated debate about the used to care about other people’s kids the decorations for their daughter’s relationship between inequality of out- and now they only care about their own prom, every decent place to hang out come (differences of income and of kids. But, he writes, “America’s poor in Port Clinton closed its doors, David wealth) and inequality of opportunity kids do belong to us and we to them. was fired from his job at Big Boppers, (differences in education and employ- They are our kids.” This is a lot like and he got his girlfriend pregnant be- ment). To most readers, these issues are his argument in “Bowling Alone.” In cause, by the time David and Chelsea more familiar as a political disagreement. high school in Port Clinton, Putnam were born, in the nineteen-nineties, In American politics, Democrats are more was in a bowling league; he regards not only was Standard Products out of likely to talk about both kinds of inequal- bowling leagues as a marker of com- business but gone, too, was the sense ity, while Republicans tend to confine munity and civic engagement; bowl- of civic obligation and commonweal— their concern to inequality of opportu- ing leagues are in decline; hence, Amer- everyone caring about everyone else’s nity. According to Putnam, “All sides in icans don’t take care of one another kids—that had made it possible for this debate agree on one thing, however: anymore. “Bowling Alone” and “Our Don and Libby to climb out of pov- as income inequality expands, kids from Kids” also have the same homey just- erty in the nineteen-fifties and the more privileged backgrounds start and folksiness. And they have the same nineteen- sixties. “Nobody gave a shit,” probably finish further and further ahead shortcomings. If you don’t miss bowl- David says. And he’s not wrong. of their less privileged peers, even if the ing leagues or all-white suburbs where rate of socioeconomic mobility is un- women wear aprons—if Putnam’s then “ ur Kids” is a passionate, urgent changed.” He also takes the position, was not your then and his now isn’t O book. It also has a sad help- again relying on a considerable body of your now—his well-intentioned “we” lessness. Putnam tells a story teem- scholarship, that, “quite apart from the can be remarkably grating. ing with characters and full of mis- danger that the opportunity gap poses to InWorldMags.net story form, the argument of “Our ery but without a single villain. This THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 29 is deliberate. “This is a book without the multiplication table always in his ence. In 1925, four years after Gini upper-class villains,” he insists in the pocket, Sir, ready to weigh and mea- wrote “Measurement of Inequality of book’s final chapter. WorldMags.netIn January, Put- sure any parcel of human nature, and Incomes,” he signed the “Manifesto of nam tweeted,“My new book ‘Our Kids’ tell you exactly what it comes to.” Fascist Intellectuals” (he was the only shows a growing gap between rich kids Numbers men are remote and cold statistician to do so) and was soon run- and poor kids. We’ll work with all sides of heart, Dickens thought. But, of ning the Presidential Commission for on solutions.” It’s easier to work with course, the appeal of numbers lies in the Study of Constitutional Reforms. all sides if no side is to blame. But Put- their remoteness and coldness. Num- As Jean-Guy Prévost reported in “A nam’s eagerness to influence Congress bers depersonalize; that remains one Total Science: Statistics in Liberal and has narrative consequences. If you’re of their chief claims to authority, and Fascist Italy” (2009), Gini’s work was going to tell a story about bad things to a different explanatory force than so closely tied to the Fascist state that, happening to good people, you’ve got can be found in, say, a poem. “Quan- in 1944, after the regime fell, he was to offer an explanation, and, when you tification is a technology of distance,” tried for being an apologist for Fas- make your arguments through charac- as the historian of science Theodore cism. In the shadow of his trial, he ters, your reader will expect that expla- Porter has pointed out. “Reliance on joined the Movimento Unionista Ital- nation in the form of characters. I feel numbers and quantitative manipula- iano, a political party whose objective bad for Chelsea. But I feel worse for tion minimizes the need for intimate was to annex Italy to the United States. David. Am I supposed to hate Wendy? knowledge and personal trust.” It’s “This would solve all of Italy’s prob- Some people make arguments by difficult to understand something like lems,” the movement’s founder, Santi telling stories; other people make ar- income inequality across large popu- Paladino, told a reporter for Time. (“Pal- guments by counting things. Charles lations and to communicate your under- adino has never visited the U.S., though Dickens was a story man. In “Hard standing of it across vast distances with- his wife Francesca lived 24 years in The Times” (1854), a novel written when out counting. But quantification’s lack Bronx,” the magazine noted.) But, for statistics was on the rise, Dickens’s vil- of intimacy is also its weakness; it rep- Gini, the movement’s purpose was to lain, Thomas Gradgrind, was a num- resents not only a gain but also a loss provide him with some anti-Fascist bers man, “a man of facts and calcula- of knowledge. credentials. tions,” who named one of his sons Corrado Gini, he of the Gini index, The story of Gini is a good illus- Adam Smith and another Malthus. was a numbers man, at a time when tration of the problem with stories, “With a rule and a pair of scales, and statistics had become a modern sci- which is that they personalize (which is also their power). His support for Fascism doesn’t mean that the Gini index isn’t valuable. It is valuable. The life of Corrado Gini can’t be used to undermine all of statistical science. Still, if you wanted to write an indictment of statistics as an instrument of author- itarian states, and if you had a great deal of other evidence to support that indictment—including other stories and, ideally, numbers—why yes, Gini would be an excellent character to in- troduce in Chapter 1. Because stories contain one kind of truth and numbers another, many writ- ers mix and match, telling representa- tive stories and backing them up with aggregate data. Putnam, though, doesn’t so much mix and match as split the difference. He tells stories about kids but presents data about the economy. That’s why “Our Kids” has heaps of victims but not a single villain. “We encounter Elijah in a dingy shopping mall on the north side of Atlanta, during his lunch break from a job pack- ing groceries,” Putnam writes. “Elijah is thin and small in stature, perhaps five foot seven, and wears baggy clothes “Next time, do your thinking outWorldMags.net loud to yourself.” that bulk his frame: jeans belted low around his upper thighs, a pair of Jor- ical arrangements, today’s left doesn’t dans on his feet.” As for why Elijah is engage in dissent; it engages in consent, packing groceries, theWorldMags.net book offers not urging solutions that align with neo- characters—there are no interviews, liberalism, technological determinism, for instance, with members of the Geor- and global capitalism: “Environmental gia legislature or the heads of national despoiling arouses righteous eating; corporations whose businesses have left cultural decay inspires charter schools; Atlanta—but numbers, citing statistics rebellion against work becomes work about the city (“Large swaths of south- as a form of rebellion; old-form anti- ern and western Atlanta itself are over clericalism morphs into the piety of the 95 percent black, with child poverty secular; the break with convention ends rates ranging from 50 percent to 80 up as the politics of style; the cri de percent”) and providing a series of coeur against alienation surrenders to charts reporting the results of studies the triumph of the solitary; the mar- about things like class differences in riage of political and cultural radical- parenting styles and in the frequency ism ends in divorce.” Why not blame of the family dinner. the financial industry? Why not blame the Congress that deregulated it? Why n “The Age of Acquiescence: The not blame the system itself? Because, I Life and Death of American Resis- Fraser argues, the left has been cowed tance to Organized Wealth and Power” into silence on the main subject at (Little, Brown), Steve Fraser fumes that hand: “What we could not do, what what’s gone wrong with political dis- was not even speakable, was to tamper course in America is that the left isn’t with the basic institutions of financial willing to blame anyone for anything capitalism.” anymore. There used to be battle cries. Putnam closes “Our Kids” with a No more kings! Down with fat cats! chapter called “What Is to Be Done?” Damn the moneycrats! Like Putnam’s Tampering with the basic institutions argument, Fraser’s is both historical and of financial capitalism is not on his nostalgic. Fraser longs for the passion to-do list. The chapter includes one and force with which Americans of ear- table, one chart, many stories, and this lier generations attacked aggregated statement: “The absence of personal power. Think of the way Frederick villains in our stories does not mean Douglass wrote about slavery, Ida B. that no one is at fault.” At fault are “so- Wells wrote about lynching, Ida Tar- cial policies that reflect collective de- bell wrote about Standard Oil, Upton cisions,” and, “insofar as we have some Sinclair wrote about the meatpacking responsibility for those collective de- industry, and Louis Brandeis wrote cisions, we are implicated by our fail- about the money trust. These people ure to address removable barriers to weren’t squeamish about villains. others’ success.” What can Putnam’s To chronicle the rise of acquiescence, “we” do? He proposes changes in four Fraser examines two differences be- realms: family structure, parenting, tween the long nineteenth century and school, and community. His policy rec- today. “The first Gilded Age, despite ommendations include expanding the its glaring inequities, was accompanied earned-income tax credit and protect- by a gradual rise in the standard of liv- ing existing anti-poverty programs; im- ing; the second by a gradual erosion,” plementing more generous parental he writes. In the first Gilded Age, ev- leaves, better child-care programs, and eryone from reporters to politicians ap- state-funded preschool; equalizing the parently felt comfortable painting plu- funding of public schools, providing tocrats as villains; in the second, this is, more community-based neighborhood somehow, forbidden. “If the first Gilded schools, and increasing support for vo- Age was full of sound and fury,” he cational high-school programs and for writes, “the second seemed to take place community colleges; ending pay-to- in a padded cell.” Fraser argues that play extracurricular activities in public while Progressive Era muckrakers ended schools and developing mentorship the first Gilded Age by drawing on an programs that tie schools to commu- age-old tradition of dissent to criticize nities and community organizations. prevailing economic, social, and polit- AllWorldMags.net of these ideas are admirable, THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 31 many are excellent, none are new, is the product of decisions by firms, re- any other developed democracy. Be- and, at least at the federal level, few searchers, and governments,” Atkinson cause this disparity has been more or are achievable. The WorldMags.netAmerican politi- writes. The iPhone exists, as Mariana less constant, the question doesn’t lend cal imagination has become as narrow Mazzucato demonstrated in her 2013 itself very well to historical analysis. as the gap between rich and poor is book “The Entrepreneurial State,” Nor is it easily subject to the distor- wide. because various branches of the U.S. tions of nostalgia. But it does lend it- government provided research assis- self very well to comparative analysis. “ nequality: What Can Be Done?,” tance that resulted in several key tech- Stepan and Linz identified twenty- I by Anthony Atkinson, will be pub- nological developments, including three long-standing democracies with lished this spring (Harvard). Atkinson G.P.S., multi-touch screens, L.C.D. advanced economies. Then they counted is a renowned expert on the measure- displays, lithium-ion batteries, and cel- the number of veto players in each of ment of economic inequality, but in lular networks. those twenty-three governments. (A “Inequality” he hides his math. “There Atkinson isn’t interested in stories veto player is a person or body that can are a number of graphs, and a small the way Putnam is interested in sto- block a policy decision. Stepan and Linz number of tables,” he writes, by way of ries. And he isn’t interested in villains explain, “For example, in the United apology, and he paraphrases Stephen the way Fraser is interested in villains. States, the Senate and the House of Hawking: “Every equation halves the But he is interested in responsible par- Representatives are veto players because number of readers.” ties, and in demanding government ac- without their consent, no bill can be- Much of the book is a discussion of tion. “It is not enough to say that ris- come a law.”) More than half of the specific proposals. Atkinson believes ing inequality is due to technological twenty-three countries Stepan and that solutions like Putnam’s, which forces outside our control,” Atkinson Linz studied have only one veto player; focus on inequality of opportunity, writes. “The government can influence most of these countries have unicam- mainly through reforms having to do the path taken.” In “Inequality: What eral parliaments. A few countries have with public education, are inadequate. Can Be Done?,” he offers fifteen pro- two veto players; Switzerland and Aus- Atkinson thinks that the division be- posals, from the familiar (unemploy- tralia have three. Only the United States tween inequality of outcome and in- ment programs, national savings bonds, has four. Then they made a chart, com- equality of opportunity is largely false. and a more progressive tax structure) paring Gini indices with veto-player He believes that tackling inequality of to the novel (a governmental role in numbers: the more veto players in a outcome is a very good way to tackle the direction of technological develop- government, the greater the nation’s inequality of opportunity. (If you help ment, a capital endowment or “mini- economic inequality. This is only a cor- a grownup get a job, her kids will have mum inheritance” paid to everyone on relation, of course, and cross-country a better chance of climbing out of pov- reaching adulthood), along with five economic comparisons are fraught, but erty, too.) Above all, he disagrees with “ideas to pursue,” which is where things it’s interesting. the widespread assumption that tech- get Piketty (a global tax on wealth, a Then they observed something nological progress and globalization minimum tax on corporations). more. Their twenty-three democracies are responsible for growing inequality. In Port Clinton, Ohio, a barbed- included eight federal governments That assumption, he argues, is wrong wire fence surrounds the abandoned with both upper and lower legislative and also dangerous, because it encour- Standard Products factory; the E.P.A. bodies. Using the number of seats and ages the belief that growing inequality has posted signs warning that the site the size of the population to calculate is inevitable. is hazardous. There’s no work there malapportionment, they assigned a Atkinson points out that neither anymore, only poison. Robert Putnam “Gini Index of Inequality of Represen- globalization nor rapid technological finds that heartbreaking. Steve Fraser tation” to those eight upper houses, and advance is new and there are, there- wishes people were angrier about it. found that the United States had the fore, lessons to be learned from history. Anthony Atkinson thinks something highest score: it has the most malap- Those lessons do not involve nostal- can be done. Atkinson’s specific policy portioned and the least representative gia. (Atkinson is actually an optimis- recommendations are for the United upper house. These scores, too, cor- tic sort, and he spends time appreciat- Kingdom. In the United States, most related with the countries’ Gini scores ing rising standards of living, world- of his proposals are nonstarters, no mat- for income inequality: the less repre- wide.) One of those lessons is that glo- ter how many times you hear the word sentative the upper body of a national balizing economies aren’t like hurri- “inequality” on “Meet the Press” this legislature, the greater the gap between canes or other acts of God or nature. year. the rich and the poor. Instead, they’re governed by laws reg- It might be that people have been The growth of inequality isn’t inev- ulating things like unions and trusts studying inequality in all the wrong itable. But, insofar as Americans have and banks and wages and taxes; laws places. A few years ago, two scholars been unable to adopt measures to re- are passed by legislators; in democra- of comparative politics, Alfred Stepan, duce it, the numbers might seem to cies, legislators are elected. So, too, new at Columbia, and the late Juan J. Linz— suggest that the problem doesn’t lie technologies don’t simply fall out of numbers men—tried to figure out why with how Americans treat one anoth- the sky, like meteors or little miracles. the United States has for so long had er’s kids, as lousy as that is. It lies with “The direction of technological change muchWorldMags.net greater income inequality than Congress.  32 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 lip before the gum augmentation. And SHOUTS & MURMURS where did those concerts take place, WorldMags.netanyway, and what were the names of the people or the bands (if they were OF YOUNGER DAYS bands) I listened to? Now I’ll never know unless I look them up. The summer I was sixty-three was also when I went to San Francisco. One BY IAN FRAZIER morning, I just dropped everything, said goodbye to everybody I could get in touch with, and flew out there in a middle seat in economy. San Francisco was different then, in the early sixties— my early sixties, that is. I look at the wild haircut I had back then and I have to laugh! And where in the world did I get those pants? Yes, I am still wear- ing them right now, but where did I get them? At the Short Hills Mall, I think. In San Francisco, I did a lot of experimenting with drugs, mainly be- cause I had problems getting my pre- scription for blood-pressure medica- tion renewed on a weekend. I may have permanently messed up my DNA, but it was worth it. You take all kinds of risks when you’re younger, and sixty - hen I was sixty-three, a cheese- friend, and my fifth, and my eleventh. three. You think you’re immortal. Wburger at a diner on Fifty- Looking back, and remembering how If some genie granted me the power seventh Street cost $24.95, you could much I paid them, I wonder if they to reverse time and meet up with my ride the Staten Island Ferry for free, weren’t prostitutes. But what did I naïve sixty-three-year-old self, what and a kid could get a pretty decent know? I was just your typical gawky, advice would I give him? I might say, college education for a quarter of a self-conscious sixty-three-year-old, “Sixty-three-year-old, hang on tightly million dollars. Life was slower then, hormones going crazy. My voice had to experience while it’s in your grasp, partly because of my newly acquired recently changed, from a high, piping especially the sales slips. And don’t hip problem, but I did not know tenor to a kind of guttural, gurgling be afraid to try new outfits, which are enough to appreciate the leisurely pace. rasp. My body was changing, too, and what you’ll later need the sales slips I was always wanting to hurry up, to I became very aware of and embar- for. Dump your oil stocks, because the go faster and farther, to cross the street rassed by the large breasts I had devel- price of oil is going to come down. But, before the “Walk” signal ended. Now oped. So much seemed new and unfa- mainly, younger self—live! The mys- I wonder—why in the world was I in miliar when I was sixty-three. terious, glorious, ineffable sweetness of such a rush, back when I was sixty- That enchanted summer was all being sixty-three will come to you only three? Obviously, I did not want to about the music. I gave myself over en- once on this earth.” get hit by a car, and there never seemed tirely to the many songs I heard every- But then my sixty-three-year-old to be enough time to get across all where—in elevators, on SiriusXM, in self would say back to me, “Yes, yes, I twelve lanes of Queens Boulevard, shopping malls, in my periodontist’s know. But tell me more about the price the “Boulevard of Death.” But now I office—as they created a powerful of oil. Will it go below fifty dollars a often have trouble remembering what soundtrack for my days and nights. barrel? And what horse should I bet else seemed so almighty urgent to me Even today, when I hear a certain lyric in the Belmont? And what odds should back then. from that lost summer of however many I give?” During that never-to-be-repeated months ago, and Katy Perry sings that That would probably hurt my feel- summer, I had just turned sixty-three she’s “comin’ at you like a [something?] ings, because I’m imparting hard-won, when I began the hesitant, sweet, shy horse,” bittersweet tears fill my eyes. sixty-four-year-old life advice here. So courtship of my first real girlfriend. My How could anything so lovely be so I would then knee my sixty-three-year- wife was furious, of course. It’s poi- fleeting? The radiance has fled, but old self in the groin, and, when he (I) gnant to think that today I’ve even for- to where? Looking back, I regret that bent over, give him (me) an uppercut gotten her name—and my girlfriend’s, I did not go to more concerts, choos- with both fists. Then he (I) would re- too. The summer I was sixty-three was ing instead just to hum the tunes while ally understand what it means to be  GARY TAXALI GARY also when I had my second real girl- Dr. TonnelliWorldMags.net packed cotton under my sixty-three. THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 33 plete with glaring owl, of E. H. Gom- DEPT. OF CULTURE brich, perhaps the most important of WorldMags.netmodern art historians, who directed the Warburg Institute in its high period, in IN THE MEMORY WARD the nineteen-sixties. Beside each eleva- tor bank, a chart displaying, in capital The Warburg is Britain’s most eccentric and original library. Can it survive? letters, the library’s curious organiza- tion helps guide the bewildered student: BY ADAM GOPNIK “FIRST FLOOR: IMAGE,” “SECOND FLOOR: WORD,” up to “FOURTH FLOOR: ACTION- t first, the library of the Warburg In- signs pointing toward “Magic Mirrors” ORIENTATION,” with “ACTION” com- A stitute, in London, seems and smells and “Amulets” and “The Evil Eye.” Long prising “Cultural and Political History,” like any other university library: four shelves of original medieval astrology hug and “ORIENTATION” “Magic and Sci- floors of fluorescent lights and steel texts on modern astronomy. The section ence.” Mounted in the stairwells are shelves, with the damp, weedy aroma of on “Modern Philosophy” includes vol- uncanny black-and-white photographic aging books everywhere, and sudden ap- ume after volume of Nietzsche and half collages of a single female type—a paritions of graduate students wearing a shelf of Hume. The open stacks—ex- woman dancing in flowing drapery— that look, at once brightly keen and in- ceptional in any gathering of irreplace- that is seen in many forms, from clas- finitely discouraged, eternally shared by able books—are, in the European scheme sical friezes to Renaissance painting.

Aby Warburg (second from left) was the spirit behind the iconographic studies that dominated much of twentieth-century art history. graduate students, whether the old kind, of things, almost unknown. In the Bib- It is a library like no other in Europe— with suède elbow patches, or the new liothèque Nationale, in Paris, the aim in its cross-disciplinary reference, its pe- kind, with many piercings. seems to be to keep as many books as culiarities, its originality, its strange depths Only as the visitor begins to study the possible safely out of the hands of peo- and unexpected shallows. Magic and sci- collections does the oddity of the place ple who might want to read them. In the ence, evil eyes and saints’ lives: these things appear. In the range-finder plates mounted Warburg Library, the books are available repose side by side in a labyrinth of im- on the shelves, where in a normal library to be thumbed through at will. agery and icons and memory. Dan Brown’s one would expect to see “Spanish Liter- History is here, ancient and local. hero Robert Langdon supposedly teaches ature, Sixteenth Century” or “Biography, An old edition of Epictetus, opened, “symbology” at Harvard. There is no such American: E663-664,” there are, instead, turnsWorldMags.net out to bear the bookplate, com- field, but if there were, and if Professor INSTITUTE THE WARBURG COURTESY 34 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 Langdon wanted to study it before mak- to continue charging the Warburg a ing love to mysterious Frenchwomen and very large fee for the use of its building. nimbly avoiding OpusWorldMags.net Dei hit men, this Warburg-shaped scholars sought to rally is where he would come to study. the academic community in the pages of Begun at the start of the last century, journals and on humanities Listservs. “If in Hamburg, by Aby Warburg, a wealthy the university’s plans succeed,” the Prince- banker’s son, the Warburg Library has ton historian Anthony Grafton and the been often expanded, but the original vi- Harvard art historian Jeffrey Hamburger sion has never really been altered. It is a wrote, in The New York Review of Books, vast and expensive institution, devoted “the institute will have to abandon War- to a system of ideas that, however fasci- burg’s fundamental principles, lose con- nating, are also in some dated ways fad- trol of its own books and periodicals dish, and in some small ways foolish. (many of them acquired by gift or by the Warburg, who died in 1929, spent part expenditure of the institute’s endow- of his adult life in and out of mental hos- ments), and shed, over time, the distin- pitals—at one point, he lived in fear that guished staff of scholars and scholar- he was being daily served human flesh. librarians who train its students and Yet he was the spirit behind the “icono- continue to shape its holdings. . . . A cen- graphic studies” that dominated art his- ter of European culture and a repository tory for most of the second half of the of the Western tradition that escaped twentieth century—the man who reori- Hitler and survived the Blitz may finally ented the scholarly study of art from a be destroyed by British bean counters.” discipline devoted essentially to saying After smoldering within academia, the who had painted what pictures when to affair was ignited in public by a petition one asking what all the little weird bits launched by an American Ph.D. student and pieces within the pictures might have at University College London named meant in their time. Brooke Palmieri, a Warburg visitor who In the past several years, the War- had come to London first to work in the burg’s future has been fiercely contested. rare-book trade, then to write a thesis on It is in some senses a small and paro- the pre-Pennsylvania Quakers. “I started chial struggle, right out of Trollope’s the petition on Change.org last July,” she Barchester novels, and in others about said recently, in that special lilting drawl something very big—about the future of of East Coast Americans long resident private visions within public institutions, in London. “And within a couple of about what memory is and what we owe months it was just shy of twenty-five thou- it, about how to tell when an original vi- sand signatures. It was an astonishing sion has become merely an eccentric one. number for a library. But the Warburg It is the tale that has been told, in another has an amazingly vibrant intellectual his- key, about moving the Barnes Founda- tory. I think what’s probably most inter- tion from Merion to Philadelphia, and esting to me is that it runs on what they about expanding the Frick Collection, call ‘the law of the good neighbor’—it’s in New York. The question is what we not based on what librarians alphabet- owe the past’s past, what we owe the in- ically catalogue. Instead, it’s catalogued stitutions that have shaped our view of according to themes. The methodology how history happened, when contem- of serendipity is what it’s all about, and porary history is happening to them. the methodology of serendipity is respon- sible for most great ideas.” he fight over the future of the War- Tburg Institute came to a climax in isiting London last fall, I found that the past few months, but it started seven Vwhile many people were exercised years ago, when the Warburg Institute about the future of the Warburg, and and then the University of London began had much to say about the approaching to seek legal counsel in order to clarify judgment, what they offered was more the terms of the trust deed that, in 1944, complicated than a simple picture of phi- as the Second World War raged, had listine university administrators assault- brought the institute into the university. ing virtuous scholars. Some people had Last year, the university initiated a law- their mouths firmly shut: those within suit, thinking to “converge” the Warburg’s the institute by the pending decision; the books into its larger library system, and historianWorldMags.net Lisa Jardine, who is Palmieri’s THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 35 thesis adviser, and who had at first been With the onset of Nazism, enemy to from the English academic establishment.” publicly passionate in protest, by the sud- learning and to Jewish bankers both, the Then, in 1958, Saumarez Smith noted, den possibility that sheWorldMags.net might, in an emer- library, still staffed by Warburg’s disciples, the Warburg was institutionalized in a gency, be called on to run the Warburg looked elsewhere for a home. In 1933, it grand building in Woburn Square. In if it lost the case and had to rebuild. found one in London, where, after much some measure, it was victimized by its Others could speak more freely. Over last-minute maneuvering, the books, doc- own influence. “When I was a postgrad- dinner with Charles Saumarez Smith, the uments, furniture, and staff, including Fritz uate student, the Warburg still had, and chief executive of the Royal Academy of Saxl and Gertrud Bing, who had been it probably still has, considerable intel- Arts, formerly the director of the Na- Warburg’s most important collaborators, lectual clout,” he observed, “but, as the tional Gallery, and a Warburg Institute were all sent, finding space temporarily in rest of the scholarly world became more alumnus, certain things became clearer. Millbank and then, for twenty years, in interdisciplinary and more Warburgian, The story of the library and its migration South Kensington. Toward the end of the the Warburg itself turned into a center to London, at least, seemed simple enough: desperate war, the Warburg family, in a for narrower Renaissance scholarship, at the end of the nineteenth century, Aby succinct document, deeded the collection believing in professional academic ex- Warburg, a scion of the Hamburg Jew- permanently to the University of London, pertise and profoundly suspicious of ish banking family, had fallen in love on condition that it be housed in a “suit- newer scholarship.” with Italy, and with the idea of the Flo- able building in close proximity to the Even paranoids have enemies, as the rentine Renaissance as the great, gone, University” and kept intact. saying goes, and even philistine university golden time. In formation he was more Saumarez Smith tried to explain how bureaucrats, it seems, do sometimes be- German than Jewish, having fled family the Warburg’s approach was different come reasonably exasperated by overpriv- Orthodoxy as a boy, and he had begun to from the connoisseurship-based prac- ileged and insulated academics. The word construct a library devoted to the Italian tice of conventional British art his- on the Barchester Street, so to speak, was Renaissance and then, more broadly, to tory. “It was the idea that art stood, and that the reality of what was going on was the way that the classical past had mi- stands, for something more important more complicated than its representation grated into Renaissance humanism and and more fundamental than just the work in the popular press. The “convergence” beyond, into European culture.(At the of artists on their own,” he said. “This policy that the university was said to be precocious age of thirteen, Aby made a was the atmosphere of the Warburg In- forcing on the Warburg had, at its heart, deal with his brother Max: he would sur- stitute when it was in South Kensing- the unavoidable logic of modernization. render his interest in the firm if Max would ton. It was a cell of chain-smoking Ger- (The university was, of course, also being pay for all the books he wanted to buy.) man scholars who stood entirely apart squeezed by budget cuts from the British government.) “The Warburg now faces a crisis,” Saumarez Smith went on, “be- cause it has assumed that it can carry on regardless, ignoring what has been hap- pening over the past twenty years in uni- versity administration—the creation of the School of Advanced Study at the Uni- versity of London, the systematization of library catalogues, which the Warburg has vigorously resisted, the need to engage in fund-raising, which the Warburg has not done, the need to engage with the out- side world as a center of scholarship.” The real fight, in other words, was over money. To create the School of Ad- vanced Study, the University of London, in 1994, brought together ten research institutes, including the Warburg. It wanted the Warburg, like the other in- stitutes, to raise its own money, while the Warburg thought that the univer- sity ought to support it indefinitely, be- cause that was what the trust deed said it would do. It was, in a way, a mordant echo of the bigger controversies rocking Europe, not entirely unlike Germany’s efforts to force Greece to behave more “responsibly,” while Greece claimed that “Ow! Ow! Hot! Hot! Hot!WorldMags.net Ow! Hot!” responsible behavior was not captured by WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net a bottom line but lay in being responsible to its true constituency. Supporting hu- manistic ventures thatWorldMags.net could not be ex- THE APOLOGY pected to support themselves was exactly the point of having churches and univer- Tonight outside the plate glass sities—or so the clergymen with their si- each insect is made of a long tube of wood, necures and the professors with their ten- as if the insect had become a tree ure like to insist. One irony among many, to give the tree a voice. of course, was that Aby Warburg, the man And these pink spatters, who started it all, was able to do so only these crumbled parlor doilies, because his family had, for so many gen- these milkweed blossoms erations, thought that the only way Jews fade as if antique, like them could flourish would be if they and the milkweed does not report on the condition of its leaves, made lots of money, and could do what the height of its flowers, they wanted with it. its life without bureaucracy, nor does the lilac filtering the mentholated air, ew words are as overused in our time or the bee drowsing on the sill Fas “icon” and its variant “iconic.” Any after straining through the broken window screen celebrity whose face is still recognizable a like Rilke wheedling his way into a palace. decade after her death is, as Clive James Or the brook that runs by the cabin once suggested, an icon. Soup cans and talking nonsense. Coke bottles are icons, as are the faces of Or the willow that slouches as if it were in a classroom the men who made soup cans and Coke where the teacher bores it. bottles into icons. Aby Warburg, as much So forgive me please already. as anyone, is responsible for that turn. Be- I am sorry for speaking for nature. fore him, “icon” was largely a religious term, But it was asking for it. for what Byzantines were always quarrel- —Lee Upton ling about; Warburg, and the practice that he founded, took it over to mean the po- tent symbolic images of Western art. half aestheticism, it took the material of Warburg’s ideas are often not just Warburg first visited Italy in the late art to be a parade of symbolic images, bafflingly inbred but expressed in crunchy eighteen-eighties. It was a time when the proliferating, crossbreeding, evolving. Bot- impenetrable German compounds. It is history of Renaissance art revolved ei- ticelli’s mythologies, including “The Birth a brave man who would attempt to sim- ther around connoisseurship—the craft of Venus,” weren’t a humanist rejection plify them too sharply. Nonetheless, his of saying who painted what when—or, of the medieval for the affirmation of theory of pictures might be summed up in Germany, around a tradition in which lived experience; they were dark philo- in three words: Poses have power. The re- the art of one epoch or another was shown sophical codes, which needed to be bro- peated poses of art—young girls dancing, to reflect the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the ken in order to be enjoyed. snakes entwining, the moment of the kill age. In the case of the Florentine Renais- In 1895, Warburg, with an intrepid in the hunt, the confrontation of sea and sance, that spirit was assumed to be one spirit for so fragile a being, travelled to single figure—are parts of an ongoing in- of humanist materialism trumping me- the American Southwest, where he im- heritance, a natural language of visual dieval symbolism. Botticelli’s naked Venus mersed himself in the culture of the Hopi meaning that we all understand without rose above the waves to indicate the re- Indians. Or thought he had: inevitably, having been consciously instructed in it. born triumph of pagan flesh over prud- his vision of the Hopi was colored by the Warburg’s favorite illustration was what ish pedantry. expectations of a nineteenth-century Ger- he called the “Nympha” figure: the young Warburg, immersed in the Florentine man. (“If Nietzsche had only been famil- woman in flowing drapery who gives the libraries and their documents, began to iar with the data of anthropology and illusion of rapid and graceful movement discover that much of the painting he loved folklore!” he wrote, typically and touch- and can be found dancing through West- was deeply rooted in more ancient prac- ingly, some years after his Southwestern ern art for two thousand years, from Hel- tices, particularly in astrology and other sojourn.) But his experience of the “in- lenistic sarcophagi to Botticelli’s “Prima- kinds of semi-magical beliefs, and in reli- digenous” deepened and universalized his vera” and Isadora Duncan. gious doctrines, some of them very eso- instincts about the role of images across Like all powerful things, such poses teric. A new idea of the Renaissance began cultures. The Hopi were really not that are double-edged. There is a white image to emerge in his mind: not a burst of ma- far from Renaissance Florentines. They, magic that feeds humanism and infuses terialism and humanism against cramped too, “stand on middle ground between art with healthy Dionysian passion, and learning but an eruption of certain recur- magic and logos, and their instrument of there is a black image magic that causes ring ancient ideas and images—icons. In orientation is the symbol,” he wrote. The us to surrender reason to ravishments of 1912, he dubbed this new “science” of art symbol is the primitive enduring virus our own fixations. Although Warburg history “iconology.” Half anthropology, that WorldMags.nettemporarily makes art its home. died before Nazism came to a head, he 38 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 knew very well the appeal of “Dionysian” months, would make. The betting was “Jungian” nature of Warburg’s later imagery to modern people desiccated by that she would break the deed, since it work—with its call to shared cultural rationality. As the longWorldMags.net “memory traces” was so clearly burdensome to the uni- spirits, to archetypes in the sky and en- of mankind—Warburg referred to these versity, and because it had been made grams in the brain—bore for him too as “engrams”—reach us through recur- in such strange and hurried circum- close a resemblance to ideas of blood and ring images, we can be overwhelmed by stances. Charles Hope, a recent direc- racial memory. them or we can organize them. The con- tor of the institute, and the leader of its It’s clear that Gombrich, although he stellations of astrology are a perfect il- “loyalists,” told me that, in his view, the doesn’t quite say so in his “Aby Warburg: lustration of his point. There are no rams deed, far from being the hastily scrib- An Intellectual Biography” (1970), be- and bears and heroes in the sky, con- bled wartime gift of legend, was in truth lieved that by the end Warburg’s think- trolling our behavior. The patterns aren’t a much considered and political act on ing had many obviously loony aspects, real, but they trap us into imagining that the part of the British establishment, and that his collages of poses had some they are. Yet the act of organization that merely endorsed by the final paper. of the indiscriminate, free-associating the constellations represent proved to be “What people don’t understand is that character of schizophrenic art. (War- essential to rational science, giving us the decision to absorb the library wasn’t burg’s son, Max, who suffered from many mathematics through imagination. simply an act of absent-minded philan- of the difficulties that had afflicted his Warburg’s ideas about images were thropy,” Hope said. “It was made at very father, was often at the institute in the so complex and self-cancelling that, as high levels of British government, and sixties and seventies, and some felt that time went on, he felt they could be ex- was intimately connected to other de- Gombrich was less than perfectly sym- pressed only as images. He created large cisions about art, including the begin- pathetic to him. “Of course, you couldn’t collages of maps, manuscript pages, and nings of the Courtauld Institute.” expect the director to have much time photographs taken from many sources, Among those who might be called for the troubled son,” one witness to the high and low alike, including his beloved the semi-loyalists, the sense arose that time says, “but when Max appeared at Nympha figure, and arrayed them on the real problem was not in fact mone- the Warburg teas, I was always dismayed black linen screens. Although the orig- tary but intellectual—that the Warburg by the way Gombrich paid so little at- inals did not survive, photographs of his had lost its way for the paradoxical rea- tention to him.”) “Mnemosyne Atlas” are what decorate son that its greatest director had been For Gombrich, the continuities of art the Warburg Library’s stairwell. out of sympathy with the library’s found- were not the result of engrams stuck in Original systems are usually organic ing premise. Oscar Wilde says that every the mind. They were traditions near at and improvisational in nature. Most often, great man has disciples and that Judas hand, hypotheses attempting to solve the immediate followers of the organic writes the biography. Gombrich, the in- problems, rather than recurrent images master cannot quite absorb the system; stitute’s director from 1959 to 1976, and haunting the collective unconscious. The they can only axiomatize it. Warburg’s the official biographer of its founder, was Nympha kept coming back for the same system was axiomatized by his colleague hardly a Judas, but he was certainly a reason that every musical comedy has a and sometime student Erwin Panofsky, Josephus—a doubter of the obsessional second lead who sings soprano: it is a who moved Warburg’s iconology in the causes of his time, including Warburg’s. convention. “Gombrich did not create a direction of the academic study of “ico- school or attract scholars to succeed him,” nography,” the demanding but ultimately Saumarez Smith told me. “I remember simpler decoding of the set symbols that him at his eighty-fifth-birthday dinner filled Renaissance and post-Renaissance being very contemptuous of those who painting up to the time of Manet: dogs came after him, a Grand Old Man who were a sign of fidelity, unlit candles of vir- had had no succession plan and, like ginity about to end, and so on. But any- some grand intellectual figures, felt one who looked into the turbulent, shift- that no one was up to the job of suc- ing waters of Warburg’s actual beliefs knew ceeding him.” that there was something more, and much In the years since Gombrich’s biog- stranger, there. At a minimum, there was raphy of Warburg, however, what once something compellingly incongruous: on Gombrich’s great work involved map- seemed suspicious or wacky in the War- the one hand, his vision was haunted by ping the methods of the sciences, their burg tradition has become cool, and even half-clothed women dancing ecstatic Di- search for new knowledge through trendy. In the past two years alone, at onysian dances; on the other, it was de- self-correcting experiment, onto the his- least ten scholarly books on Warburg voted to minute archival research meant tory of painting. Art, he thought, pro- and his work have been published. There to record their choreography through time. gresses rationally, as science does. He had are fashions in academia as in everything a horror of romantic irrationalism of all else, and Warburg has never been more ondon last fall, or some circles of it, kinds; it was, he thought, at the heart of fashionable. The contradictions, the L was filled with rumors about the the Nazism that had destroyed Germa- fragmentary achievement, the image- decision that the judge in the lawsuit, ny’s intellectual heritage and sent a gen- mongering: crazy scholars with strange one Dame Sonia Proudman, who had eration of European scholars, himself ideas now attract rather than repel us, and been considering the case for several included,WorldMags.net into exile. The implicitly we are sufficiently far from the disasters THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 39 of Romanticism to once again be open autobiography, mentions in passing his idea that poses have power but a sense to its joys. Free association liberates us 1961-62 Slade Lectures at Oxford, on of how they communicate from gener- from the canon, and contradictionWorldMags.net fires what he called “Motives”—recurrent pat- ation to generation. Popular imagery weapons against the logocentric mind. terns of poses in art. I wondered if the could “carry” an image more effectively We can even look at the German Ro- lectures survived in some form, and, re- than art: “Indeed, it often seems as if the mantic fascination with a shared uncon- calling that Clark, elsewhere in his mem- ‘carrier’ of a motive needs to be artisti- scious without immediately thinking of oirs, writes that he had never given an cally worthless in order that the artist Auschwitz. “improvised” lecture, decided, while I who uses it should feel a greater urge to As a consequence, Warburg is now waited for the Warburg judgment to bring it to perfection.” seen increasingly as an early master of come down, to seek them out in the Clark Perhaps the most beautiful set piece modern disorder, a bookend and rival archives, at the Tate. in the lectures comes in the one on the to Walter Benjamin. But where Benja- The manuscript did indeed survive, “ecstatic spiral,” a lecture obviously min famously saw mass reproduction complete and unpublished, and I spent haunted by Warburg’s Nympha: “We as separating art from ritual, mystery, hours turning over its pages at a carrel twist in agony, we twist in ecstasy, we and “aura,” Warburg’s vision was more there. The “Motives” lectures were per- twirl in the dance. A leaf in an eddy of like that of a banker: images were a cur- haps the best thing of Clark’s I had ever wind rises in a spiral, so does a water- rency, circulating freely through time, read: a Warburgian investigation of a set spout. Flames curl upwards, to comfort and even collecting compound interest number of poses—“where the fusion of or destroy, as matter is transformed into as they aged. We reaped the profits as form and subject . . . has taken a recog- energy.” Clark ends this last lecture with images proliferated, growing in inten- nizable shape, either because it recurs the note that this spirit “now can find sity and varieties of possible meaning: with unquestionable power over a long expression only in music and dancing. Nympha, born on a sarcophagus, could, period, or because, over a short period, Although our buildings are as rigid as multiplying through the ages, end hap- it is used with compulsive intensity.” Clark gridirons, we still find release and emo- pily on a stamp. set out to explain where the poses began, tional satisfaction in the Twist.” Clark where they went, and why they mattered. may have been making a donnish jest— arburg’s most influential student The motives that he examined included you can almost hear the dry laughter in Win the English-speaking world the child (almost invariably the infant the lecture hall—but he was also on to was, of all people, Kenneth Clark, the Jesus turning in contrapposto toward its something real: Warburg’s engrams of mandarin overseer of the British art es- mother’s breast and face), two figures energy are now more often pop than not. tablishment from the thirties through embracing, the image of a wild beast de- There were, of course, no images at- the seventies. In fact, one of the most vouring a horse, and the “ecstatic spiral,” tached to the manuscript, and the “lan- living reminiscences of Warburg is a short a form that unites primitive decoration tern slides” that Clark used I assumed one in Clark’s autobiography “Another and the epiphanies of Baroque ceilings. had been lost. So, as I read, I had the Part of the Wood.” Clark was the prize There was something pleasingly ar- thought that, with the Tate archive pupil of Bernard Berenson, the master chaic about reading lectures given so long blessed by Wi-Fi, I could search for the of connoisseurship. Hearing Warburg ago, and still full of the speaker’s house- images Clark was citing right on my lap- lecture in Rome in 1928 altered Clark’s keeping notes: “Next Thursday it will be top. I went to Google Images, and there entire world picture. “Warburg was with- the motive of Encounter—the experience they were, the embracing emperors and out doubt the most original thinker on of two people meeting in love. On the brides and the ecstatic spirals of the Ba- art-history of our time, and entirely 16th it will be the motive of the Pillar roque. Indeed, there were motives from changed the course of art-historical stud- and the Trunk—the act of defying the far more sources than one could have ies,” Clark wrote. “He had, to an uncanny law of gravitation; and on the 23rd it will imagined. The Google Images search in- degree, the gift of mimesis. He could ‘get be the Recumbent Figure—the act of ac- stantly brought forth embraces in Rem- inside’ a character, so that when he quoted cepting the law of gravity. I shall not give brandt and encounters in Facebook pho- from Savonarola, one seemed to hear the a lecture on the 29th.” What gives the tographs, ecstatic spirals not just in rococo Frate’s high, compelling voice; and when lectures their force, though, is their easy ceilings but in Robert Smithson’s “Spi- he read from Poliziano there was all the Warburgianism. “Motives are states of ral Jetty” and in fusilli pasta with spiral- daintiness and the slight artificiality of mind which have taken visible shape,” cut zucchini. It occurred to me that there the Medicean circle. . . . Warburg, who Clark explains. “They are thus very sim- was a broader visual likeness here: the preferred to talk to an individual, directed ilar to the subject of a lyric poem or a Google Images page eerily reproduces the whole lecture at me. It lasted over piece of music; with this difference that the form of the Warburg “Mnemosyne” two hours, and I understood about two the poem or musical composition can screens—the horizontal rows of similar thirds. But it was enough.” Though Clark develop in time, whereas the visual mo- images, neatly framed in long boxes, and remained outside the faculty of the War- tive has to compress all conflicting or the vertical distribution of them irregu- burg Institute proper, his beautifully lucid amplifying associations into a single sym- larly across a surface. writings, in popular books like “The bol. This intense concentration seems to Warburg’s essential insight—that Nude,” brought Warburg’s ideas to a explain why recurring motives are so few imagery is viral, communicable, con- broad audience. and so tenaciously held.” From Warburg, tagious, and crossbreeding—was, I Clark, in the second volume of his ClarkWorldMags.net had taken over not only the core realized, right. Reproductions, like the 40 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 black-and-white photographs that War- Warburg himself,” he said the other day. burg himself used, don’t serve as stop- “Warburg was interested in the engines pers to meaning; theyWorldMags.net serve as carriers that sustained imagery in human minds of the force of symbols from imagina- and caused symbols to recur, rather than tion to imagination. This process, al- wanting to simply collect archival evi- ready accelerated in the Renaissance, dence of its persistence. There’s been a goes still faster in our time, and is not reluctance to explore the sides of War- just the primary dynamic of our visual burg that were concerned with the irra- experience but also the primary mat- tional and the universal.We need to get ter of our art. We live now on Mne- back to thinking about the Urformen and mosyne screens. For good or ill, the the engrams in contemporary terms— methodology of visual serendipity is to the study, including the neurological our own. and scientific study, of culturally modu- lated gestures. The failure to understand he decision about the fate of the that task contributed to the decline of TWarburg, endlessly delayed, came the Warburg, even while, paradoxically, down in early November. It was, re- the public interest in Aby Warburg has markably, almost entirely in favor of grown. the institute. The judge found the Uni- “My dream of reviving the Warburg versity of London responsible for the is a dream of making it the center of vig- Warburg’s upkeep, its continuation, orous and vital cultural history in our and its integrity. Charles Hope wrote time. It needs to engage with current de- a triumphant piece in The London Re- bates, however dismaying. The Warburg view of Books: “The effect of this judg- is very well positioned to take a stand on ment has been to establish that the crosscultural ethical issues, on cross- university has been in serious breach disciplinary issues—even questions of of the trust deed for many years. The human rights. It can be, and, I hope, will Warburg Institute must now be ade- be, more engaged with contemporary is- quately funded by the university.” sues than it has ever been before.” Last month, it was announced, in a Brooke Palmieri says that she feels short statement, that the Warburg and “optimistic,” but no more than that. “I the university had arrived at a “binding think that the court case was really great agreement” allowing them to “draw a as a wakeup call for the University of line under past disagreements and look London,” she says. “We’ve got twenty- to the future.” Then, just last week, it five thousand more sets of eyes on the was announced that a new director had Warburg Institute than I would have been chosen, from outside the institute: thought possible. But there’s a button on David Freedberg, a distinguished art his- the Change.org petition page—you press torian who has been resident for many it to declare your petition a success. Well, years at Columbia University, had agreed I haven’t pushed that button. ” Lisa Jar- to take over the directorship, at a con- dine, for her part, notes, “I have a hard siderable reduction of salary; he will live time believing that in the next five to ten in a small apartment in walking dis- years the situation will not arise again. tance of the library. Unless, of course, a major benefactor is Freedberg spent many formative years found.” Freedberg recognizes as well that working at the library, and, like every the future will depend on ambitious newly created boss of an old institution fund-raising, a daunting task in a coun- with a high opinion of itself, he is obvi- try where state funding is still more the ously tactful about seeming to want to norm for higher education than Amer- change the institution too radically. But ican-style private endowment. As bank- he also makes it clear that he feels the ers know, sooner or later someone will Warburg has departed from some of the have to pay. richer intellectual paths it pioneered. “In The decision was, in other words, a the past thirty years, the Warburg seemed, perfectly Warburgian event: conserva- I think it’s fair to say, to have become tive and reassuring to a pedantic degree, wary about exploring the lower and more it was also potentially destabilizing. For basic levels of cultural formations—those the time being, the books are still there, rougher sides of culture, the superstitious open on their shelves, and in the stair- and even the barbaric, which fascinated wellsWorldMags.net the nymphs rejoice.  THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 41 WorldMags.netLETTER FROM BELFAST WHERE THE BODIES ARE BURIED

Gerry Adams has long denied being a member of the I.R.A. But his former compatriots claim that he authorized murder.

BY PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

ean McConville had just taken a bath ing his mother away were not strang- The disappearance of Jean McCon- Jwhen the intruders knocked on the ers—they were his neighbors. ville was eventually recognized as one door. A small woman with a guarded Divis Flats had been constructed in of the worst atrocities that occurred smile, she was, at thirty-seven, a mother the late nineteen-sixties, in one of those during the long conflict in Northern of ten. She was also a widow: her hus- fits of architectural utopianism that yield Ireland known as the Troubles. But at band, Arthur, had died eleven months dystopian results. A “slum clearance” the time no one, except the McCon- earlier, of cancer. The family continued program had razed a neighborhood of ville children, seemed especially con- to live in Divis Flats—a housing com- narrow, overcrowded nineteenth- century cerned. When Helen returned home, plex just off the Falls Road, in the heart dwellings, replacing them with a hulk- she and Archie went out to look for of Catholic West Belfast—but had re- ing complex of eight hundred and fifty Jean, but nobody could—or would— cently moved to a slightly larger apart- units. To Michael McConville, Divis’s tell them anything about where she had ment. The stove was not connected yet, warren of balconies and ramps seemed been taken or when she might be back. so Jean’s daughter Helen, who was like “a maze for rats.” By 1972, it had Some weeks later, a social worker vis- fifteen, had gone to a nearby chip shop become a stronghold for the Irish Re- ited the apartment and noted, in a re- to bring back dinner. “Don’t be stop- publican Army, which was waging an port, that the McConville children had ping for a sneaky smoke,” Jean told her. escalating guerrilla battle against the been “looking after themselves.” Their It was December, 1972, and already dark British Army, the Royal Ulster Con- neighbors in Divis Flats were aware of at 6:30 P.M. When the children heard stabulary, and loyalist paramilitary the kidnapping, as was a local parish the knock, they assumed that it was groups. A nineteen- story tower stood priest, but, according to the report, they Helen with the food. on one edge of Divis. It was one of the were “unsympathetic.” Four men and four women burst in; tallest buildings in Belfast, and the Brit- Rumors circulated that McConville some wore balaclavas, others had cov- ish Army had established an operational hadn’t been abducted at all—that she ered their faces with nylon stockings post on the top two floors. Because this had abandoned her children and eloped that ghoulishly distorted their features. aerie was in the middle of enemy ter- with a British soldier. In Belfast, this One brandished a gun. “Put your coat ritory, there were times when the Brit- was an incendiary allegation: Catholic on,” they told Jean. She trembled vio- ish could get to it only by helicopter. women who consorted with the enemy lently as they tried to pull her out of the From the rooftop, British snipers traded were sometimes punished by being tied apartment. “Help me!” she shrieked. fire with I.R.A. gunmen below. Michael to a lamppost after having their heads “I can remember trying to grab my and his siblings had grown accustomed shaved and their bodies tarred and feath- mother,” her son Michael told me re- to the reverberation of bombs and the ered. The McConvilles were a “mixed” cently. He was eleven at the time. “We percussion of gun battles. On bad nights, family; Jean was born Protestant and were all crying. My mother was crying.” the children dragged their mattresses converted to Catholicism only after Billy and Jim, six-year-old twins, threw off the beds and away from the win- meeting her husband. The family had their arms around Jean’s legs and wailed. dows and slept on the floor. lived with Jean’s mother, in a predom- The intruders tried to calm the chil- The I.R.A. had disabled the elevators inantly Protestant neighborhood in East dren by saying that they would bring at Divis to hamper British patrols, so the Belfast, until 1969, when they were their mother back: they just needed to masked gang hustled Jean and Archie driven out, as internecine tensions sharp- talk to her, and she would be gone for McConville down a stairwell. When they ened. They sought refuge in West Bel- only “a few hours.” Archie, who, at six- reached the bottom, one of the men fast, only to discover that they were out- teen, was the oldest child at home, asked pointed a gun at Archie’s face, so close siders there as well. Several weeks after if he could accompany his mother, and that he could feel the cold barrel on his the abduction, on January 17, 1973, a the members of the gang agreed. Jean skin, and said, “Fuck off.” Archie was just crew from the BBC visited the apart- McConville put on a tweed overcoat a boy, outnumbered and unarmed. He ment and taped a segment. As the youn- and a head scarf as the younger chil- reluctantly ascended the stairs. On the ger siblings huddled on the sofa—pale dren were herded into one of the bed- second level, one of the walls was perfo- children with downcast eyes, looking rooms. The intruders called the chil- rated with a series of vertical slats. Peer- shy and frightened—the reporters asked dren by name. A couple of the men were ing through the holes, Archie watched Helen if she had any idea why her not wearing masks, and Michael real- as his mother was bundled into a Volks- mother had left. “No,” she said, shak- ized, to his horror, that the people tak- wagenWorldMags.net van and driven away. ing her head. Agnes McConville, who PRESS (ADAMS); VIA AP (PRICE); PETER MARLOW/MAGNUM PRESS ASSOCIATION RIGHT: FROM TOP CLOCKWISE (DIVIS FLATS) PASSOW (IRA); JUDAH CAULKIN/AP VIA AP (MCCONVILLE); DAVID ASSOCIATION 42 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

Clockwise from top right: Dolours Price; Gerry Adams; Jean McConville and three of her children; I.R.A. men at the funeral of Bobby Sands; Divis Flats, the Belfast housing project from which McConville was abducted.

WorldMags.net THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 43 was thirteen, noted, hopefully, that her of what happened to their mother. One authorized the killing or carried it out, mother was wearing red slippers when by-product of the Troubles was a cul- or where Jean McConville was buried. she was taken away. SheWorldMags.net added, “We’ll ture of silence; with armed factions at But he pledged to investigate. keep our fingers crossed and pray hard war in the streets, making inquiries could Michael McConville told Adams for her to come back.” be dangerous. At one point, a posse of that he wanted an apology. Adams But there was reason to believe that boys from the youth wing of the I.R.A. parsed his words with precision. “For something terrible had happened to beat Michael McConville and stabbed what it’s worth, I’ll apologize to you,” Jean McConville. About a week after him in the leg with a penknife. They he said. “It was wrong for the Repub- she was kidnapped, a young man had released him with a warning: Don’t talk lican movement to do what they did to come to the door and handed the chil- about what happened to your mother. As your mother.” dren their mother’s purse and three rings the children grew older, they occasion- The first person to speak publicly that she had been wearing when she ally saw their former neighbors around about involvement in the disappearance left: her engagement ring, her wedding Belfast, and recognized individuals who of Jean McConville was a former I.R.A. ring, and an eternity ring that Arthur had come to the apartment that night. terrorist named Dolours Price. In 2010, had given her. The children asked where But, as Archie McConville told me, “you Price revealed in a series of interviews Jean was. “I don’t know anything about can’t do nothing. They walk past you that she had been a member of a secret your mother,” the man said. “I was just like nothing happened.” I.R.A. unit called the Unknowns, which told to give you these.” When I spoke Then, in 1994, the I.R.A. declared a conducted clandestine paramilitary to Michael recently, he said, “I knew ceasefire. Gerry Adams, the bearded work, including disappearances. Price then, though I was only eleven years of revolutionary who was the president of did not participate in the raid on the age, that my mother was dead.” Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Re- McConville house, but she drove Jean His siblings were not so quickly con- publican movement, had entered into McConville across the border into the vinced. The act of “disappearing” some- peace negotiations with the British gov- Republic of Ireland, where she was ex- one, which the International Criminal ernment, attempting to persuade the ecuted. McConville, Price claimed, had Court has classified as a crime against I.R.A. to abandon armed resistance and been acting as an informer for the Brit- humanity, is so pernicious, in part, be- tolerate a continued British presence in ish Army, providing intelligence about cause it can leave the loved ones of the Northern Ireland. As Tim Pat Coogan I.R.A. activity in Divis Flats. The order victim in a purgatory of uncertainty. observes in the 2002 edition of his book to disappear her came from the Officer “You cannot mourn someone who has “The I.R.A.,” a peace deal would be vi- Commanding of the Belfast Brigade of not died,” the Argentine-Chilean writer sionary, but also highly risky for Adams, the Provisional I.R.A.—the man who Ariel Dorfman once observed. Helen because “his life would not be worth a held ultimate authority over the Un- and Archie reported Jean’s abduction to cent should it be thought that he was knowns. According to Price, the Officer the police, but in the files of the Royal selling out the ‘armed struggle.’ ” Through Commanding was Gerry Adams. Ulster Constabulary there is no record perseverance and political savvy, Adams of any investigation at the time. Mc- succeeded, and in 1998 he helped cre- olours Price liked to tell people Conville’s body did not turn up. And ate the Good Friday Agreement, which D that Irish Republicanism was in so some of the children held out hope brought an end to the Troubles. As the her DNA. As a little girl in Belfast, she for years that they had not been or- peace process got under way, the I.R.A. sat on the knee of her father, Albert, phaned, and that their mother might agreed to help locate bodies that its and listened to stories about how, as a suddenly reappear. Perhaps she had de- members had buried in hidden graves teen-ager in the forties, he had taken veloped amnesia and was living in an- during the seventies. part in an I.R.A. bombing campaign other country, unaware that she had left Though Adams is the most famous in England. Her aunt Bridie Dolan, a whole life behind in Belfast. But, as face of the Irish Republican movement, who lived with the family, had been decades passed without word, these fan- he has long denied having been a mem- horribly disfigured at twenty-seven, tasies became increasingly difficult to ber of the I.R.A. He maintains that he after accidentally dropping a cache of sustain. For all the gnawing irresolu- never played any operational role in the gelignite in an I.R.A. explosives dump. tion, there was one clear explanation. violence of the Troubles, and that he The blast blew off both of her hands, Michael’s sister Susan, who was eight confined himself to the leadership of and permanently blinded her. “It was when Jean was taken, told me that she Sinn Fein. As the chief Republican never a case of ‘Poor Bridie,’ ” Dolours’s knew, eventually, that her mother was delegate involved in peace negotiations, younger sister Marian told the jour- dead, because otherwise “she would have however, he was obliged to confront the nalist Suzanne Breen, in 2004. “We found her way back to us.” matter of forced disappearances, and he were just proud of her sacrifice. She After several months of fending for met on several occasions with the Mc- came home from hospital to a wee themselves, the McConville children Conville children. Adams himself grew house with an outside toilet, no social were separated by the state, and the up in a family of ten children, and he worker, no disability allowance, and no younger ones were dispersed to differ- conveyed his sympathies to the McCon- counselling. She just got on with it.” ent orphanages. The older ones found villes. “There is no doubt the I.R.A. Bridie was a chain smoker, and Do- jobs and places to live. The siblings saw killed your mother,” he said. He told lours and Marian would light cigarettes each other infrequently and never spoke themWorldMags.net that he did not know who had and insert them between her lips. 44 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 By the late sixties, Dolours was a Ulster Constabulary fired a machine Dolours later said, “I should be ashamed striking and impetuous teen-ager, with gun into Divis Flats, killing a nine-year- to admit there was fun in it in those a moon face, blue-greenWorldMags.net eyes, and dark- old Catholic boy, Patrick Rooney—the days.” People are often drawn to radi- red hair. She and Marian attended first child to die in the Troubles. The calism by a sense of community and teacher-training school, but she gravi- R.U.C. raided the Price house repeat- shared purpose. In this case, there was tated to radical politics, taking part in edly during this period, suspicious of also glory. I.R.A. members referred to civil-rights demonstrations and travel- Albert Price’s I.R.A. connections. In themselves not as soldiers or terrorists ling to Milan to give a talk on “British 1971, the British reintroduced the con- but as “volunteers”—a signal that they repression” at the headquarters of a Mao- troversial tactic of “internment”—im- were prepared to sacrifice their lives for ist political group. Tensions had per- prisoning indefinitely, and without trial, the cause. sisted in Northern Ireland since 1920, anyone suspected of Republican activ- Educated, attractive young women when the Irish War of Independence ity. But the policy backfired, radicaliz- had not been seen carrying guns on the led to the partition of the island, ulti- ing a new generation of recruits to the rubble-strewn streets of Belfast before, mately resulting in an independent re- Republican cause. The Provisional and the Price sisters acquired an iconic public of twenty-six counties in the south I.R.A., a more aggressive offshoot of glamour. “They were sassy girls,” Ea- and continued British dominion over the official I.R.A., began preparing for monn McCann, a longtime friend of six counties in the north. The I.R.A. a sustained guerrilla campaign. Dolours the sisters, told me. “They weren’t cold- had its origins in that conflict, and after Price set out to join the Provisionals. eyed dialecticians or fanatics on the sur- partition the organization devoted it- Historically, women had enlisted in face. There was a smile about them.” self to trying to force the British to with- the I.R.A.’s female wing, known as the One press account described them as draw altogether. Catholics in the north Cumann na mBan (Irishwomen’s Coun- “pretty girls who would finish their were subjected to rampant discrimina- cil). Dolours Price’s mother and grand- school work and then take to the streets tion in housing and jobs, and, with the mother had both been members of this armed, one or both hiding an Armalite advent of the Troubles, in 1969, these group. But Dolours did not want to rifle under their raincoat, to take part tensions exploded in violence. New para- bandage men’s wounds, she said—she in gun battles with the British army.” military groups loyal to the British wanted to be “a fighting soldier.” The The sisters became the subject of sex- Crown were emerging, including the leadership of the Provisional I.R.A. con- ualized lore, with stories circulating Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster vened a special meeting to consider her about Marian, in a miniskirt, charming Defense Association, and that January case, and, in August, 1971, Price became her way past a British Army checkpoint loyalist mobs attacked civil-rights pro- the first woman admitted to full mem- while driving a car full of explosives. At testers as they marched from Belfast to bership in the I.R.A. She was twenty. the time, there was a shopping center Derry. In August, a member of the Royal Marian soon joined her in the I.R.A. in Belfast called Crazy Prices, and,

“No,WorldMags.net I’m still getting too much banjo.” inevitably, the sisters became known as “Voices from the Grave,” Dolours Price ingenious plan to ship the guns back to the Crazy Prices. Another friend of the recalls, “Gerry didn’t allow himself to Ireland. In 1969, the Queen Elizabeth 2 sisters told me that DoloursWorldMags.net was drawn be in the presence of guns, or in any began making stately transatlantic cross- to the I.R.A., in some measure, by situation that would put him at risk of ings between Southampton and New “rebel chic.” arrest.” Instead, he deputized opera- York. The ship had a crew of a thou- During this period, Dolours crossed tional work to his close friend Brendan sand; many of them were Irish, and some paths with Gerry Adams. He was a for- Hughes, a compact man with bushy secretly worked for Brendan Hughes. mer bartender from Ballymurphy, a lean black eyebrows and a shock of black And so a ship named after the Queen young man with sharp cheekbones and hair. Hughes, who was known as the of England was used to smuggle weap- black-framed eyeglasses. Like Dolours, Dark, brought military cunning to the ons to the I.R.A. On Belfast’s streets, he had grown up in a Belfast family job, along with a measure of glee. He graffiti heralded the guns’ arrival: “God deeply rooted in the I.R.A. It is believed lived “from operation to operation,” he made the Catholics, but the Armalite that Adams joined the organization as said later. “Robbing banks, robbing post made them equal.” a teen-ager, in the mid-sixties. Several offices, robbing trains, planting bombs, For much of the sixties, the I.R.A. former I.R.A. volunteers confirmed to shooting Brits, trying to stay alive.” To had just a few dozen members, and was me that Adams was a member of the Dolours Price, Hughes seemed like “a therefore easy to track. Now there were group, and a photograph taken at a Bel- giant of a man.” He inspired fierce loy- hundreds of recruits; more sophisti- fast funeral in 1970 captures him wear- alty from his subordinates, because he cated tactics, with the advent of the ing the black beret that was an unoffi- fought alongside them and “asked no Provisional I.R.A.; and new leaders, cial uniform of the organization. In volunteer to do what he would not do like Adams. The British authorities March, 1972, the British government himself.” were caught off guard. When Brendan interned Adams on the Maidstone, a Hughes had been a merchant sea- Hughes became active in the I.R.A., his British prison ship, but in June he was man before joining the I.R.A., and one father destroyed the family’s photo- released so that he could represent an day a sailor he knew showed him a bro- graphs of him, so that British forces I.R.A. delegation in secret peace talks chure for a new assault rifle from Amer- could not identify him by sight. Simi- with the British. Dolours and Marian ica—the Armalite. “We all fell in love larly, pictures of Adams were so rare Price picked him up and drove him into with this weapon,” Hughes recalled. The that, for a time, the British authorities Belfast to rejoin the Republican lead- Armalite was ideal for urban warfare: could not say for sure what he looked ership. (The talks were unsuccessful.) lightweight and powerful, with a re- like. In Adams’s autobiography, “Before A U.S. diplomatic cable in January, 1973, tractable stock that made it easy to con- the Dawn,” he describes British troops reported that Adams was “an active Bel- ceal. According to Hughes, Adams dis- capturing his dog, Shane, and taking fast military commander.” patched him to New York to procure him for a walk on a leash, in the hope Nevertheless, Adams did not carry Armalites, using a network of sympa- that he might lead them to his owner. out operations. In a 2010 documentary, thetic arms dealers. Hughes devised an Adams and Hughes became targets of assassination, and they perpetually moved among safe houses, counting on support from the community in West Belfast. Armored personnel carriers roamed the Falls Road and helicopters hovered overhead; local residents re- moved street signs to disorient British patrols, and rattled the lids of trash bins to sound the alarm. While Hughes and his men were fleeing soldiers in a foot chase, a front door might suddenly open, allowing them to duck inside. When Adams moved around the city during this period, he later wrote, he “avoided streets where there were stretches with- out doors.” In 1972, the British Army launched a clever operation. It set up a washing service called Four Square Laundry, issued coupons offering steep dis- counts, then sent a van into Catholic neighborhoods to pick up and drop off clothes. The coupons were color-coded, so the clothing could be subjected to WorldMags.netforensic testing for traces of gunpowder or explosives, and then correlated with cheeks, and his mother’s pursed mouth. and brought him a pillow. “That’s just delivery addresses to identify houses When I visited him last summer, at the who my mother was,” Michael said. that were being used WorldMags.netby the I.R.A. The bright, modern house that he built in a “She would have helped anyone.” The Four Square operation was exposed after rural area a short drive from Belfast, he next day, someone painted the words the I.R.A. interrogated one of its mem- showed me a framed photograph of his “Brit Lover” on the front door. Jean had bers, Seamus Wright, and discovered mother. It’s a famous image, the only a brother, Tom, who sometimes visited that he had been working as a double surviving photo of Jean McConville: a from East Belfast. According to Susan agent for the British. Gunmen strafed grainy shot from the sixties taken out- and Archie, he occasionally came to the Four Square van, killing the driver; side the family’s old house, in East Bel- Divis outfitted in an orange sash, the according to the I.R.A., they also killed fast. Jean smiles tentatively at the cam- traditional Unionist symbol; to make two men who were hiding in a secret era, her dark hair pulled away from her such a provocation in a West Belfast compartment under the roof. Dolours face, her arms crossed. Three of her chil- Catholic neighborhood was an act of Price then drove Wright and one of his suicidal folly. Nevertheless, Jean had colleagues—a seventeen-year-old named converted to Catholicism, and her chil- Kevin McKee, who was also discovered dren were Catholic. At the time of her to have been a traitor—into the Repub- abduction, her oldest son, Robert, was lic, where they were executed, and se- interned in prison for suspected activ- cretly buried, in the fall of 1972. ity in the official I.R.A. After I.R.A. leaders learned that Jean McConville’s one indulgence the British were cultivating double was a weekly outing to play bingo. One agents, they established a unit to iden- night, she was interrupted during the tify “touts”—informers—and other dis- game by someone who told her that one loyal elements. Jean McConville moved of her children had been injured and to Divis Flats as this climate of para- dren are perched on a window ledge that a car was waiting outside to take noia was taking hold. beside her, while Arthur crouches, her to the local hospital. Several hours grinning, in the foreground. Arthur was later, British soldiers discovered her wan- ne day when Michael McConville older than Jean; he had fought the dering through the streets, barefoot and O was a young boy, his father brought Japanese in Burma during the Second disoriented. Apparently, she had been home two pigeons. Michael was allowed World War. When their first child, detained by an armed group and then to keep them in “a wee box” in his room, Anne, was born, in 1954, Jean was only released. Her face was swollen and badly he told me, and his father fostered an seventeen. bruised—she had been beaten. When interest in pigeon racing. After the fam- After Arthur died, it was a struggle the soldiers brought her home, “she was ily moved to West Belfast, Michael and to feed ten children, even with his Army talking in riddles,” Michael recalled. his friends began stalking derelict houses pension. “She just wasn’t coping,” Mi- The children couldn’t figure out what where pigeons roosted. Whenever he chael said, adding that she had a ner- had happened to her. They made her found a bird, he peeled off his jacket vous breakdown. When I brought up tea, and she smoked one cigarette after and cast it like a net over the animal, the claim that his mother was an in- another. then smuggled it home under his sweater, former, Michael asked, with indigna- When his mother was taken away adding it to his burgeoning fleet. West tion, “When would she have had the the second time, and did not return, Belfast was a hazardous place for an ad- time?” She was constantly on her feet, Michael said, “There was no one to venturous kid, but Michael had no fear, he said, cooking stews or washing clothes look after us. I kept getting put in differ- he told me: “Most boys didn’t, being on a scrubbing board in the kitchen ent homes, but each time I would run brought up in a war zone.” On one oc- sink. After Arthur’s death, Jean’s atten- away.” He recalled an orphanage where casion, he scaled the façade of an old tion to cleaning took on a compulsive monks walked through the dormitory mill only to discover a unit of British intensity. Because one child or the other at night with a roving flashlight, tak- soldiers encamped inside. Startled, they was forever losing a button or needing ing boys from their beds. Michael was trained their rifles on him and bellowed some other repair, she always had a large not abused himself, but his younger at him to climb back down. blue safety pin—a “nappy pin,” Michael brother Billy, who was sent to a Cath- “You had no respect for the law, be- calls it—fastened to her clothes. It was olic orphanage in Kircubbin, recently cause all’s you seen is brutality,” Michael her defining accessory. told a panel investigating past abuses recalled. “The soldiers getting men Not long before Jean McConville that he had been sexually molested. Mi- against the wall, kicking their legs was taken away, she raised the suspi- chael eventually ended up at a facility spread-eagle. That’s what put the seed cions of her neighbors. She and the chil- that was surrounded by a ten-foot elec- in a lot of kids’ heads to join the I.R.A.” dren were home one night when they trified fence. “It was the best home I He sighed. “I don’t think the British had heard a man moaning in pain outside ever had,” he told me. A kind nun took much of a clue about what they were their front door. Jean cautiously opened an interest in him, and he started to starting.” the door and discovered a wounded pull his life together. He met his wife, Michael is fifty-three, slight and tac- British soldier sprawled on the landing. Angela, when he was sixteen. He has iturn, with clipped gray hair, flushed He hadWorldMags.net been shot. Jean tended to him, had a steady career installing tiles, and, THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 47 unlike several of his siblings, has avoided farm, once described the bogs of Ire- never said anything—he couldn’t. He the ravages of drugs and alcohol. He land as “a landscape that remembered rode in silence, then handed the man and Angela have fourWorldMags.net children, and he everything that had happened in and his fare. boasted about them a bit. “I’ve tried my to it.” best, given the life I had, to do well with In the summer of 1999, Jean Mc- ne afternoon in March, 1973, a the kids,” he said. Conville’s daughter Helen learned, O woman answered the telephone In South Africa, after the fall of through two priests who were serving at the headquarters of the London Times apartheid, the government initiated a as intermediaries, that the I.R.A. had and heard a man reciting, in a soft process of “truth and reconciliation.” identified the place where her moth- brogue, the descriptions and locations So that a thorough record of past abuses er’s body could be found: a stretch of of several cars that were parked in the might be compiled, perpetrators were windswept coastline outside Carling- city. “The bombs will go off in one hour,” offered immunity from prosecution in ford, in County Louth, on the east coast he said. exchange for honest testimony. In of the Republic. As backhoes prepared It was two o’clock. Officials at the Northern Ireland, where roughly thirty- to tear up the soil, Helen convened her Times reported the call to the police six hundred people were murdered siblings around a table. It was an awk- while several reporters headed toward during the Troubles and some forty ward reunion. Many of them had not the closest bomb, which, according to thousand wounded, there has been no seen one another in years. Edgy and the caller, was inside a green Ford Cor- comprehensive accounting. A recent fractious, their grief still palpable, they tina parked outside London’s Central report by Amnesty International crit- were now in their thirties and forties Criminal Court, the Old Bailey. By two- icizes the “piecemeal” investigations of but looked older; their faces were hag- thirty, police had arrived on the scene. historical abuses, and suggests that, gard, and the hands and forearms of A hundred-and-twenty-pound bomb “across the political spectrum, it is those the men were etched with blotchy, blue- lay underneath the car’s back seat. They in power who may fear that they have black tattoos. When Jean’s children called in the bomb squad and burst into little politically to gain—and possibly spoke of her, even to one another, they an adjacent pub, The George, ordering much to lose—from any careful exam- had a tendency to refer to her as “my the startled patrons to evacuate. A school ination of Northern Ireland’s past.” In mother.” bus had just deposited forty-nine chil- 1999, with the encouragement of Bill “Where are we going to bury her?” dren not far from the Cortina, and an Clinton, the British and Irish govern- Michael asked. inspector shouted at the teachers to get ments established the Independent “West Belfast,” Helen responded. them out of the area. Commission for the Location of Vic- (A 1999 documentary, “Disappeared,” Plans for a coördinated bombing of tims’ Remains, and the I.R.A. agreed captured the exchange.) “It’s going to central London had originated several to identify the graves of nine people hit them. They were the ones that killed months earlier, at a secret meeting in who had been murdered and secretly her. They were the ones that robbed us Belfast. The I.R.A. had planted hun- buried during the Troubles, but only of a mother.” dreds of bombs in Northern Ireland, after securing a promise that no crim- Some of her brothers had reserva- but Dolours Price, remembering her fa- inal prosecutions would result. The tions. “We all live in Republican areas,” ther’s bombing campaign in Britain I.R.A. declared that some of the dis- Jim said. “We don’t want no hassle from during the forties, had argued for a appeared had been informers, includ- them.” He continued, “Them boys who bolder operation. In a 2012 interview ing Jean McConville. Michael and his done it, they’ll suffer for the rest of with the Telegraph, she recalled, “I was siblings angrily rejected this character- their lives. It is time to say forgive.” convinced that a short, sharp shock, an ization, yet they had little choice but Billy snapped, “I can’t forgive them incursion into the heart of the empire, to work with the I.R.A. to search for bastards for what they done.” would be more effective than twenty car her remains. For fifty days, the backhoes exca- bombs in any part of the north of Ire- Much of the Irish landscape is dom- vated, creating a crater the size of an land.” Dolours attended the strategy inated by peat bogs; the anaerobic and Olympic swimming pool. The family’s meeting, along with her sister Marian acidic conditions in the densely packed sense of anticipation eventually gave and Brendan Hughes. According to earth mean that the past in Ireland can way to despair: the I.R.A. had appar- both Dolours Price and Hughes, the be subject to macabre resurrection. Peat ently been mistaken. “They made a meeting was run by Gerry Adams. Gen- cutters occasionally churn up ancient laughingstock of us” when Jean was erally, the I.R.A. issued warnings before mandibles, clavicles, or entire cadavers kidnapped, Agnes said, her mascara its bomb blasts, in order to minimize that have been preserved for millen- dissolving in tears. “They’re making civilian casualties. But sometimes these nia. The bodies date as far back as the another laughingstock of us now.” The warnings did not allow sufficient time Bronze Age, and often show signs of search was called off, and the children for escape: in July, 1972, twenty bombs ritual sacrifice and violent death. These returned to their homes. One of the were detonated in a single day in Bel- victims, cast out of their communities men who had abducted Jean now drove fast, killing nine people, an episode that and buried, have surfaced vividly in- a black taxi up and down the Falls became known as Bloody Friday. tact, from their hair to their leathery Road. Occasionally, Michael hailed a “This could be a hanging job,” Adams skin. The poet Seamus Heaney, who cab and climbed inside only to discover told the group, explaining that if the harvested peat as a boy on his family’s this WorldMags.netman behind the wheel. Michael perpetrators were caught they could be 48 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

In 1972, Michael McConville witnessed his mother’s abduction by I.R.A. members. He still sees some of the kidnappers around Belfast.

executed for treason. “If anyone doesn’t fitted with English license plates and team, British authorities had an I.R.A. want to go, they should up and leave shipped by ferry across the Irish Sea. informer who had given them advance now.” Several people did so, but the Shortly before the day chosen for the warning of the attack. Police had been Price sisters remained, and a team of attack, Price and her team filtered into instructed to be extra vigilant, and shortly ten was eventually selected to carry out London and checked into hotels. after one of the bombs was planted, in the I.R.A.’s first bombing mission in The plan was to plant the bombs in a Ford Corsair outside Scotland Yard, a England in thirty years. Although Do- four locations in the morning, with tim- passing officer noticed that the number lours was only twenty-two, she was cho- ers set to detonate simultaneously that plate on the car did not match the year sen to run the mission. She was, in her afternoon. By 7:30 A.M., all four cars of the vehicle. Upon further inspection, own words, the Officer Commanding were in position. The bombs were set police discovered the bomb in the back “of the whole shebang.” The team was to blast at 2:50 P.M. By then, if every- seat—and defused it. British officials, sent into the Republic for several weeks thing went according to plan, the bomb- knowing that the bombers were likely of weapons training. Cars were stolen ers would have caught a flight back to trying to escape the country, issued an at gunpoint, in Belfast, then repainted Ireland. emergency directive: “Close England.” AGENCE VU AGENCE and sent to Dublin, where they were But,WorldMags.net unbeknownst to Price and her In the departures lounge at Heathrow PHOTOGRAPH BY PIETER TEN HOOPEN THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 49 Airport, police spotted a group of young people waiting to board a flight to Dub- lin. A dark-haired womanWorldMags.net in a long coat STAR SYSTEM appeared to be giving orders. It was Do- lours Price. When police questioned The stars in their magnificent array her, she told them that her name was Look down upon the Earth, their cynosure, Una Devlin. An officer showed her an Or so it seems. They are too far away, early edition of the Evening News, with In fact, to see a thing; hence they look pure a banner headline about the bomb dis- To us. They lack the textures of our globe, covered at Scotland Yard. She stared at So only we, from cameras carried high, it silently. In her handbag, police found, Enjoy the beauty of the swirling robe along with “a large quantity of makeup,” That wraps us up, the interplay of sky a spiral notebook with several pages And cloud, as if a Wedgwood plate of blue ripped out. When experts examined the And white should melt, and then, its surface stirred indentations on the pages underneath, With spoons, a treasure too good to be true, they discovered traces of a diagram that Be placed, and hover like a hummingbird, depicted the circuitry of a timing de- Drawing all eyes, though ours alone, to feast vice. Dolours was arrested, as was Mar- On splendor as it turns west from the East. ian Price; at the subsequent trial, the detective who interrogated Marian re- There was a time when some of our young men called that, at precisely 2:50 P.M., “she Walked plumply on the moon and saw Earth rise, raised her wrist and looked very point- As stunning as the sun. The years since then edly at her watch, and smiled at me.” Have aged them. Now and then somebody dies. Police explosives experts did not ar- It’s like a clock, for those of us who saw rive at the Old Bailey until two-fifty, The Saturn rockets going up as if and could not defuse the bomb before Mankind had energy to burn. The law it detonated. The blast shattered win- dows, blew a crater in the ground, and sent glass and twisted metal flying. A the establishment of a democratic Eire.” those who suffer the most who will con- bomb in Westminster also went off. Eight bombers were convicted and quer,” MacSwiney had said. These two explosions injured more than received double life sentences. As the When the Price sisters and several two hundred people, and one man died verdict was read aloud, they jeered at of their co-defendants began refusing of a heart attack. “There was no inten- the judge, proclaiming their loyalty to food, they had clear demands. They tion to kill people with the London the I.R.A. They also announced their wanted to be granted political-prisoner bombs,” Hughes remembered. Dolours intention to launch a hunger strike. As status and transferred to Northern Ire- Price was less apologetic. “There were Padraig O’Malley points out in his 1990 land so that they could serve their sen- warnings phoned in, but people had book, “Biting at the Grave: The Irish tences closer to their families. “Each day stood about,” she said years later. “Some Hunger Strikes and the Politics of De- passes and we fade a little more,” Do- had even stood at office windows and spair,” fasting as a form of protest had lours wrote, in a letter. “But no matter been sprayed by broken glass when the a history in Ireland dating back to how the body may fade, our determi- car went up.” She added, “In Belfast, we pre-Christian times. In 1903, W. B. Yeats nation never will.” Most parents would gave fifteen-minute warnings. In Lon- wrote a play, “The King’s Threshold,” panic at the thought of a daughter, barely don, we’d given them an hour.” about a poet in seventh-century Ireland out of her teens, announcing her inten- The trial of the Old Bailey bombers who launches a hunger strike at the tion to starve herself to death. But the took place in Winchester Castle, outside gates of the royal palace. Yeats describes: Prices could situate this gesture within London, and lasted ten weeks. It was a “An old and foolish custom, that if a a proud tradition of dissent. Albert, after sensational event, with the press drawn man / Be wronged, or think that he is visiting his daughters, told the press, especially to the Price sisters; the Irish wronged, and starve / Upon another’s “They are happy. Happy about dying.” Times described them showing up in threshold till he die, / The common The British authorities, recognizing court each day “sprucely dressed” and people, for all time to come, / Will raise that they would face a crisis if one of adopting defiant poses. On the stand, a heavy cry against that threshold.” the Price sisters perished, force-fed them Dolours was almost smug, insisting that In 1920, Terence MacSwiney, an Irish daily. “Four male prison officers tie you she knew nothing of the operation. When politician who had been imprisoned in into the chair so tightly with sheets you a prosecutor asked about the timing de- Brixton on charges of sedition, died can’t struggle,” Marian later explained. vice depicted in her notebook, she feigned after a seventy-three-day hunger strike. “You clench your teeth to try to keep confusion, mugging for the specta- His case attracted international atten- your mouth closed, but they push a metal tors—“He lost me.” Asked about her pol- tion, and tens of thousands of people spring device around your jaw to prize itics, she was less evasive, saying, “I would filed past his coffin after his death. “It it open.” Guards then inserted a wooden like to see the removal of the border and is notWorldMags.net those who inflict the most but clamp with a hole in the middle, and 50 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 Price’s casket was carried through the streets of Belfast. The piper leading Is differentWorldMags.net for one man. Time is a cliff the procession was a young girl dressed You come to in the dark. Though you might fall in the black beret and dark glasses of As easily as on a feather bed, the I.R.A. It is a sad farewell. You loved it all. In “On the Blanket,” a history of You dream that you might keep it in your head. hunger strikes during the Troubles, Tim But memories, where can you take them to? Pat Coogan notes that the decision to Take one last look at them. They end with you. stop force-feeding the Prices had pro- found consequences, because the Brit- And still the Earth revolves, and still the blaze ish government was effectively signal- Of stars maintains a show of vigilance. ling that “henceforth any prisoner on It should, for long ago, in olden days, hunger strike would be allowed to die.” We came from there. By luck, by fate, by chance, In 1981, the hunger striker Bobby Sands All of the elements that form the world did die, followed by nine other prison- Were sent by cataclysms deep in space, ers. As he lay dying, Sands engaged in And from their combination life unfurled a fateful stunt: he ran for a seat in the And stood up straight, and wore a human face. British Parliament, representing Fer- I still can’t pass a mirror. Like a boy, managh and South Tyrone, and he won. I check my looks, and now I see the shell During the seventies, Gerry Adams Of what I was. So why, then, this strange joy? was in and out of jail. In addition to his Perhaps an old man dying would do well 1972 internment on the Maidstone, he To smile as he rejoins the cosmic dust was confined for three years in Long Life comes from, for resign himself he must. Kesh prison, where he shared a cell with Brendan Hughes. At some point, Adams —Clive James began to think that there were limits to what the I.R.A. could achieve through violence. After Sands won his seat, Ad- slid a tube through the hole. “They throw cording to one medical assessment, were ams’s close aide Danny Morrison an- whatever they like into the food mixer,” “living entirely off their own bodies.” Fi- nounced that Sinn Fein would hence- Marian continued. “Orange juice, soup, nally, Roy Jenkins, the British Home forth run candidates in elections. In a or cartons of cream if they want to beef Secretary, assured the Prices that they famous formulation, he said, “Will any- up the calories.” By January, 1974, peo- could eventually be moved to Armagh one here object if, with a ballot paper in ple who visited Dolours expressed hor- prison, in Northern Ireland. That June, this hand and an Armalite in the other, ror at her physical deterioration: she had after two hundred and five days, they we take power in Ireland?” The strategy lost a great deal of weight, her skin had abandoned the strike. A transfer was se- of “the Armalite and the ballot box” rep- turned waxen, and her hair had gone cretly approved the following spring. resented a departure for the Provisional white at the roots. Her teeth had come In a 2002 radio documentary, “The I.R.A.: by running for positions in the loose under pressure from the clamp. Chaplain’s Diary,” Dolours recalls that British administration in Northern Ire- It was an impossible situation for the the governor of Brixton prison walked land, Adams and his colleagues could British government, which began to be into her cell and said, “You’re going be perceived as implicitly acknowledg- attacked for force-feeding the Prices, home. Or, not home—you’re going to ing the administration’s legitimacy. though the sisters were otherwise likely Armagh.” Adams replaced the woolly sweaters of to die. The standoff took a bizarre turn “That’s near enough for me,” Do- a West Belfast revolutionary with the when thieves stole the Vermeer paint- lours replied. She sat next to Marian on suits and ties of a politician. In 1983, he, ing “The Guitar Player” from a museum the short flight across the Irish Sea, and, too, was elected a Member of Parlia- in Hampstead, and, in ransom notes, at the first glimpse of green below, burst ment, representing West Belfast. threatened to burn it—“with much ca- into tears. Dolours Price spent six years in Ar- vorting in the true lunatic fashion”— “That’s not Ireland yet,” Marian said. magh. Although she and Marian were if the Price sisters were not moved to “That’s the Isle of Man.” no longer refusing food, they contin- Northern Ireland. The Prices’ mother, Within an hour, they had landed in ued to deteriorate physically. In the Chrissie, told the press that Dolours, Northern Ireland. The Price sisters were 2002 radio documentary, Dolours ex- “who is an art student,” had pleaded overjoyed to be home but distressed plained the psychology of a hunger that the Vermeer remain undamaged. about the timing of their arrival. In the striker: “If you eat, you’re going to lose. (It was eventually returned, unharmed.) preceding months, both their mother, You convince yourself of that when you In May, 1974, the British government, Chrissie, and their aunt Bridie Dolan embark on a hunger strike. You have under increasing public pressure, agreed had died. The sisters had unsuccessfully to convince yourself, because your body to stop force-feeding the Prices. The sis- petitioned for compassionate release to is telling you it wants food, and you’re ters began losing a pound a day and, ac- attendWorldMags.net their mother’s funeral. Chrissie telling your body, ‘No, you can’t have THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 51 food. . . . We will not win this struggle helped establish Field Day, an Irish the- released “The Crying Game,” in which if I give you food.’ ” After the Price sis- atre troupe. Rea and Price were mar- Rea played the role for which he is per- ters forced the BritishWorldMags.net government to ried at Armagh Cathedral in 1983. haps most famous: Fergus, a decent and bend to their aims, they found it diffi- When asked about being married to a soulful man who happens to be a mem- cult to overcome the profound resis- convicted terrorist, he would say, “That’s ber of the I.R.A. In the story, Fergus is tance they had developed to eating. my wife’s past. . . . She doesn’t apologize assigned to guard a kidnapped British “We both ended up with very, very, very for that, and I’m not going to apologize soldier (played by Forest Whitaker) in distorted notions of the function of for her.” the hours before his execution. They food,” Dolours said. Rea never had a formal relationship stay up all night, and Fergus develops By the spring of 1980, Marian had with the Republican movement, but he a friendship with the soldier, hand-feed- lost so much weight that she was re- did have a bizarre connection to Gerry ing him pieces of chocolate and com- leased from prison, after Humphrey At- Adams. After a series of I.R.A. bomb- forting him when he cries, before tak- kins, Britain’s Northern Secretary, judged ings in the late eighties, the Thatcher ing him outside to be shot. While her “in imminent danger of death.” Do- government announced a bafflingly mis- promoting the film, Rea said little about lours was relieved that her sister had es- guided policy, which held that, on Brit- the fact that his wife had once occupied caped a life sentence, but she felt aban- ish television, the voice of anyone be- a similar role, guarding prisoners at gun- doned. “I got really depressed,” she said lieved to be advocating paramilitary action point or driving them to their deaths. later. “It was like I’d been separated from must be muted. Actors were hired to dub But in one later interview he discussed my Siamese twin.” In a letter, she de- interviews and speeches, and for years a what it meant to be a member of the scribed the crushing inertia of her days, small stable of Irish actors found occa- I.R.A., and described the “conundrum her energy depleted, her body numb: “I sional employment as the voice of Gerry of people whose lives are a gesture.” move as a clockwork doll.” Adams. One of the actors was Rea. Such people, Rea said, are often “not A cache of papers recently declassified The terms of Dolours Price’s release afraid of death, because your death is by the British government reveals that held that she must obtain permission acceptable if you’re living for a cause.” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was from the British government if she closely watching the case of Dolours wanted to leave Northern Ireland. But, elfast has ostensibly been at peace Price. Initially, Thatcher was unmoved. her defiance unchecked, she proceeded B for two decades, but the city re- In one memo, she speculated that Price to move with Rea to London. Accord- mains acutely divided. The borders be- would rejoin the I.R.A.—“I doubt ing to friends, Price relished the cheek- tween Catholic and Protestant neigh- whether her old friends will let her alone iness of this relocation. England’s tab- borhoods are inscribed in the concertina when she is out”—and reminded her loids did as well, noting that the bomber wire and steel of the so-called “peace subordinates that the London bomb- of the Old Bailey was now “sipping walls” that progress like fissures across ing had caused a man’s death. (Accord- champagne with stars at the National the city. These towering structures main- ing to an autopsy, the heart attack that Theatre,” where Rea was directing a tain some degree of calm by physically killed the man had actually begun be- play. Price’s effrontery was brought to separating the city’s populations, as if fore the bomb detonated.) In April, 1981, the attention of Thatcher, and she made they were animals in a zoo. The walls Tomas O Fiaich, an Irish cardinal, vis- are tagged with runelike slurs—K.A.T., ited Price in Armagh, and reported to for “Kill All Taigs,” a derogatory term Thatcher. “From being a vivacious girl . . . for Catholics, on one side; K.A.H., for she has become, at thirty, a gaunt spec- “Kill All Huns,” a reference to Protes- tre, prematurely aged and deprived of tants, on the other—and dwarf the squat any further desire to live,” he wrote. He brick houses and the unlovely council begged Thatcher for clemency, stress- estates on either side, throwing them ing that “even next week may be too into shadow. late.” When Price entered Armagh, in In one sense, the Troubles are over. 1975, her weight was a hundred and The principal armed factions have long fourteen pounds. By the time the car- since decommissioned their weapons, dinal saw her, she weighed seventy-six no secret of her frustration. “If she and and in most parts of Belfast it is safe to pounds. Thatcher authorized her release. her husband wish to live together, they walk the streets. The city center is dom- Dolours Price did not rejoin the can live together in Northern Ireland,” inated by the same chain stores—Tesco, I.R.A. Instead, she moved to Dublin, she wrote. But no action was taken Caffè Nero, Kiehl’s—found in the other where she avoided publicity and tried against the couple. urban centers of Western Europe, and to establish a career as a freelance jour- Eventually, Price and Rea had two most residents will tell you that they nalist. She began dating the actor Ste- boys, Danny and Oscar, and the family want Belfast to become famous for phen Rea, whom she had met during moved back to Dublin. (In interviews, something other than conflict. Sev- the civil-rights protests of the sixties. Rea said that he did not want to bring eral people informed me, with pride, Rea was a brooding, shaggy-haired Bel- up his sons in England.) One of Rea’s that the local film-production facility, fast Protestant who was sympathetic to closest collaborators was the Irish film- Titanic Studios, is where “Game of the Republican cause. In 1980, he had makerWorldMags.net Neil Jordan, and in 1992 they Thrones” is shot. One popular tourist 52 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 attraction is the Troubles Tour, in which ex-combatant cabdrivers guide visitors to flashpoints from theWorldMags.net bad years, de- coding the ubiquitous murals that con- jure famous battles, martyrs, and gun- men. The effect is to make the Troubles seem like distant history. But there are at least as many peace walls in Belfast today as there were at the time of the Good Friday Agree- ment. Residents still live in neighbor- hoods circumscribed by religion, and ninety-three per cent of children in Northern Ireland attend segregated el- ementary schools. Bus stops in some parts of the city are informally desig- nated Catholic or Protestant, and peo- ple walk an extra block or two to wait at a stop where they won’t fear being hassled. I arrived in August, just after “marching season,” when Unionists com- memorate the Battle of the Boyne and other bygone victories by lighting bonfires and staging belligerent marches. Hundreds of Union Jacks still fluttered in Protestant neighborhoods. Catholic areas were decked out with the Irish tri- color, and with Palestinian flags—a sign of solidarity and a signal that, even now, many Republicans in the north con- •• sider themselves an occupied people. Two years ago, Richard Haass, the asked if local Protestants might cross trol of the I.R.A. to other leaders. But president of the Council on Foreign the street to buy a sandwich. he insisted that killing McConville was Relations, chaired a series of multiparty “Not a chance,” Michael replied. the right thing to do, because she was negotiations about unresolved issues in One morning, I visited Billy McKee, a tout. “I would have had her executed the Northern Ireland peace process; the one of the founders of the Provisional and left her there,” he said, with a level talks foundered, in no small measure, I.R.A., in a small brick house in West gaze. “I couldn’t understand why they over the issue of flags. Tribalism and its Belfast. Born in 1921, five years after took her away to disappear her.” trappings remain so potent in Belfast, the Easter Rising, he joined the I.R.A. When I told him that I was curious Haass told me, that the various sides in the thirties, acquiring a reputation as about the people who were responsible could not agree on how to govern the a formidable combatant. When Bren- for that decision, McKee scowled, wor- display of regalia. When the Belfast city dan Hughes was a boy, the reverence in rying his dentures with his tongue, so council voted, in 2012, to limit the num- his family for Billy McKee was so deep that they slid from one side to the other. ber of days that the Union Jack could that he felt he should “genuflect” every “What would happen if I knew and I be raised outside city hall, protesters time he passed McKee’s house. McKee told you, and they all got arrested?” tried to storm the building, and riots was said to be armed at all times, and McKee said. “I would be the axe man. erupted throughout Northern Ireland, on one occasion, in a back room after a I wouldn’t like to put my enemies in with Unionist demonstrators throwing funeral, Hughes contrived to brush up jail, never mind some of my friends.” bricks and petrol bombs. against him and felt a .45 concealed be- I expressed surprise that, in a city To an outsider, the sheer weirdness, neath his belt. like Belfast, where everybody knows ev- and attendant inconvenience, of living McKee came to the door dressed in erybody else, it was so difficult to solve in a divided metropolis can be difficult a dark suit, having just returned from a notorious murder. “I don’t think any- to fathom. When I was driving through Mass. His hair was white and spiky, in body’s stupid enough to mention names,” Belfast with Michael McConville, we the style of Samuel Beckett. As a clock McKee said. Then he muttered, “Too reached a street that threaded between ticked loudly in another room, I asked dangerous.” He shuffled with me to the a Catholic neighborhood on the left about the disappearance of Jean Mc- door, and said, “If you see any of my old and a Protestant one on the right. I no- Conville. McKee said that he played no friends, tell ’em I’m still breathing.” ticed a Subway franchise along a strip role in the decision to kill her. He was If McKee is an unreconstructed mil- of businesses on the Catholic side, and in prisonWorldMags.net in 1972, and was ceding con- itant who speaks without equivocation THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 53 about the role that he played in the armed political expediency, he chose to stick with gest the giddiness of a man who has struggle, Gerry Adams has in recent de- it, even after some of his closest collabo- defied some very long odds. In 1984, cades gone through aWorldMags.net metamorphosis. rators unburdened themselves. In 2001, Adams told a reporter that he had a As the peace process got under way, Martin McGuinness, the Deputy First ninety-per-cent chance of being assas- during the nineties, Adams continued Minister of Northern Ireland, admitted sinated. Later that year, he was shot and the transformation of his public persona publicly that, in the early seventies, he nearly killed by loyalist gunmen, and from international pariah to statesman had been the second-highest-ranking during periods of captivity he was tor- and champion of peace. Today, he is a member of the I.R.A. in Derry. This ac- tured by British authorities. Improbably, Member of the Irish Parliament, repre- knowledgment does not appear to have Adams survived the conflict—and, more senting County Louth, and Sinn Fein is hurt his political career; McGuinness has improbably, he flourished. an ascendant political party both in North- won three elections since 2001. The new Gerry Adams never com- ern Ireland and in the Republic. Adams Adams is now sixty-six and a grand- pletely eclipsed the old one, however, is widely credited, even by his detractors, father, and his evolution into an ap- and this may have been a conscious with having played an instrumental role proachable grandee has found its surreal choice. The journalist Fintan O’Toole in ending the Troubles. Yet he still main- culmination on Twitter. He intersperses once observed that the ambiguity of the tains that he was never a member of the studiously boring tweets about small- Adams persona was essential to the peace I.R.A. “Everybody knows he was in the bore political issues with a barrage of cat process: in order to participate in the I.R.A., except for Gerry,” Michael Mc- pictures and encomiums to sudsy baths, negotiations, Adams had to be accepted Conville said. At the height of the Trou- rubber duckies, and Teddy bears. (“I do as a democratic politician; but, in order bles, there was an obvious motive to deny love Teddy bears,” he told the BBC. “I to deliver the desired result, he needed the affiliation: a charge of “membership” have a large collection of Teddy bears.”) to exercise enough control over I.R.A. in the I.R.A. was enough to send you to One characteristic tweet, from last Jan- gunmen so that if he ordered them to prison. With the advent of peace nego- uary: “Dreamt I was eating Cream Eggs. lay down their weapons they would com- tiations, there was a further incentive for Woke up this morn. Pillow & beard cov- ply. Perhaps in the interest of preserv- Adams to distance himself from his armed ered in chocolate & cream thingyme- ing this flexibility, Adams perfected a comrades—British officials could deal bob.” The Irish writer Damien Owens dog-whistle style of political rhetoric. with him and not risk charges that they has likened all this to “Charles Manson Asked about his role in the armed were negotiating with a terrorist. But if showing you his collection of tea cosies.” conflict, he has said, “I’m very, very clear Adams initially crafted a fiction out of But, cumulatively, Adams’s tweets sug- about my denial of I.R.A. membership. But I don’t disassociate myself from the I.R.A.” Adams is beholden to multiple constituencies, and for some faction of supporters his charisma has always de- rived, at least in part, from the whiff of cordite. At a public event in Belfast in 1995, Adams was delivering a speech when someone shouted, “Bring back the I.R.A.!” Adams responded, “They haven’t gone away, you know.” Traditionally, Irish journalists have shown surprising deference to Adams’s sophistry about his role in the armed struggle. To be sure, Adams has never been convicted of a violent crime, or of any I.R.A.-related offenses. But as a young man he often published essays in a Republican newsletter, under a pseu- donym, and in 1976 he wrote, “Rightly or wrongly, I am an I.R.A. volunteer.” Even so, most press accounts simply re- cycled his denials, and, because the I.R.A. was so disciplined, none of his comrades spoke out to contradict him. During the peace process, however, many rank-and-file members of the I.R.A. felt surprised and betrayed when Adams accepted the legitimacy of a gov- ernment in Northern Ireland that re- “Well, he didn’t get that kind ofWorldMags.net language from me!” mained part of the United Kingdom. Many also questioned his willingness prison for the murder of a U.V.F. man. from Gerry.” Adams, in the 1976 essay to surrender the weapons they had McIntyre, who was Moloney’s friend referring to his membership in the amassed. Some formerWorldMags.net volunteers be- and source, had obtained a college de- I.R.A., wrote about the moral decision came so disillusioned by Adams’s con- gree in prison, and had gone on to write to use violence, maintaining that “only cessions that they broke the code of si- a dissertation on the Troubles at Queen’s if I achieve the situation where my peo- lence and told their stories to the press. University in Belfast. He had a gruff, ple genuinely prosper can my course of genial manner, and was at ease with re- action be seen . . . to have been justified.” n 2001, Ed Moloney, a veteran re- tired revolutionaries, which suggested The Good Friday Agreement did not I porter for the Irish Times and other that they might open up to him, on tape, deliver the ends that Hughes and oth- newspapers, published a landmark re- about secrets they had kept for decades. ers had counted on to justify the I.R.A.’s visionist account, “A Secret History of They did. “It was cathartic,” a former brutal means. Adams’s political turn the IRA,” which stated explicitly that I.R.A. member named Richard O’Rawe forced his subordinates to reappraise Gerry Adams had been a military com- said of his interview with McIntyre. “I the righteousness of their own killing. mander responsible for the Belfast Bri- cried like a baby.” Divis Flats was demolished in the gade. Adams and Moloney had known This clandestine undertaking be- nineteen-nineties, except for the tower each other for decades, and had enjoyed came known, to the people who were where the British had their observation a cordial relationship during the Trou- aware of it, as the Belfast Project. One post. In the years after the Good Fri- bles, meeting occasionally in a back room of McIntyre’s subjects was the man still day Agreement, Brendan Hughes lived on the Falls Road; Adams would make widely known around Belfast as the alone in an apartment at the top of the a pot of tea and Moloney would inter- Dark: Brendan Hughes. They were close, tower. Demoralized by the things he view him. Once, after a long session in having served together in prison. When had done, he spent his days chain- Moloney’s hotel room, Adams stayed I visited McIntyre and his wife, Carrie, smoking by a picture window, looking and slept on the floor. But their rela- at their home, in Drogheda, a small city out over Belfast, past the peace walls tions had grown strained by the time between Dublin and Belfast, they and church steeples to the shipworks “The Secret History of the IRA” was showed me photographs of Hughes giv- where, a century earlier, the Titanic was published, and Adams accused Molo- ing Carrie away at their wedding. McIn- built. “I always got the sense that he ney of “innuendo,” declaring, “I have tyre and Hughes shared a deep antip- lived a large part of his life on that win- not been and am not a member of athy toward Gerry Adams. McIntyre dowsill,” Carrie McIntyre said. “And he the I.R.A.” disapproved of Adams’s engineering of couldn’t either jump out and end it all As Moloney was preparing the book the Good Friday Agreement, and his or jump back in and start really living.” for publication, he was approached by interview questions reflected this ani- The Divis apartment is where McIn- administrators at Boston College about mosity. But Hughes required no prod- tyre interviewed Hughes about the kill- creating an oral-history project that ding to express anger at Adams. He and ing of Jean McConville. “She was an would gather accounts by paramilitar- Adams had been close collaborators for informer,” Hughes said. “She had a load ies from both sides of the Troubles. The years, but when Adams proved willing of kids.” Hughes told McIntyre that idea excited him. Many of the combat- to compromise on the question of a McConville’s children had been acting ants were still alive, and their testimony united Ireland, in the interest of a peace as spies for the British Army, “gather- could provide an unparalleled resource deal, Hughes was incensed: Adams had ing information for her, watching the for future historians—an exception to been his Officer Commanding, the man movements of I.R.A. volunteers around the rule of omertà. Given the sensitiv- who gave him orders to kill. Adams’s Divis Flats.” She was exposed, Hughes ities, Moloney pointed out, each inter- denial of his own I.R.A. past left Hughes continued, when a radio transmitter was view would have to be conducted in and others “to carry the responsibility discovered in her flat. According to secret, and remain secret until the par- of all those deaths.” Everybody knows Hughes, the I.R.A. learned of the trans- ticipant died. “These people could be that Adams was in the I.R.A., Hughes mitter when one of the McConville shot if it was discovered they were talking told McIntyre. “The British know it. children mentioned to one of Hughes’s to us,” he told me. “They were taking a The people on the street know it. The men that “his mammy had something huge risk.” dogs know it.” in the house.” The Protestant and Catholic com- Terry Hughes, Brendan’s brother, Hughes sent his men to confront Mc- munities in Northern Ireland were too told me that Brendan felt that he had Conville, and they took her away for in- insular and suspicious for graduate stu- been unforgivably misled. He had been terrogation. According to Hughes, she dents with tape recorders to make head- fighting a bloody war against British confessed to being a tout. The I.R.A. way, so Moloney suggested an unortho- rule while Adams was quietly laying the confiscated the transmitter and released dox solution: finding interviewers who foundation for a peaceful compromise. her onto the streets. This could align had participated in the Troubles. For “There was a master plan,” Terry said. with the night when Jean McConville the Unionists, Moloney suggested a loy- “Unfortunately, Brendan wasn’t told.” was taken from the bingo parlor, but alist named Wilson McArthur; for the Hughes confided to McIntyre that when I asked Michael McConville about Republicans, he proposed a former he felt like “a patsy,” and insisted that the transmitter he told me that Hughes I.R.A. volunteer named Anthony McIn- he had “never carried out a major op- must be mistaken—because no such tyre, who had spent seventeen years in erationWorldMags.net without the O.K. or the order transmitter existed. He and his siblings THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 55 knew every nook of their apartment; if noted that Adams had a habit of wrap- public. Lynskey walked out with a lit- Jean had hidden such a device on the ping himself in the mantle of people tle overnight bag, as though he were premises, he would haveWorldMags.net found it. Mi- who were no longer alive to snatch it leaving for a weekend in the country. chael also dismissed the idea that he and back. At one point, Adams suggested As they drove south in silence, Price his siblings had been spies. In the oral that, had Bobby Sands survived, Sands realized that Lynskey knew where they history, Hughes says that, a few weeks would have supported the peace pro- were going. He was a large man: he after McConville’s interrogation, “an- cess. In an article, Price replied, acidly, could have overpowered her. Instead, other transmitter was put into her house “I often wonder who would speak for he sat there, meekly, with his bag in his and she was still coöperating with the me had my circumstances in Brixton lap. “She wanted him to get up and British.” At this point, a decision was prison reached their expected conclu- escape,” McIntyre recalled. When she made to kill her, and a “special squad was sion. What praises would I be singing handed him over, in County Monaghan, brought in” to carry out the operation. of the Good Friday Agreement?” “Lynskey hugged her and told her “There was only one man who gave Price also recorded an oral history not to worry.” His body has never been the order for that woman to be exe- for the Belfast Project. When her life recovered. cuted,” Hughes told McIntyre. “That was a gesture—a headlong push for a Price informed McIntyre, before one fucking man is now the head of Sinn united Ireland—it possessed a certain of their recording sessions, that she Fein.” At the time, he continued, a se- moral logic. But the Good Friday wanted to go on the record about the nior I.R.A. official named Ivor Bell ar- Agreement robbed her of that cer- role that she had played in the disap- gued that they should leave McCon- tainty. “Dolours was a woman who was pearance of Jean McConville. By this ville’s body on the street, just as Billy deeply traumatized by what she had point, Price and McIntyre were good McKee would have done. But, accord- done,” McIntyre told me. Like many friends; she later became godmother to ing to Hughes, McConville’s gender people who were drawn to the I.R.A., his son. “As a historian, I would love to would have generated bad publicity for she saw herself as a member of the left, get this,” McIntyre told her. “As your the Provisional I.R.A., and so Adams yet she had participated in forced dis- friend, I have to warn you. You have pushed to disappear her. Recalling Ad- appearances—an atrocity, McIntyre children. If you commit to being in- ams’s subsequent meetings with the pointed out, that is the “calling card volved in the McConville disappear- McConville children, Hughes said, “He of the war criminal, whether it’s in ance, your children will bear the mark went to this family’s house and prom- Chile or Kampuchea.” of Cain.” ised an investigation into the woman’s In February, 2001, Price attended an When I asked McIntyre whether disappearance. . . . The man that gave I.R.A. event to commemorate the death Price said anything about Jean McCon- the fucking order for that woman to of a hunger striker, and announced, in ville on her recording, he chuckled be executed! Now, tell me the moral- an impromptu speech, “Gerry Adams ruefully, then shook his head. “I was ity in that.” was my commanding officer.” She added disappointed,” he said. “She took my Hughes fell into a coma in 2008. that she had not endured “the pangs of advice.” Gerry Adams visited the hospital and hunger strike just for a reformed En- sat, in silent vigil, by his bed. The two glish rule in Ireland.” Shortly thereaf- ne day in the summer of 2003, a men had not spoken in years. Hughes ter, McIntyre visited Price’s home, in O man walking on Shelling Hill had told friends, “There was a time in the seaside town of Malahide, outside Beach, near Carlingford, noticed a piece my life when I would have taken a bul- Dublin, where, surrounded by memo- of fabric in the sand. He reached down let for Gerry. Now I’d put one in him.” rabilia from her I.R.A. days, they con- to examine it and felt something hard: When Hughes died, his casket was pa- ducted a series of interviews. Price spoke a human bone. When the authorities raded through West Belfast, and thou- about her role in the disappearances exhumed the remains, they found the sands of people turned out, in frigid and, in particular, about her grief over skeleton of a middle-aged woman, still temperatures, to pay their respects. At the death of Joe Lynskey, a close friend in her clothes. A forensic examination one point, a figure in a dark overcoat of hers. Lynskey, who was known as the concluded that the cause of death was shouldered through the crowd: Adams. Monk—because he had trained for the a “gunshot wound to the head.” He solemnly insinuated himself among Cistercian order before joining the At a nearby morgue, the children of the men bearing the coffin. “Brendan armed struggle—was a brigade intelli- Jean McConville were ushered into a was a Republican icon,” Terry Hughes gence officer and an ardent believer in room, one by one, so that they could ex- told me. “Gerry had no choice. He had the mission of the Provisional I.R.A. amine the clothing, which was laid out to associate himself with that.” In 1972, it emerged that he had been on a table. Archie went in first, but he Dolours Price also attended the pro- having an affair with the wife of an- couldn’t bear to look. Instead, he asked cession. She, too, had split with Adams, other I.R.A. man, and had tried to have a question: “Is there a nappy pin?” and she wrote a scathing open letter, the man killed. The I.R.A. secretly sen- A police officer surveyed the gar- deriding him as a “lonely figure” who tenced Lynskey to death, and Price was ments and said no. Then he folded over was “clearly uneasy” at the funeral of his told to drive him across the border to a corner of fabric—and there it was. former friend. If Adams could come his execution. She picked him up at his Thirty-one years after Jean McConville clean about his past in the I.R.A., Price sister’s house, on the pretext that he was vanished, her body was found. She was suggested, he might “feel better.” She beingWorldMags.net called to a meeting in the Re- buried in November, 2003. The streets 56 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

Archie and Susan McConville tending to Jean McConville’s grave, at Holy Trinity Cemetery, outside Belfast.

of West Belfast were typically crowded ish authorities would neither confirm was released, the oral-history project at with kids on bikes and people loung- nor deny whether an individual had Boston College was a secret. But Price ing in front of their homes. Someone worked for them as an informer, but had been showing signs of increasing who attended the funeral told me that, O’Loan found that “the circumstances anxiety. In 2001, police raided her home when the procession passed through, of the McConville family are most ex- and discovered several stolen prescrip- everything was eerily quiet, as if the lo- ceptional.” After consulting the files of tion pads, an indication that she had cals had been told to stay away—as if the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the been abusing prescription drugs. Her they were shunning the McConvilles British military, O’Loan produced an marriage to Stephen Rea ended in di- once again. official report, in 2006, which held that vorce, and her behavior became erratic. In an effort to challenge the allega- McConville “is not recorded as having She showed up drunk at Magha berry tion that Jean McConville was a tout, been an agent at any time.” In O’Loan’s Prison and demanded to visit a hunger- her children made a formal request to judgment, McConville “was an inno- striking inmate. She was accused of steal- Baroness Nuala O’Loan, the police om- cent woman who was abducted and ing a bottle of vodka from a supermar- budsman for Northern Ireland, to launch murdered.” ket. (In court, she blamed a “momentary AGENCE VU AGENCE an inquiry into the case. Normally, Brit- AtWorldMags.net the time that the O’Loan report lapse of concentration,” adding, with a PHOTOGRAPH BY PIETER TEN HOOPEN THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 57 flash of her old pride, that it was not in Adams issued an angry denial, ob- terviewed Price for the Irish News, her “temperament or breeding” to shop- serving that Price was “a long-standing strongly denied this claim, saying, “The lift.) Price began receivingWorldMags.net treatment at opponent of Sinn Fein and the peace interview never left my office.” Ciaran a mental-health facility in Dublin. process,” and that she “clearly has her Barnes said only that it would be “re- “One of the most remarkable aspects own issues to resolve.” But it was un- miss of me to talk about my sources.”) of the Troubles was that, with a few ex- clear whether Price had made this in- In March, 2011, the British govern- ceptions, the people that I know who flammatory disclosure directly to Sun- ment contacted the U.S. Department did these terrible things were all per- day Life. The article’s author, Ciaran of Justice and explained that a criminal fectly normal people,” Ed Moloney told Barnes, wrote that he had listened to investigation had been initiated into me. “This wasn’t some band of robbers Price’s taped “confession” but did not McConville’s murder. Investigators at who were thieving and raping for per- say explicitly that she had made these the Police Service of Northern Ireland sonal profit. This was war. They were disclosures to him. Instead, he asserted wanted to consult the oral histories of all nice killers. I felt pity for them. They that Price had “made taped confessions Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price. If were victims of circumstances beyond of her role in the abductions to academ- the I.R.A. had found McConville’s body, their control.” Sometimes Price felt ag- ics at Boston University.” her case would have been covered by onizing remorse for the lives she had By this time, the Boston College ar- the immunity clause. But, because her ruined; on other days, she was defiant, chive was no longer a secret. After the remains were discovered by a civilian, even about McConville, insisting that death of Brendan Hughes and of David the authorities were free to investigate— the death sentence was appropriate for Ervine, another participant in the and bring charges. A subpoena was is- an informer in wartime. But, whatever oral-history project, Ed Moloney had sued to Boston College, and in a legal her feelings of contrition, Price seemed written a book, “Voices from the Grave,” filing the U.S. Attorney in Massachu- intent on at least acknowledging her which was soon to be published. But setts declared, erroneously, that a Sun- past acts. the Sunday Life article contained the day Life reporter had been “permitted On February 21, 2010, the Belfast tab- first public suggestion that Price had to listen to portions of Ms. Price’s Bos- loid Sunday Life published a story link- given an interview to Boston College. ton College interviews.” Moloney and ing Price to the disappearance of McCon- Moloney and McIntyre are both ada- McIntyre panicked. Turning over the ville. “In a taped confession, Old Bailey mant that the tabloid was not given ac- interviews would not only violate the Bomber Dolours Price has admitted driv- cess to Price’s recording, and point to college’s promise to withhold an oral ing the mum-of-10 to her death,” the ar- the mistaken reference to “Boston Uni- history until the subject’s death; it would ticle reported, adding that Price claimed versity” as proof. They also note that, in also set a dangerous precedent. In an that the disappearance was “master- Price’s interview with Anthony McIn- e-mail to administrators in Boston, Mo- minded” by Gerry Adams. The paper tyre, she never speaks of Jean McCon- loney wrote, “I would bet the mortgage quoted Michael McConville’s sister Helen ville. Moloney thinks that Sunday Life that at this moment, there are teams of calling for the arrest of Price and Adams. likely obtained a recording of an inter- lawyers working in the bowels of the “It’s disgusting that the people involved view that Price had given to the Irish British government trying to discover in my mother’s murder are still walking News, and that the mention of the ways to force B.C. to surrender the the streets,” she said. “Adams and Price oral-history project was a clumsy effort names of other possible interviewees.” might not have pulled the trigger, but to launder the interview’s provenance. The police simply could have asked they are as guilty as the people who did.” (Allison Morris, the journalist who in- Sunday Life for the recording, Moloney pointed out to me. In his view, they went after the Boston College archive be- cause “they wanted to get the entire trove, for intelligence purposes.” Moloney argued that there was a po- litical aspect to the investigation. The police in Northern Ireland had made no serious effort to solve the McCon- ville case until the notion arose that doing so might implicate Gerry Adams. Many police officers in Northern Ire- land were former members of Special Branch and the Royal Ulster Constab- ulary—and for these men and women Adams was an arch antagonist. “At least in the back of their minds, there was the knowledge that we could get that fucker,” Moloney said. “All roads in that story were going to end at his door.” “That’s not a math lesson. That’s justWorldMags.net some notes to myself.” Tellingly, the British authorities hadn’t launched a broad-based inquiry into past atrocities on all sides; indeed, many appalling crimes committedWorldMags.net by Union- ist paramilitaries—and by state author- ities—have not been investigated to this day. “They’re not digging up all the bodies,” Moloney said. “They’re being very selective.” In August, 2011, a second subpoena was issued, seeking any interview in the archive that contained “information about the abduction and death of Mrs. Jean McConville.” A federal judge in Massachusetts ordered Boston College to hand over the material to the Brit- ish government. John Kerry, who was then the chairman of the Senate Com- mittee on Foreign Relations, appealed to Attorney General Eric Holder and to Hillary Clinton, who was then Sec- retary of State, to push for the subpoe- nas to be withdrawn. He cited concerns about “the continued success of the Northern Ireland peace process.” Mo- loney and McIntyre fought the issue on appeal, eventually receiving a stay from •• the U.S. Supreme Court. But the Court declined to hear the case, and in Sep- gone away, you know.” During my time to McIntyre about having been a hun- tember, 2013, Boston College turned in Belfast, half a dozen people quoted ger striker in prison. “The body is a eleven interviews over to authorities in that line to me, noting the presumably fantastic machine,” he said. “It’ll eat off Belfast. deliberate echo of Adams’s famous 1995 all the fat tissue first, and then it’ll eat Last April, Adams reported to a po- quote about the I.R.A. Storey “didn’t the muscle, to keep your brain alive.” lice station in Antrim and was arrested mean Sinn Fein hadn’t gone away,” Long after Hughes and Price called an for questioning in connection with the McIntyre said. “He meant the I.R.A.” end to their strikes and attempted to death of McConville. After surrender- To Michael McConville, the message reintegrate into society, they nursed old ing his belt, tie, comb, and watch, he was was clear: even after peace and decom- grudges and endlessly replayed their interrogated for four days. He proclaimed missioning, the I.R.A. would brook no worst wartime abominations. They his innocence, blaming a “malicious, un- challenge to its leader. “It still rules by never stopped devouring themselves. truthful, and sinister campaign” against threats,” he said. In the coroner’s report for Dolours Price, him. He also raised a concern about the By the time Adams was arrested, the official pronouncement was “death timing of his arrest: Sinn Fein was in- Dolours Price was dead. One day in by misadventure.” volved in simultaneous campaigns for January of 2013, one of her sons came seats in the European Union and in local home and discovered her in bed. “She he police did not charge Adams in government elections. “Both Moloney wasn’t breathing,” he later told an in- Tthe murder of McConville, and the and McIntyre are opponents of the Sinn quest. Price had been drinking for sev- investigation did not set back Sinn Fein: Fein leadership and our strategy,” Adams eral days, and had briefly been admit- the Party did surprisingly well in the said at a press conference after his re- ted to the hospital after falling down a 2014 elections, winning more seats than lease. He has characterized the Belfast flight of stairs. A medical examination expected. Today, it is the most popular Project as “an entirely bogus, shoddy, found that she had died of a toxic com- political party in Ireland. According to and self-serving effort.” bination of sedatives and antidepres- polls, half the voters in Sinn Fein do At the press conference, Adams said sants. Suicide was ruled out, but, when not believe Adams’s claims about never that “the I.R.A. is gone—it’s finished.” I asked Anthony and Carrie McIntyre having been a member of the I.R.A., But, during a Sinn Fein rally to protest if Price killed herself, Carrie said, “I but they do not appear to care. The his arrest, Bobby Storey—a close friend believe it.” beach where Jean McConville’s body of his and a longtime Party operative “I’ve never formed a firm conclu- was found is in Louth, Adams’s con- with a thuggish reputation—alleged sion,” Anthony said. stituency in the Republic, yet Adams that there were sinister motives behind “Brendan, too,” Carrie continued. seems likely to retain the seat for as long the investigation. Midway through the “They committed suicide for years.” as he wants it. In most countries, merely speech, Storey declared, “We haven’t InWorldMags.net Hughes’s oral history, he spoke being implicated in a murder would be THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 59 destroyed the entire printing press.” The room, full of Irish-Americans, erupted WorldMags.netin applause. Adams leaned into the mi- crophone and murmured, “I’m obviously not advocating that,” prompting rau- cous, knowing laughter. Michael McConville does not be- lieve that Adams or anyone else will be brought to account for the murder of his mother. “We’re all adults here— we all know the score,” he told me. Sev- eral other people have been arrested for questioning in the case, but only one, Ivor Bell, has been charged. (Bell denies any involvement in McCon- ville’s disappearance.) Bell reportedly gave an interview to the Boston Col- lege project, and if the case goes to trial prosecutors may use his recorded rec- ollections—which he had offered for posterity, thinking that they would be sealed until after his death—against him. Bell’s lawyer, Kevin Winters, as- sured me that Bell “will fight the charges,” and it seems unlikely that the truth about McConville’s death will come out in any such proceeding. The physical evidence in the case is diffuse and decades old, so it would be diffi- cult to sustain a conviction against any of the perpetrators. Because Dolours Price and Brendan Hughes are dead, they cannot testify against Adams; in “Please—no technology questions!” legal terms, their interviews and oral histories amount to hearsay. Adams •• and his supporters have also gone to great lengths to attack the credibility of Price and Hughes. “Brendan was a enough to derail a political career. But front of a banner bearing the words friend of mine,” Adams told the Guard- Adams has a knack for weathering scan- “United Ireland,” Adams spoke about ian, in 2011. “But Brendan had his is- dals. During a trial in 2013, it was re- the importance of American allies in sues and his difficulties. He was op- vealed that his brother Liam was a pe- ending “a very long war.” His voice is posed to the peace process. He was dophile who had molested his own stentorian, and he speaks with school- politically hostile to what we were try- daughter, and that Adams had known masterly authority; he has the calm aura ing to do. Brendan said what Brendan but done little to intervene; last Octo- befitting a global celebrity who flies said, and Brendan’s dead. So let it go.” ber, a woman named Maria Cahill al- around the world advising armed fac- Adams is not wrong about the bit- leged that she had been raped, as a teen- tions and heads of state about how to ter resentment of his former comrades. ager, by an I.R.A. man, and that Adams make ceasefires stick. Price once described her willingness to had failed to discipline the rapist. “I Then, just as Adams was reminisc- identify Adams as a former I.R.A. mem- don’t know what the Irish word for ing about his first visit to the White ber as an effort to “settle scores.” Nev- Teflon is,” Richard Haass told me. “But House, in 1994, the brute in him came ertheless, it’s hard to explain away the he has it.” out. Speaking of the Irish Independent, very specific, and similar, recollections In November, Adams flew to New which had been publishing critical sto- that Hughes and Price shared about York to give a speech to American sup- ries about him, he observed that the Jean McConville’s murder. When the porters. In a vast hotel ballroom, the paper had also been tough on Michael journalist Darragh MacIntyre pressed crowd whooped as he walked to the lec- Collins, the Republican hero of 1916. Adams about McConville in a 2013 tern. Adams has gleaming, outsized And how did Collins deal with this BBC documentary, “The Disappeared,” teeth, and I could make them out clearly affront? “He sent volunteers into their Adams, looking like a cornered animal, from the back of the room. Standing in offices,WorldMags.net held the editor at gunpoint, and flashed a hostile grin and noted that 60 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 Hughes and Price had “demons.” He not—a future beyond the armed strug- fused to tell me any of the kidnappers’ added, vaguely, “All of us bear a respon- gle—and to create peace. Adams has names.) Several years ago, he had briefly sibility, those of us whoWorldMags.net are in the lead- many unkind things to say about Mo- considered identifying the perpetrators, ership. I’ve never shirked that.” loney, but Moloney believes that Adams but he says that when he told Adams Adams declined repeated requests to should have won the Nobel Peace Prize. of his intentions Adams replied, “I hope speak with me for this article, citing, “Gerry’s a very hollow man,” Brendan you are ready for the backlash.” (Adams through a representative, the “flawed” Hughes’s brother Terry said, before add- has denied saying this.) The authorities nature of the Boston College interviews, ing, “But then maybe that’s politics.” offered to give Michael a new identity, which focussed on testimony by “for- In the long run, the war may be won and to move him and his family out of mer Republicans who have accused Sinn by demography. Sinn Fein has predicted the country. Given the terrible toll of Fein of betrayal.” He seems to have said that a Catholic majority will eventually the life he has led in Belfast, I asked his piece on the matter, and if no crim- preside in Northern Ireland, and the him why he hadn’t seized this oppor- inal charges are filed he may never be percentage of Catholics has increased tunity. Why not move to Australia? obliged to say anything further. (Adams in recent decades. But this doesn’t mean “All my life is here,” he said. “My continues to be forthcoming on other that the British will soon be voted off family. My friends. Why should I leave subjects. Last month, he informed an the island. After the 2008 fiscal crisis because of these people?” interviewer on Irish radio that he en- and the subsequent recession in Dub- “What would you like to see hap- joys jumping on a trampoline. “I do it lin, some polls found that most Cath- pen?” I asked. I was wondering what naked,” he said, adding that he is some- olics in the north prefer to remain part form of accountability might bring him times accompanied in this regimen by of the United Kingdom. “Outbreeding a measure of peace. But he may have his dog.) Unionists may be an enjoyable pastime misunderstood the question. The question of whether or not Jean for those who have the energy,” Adams “I would love to see all the peace McConville was an informer will also has said. “But it hardly amounts to a walls come down,” he said first. Then likely remain unresolved. Michael Mc- political strategy.” he thought for a moment, and added, Conville and his siblings are adamant For a small minority, the armed strug- “Personally, I’d love to see a united Ire- that Brendan Hughes was mistaken gle never ended. I visited Belfast just land. I would love to see the British about a transmitter being in the flat, before Christmas, and three different not here.” and they doubt his claim that McCon- splinter factions of the I.R.A. were We were in his living room, and ville confessed to being an informer. promising attacks in the city over the had been talking for hours, and Michael Helen once said, “If they were tortur- holiday. I had wanted to speak with suggested that we take a walk outside. ing her, she would have admitted to Marian Price, but she was prevented by We passed through the back door onto anything. What mother wouldn’t?” legal troubles: in 2013, she confessed to a bright-green expanse of lawn, and ap- Family members point to the O’Loan having provided a mobile phone that a proached a series of wooden enclosures report, but the report says only that no Republican splinter group used to take that lined the yard. Michael opened one official records were found to indicate responsibility for a shooting at an Army of the doors to reveal a wall lined with that Jean McConville was an informer. barracks; two British solders were killed little cubbyholes, in which dozens of pi- If she was a low-level informer, such in the attack. (Her sentence was recently geons warbled and bobbed and shifted records might not exist. Moloney and their feet. He keeps hundreds of pigeons McIntyre, who share an unshakable now, and he races them competitively. confidence in the credibility of Bren- “Through the whole Troubles, there was dan Hughes, believe that the British never any hassle between Protestants government may also have suppressed and Catholics raising pigeons,” he said, the paper trail on McConville in order delicately cupping one of the birds in to conceal the fact that the Army al- his hand. It eyed us nervously, rolling lowed one of its confidential sources to its neck, so that its slate-gray feathers be executed. In any case, the I.R.A. flashed magenta and teal, suddenly ir- clearly believed that McConville was a idescent, like a peacock’s. tout, though that is no justification for suspended, but the terms of her release On race days, Michael releases the what befell her. When McIntyre asked prohibit her from talking to journalists.) birds, and they disappear over the hori- Brendan Hughes whether he regretted “It’s not over,” Anthony McIntyre told zon, bound for some far-off destination. executing McCon ville, Hughes said me. “It’s still a very dangerous society.” Then, eventually, they turn around and that he had supported the decision at According to Michael McConville, come home. He loves that about pi- the time. “But not now,” he continued. the police in Northern Ireland have geons. “They may wander,” he said. “But “Because, as everything turned out, not asked him to name the men and women their natural instinct is to come back to one death was worth it.” who took his mother away and supply the place that they’re born.”  Ed Moloney observes that Adams’s testimony to help convict them. He has cold-blooded detachment, which so refused, he told me, partly out of fear maddened Price and Hughes, may have that his wife and children might be- newyorker.com allowed him to imagine what they could comeWorldMags.net victims of reprisal. (He also re- David Remnick’s 1994 report from Belfast. THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 61 WorldMags.netFICTION

WorldMags.net MOUSECAKE HAND LETTERING BY 62 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 PHOTOGRAPH BY GRANT CORNETT t was 1972 and Sid Baumwell was table—slicked-back hair, broad shoul- turning the spoon to his suit jacket. I hungry. For the salt at the bottom ders, smiling at Sid as if they were old But before Sid could answer he said, of the pretzel dish, forWorldMags.net frozen Mars bars, friends. The man said, “Feel like a win- “Sure you do. Sure thing. You should for appreciation from someone who ner today, son?” stay in school, earn good grades, study wasn’t a blood relation—preferably a girl Sid thought about it. “Maybe?” hard, it’s all true.” He leaned in closer with pink cheeks and big sleepy eyes, “No maybe about it. Maybe gives the and, in a tight whisper, like a private like the one in “The Graduate,” his sec- gods a chance to pass you by.” message from 007 himself, said, “But ond-favorite movie of all time. He could “I feel like a winner,” Sid said. T. and A., that’s what makes a life.” do two dozen pull-ups. No acne. He The man extended a hand. This was Sid stepped back. “What?” wasn’t truly handsome but not bad-look- at a point in Sid’s life when he was still Bill smiled gamely. “Study hard, ing—handsome enough, he felt, to de- flattered when an older man shook his son,” he said. “And wash behind your serve his hunger. Freckles across the hand, flattered by a handshake so hard ears.” bridge of his nose, slightly splayed feet, it hurt. This handshake went on for a respectable height. Smart. He knew this. beat too long, but Sid didn’t know that. hose letters played in Sid’s head His teachers told him so when they The handshake felt respectful; respect Ton the walk home. When you pulled him aside to say that he wasn’t was also something Sid was hungry stuck them together like that, T. and working up to his potential. He had po- for. The man said that his name was A., he couldn’t help picturing a girl in tential, and this mattered more than Bill Baxter, that he was a representa- a disembodied way, just those parts grades, comforted him more than any A. tive of a regional company that sold floating in the air, a serial-killer fan- He held a secret belief that he could, aluminum foil, waxed paper, and other tasy. So he tried to supply a face. if he really really really wanted to, be- fine products that make this hard life Whose face? Marley Grey’s. He pic- come President, but he didn’t want to, easier. He was travelling the area, dis- tured Marley’s dimples, her sly smile, enjoyed his personal freedoms too tributing samples and hosting raffles the fingerprint-size mole at her right much—in any case, politicians were in grocery stores. Would Sid be inter- temple, that whirly smudge which chumps. He told himself that as the el- ested in a lifetime’s supply of alumi- since kindergarten he was sure meant dest of three he was sort of like the pres- num foil? she’d been touched by a higher power. ident of the siblings, though he knew “We’re trying to compete with the And though it was true that since kin- he was too passive, conflict-averse, not national brand,” Bill said. “The national dergarten he’d been three-quarters enough righteous fury. His sister, Robin, brand which shall go nameless.” atheist, the other quarter saw Mar- had got all the fury. “Dickweed,” she “Reynolds?” ley’s face and believed. He put her face hissed. For six months she had referred “It shall go nameless,” he repeated, above the T. and the A. to him only as Jack Squat, which didn’t winking. He looked a bit like a spy. No. Now she was disjointed—head, seem so mean until you saw her raging Men who even slightly resembled James breasts, buttocks—like a swaying string eyes. Even then, Sid’s response had been Bond, who could pass for civilians but puppet. He walked home faster, rear- to shrug and walk away. When his had an air of regal deviousness about ranging his thoughts. His mother was brother took a Mars bar from the freezer, them, men whose hair coöperated, im- making beef stew and creamed corn Sid’s Mars bar, what did Sid do? He let pressed Sid terribly. And yes he wanted tonight. He was DISHES on the chore it go. Faced with his brother’s saucer a lifetime’s supply of aluminum foil. wheel this week. That meant that his eyes and defective right hand, the choc- That sort of thing would win his moth- sister was GARBAGE and would com- olate ring around his pale mouth, Sid er’s admiration and soothe his father’s plain that it was dangerous for her to never found the strength to do anything financial anxieties—and so Sid wrote go outside alone at night and he’d end but shrug. his name and phone number on an or- up lugging the trash to the curb. Dan- So, right. He’d be an un-American ange raffle ticket. He dropped the ticket gerous! There was zero danger here. President, anyway, too much compas- in a fishbowl, already full of orange tick- His mean, unattractive sister fantasized sion for the retarded and the lame. His ets, and realized that chances were slim about rapists, but no man paid her any mother called him “baby boy” or “Teddy he’d win. He said, “I won’t win.” attention at all. So what did Sid do? beary.” “Shut up, Ma!” he never said, Bill showed big white teeth. Cap- Feel sorry for her. Take out the trash. though he was beginning to suspect illaries branched across his cheeks like Where was his fury when he needed that he should. A legitimate red-blooded fine lace. He said, “Never know, right? it? Where! sixteen-year-old boy needed a griev- The future’s a mystery.” He produced As he was crossing McGovern, a ance. Where was his pride? Where! But a wooden spoon from his suit jacket car slowed beside him. It was Bill Bax- he never got around to it, and anyhow and stirred the contents of the fish- ter, rolling down a window. “Need a his mom loved him so much. bowl. Then he blew on the spoon and lift?” he sang. pretended to taste it, wincing in pain “I’m not far from home, I guess,” Sid t the grocery store one day, picking as if he’d burned his mouth. Sid called back. Warnings flashed through A up milk and powdered doughnuts laughed. Bill seemed to take pleasure his head, though those men wore clown and three cans of creamed corn, he saw in Sid’s laugh; a flush obliterated the costumes or at least sunglasses. a card table set up near the register. A capillaries. Bill said, “Hop in! I need the company. man in a dark suit stood behind the “YouWorldMags.net go to school?” Bill asked, re- Anyway, looks like it might rain.” And THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 63 it was true—the sky was turning a bruisy ing the bushes at Town Hall. He was He didn’t. He kept a list in his wal- green-gray, an ozone charge in the air— Loony Lou. He weeded and trimmed let of things he wanted: cowboy boots, so Sid got in. WorldMags.netand sometimes left bouquets on the an onyx fountain pen, an old-fashioned The car was immaculate, a plush doorsteps of certain women who were shaving kit with a boar-bristle brush, maroon interior free of debris, win- way out of his league, including—Sid a new wallet. dows spotless. It smelled like pepper- heard from kids at school—Marley’s “I don’t know what I like yet,” Sid mint. A blue-and-yellow candy cane mother. Lou worked with manic in- said. hung from the rearview mirror. It tensity, hurried from one patch of civic “Of course you do. What you like couldn’t have been further from Sid’s vegetation to another, park to library doesn’t come with age. It’s innate. How family’s car, that crumb-filled, gas-stink- to school. No one paid him a cent, but old are you, son?” ing station wagon with its roped-on supposedly his services allowed the “Sixteen.” muffler. city council to cut back on its land- “Experience is overrated. Who said “Nice car,” Sid said. scaping budget. that?” Bill gave a heard-it-all laugh. “This “You interested in cars?” Bill asked. “I don’t know.” heap? This belonged to my old lady. “Sure,” Sid said, though it wasn’t “I did! Just now! Aren’t you paying Once it was my old lady’s mama’s. Those quite true. He was interested in cars attention?” two. You get caught in the crossfire of the way he was interested in “careers” Sid laughed, but to be honest he their chatter, you long for unconscious- or “marriage”—someday he’d partake, was starting to feel uneasy. “Take a left ness. Where am I taking you?” maybe, hopefully, but for now these here.” Sid explained how to get to his street. categories had nothing to do with him. “I’m divorced.” Bill took the turn a They passed the cemetery and the “Zero to sixty in half an hour,” Bill little too fast. “Wife got a new life. I Sweets-N-Freeze and the vet where said. “All requests for acceleration must got the car. Good riddance.” his cat got put to sleep after she was be submitted in writing. You get it? “You been doing this long?” hit by a sanitation truck. This car lacks power. I’d rather have “Picking up kids? You’re the first, I Sid felt obliged to fill the silence— a—No, I’d rather have nothing. This promise.” Bill was a guest in his town, which is the car that was preferred by my “I meant the foil.” wasn’t unlike having a guest in his mother-in-law, and I take what I can “I know what you meant. Long home—so he said, “My cat got put to get. You play your cards right, she could enough. I’ve been a salesman forever. sleep right there.” be yours. I’m in the process of let- Shoes first. Various chemical products. “They kill your kitty at the ice-cream ting go.” This is a sideline.” He ran a hand parlor?” “It’s so clean,” Sid heard himself say. through his perfect hair. “Look, is it “Next door. The vet.” He touched the window, left a greasy weird to say I see myself in you?” Bill nodded, flexed and unflexed his print, wiped it with the sleeve of his “I don’t know—a little?” Sid felt as hands on the wheel. “Right. Naturally. shirt. if he were in a movie. The queasy-look- I don’t mean to jest.” Then, after a pause: “Clean? Certainly. The objects in a ing sky, the clean car, the forcefulness “I’m not a cat person myself, but I know man’s life reflect his spirit.” of Bill’s voice, the presence of Bill’s good people who are.” Sid said, “What do you mean, if I coöperative hair next to his own mop- All four of her legs had been bro- play my cards right?” pish cowlicky mess. It made him feel ken. The vet, a woman with a faint Bill was silent. Then he took a long, like there was a camera nearby. mustache and a stack of clinking plas- grave breath, like a swimmer before the Bill said, “You’re a bright kid, I can tic bracelets on one arm, had taken his dive, and said, “I’m making decisions tell. You’ve got an astute face. I’m good mother’s hand and said, “Do what’s about my life. I might start giving things at reading faces. So can I ask: this town. right, Ma’am, that’s all you have to do.” away. I can’t decide if it’s better to be How do you handle it?” “I’m not a cat person either,” Sid wed to nothing. Or if it’s better to col- “Handle it how?” said. When it was put that way—“cat lect, to defend yourself with things. “That’s what I’m asking. I can’t imag- person”—it sounded creepy. He thought, The things you own own you. Who ine growing up here. So small. So dim. Just that cat. Just Ponderosa. said that? I can’t remember. What do Two days here feels like two weeks. I’m “It was mother-in-law’s, before she you think?” trying to figure out a place to go. I can died. And my wife’s, before she took “I don’t own anything,” Sid said. go anywhere. Tell me why I should stay off with Sal the Salamander Bristol. The shelf above his bed held one here. Make a case for this town. I want Now it’s mine. Play your cards right, participation trophy, a sea shell the size to be convinced of something. Con- it could be yours!” of his ear, and an unopened complete vince me.” “A cat?” set of Topps baseball cards from the Sid said that he’d never lived any- “The car. I’m talking about this car year of his birth. Somewhere in that place else, so he couldn’t make a case now.” shrink-wrapped box, an immaculate for the town. As soon as he graduated They passed the public library; they Ted Williams. from high school, he was leaving. “But passed Louis Lombardo, fat and Sid said, “I don’t own anything it’s not a bad place. Not at all. People schizophrenic, wearing the uniform of important.” are nice.” the job he’d long since lost, still prun- “YouWorldMags.net like it that way?” “Nice is the kiss of death.” 64 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 “I know what you mean.” He hugged his grocery bag to his chest. “How old are you, Sid?” “Sure you know. You’re sixteen but He got out of the car. Bill flicked on “Sixteen . . . Is that O.K.? I don’t you’re no fool.” WorldMags.nethis wipers, lifted a hand, was gone. need to be an adult to win, do I?” “Here,” Sid said. “My house.” “I suppose not.” Bill pulled over. They looked at it he next evening, at dinnertime, “Bill invited me to enter.” together: chalky blue shingles, faded Tthe phone rang. His mother an- “That’s fine,” the woman said in a shutters, metal watering can on the swered, crinkled her brow. People tired voice. “Don’t get all riled up.” concrete stoop, scrappy hydrangea. weren’t supposed to call at dinnertime. A kind of pressure was mounting in “Home again home again,” Bill said, They were just about to sit down. The his chest—a sense of victory. More than and sighed. “I see exactly how it feels.” table was spread with five settings, a victory. A sense of triumph—as if this Sid opened the passenger door. The basket of six rolls, veal cutlets, peas, unlikely win (that fishbowl had been spring air smelled rude, animal, after five glasses of milk. They all drank full) foretold other, bigger, more en- the crisp peppermint of the car. He milk, even Sid’s dad. It was his moth- compassing wins. hesitated a moment. He said, “How do er’s one non-negotiable demand. For “A truck will arrive on Saturday you know how it feels?,” and heard a the past week they’d been using pink morning to deliver the aluminum foil. trace of defensiveness in his voice. doily napkins left over from his sister’s You will be available then to receive it?” “I didn’t mean to hurt your feel- birthday party. He said he would be. He gave his ings, kid.” “For you,” his mother told Sid. “Joan? address. “You didn’t.” You know a Joan?” His family had begun eating with- But why shouldn’t he feel defensive? Sid shook his head. He picked up out him. He sat down, unfolded his This was his home, after all. He was the phone in the living room. napkin, and announced the news. born in this town’s two-story hospital, “Is this Sid?” His sister said flatly, derisively, “Holy had been kept alive and well by its tater “Yes, it is.” shit, wow.” tots and crosswalks and elderly cross- “I’m happy to report you’re the win- “Holy smokes,” his mother urged. ing guards. This town’s good-hearted ner of a lifetime supply of aluminum And to Sid: “Where did you meet this teachers had urged his hand across so foil.” man? He had a fishbowl?” many cursive worksheets. It was for “I am? Really? For real?” “At Marvin’s. Near the register. The this town’s warm, metallic water that “You are—really. For real.” She bowl was full of tickets.” he’d learned to heave his tiny self onto seemed irritated. “Fine print?” his father said. giant water fountains. Then: “Wait, who is this?” “No fine print.” Sid lifted his chest. And yet in certain ways Sid couldn’t “My name is Joan.” “They’re delivering it Saturday.” really see the town, could he? An out- “Bill . . .” “No fine print,” his mother said. She sider, a judgmental outsider, could tell “I’m the secretary.” was beaming. “And we need that! Did him things. He was disappointed. you know it? Aluminum foil is on my “You didn’t hurt my feelings,” he “I won?” he said again. “Really? grocery list!” said, more forcefully. That’s great!” Sid’s father, who was allowed certain All at once, the windshield was cov- ered with mist. Bill said, “Most people don’t have an appetite for truth, I’ve learned.” “The truth doesn’t bother me.” “No?” “Not to my knowledge.” “That’s very good to know.” Sid swallowed. “So how does it feel?” “How does what feel?” “This town.” “You want to know?” “I do.” “It feels . . .” Bill paused. The rain got stronger. “It feels like tomorrow won’t come fast enough. Like today’s some lazy bum with his feet on the coffee table, no intention of going any- where ever at all. Like you could wave a stick of dynamite in today’s face and it wouldn’t even wince. Does that seem about right?” Sid said it did seem about right, yes. WorldMags.net“No one is completely abominable.” curse words, who got two dinner rolls, ple of hours preparing for the arrival Inside were eight rolls. said, “Hot damn, son.” of aluminum foil. His mother, mean- That was it. A lifetime supply. Why Ricky pretendedWorldMags.net to be bored but while, baked a lasagna; Sid understood had they imagined boxes and boxes? was obviously jealous. Sid sensed his that her intention was to praise him, On the curb, mocking them, sat a pile brother’s envy and said, “Lucky break, after dinner, by covering the leftovers of garbage bags full of the junk they’d I guess,” because he was a good brother. with a sheet of his bounty. cleared out of the garage. His mother went to the kitchen, re- On Saturday, the truck arrived, bear- The delivery truck left. Still they turned with a piece of paper that read ing the name of the regional manufac- stood on the stoop. pie stuff, detergent, alum foil, choco sprin- turer on its side. A man who was not “Well done,” his mother said. She kles, thyme. Across the top of the sta- Bill descended from the cab. tousled his hair. tionery were the words “Mother knows “It’s here!” Sid called. His parents “Eight?” His father’s mouth got best,” in all caps, between two bunches rushed to the door. The three of them small, strained. “Cheap buggers.” of daffodils. The pad had been a gift stood on the front stoop. The delivery- His mother scowled. “Don’t do that! from Sid on her previous birthday. With man took a couple of steps onto the What do they say? About the gift a stubby pencil, she drew a line through crabgrassy lawn. He read from a clip- horse?” She turned to Sid. “This was alum foil, then thrust the paper into board. “Sid . . . uh . . . Bomb-Wall?” on my list,” she reminded him. Sid’s hand. “Bowem-well,” his father said, proudly, He’d let them down. He felt like Bill “Keep that,” she said. as if their name meant something, was was mocking him. Was Bill mocking He kept it. He kept it longer than not an Ellis Island concoction. him? he kept a lot of things. “I’m Sid,” Sid said. “Me.” His parents went back into the house, On Friday afternoon, Sid and his “Okeydoke,” the guy said. but Sid stayed on the stoop. brother cleared a wall of the garage, “It can go in the garage,” Sid said. Only now did he realize that Bill dumped old magazines and rags and The deliveryman went to the truck, had picked his ticket on purpose. How broken toys, dumped the mildewed opened the back, climbed inside, and could he have realized this only now? hobby horse they’d ridden as kids, emerged holding a small cardboard box. How had he failed to understand this dumped half-empty motor-oil contain- This he carried up the walkway and right away? ers, paint cans. They worked for a cou- handed to Sid. At dinner that night, he saw clearly the meagreness of their life. Those sad party napkins, the nicks in the wooden table, the cheapness of their clothes. His mother’s polyester top, its polka dots stretched weirdly over her weirdly big breasts. His whole life he would buy Reynolds, he decided. “Eat up!” his mother said. “First person to finish gets seconds.” All that remained of the la- sagna was the crispy edge pieces.

few weeks later, as Sid walked home A from school, the maroon car slowed down next to him. It wasn’t like Sid to get angry, let alone stay angry, and yet since the delivery he’d been nursing anger and abashedness in equal measure. Abashedness because what the hell was wrong? What could he complain about? Nothing! But anger, even so. For the smallness of the lifetime supply. For his father’s disappointment. For how sad it made him to see how readily his father would have been soothed by a great quan- tity of anything. Bill had done it on pur- pose. He seemed—in some essential way—like a con man. Sid was angry for those reasons. But also, if he was honest with himself, be- cause he’d expected Bill to return. He’d expected him to call on the phone with WorldMags.netcongratulations, with the pretense of congratulations, in order to say more outrageous, electric things. And so when SidWorldMags.net saw Bill’s car he felt not anger but a flash of relief. Bill rolled down the window. “Cuppa joe? On me.” “I don’t drink joe,” Sid said. Inside the car, classical music was playing. The candy cane still hung from the rearview mirror. That candy cane wouldn’t have lasted a minute if this were Sid’s car. His appetite for sugar was legendary. Or maybe it was a differ- ent candy cane? Maybe Bill kept a bag in the glove compartment and re- placed it continually? It would com- fort Sid, somehow, to learn that Bill loved sugar, too. They drove down LeMay Street, green lights all the way. Bill said, “Coffee won’t stunt your “Mom usually chews it up for us.” growth if that’s what you’re worried about.” “I’m not worried.” •• “Old wives’ tale. I’ve been sucking at the java teat since I was—six? seven?” Sid said, “I’m not worried about my “Now, why would I do that?” Bill “O.K., I won fair and square.” growth.” opened the glove compartment. No “That’s right.” “You’re tall enough.” Bill’s voice was candy canes but a silver flask. He un- New leaves on the trees, a wide open tight, almost mean. “And true stature screwed the top, took a long sip, and sky. Down on the playground, bands is internal, anyhow.” offered it to Sid. of children assaulted the swings. Their “I don’t like the taste.” Sid hesitated. coats littered the perimeter. “You sound like a teen-ager. ‘Taste’ “You and your friends drink in cars?” Bill’s hair was perfect. How did he is teen-ager business. What do you like He didn’t have many friends. Just get his hair so perfect? Sid felt the urge the taste of?” Chip and Lilo, sometimes Joshua, and to ask what sort of grease he used in “Whiskey,” Sid said, and this cut they drank Kool-Aid and played Stra- it, how he got his teeth so white. Bill the tension. Bill laughed; Sid laughed. tego in Lilo’s basement. They got drunk came from a universe where men knew Like a laugh between old friends, on nothing but humid, laundry-scented these things. Sid was ninety-nine-point- easy, warm, which in the next moment basement air and the occasional glimpse nine-per-cent sure that he himself alarmed him, because why should they of Lilo’s mom’s cleavage and calves when would fail to find this universe, either be friends? she lumbered downstairs, laundry bas- because it didn’t exist anymore or be- “Where do you want to go?” Bill ket on one hip, toddler on the other. cause he’d get lost on the way—maybe, asked. “No coffee, fine. I’d take you to Sid said, “We don’t have cars.” likely, both. His father had never found a bar, but you’re just sixteen.” “You want one?” it. His father’s floppy, thinning hair was “I’m on my way home from school.” “Who doesn’t?” tamed by three swoops of an electric “Home’s no good. Home’s just the “Drink,” Bill told him. razor. His father would never know starting line.” Sid took the flask. He drank. shaken or stirred. “My mother’s expecting me. She’s “You won fair and square,” Bill said. “I’m thinking about giving away my making lamb chops.” “You have to accept that, son. You’re belongings,” Bill said. He tossed the “What’s the highest place in this blessed like that. Can you accept that?” flask back again, swallowed, exhaled town? Let’s go there?” Blessed! The word stung him, thrilled through his teeth. “Let’s say I gave you The highest place wasn’t very high, him, and in this way felt exactly like a pair of silver cufflinks. What would a clearing on a hill from which you the whiskey going down. For the rest you say to that?” could see the light-bulb factory and a of his life, every time he took a sip of “That I couldn’t accept.” playground. When they got there, Bill whiskey, the word that would describe “Your manners will be the death of turned off the car. The music stopped, the sensation—that was the sensation— you.” which Sid regretted, yet he didn’t feel was “blessed.” Sid took another sip. Blessed. Blessed. he had the right to ask Bill to turn it “I know you picked it,” Sid said. Down below, the children assembled back on. “That’s not polite, son. Contradict- for tug-of-war. “You picked my ticket,” Sid said. ing anWorldMags.net elder.” “If I gave you a shirt with French THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 67 cuffs and some silver cufflinks, would Bill’s cufflinks in his hand—just imag- The bones in Bill’s face glowed in you wear them? Would you have the ining their lightness in his palm—filled the late sunlight. He was handsome, guts to wear them toWorldMags.net school? I know him with a desire to transcend his boy- like a magazine man. But close to an how kids your age dress. No one has hood right now. edge. What edge? The edge of what? any pride. Would you wear a suit to Bill said, reading his mind, “You’re He was not dangerous—Sid under- school if I gave you a suit?” a special kid, Sid.” stood it now—but in danger. He was Sid decided that he would forgo And then he unbuckled his seat belt. lost. his good manners, would be candid, Sid felt a change in the air. A charge. It “Will you keep an eye out?” Bill asked that the novelty of the moment, their had never happened in his life, he had again, a touch of plaintiveness in his voice. new altitude, gave him permission. never once been kissed, and yet he felt Sid didn’t know what to say. What He said, “I would never with surety: he is going to if the car showed up in the driveway? wear a suit to school.” kiss me. Bill is going to kiss Would he get in it? Would he drive It embarrassed Sid me. Bill is going to kiss me. away? Could he? Was there a perfect how ugly he must look to Bill didn’t move. girl hiding somewhere? He didn’t be- Bill, in his sweatshirt and Sid’s body thrummed. lieve enough in anything, or only in ratty jeans, but to show Deep shivery calm, like doubt and in waiting—only those two up at school in a suit and when his mother ran her things one hundred and ten per cent, cufflinks would be worse long fingernails down his and those were the worst things on than death. He thought neck after she tried and earth. of Marley. Her whole al- failed to tame his hair. He Inside, his mother was making her phabet body. She would laugh at him. was still, waited, but Bill didn’t kiss him. lamb chops. She called them her leg- “People would laugh at me.” Instead, Bill said, “We’re after the per- endary lamb chops. What’s for dinner “So?” fect woman, you and me. Except she tonight, Ma? Legendary lamb chops. “So I’d rather not get that kind of doesn’t exist. Or she does but she’s He felt so sorry for her, so grateful for attention.” hiding. In the meantime, we make do. her. He suppressed the reflex to invite “You know a better kind?” I want to give you some bookends. Bill in to dinner. Instead, he said, “I’ll “Of course.” They’re made of amber. In the trunk. keep an eye out.” Alan Desmarais, president of the Don’t let me forget to give them to you. Bill nodded. It was time to go. student council three years running. Promise you won’t forget?” “I’m sorry about the foil, kid.” He The girls rushed him in the cafeteria. Sid said, “I don’t need bookends.” seemed to mean it. “I wish it were bet- He had the biggest Adam’s apple of “Someday you will. You’ll have a den ter. We get the prizes we deserve is what anyone at Monroe High, teachers in- full of books.” I’ve come to believe. You’ll win many cluded. Once, he’d winked at Sid when The shivery feeling lifted. He felt more prizes in your life, big and little they passed in the hall. Pandering. Pa- profoundly dumb. Why had he thought both. My days of prizes are over but ternalistic. The kind of attention Alan that this man would kiss him? What yours aren’t, I guarantee that.” got, the power it afforded him—he could sort of lunatic was he? The word “ho- Sid kept an eye out. He would wake taunt with only a wink. mosexual” sputtered like a flame in his up every day and check the driveway But there was a worse kind of at- brain and, mercifully, went out. for the car. Before peeing, before brush- tention also. Sid knew this. Like Ricky’s “The lifetime supply was only eight ing his teeth—he would look outside. defect, his claw hand forever cupped rolls,” Sid said. First. at his side, as if to cradle a baby bird. Bill sighed deeply. “You heard about Sid looked down and saw that his Mitten it! Mitten it! For a period of the mouth of the gift horse, kid?” hand was being touched by Bill’s hand. time in elementary school, this had been “I have.” Bill’s long, cool fingers rested lightly the playground chant. And even then “You’ll be lucky if you get through on his own. He was filled with calm, Sid, older by two years, hadn’t had the five before the Reaper comes, studies alert curiosity. His impulse was to stay balls to beat up Oliver and Max and say.” perfectly still, to freeze, like when a that lunatic Susan Kipper, whose boobs Bill put his seat belt back on. He ladybug lands on your hand. Or not a were bigger than her brain, even in fifth started up the car. The music resumed. ladybug—something weirder. A glowy grade. She of all people should have On the way home they passed the beetle, an insect you’d never for a sec- been understanding about defects. He Sweets-N-Freeze and Looney Lou spin- ond believe lived in your ho-hum cor- could do nothing but wait, helpless, ning in the roses and a bunch of ill- ner of the universe. But it does. It is dumb, the furthest thing from presi- dressed boys playing stickball. They showing you. Stay still. Do not move a dential. Where was his anger? Where! passed many mothers pushing strollers. muscle. That thing could have landed “I try to take the middle road,” Sid When they pulled up in front of anywhere, on anything. The word for finally said. “Blend in.” Sid’s house, Bill said, “Maybe one day this is luck.  “Blending is for cooks. Fear isn’t any you’ll wake up and find this car in your way to conduct a life. You should wear driveway. I’ll be gone. You’ll find the a suit if it pleases you. Cufflinks, at least.” keys in the ignition. One day. Maybe newyorker.com Bill’s voice was wise. It knew. To hold soon.WorldMags.net Will you keep an eye out?” Sarah Braunstein on “All You Have to Do.” 68 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

WorldMags.net as a scribe was meticulously copying THE CRITICS out the lines that Obbink deciphered.) WorldMags.netA millennium passed, and Byzantine grammarians were regretting that so little of her poetry had survived. Seven centuries later, Victorian scholars were doing their best to explain away her erotic predilections, while their liter- ary contemporaries, the Decadents and the Aesthetes, seized on her verses for inspiration. Even today, experts can’t A CRITIC AT LARGE agree on whether the poems were per- formed in private or in public, by so- loists or by choruses, or, indeed, whether GIRL, INTERRUPTED they were meant to celebrate or to sub- vert the conventions of love and mar- Who was Sappho? riage. The last is a particularly loaded issue, given that, for many readers and BY DANIEL MENDELSOHN scholars, Sappho has been a feminist heroine or a gay role model, or both. ne day not long after New Year’s, work of Sappho, the seventh-century- “As far as I knew, there was only me O 2012, an antiquities collector ap- B.C. lyric genius whose sometimes and a woman called Sappho,” the critic proached an eminent Oxford scholar playful, sometimes anguished songs Judith Butler once remarked. for his opinion about some brownish, about her susceptibility to the graces Now the first English translation of tattered scraps of writing. The collec- of younger women bequeathed us the Sappho’s works to include the recent tor’s identity has never been revealed, adjectives “sapphic” and “lesbian” (from finds has appeared: “Sappho: A New but the scholar was Dirk Obbink, a the island of Lesbos, where she lived). Translation of the Complete Works” MacArthur-winning classicist whose The four-line stanzas were in fact part (Cambridge), with renderings by Diane J. specialty is the study of texts written of a schema she is said to have invented, Rayor and a thoroughgoing introduc- on papyrus—the material, made of plant called the “sapphic stanza.” To clinch tion by André Lardinois, a Sappho spe- fibres, that was the paper of the an- the identification, two names mentioned cialist who teaches in the Netherlands. cient world. When pieced together, the in the poem were ones that several (Publication of the book was delayed scraps that the collector showed Ob- ancient sources attribute to Sappho’s by several months to accommodate the bink formed a fragment about seven brothers. The text is now known as the “Brothers Poem.”) It will come as no inches long and four inches wide: a lit- “Brothers Poem.” surprise to those who have followed tle larger than a woman’s hand. Densely Remarkably enough, this was the the Sappho wars that the new poems covered with lines of black Greek char- second major Sappho find in a de- have created new controversies. acters, they had been extracted from a cade: another nearly complete poem, piece of desiccated cartonnage, a papier- about the deprivations of old age, came he greatest problem for Sappho mâché-like plaster that the Egyptians to light in 2004. The new additions Tstudies is that there’s so little Sap- and Greeks used for everything from to the extant corpus of antiquity’s pho to study. It would be hard to think mummy cases to bookbindings. After greatest female artist were reported of another poet whose status is so dis- acquiring the cartonnage at a Chris- in papers around the world, leaving proportionate to the size of her sur- tie’s auction, the collector soaked it in scholars gratified and a bit dazzled. viving body of work. a warm water solution to free up the “Papyrological finds,” as one classicist We don’t even know how much of precious bits of papyrus. put it, “ordinarily do not make inter- her poetry Sappho actually wrote down. Judging from the style of the hand- national headlines.” The ancients referred to her works as writing, Obbink estimated that it dated But then Sappho is no ordinary poet. melê, “songs.” Composed to be sung to around 200 A.D. But, as he looked For the better part of three millennia, to the accompaniment of a lyre—this at the curious pattern of the lines—re- she has been the subject of furious con- is what “lyric” poetry meant for the peated sequences of three long lines troversies—about her work, her fam- Greeks—they may well have been followed by a short fourth—he saw ily life, and, above all, her sexuality. In passed down from memory by her that the text, a poem whose beginning antiquity, literary critics praised her admirers and other poets before being had disappeared but of which five “sublime” style, even as comic play- committed at last to paper. (Or what- stanzas were still intact, had to be older. wrights ridiculed her allegedly loose ever. One fragment, in which the poet Much older: about a thousand years morals. Legend has it that the early calls on Aphrodite, the goddess of love, more ancient than the papyrus itself. Church burned her works. (“A sex- to come into a charming shrine “where The dialect, diction, and metre of these crazed whore who sings of her own cold water ripples through apple branches, Greek verses were all typical of the wantonness,”WorldMags.net one theologian wrote, just the whole place shadowed in roses,” UK/BRIDGEMAN GALLERY, ART MANCHESTER OPPOSITE: FRANÇOIS AVRIL; ABOVE: 70 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 WorldMags.net

New papyrus finds are refining our idea of Sappho.WorldMags.net Some scholars question how personal her erotic poems actually are. THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 71 was scribbled onto a broken clay pot.) author of a first-century-B.C. trea- of four sapphic stanzas. (They appear Like other great poets of the time, she tise called “On the Arrangement of below in my own translation.) These would have been aWorldMags.net musician and a Words” admired her handling of vow- were singled out by the author of a performer as well as a lyricist. She was els. At present, scholars have catalogued first-century-A.D. literary treatise called credited with having invented a cer- around two hundred and fifty frag- “On the Sublime” for the way in which tain kind of lyre and the plectrum. ments, of which fewer than seventy they “select and juxtapose the most Four centuries after her death, schol- contain complete lines. A great many striking, intense symptoms of erotic ars at the Library of Alexandria cata- consist of just a few words; some, of a passion.” Here the speaker expresses logued nine “books”—papyrus scrolls— single word. her envy of the men who, presumably of Sappho’s poems, organized primarily The common theme of most an- in the course of certain kinds of social by metre. Book 1, for instance, gath- cient responses to Sappho’s work is rap- occasions, have a chance to talk to the ered all the poems that had been com- turous admiration for her exquisite style girl she yearns for: posed in the sapphic stanza—the verse or for her searing content, or both. An He seems to me an equal of the gods— form Obbink recognized in the “Broth- anecdote from a later classical author whoever gets to sit across from you ers Poem.” This book alone reportedly about the Athenian legislator Solon, a and listen to the sound of your sweet speech contained thirteen hundred and twenty contemporary of Sappho’s and one of so close to him, lines of verse; the contents of all nine the Seven Sages of Greece, is typical: volumes may have amounted to some to your beguiling laughter: O it makes my Solon of Athens, son of Execestides, after panicked heart go fluttering in my chest, ten thousand lines. So much of Sap- hearing his nephew singing a song of Sap- for the moment I catch sight of you pho was circulating in antiquity that pho’s over the wine, liked the song so much there’s no one Greek author, writing three cen- that he told the boy to teach it to him. When speech left in me, someone asked him why he was so eager, he turies after her death, confidently pre- replied, “so that I may learn it and then die.” but tongue gags—: all at once a faint dicted that “the white columns of fever courses down beneath the skin, Sappho’s lovely song endure / and will Plato, whose attitude toward liter- eyes no longer capable of sight, a thrum- ming in the ears, endure, speaking out loud . . . as long ature was, to say the least, vexed—he as ships sail from the Nile.” thought most poetry had no place in and sweat drips down my body, and the By the Middle Ages, nearly every- the ideal state—is said to have called shakes lay siege to me all over, and I’m greener thing had disappeared. As with much her the “Tenth Muse.” The scholars than grass, I’m just a little short of dying, of classical literature, texts of her work at the Library of Alexandria enshrined I seem to me; existed in relatively few copies, all pains- her in their canon of nine lyric ge- but all must be endured, since even a takingly transcribed by hand. Over time, niuses—the only woman to be in- pauper . . . fire, flood, neglect, and bookworms— cluded. At least two towns on Lesbos to say nothing of disapproving Church vied for the distinction of being her Even without its final lines (which, Fathers—took their devastating toll. birthplace; Aristotle reports that she maddeningly, the author of the trea- Market forces were also at work: as the “was honored although she was a tise didn’t go on to quote), it’s a remark- centuries passed, fewer readers—and woman.” able work. Slyly, the speaker avoids fewer scribes—understood Aeolic, the All this buzz is both titillating and physical description of the girl, instead dialect in which Sappho composed, frustrating, stoking our appetite for a evoking her beauty by detailing the and so demand for new copies dimin- body of work that we’re unable to read, effect it has on the beholder; the whole ished. A twelfth-century Byzantine much less assess critically: imagine what poem is a kind of reaction shot. The scholar who had hoped to write about the name Homer would mean to West- verses subtly enact the symptoms they Sappho grumbled that “both Sappho ern civilization if all we had of the Iliad describe: as the poet’s faculties fail one and her works, the lyrics and the songs, and the Odyssey was their reputations by one in the overpowering presence have been trashed by time.” and, say, ninety lines of each poem. The of her beloved, the outside world—the Until a hundred years ago or so, Greeks, in fact, seem to have thought girl, the man she’s talking to—dissolves when papyrus fragments of her poems of Sappho as the female counterpart and disappears from the poem, too, started turning up, all that remained of Homer: he was known as “the Poet,” leaving the speaker in a kind of inte- of those “white columns of Sappho’s and they referred to her as “the Poet- rior echo chamber. The arc from “he song” was a handful of lines quoted in ess.” Many scholars now see her po- seems to me” in the first line to the so- the works of later Greek and Roman etry as an attempt to appropriate and lipsistic “I seem to me” at the end says authors. Some of these writers were “feminize” the diction and subject mat- it all. interested in Lesbos’s most famous ter of the Iliad. (For instance, the ap- Even the tiniest scraps can be po- daughter for reasons that can strike us peal to Aphrodite to be her “comrade tent, as Rayor’s lucid and comprehen- as comically arcane: the only poem that in arms”—in love.) sive translation makes clear. (Until now, has survived in its entirety—a playful The good news is that the surviv- the most noteworthy English version hymn to Aphrodite in which the poet ing fragments of Sappho bear out the to include renderings of virtually every calls upon the goddess to be her “com- ancient verdict. One fine example is fragment was “If Not, Winter,” the rade in arms” in an erotic escapade— her best-known verse, known to clas- 2002 translation by the poet and clas- was saved for posterity because the sicistsWorldMags.net as Fragment 31, which consists sicist Anne Carson.) To flip through these 72 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 truncated texts is a strangely moving Although her birthplace cannot be Victorian critic John Addington Sy- experience, one that has been compared verified, Sappho seems to have lived monds saw the unstable political mi- to “reading a note inWorldMags.net a bottle”: mostly in Mytilene, the capital of Les- lieu of Sappho’s homeland as entwined You came, I yearned for you, bos. Just across the strip of water that with the heady erotic climate of her and you cooled my senses that burned separates Lesbos from the mainland of poems. Lesbos, he wrote in an 1872 with desire Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) was essay on the poet, was “the island of or the opulent city of Sardis, the capital overmastering passions.” of Lydia. Some classicists have argued Some things seem relatively certain, love shook my senses like wind crashing on mountain oaks that the proximity of Lesbos to this then. But when it comes to Sappho’s lush Eastern trading hub helps to ex- personal life—the aspect of her biog- or plain Sappho’s taste for visual gorgeous- raphy that scholars and readers are most Maidenhood, my maidenhood, where ness and sensual luxury: the “myrrh, eager to know about—the ancient rec- have you gone cassia, and frankincense,” the “brace- ord is confused. What did Sappho look leaving me behind? Never again will I come to you, never lets, fragrant / purple robes, iridescent like? A dialogue by Plato, written in again trinkets, / countless silver cups, and the fourth century B.C., refers to her ivory” that waft and glitter in her lines, as “beautiful”; a later author insisted or—the lines in which the notion of often in striking counterpoint to their that she was “very ugly, being short and desire as “bittersweet” appears for the raw emotionality. swarthy.” Who were her family? The first time in Western literature— Mytilene was constantly seething Suda (which gives eight possible names Once again Love, that loosener of limbs, with political and social dramas occa- for Sappho’s father) asserts that she bittersweet and inescapable, crawling sioned by rivalries and shifting alli- had a daughter and a mother both thing, ances among aristocratic clans. Sappho named Kleïs, a gaggle of brothers, and seizes me. belonged to one of these—there’s a a wealthy husband named Kerkylas, The very incompleteness of the fragment in which she chastises a friend from the island of Andros. But some verses can heighten the starkness of “of bad character” for siding with a rival of these seemingly precious facts merely the emotions—a fact that a number of clan—and a famous literary contem- show that the encyclopedia—which, contemporary classicists and transla- porary, a poet called Alcaeus, belonged as old as it is, was compiled fifteen cen- tors have made much of. For Stanley to another. Alcaeus often refers to the turies after Sappho lived—could be Lombardo, whose “Sappho: Poems and island’s political turbulence in his prone to comic misunderstandings. Fragments” (2002) offers a selection of poems, and it’s possible that at some “Kerkylas,” for instance, looks a lot like about a quarter of the fragments, the point Sappho and her family fled, or kerkos, Greek slang for “penis,” and truncated remains are like “beautiful, were exiled, to Southern Italy: Cicero “Andros” is very close to the word for isolated limbs.” Thomas Habinek, a refers in one of his speeches to a statue “man”; and so the encyclopedia turns classicist at the University of Southern of the poet that had been erected in out to have been unwittingly recycling California, has nicely summed up this the town hall of Syracuse, in Sicily. The a tired old joke about oversexed Sappho, rather postmodern aspect of Sappho’s appeal: “The fragmentary preservation of poems of yearning and separation serves as a reminder of the inevitable incompleteness of human knowledge and affection.”

n Sappho’s biography, as in her work, I gaps predominate. A few facts can be inferred by triangulating various sources: the poems themselves, ancient reference works, citations in later clas- sical writers who had access to infor- mation that has since been lost. The “Suda,” a tenth-century Byzantine en- cyclopedia of ancient culture, which is the basis of much of our information, asserts that Sappho “flourished” be- tween 612 and 608 B.C.; from this, scholars have concluded that she was born around 640. She was likely past middle age when she died, since in at least one poem she complains about her graying hair and cranky knees. WorldMags.net ment of suicide suggests that those who wove this improbable story wanted us WorldMags.netto take away a moral: unfettered ex- pressions of great passion will have dire consequences. As time went on, the fantasies about Sappho’s private life became more ex- treme. Midway through the first cen- tury A.D., the Roman philosopher Sen- eca, tutor to Nero, was complaining about a Greek scholar who had de- voted an entire treatise to the question of whether Sappho was a prostitute. Some ancient writers assumed that there had to have been two Sapphos: one the great poet, the other the no- torious slut. There is an entry for each in the Suda. The uncertainties plaguing the bi- ography of literature’s most famous Lesbian explain why classicists who study Sappho like to cite the entry for •• her in Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig’s “Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary” (1979). To honor Sap- who was married to “Dick of Man.” sical period and afterward Sappho was pho’s central position in the history of Many other alleged facts of Sap- known primarily as an oversexed pred- female homosexuality, the two editors pho’s biography similarly dissolve on ator—of men. This, in fact, was the an- devoted an entire page to her. The page close scrutiny. Was Sappho really a cient cliché about “Lesbians”: when we is blank. mother? There is indeed a fragment hear the word today we think of love that mentions a girl named Kleïs, between women, but when the ancient he controversies about Sappho’s “whose form resembles golden blos- Greeks heard the word they thought Tsexuality have never been far from soms,” but the word that some people of blow jobs. In classical Greek, the the center of scholarship about her. have translated as “daughter” can also verb lesbiazein—“to act like someone Starting in the early nineteenth cen- mean “child,” or even “slave.” (Because from Lesbos”—meant performing fel- tury, when classics itself was becoming Greek children were often named for latio, an activity for which inhabitants a formal discipline, scholars who were their grandparents, it’s easy to see how of the island were thought to have a embarrassed by what they found in the the already wobbly assumption that particular penchant. Comic playwrights fragments worked hard to whitewash Kleïs must have been a daughter in and authors of light verse portrayed Sappho’s reputation. The title of one turn led to the assertion that Sappho Sappho as just another daughter of early work of German scholarship is had a mother with the same name.) Lesbos, only too happy to fall into bed “Sappho Liberated from a Prevalent Who were the members of her circle? with her younger male rivals. Prejudice”: in it, the author acknowl- The Suda refers by name to three fe- For centuries, the most popular story edged that what Sappho felt for her male “students,” and three female com- about her love life was one about a female friends was “love” but hastened panions—Atthis, Telesippa, and Meg- hopeless passion for a handsome young to insist that it was in no way “objec- ara—with whom she had “disgraceful boatman called Phaon, which allegedly tionable, vulgarly sensual, and illegal,” friendships.” But much of this is no led her to jump off a cliff. That tale has and that her poems of love were nei- more than can be reasonably extrapo- been embroidered, dramatized, and ther “monstrous nor abominable.” lated from the poems: the extant frag- novelized over the centuries by writ- The eagerness to come up with “in- ments mention nearly all those names. ers from Ovid—who in one poem has nocent” explanations for the poet’s at- The compilers of the Suda, like schol- Sappho abjectly renouncing her gay tachment to young women persisted ars today, may have been making edu- past—to Erica Jong, in her 2003 novel through the late nineteenth century cated guesses. “Sappho’s Leap.” As fanciful as it is, it’s and into the twentieth. The most te- Even Sappho’s sexuality, which for easy to see how this melodrama of het- nacious theory held that Sappho was modern readers is the most famous erosexual passion could have been in- the head of a girls’ boarding school, a thing about her, has been controversial spired by her verse, which so often de- matron whose interest in her pupils from the start. However exalted her scribes the anguish of unrequited love. was purely pedagogical. (One scholar reputation among the ancient literati, (“You have forgotten me / or you love claimed to have found evidence that in Greek popular culture of the Clas- someoneWorldMags.net else more.”) The added ele- classes were taught on how to apply 74 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 makeup.) Another theory made her speare’s sonnets had been written as into an august priestess, leading “an choral hymns—is one that some trans- association of youngWorldMags.net women who lators today simply ignore, in keeping devoted themselves to the cult of the with the modern interest in individual goddess.” psychology. But if the proper transla- Classicists today have no problem tion of the sexy little Fragment 38 is with the idea of a gay Sappho. But not “you scorch me” but “you scorch us,” some have been challenging the inter- which is what the Greek actually says, pretation of her work that seems most how, exactly, should we interpret it? natural to twenty-first century readers: To answer that question, classicists that the poems are deeply personal ex- lately have been imagining the pur- pressions of private homoerotic pas- poses to which public performance of sion. Pointing to the relentlessly pub- erotic poems might have been put. An- lic and communitarian character of cient references to the poet’s “compan- ancient-Greek society, with its clan al- ions” and “students” have led one ex- legiances, its endless rounds of athletic pert to argue that Sappho was the leader games and artistic competitions, its of a female collective, whose role was jammed calendar of civic and religious “instruction leading to marriage.” Rather festivals, they wonder whether “per- than expressions of individual yearning sonal” poetry, as we understand the for a young woman, the poems were, term, even existed for someone like in Lardinois’s view, “public forms of Sappho. As André Lardinois, the co- praise of the general attractiveness of author of the new English edition, has the girl,” celebrating her readiness for written, “Can we be sure that these are wedlock and integration into the larger really her own feelings? . . . What is society. The late Harvard classicist ‘personality’ in such a group-oriented Charles Segal made even larger claims. society as archaic Greece?” As he saw it, the strongly rhythmic Indeed, the vision of Sappho as a erotic lyrics were “incantatory” in na- solitary figure pouring out her heart in ture; he believed that public perfor- the women’s quarters of a nobleman’s mance of poems like Fragment 31 would mansion is a sentimental anachro- have served to socialize desire itself for nism—a projection, like so much of the entire city—to lift sexual yearning our thinking about her, of our own hab- “out of the realm of the formless and its and institutions onto the past. In terrible, bring it into the light of form, “Sappho and Alcaeus,” by Lawrence make it visible to the individual poet Alma-Tadema, a Victorian painter and, by extension, to his or her society.” much given to lush re-creations of Even purely literary issues—for in- scenes from Greek antiquity, the Poet- stance, the tendency to think of Sap- ess and four diaphanously clad, flower- pho as the inventor of “the lyric I,” a wreathed acolytes relax in a charming single, emotionally naked speaker who little performance space, enraptured as becomes a stand-in for the reader—are the male bard sings and plays, as if he affected by these new theories. After all, were a Beat poet in a Telegraph Hill if the “I” who speaks in Sappho’s work café. But Lardinois and others have ar- is a persona (a “poetic construct rather gued that many, if not most, of Sap- than a real life figure,” as Lardinois put pho’s poems were written to be per- it) how much does her biography ac- formed by choruses on public occasions. tually matter? In some lyrics, the speaker uses the Between the paucity of actual poems first-person plural “we”; in others, she and the woeful unreliability of the bi- uses the plural “you” to address a ographical tradition, these debates are group—presumably the chorus, who unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. danced as she sang. (Even when Sap- Indeed, the study of Sappho is beset pho uses the first-person singular, it by a curious circularity. For the better doesn’t mean she was singing solo: in part of a millennium—between the Greek tragedy the chorus, which num- compilation of the Suda and the late bered fifteen singers, regularly uses “I.”) nineteenth century—the same bits of This communal voice, which to us poetry and the same biographical gos- seems jarring in lyrics of deep, even sip were endlessly recycled, the poetic erotic feeling—imagine that Shake- fragmentsWorldMags.net providing the sources for THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 75 biographies that were then used as the Page declared, “any reason to expect by their wayward elder sibling. At basis for new interpretations of those that we shall ever possess much more last, that particular biographical tid- same fragments. ThisWorldMags.net is why the “new of the poetry of Sappho and Alcaeus bit could be confirmed. Sappho” has been so galvanizing for than we do today, and this seems a suit- For non-classicists, the “Brothers classicists: every now and then, the able time to begin the difficult and Poem” may be less enthralling than the circle expands, letting in a little more doubtful task of interpreting.” other recent Sappho find, the poem light. Sappho herself, it seems fair to say, that surfaced in 2004, about old age—a would have raised an eyebrow at Page’s bittersweet work indeed. After the Uni- bbink’s revelation last year was, confidence in his judgment. Human versity of Cologne acquired some pa- O in fact, only the latest in a series fortune, she writes, is as variable as the pyri, scholars found that one of the of papyrological discov- weather at sea, where “fair texts overlapped with a poem already eries that have dramati- winds swiftly follow harsh known: Fragment 58, one of the Oxy- cally enhanced our un- gales.” And, indeed, this rhynchus papyri. The Oxyrhynchus derstanding of Sappho verse was unknown to fragment consisted mostly of the ends and her work. Until the Page, since it comes from of a handful of lines; the new Cologne late nineteenth century, the papyrus fragment that papyrus filled in the blanks, leaving when the papyri started Dirk Obbink brought to only a few words missing. Finally, the turning up, there were light last year: the “Broth- lines made sense. only the ancient quota- ers Poem.” As with much Archaic Greek po- tions. Since then, the For specialists, the etry, the newly restored Fragment 58— amount of Sappho that we have has most exciting feature of the “Broth- the “Old Age Poem,” as it is now more than doubled. ers Poem” is that it seems to corrob- called—illustrates its theme with an In 1897, two young Oxford arche- orate the closest thing we have to a example from myth. Sappho alludes to ologists started excavating a site in Egypt contemporary reference to Sappho’s the story of Eos, the dawn goddess, that had been the municipal dump of personal life: an oblique mention of who wished for, and was granted, eter- a town called Oxyrhynchus—“the City her in Herodotus’ Histories, written nal life for her mortal lover, Tithonus, of the Sharp-Nosed Fish.” In ancient about a century and a half after her but forgot to ask for eternal youth: times, the place had been home to a death. During a long discussion of [I bring] the beautiful gifts of the violet large Greek-speaking population. How- Egyptian society, Herodotus mentions Muses, girls, ever lowly its original purpose, the dump one of Sappho’s brothers, a rather dash- and [I love] that song lover, the sweet-toned lyre. soon yielded treasures. Papyrus manu- ing character named Charaxus. A scripts dating to the first few centuries swashbuckling merchant sailor, he sup- My skin was [delicate] before, but now A.D., containing both Greek and posedly spent a fortune to buy the old age [claims it]; my hair turned from black [to Roman texts, began to surface. Some freedom of a favorite courtesan in white]. were fragments of works long known, Egypt—an act, Herodotus reports, for such as the Iliad, but even these were which Sappho “severely chided” her My spirit has grown heavy; knees buckle that once could dance light as fawns. of great value, since the Oxyrhynchus sibling in verse. Ovid and other later papyri were often far older than what classical authors also refer to some I often groan, but what can I do? had been, until that point, the oldest kind of tension between Sappho and Impossible for humans not to age. surviving copies. Others revealed works this brother, but, in the absence of For they say that rosy-armed Dawn in previously unknown. Among the latter a surviving poem on the subject by love were several exciting new fragments of Sappho herself, generations of schol- went to the ends of the earth holding Tithonos, Sappho, some substantial. From the tat- ars were unable to verify even the tered papyri, the voice came through as brother’s name. beautiful and young, but in time gray old distinctive as ever: So it’s easy to imagine Dirk Ob- age seized even him with an immortal wife. bink’s excitement as he worked his Some men say cavalry, some men say infantry, way through the first lines of the poem: Here as elsewhere in the new trans- some men say the navy’s the loveliest but you’re always nattering on that lation, Diane J. Rayor captures the dis- thing Charaxus must come, tinctively plainspoken quality of Sap- on this black earth, but I say it’s what- his ship full-laden. That much, I reckon, pho’s Greek, which, for all the poet’s ever you love Zeus knows . . . naked emotionality and love of luxe, is Over the decades that followed, The pious thing to do, the speaker never overwrought or baroque. Every more of the papyri were deciphered says, is to pray to the gods for this broth- translation is a series of sacrifices; in and published. But by 1955, when the er’s return, since human happiness de- Rayor’s case, emphasis on plainness British classicist Denys Page published pends on divine good will. The poem of expression sometimes comes at the “Sappho and Alcaeus,” a definitive study closes with the hope that another, cost of certain formal elements—not of the two Lesbian poets, it seemed younger brother will grow up hon- least, metre. The classicist M. L. West, that even this rich new vein had been orably and save his family from heart- who published a translation in the exhausted. “There is not at present,” ache—presumably,WorldMags.net the anxiety caused Times Literary Supplement, took pains to 76 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 emulate the long line of Sappho’s original: But me—my skin which once was soft is withered now WorldMags.net by age, my hair has turned to white which once was black . . . Still, given how disastrously cloying many attempts to re-create Sappho’s verse as “song” have proved to be, you’re grateful for Rayor’s directness. Her notes on the translations are particularly use- ful, especially when she alerts readers to choices that are left “silent” in other English versions. The last extant line of Fragment 31, for instance, presents a notorious problem: it could mean something like “all must be endured” or, on the other hand, “all must be dared.” Rayor prefers “endured,” and tells you why she thinks it’s the better reading. In her translation of the “Old Age Poem,” Rayor makes one very interest- ing choice. The Cologne manuscript dates to the third century B.C., which makes it the oldest and therefore presumably the most reliable manuscript of Sappho that we currently possess. In that text, the poem ends after the sixth couplet, with its glum reference to Tithonus being seized by gray old age. But Rayor has de- cided to include some additional lines that appear only in the fragmentary Oxy- rhynchus papyrus. These give the poem a far more upbeat ending: Yet I love the finer things . . . this and passion for the light of life have granted me brilliance and beauty. The manuscript containing those lines was copied out five hundred years after the newly discovered version— half a millennium further away from the moment when the Poetess first sang this song. And so the new Sappho raises as many questions as it answers. Did different versions of a single poem co- exist in antiquity, and, if so, did ancient audiences know or care? Who in the “Brothers Poem” has been chattering on about Sappho’s brother Charaxus, and why? Where, exactly, does the “Old Age Poem” end? Was it a melancholy testament to the mortifying effects of age or a triumphant assertion of the power of beauty, of the “finer things”— of poetry itself—to redeem the ravages of time? Even as we strain to hear this remarkable woman’s sweet speech, the thrumming in our ears grows louder.  WorldMags.net THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 77 of Don Rigoberto, introduced, in 1988, BOOKS in a slender Ovidian tale called “In Praise WorldMags.netof the Stepmother” and revived, a de- cade later, in “The Notebooks of Don RESTLESS REALISM Rigoberto” (1997). A Lima insurance executive by day, Rigoberto is by night Mario Vargas Llosa’s imagined lives. a “libertarian hedonist,” enveloped in books and music and baroque sex- BY THOMAS MALLON ual activity with his voluptuous second wife, Doña Lucrecia. He dictates her hairdressing and her jewelry, then or- chestrates their erotic role-play with highbrow connoisseurship, directing Lucrecia to play figures painted by Ti- tian and Boucher and Jordaens. Told in comically overdone prose (“We will take our pleasure in that half twilight that already is raping the night”), the cou- ple’s adventures are enhanced by a comely housemaid named Justiniana and threatened by Don Rigoberto’s pre-adolescent and highly sexualized son, Fonchito, a cross between Tadzio and Lucifer whom his stepmother can’t resist. In Don Rigoberto’s view, all things should lead to sex and “sovereignty,” a “horrendous glory” from which all civic responsibility disappears in favor of a fetish-fed “expression of human partic- ularity.” In its mannered explicitness, “In Praise of the Stepmother” feels like something one prints privately and gives to a lover. For Vargas Llosa, it may have been a personal getaway, the release of an imaginative safety valve when he most needed it. As he readied the book for publication, a couple of years past his fiftieth birthday, he was preparing to run for the Presidency of Peru. n the course of Mario Vargas Llosa’s of prejudices and sentiments,” the race- I seventy-nine years, Peru has alter- based obsession with social hierarchy argas Llosa was born in 1936, in nated between dictatorship and democ- which has helped produce the country’s Vthe southern city of Arequipa. He racy with the sort of regularity that other calamitous political history. His books spent his early years being happily in- countries experience through mere shift- ignore none of Peru’s clashing, kaleido- dulged by his mother’s family, the Llosas, ings from one political party to another. scopic elements, but his vision, some- after she was deserted by her struggling During his nation’s most violent and times explicit and more often artisti- and sometimes violent husband, Er- despairing periods, Vargas Llosa must cally indirect, is at bottom a gentlemanly, nesto Vargas. (Mario was allowed to be- keenly have felt the truth of his own re- non-millenarian one, desirous of peace lieve that his father had died.) Accord- peated assertion that the writer of fic- and pluralism, secularly hopeful of de- ing to the author’s memoir, “A Fish in tion wishes to replace the world as it is cency and democratic norms. the Water” (1993), the Llosas “had been with another one entirely. Vargas Llosa has filled his books with well-off and possessed of aristocratic His novels, the latest of which, “The enough personal refractions to remind airs” before a gentle descent into the Discreet Hero” (Farrar, Straus & Gi- one of Alberto Moravia’s sense of the middle class. His grandfather was re- roux), appears this month in the United novel as “higher autobiography.” But if lated to José Luis Bustamante y Rivero, States, have arisen from what Vargas he has a genuine alter ego, an escapist the Peruvian President who was ousted Llosa calls Peru’s “effervescent structure projection of himself, it is the character in a military coup by General Manuel Odría in 1948. Vargas Llosa has a zookeeper’s tenderness for the humanWorldMags.net “fauna” he describes in his fiction. After a “secret reconciliation” with 78 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY PATRICK BREMER his wife, Ernesto Vargas reëntered his reason prevail and political adversaries tual mistrust and ignorance, in resent- son’s life when Mario was eleven. “The set aside sectarianism for the common ment and prejudice, and in a maelstrom nightmare of my childhood”WorldMags.net began at good, events can occur as marvelous as of violence.” that point, the author later recalled. the ones in the novels of magic real- On the verge of becoming as famous Ernesto limited Mario’s contact with ism.” He came to cherish incremental- an artist-politician as Václav Havel, Var- the Llosas (he resented their “airs” and ism, and to view the history of his own gas Llosa managed to finish first in the their pampering of his son), and sub- country through a democratic, reform- initial round of balloting, only to lose jected him to verbal abuse and beatings. ist lens. In an essay called “Fiction and the second, badly, to Alberto Fujimori, Eventually, Mario was sent to a mili- Reality in Latin America,” he discerned an agricultural engineer of Japanese an- tary academy in Lima. The school pro- even in the conquest of the Incas a cestry, who came so quickly out of no- vided the setting for Vargas Llosa’s first message more anti-dictatorial than anti- where—promising “Honesty, Technol- novel, “The Time of the Hero” (1962), imperialist: “The vertical and totalitar- ogy and Work”—that his advent, too, the story of cadets who demonstrate all ian structure of the Tahuantinsuyu was, seemed more “literary” than political. manner of gross, and even murderous, without doubt, more of a threat to its During the next decade, Fujimori de- cruelty. For years, legend had it that, survival than all the conquistadors’ fire- livered a species of economic reform, upon publication, a thousand copies had arms and iron weapons.” but he brought with it a nonmilitary been burned on the academy grounds. During the nineteen-eighties, Peru dictatorship, shutting down Peru’s con- As a university student in the mid- began to crumble from corruption, drug gress and gutting its courts. When Var- nineteen-fifties, during the Odría dic- violence, and terror attacks by the Mao- gas Llosa called for international action tatorship, Vargas Llosa made secret for- ist Shining Path movement. In “The against him, the novelist was threatened ays into political activity, joining a cell Real Life of Alejandro Mayta” (1984), with the loss of his citizenship. of Communists and contributing to an a novel set a few years into the future, underground Marxist journal on “inter- the narrator declares, “Since it is impos- ad Peru hurt Vargas Llosa into national subjects from the ‘proletarian’ sible to know what’s really happening, M fiction long before it pushed him and ‘dialectical’ point of view.” This we Peruvians lie, invent, dream, and take toward politics. In fact, his pursuit of mind-set helped make him a devotee refuge in illusion. . . . Peruvian life, a life the first probably assured his failure at of Gabriel García Márquez, about whom in which so few actually do read, has the second, since, as he himself has ar- he published a lengthy book in 1971, become literary.” And yet it was at this gued, “good literature always ends up and of Fidel Castro, but neither of these moment that Vargas Llosa slowed his showing those who read it . . . the in- enthusiasms would survive the nineteen- prodigious literary output and allowed evitable limitation of all power to fulfill seventies. The first ended with the Pe- himself to catch the “disease” of practi- human aspirations and desires.” ruvian writer giving the Colombian a cal politics. “A Fish in the Water” chron- From its beginnings, the novel has black eye. (The two of them made a icles his role in forming the Democratic been the most democratic and bour- pact never to speak of what provoked Front, the party that ran him for Pres- geois of all art forms; it has almost al- Vargas Llosa’s punch, though one pop- ident in 1990. Vargas Llosa saw the ways failed in the service of program- ular theory suggests that García Márquez threat of totalitarianism in the rigid matic politics, let alone totalitarianism, slept with his acolyte’s wife.) The at- state-driven economy and the nation- because it grows from what Vargas Llosa traction to Castro, whom Vargas Llosa alizations imposed by the ruling Amer- calls, in his memoir, the “sordid warp had seen as a “romantic guerrilla leader,” ican Popular Revolutionary Alliance. and woof of which daily life is woven turned into implacable moral opposi- He instead proposed a “radical liberal- for the majority of mortals.” In a primer tion, a view of the dictator as “a little ism,” an array of free-market reforms, on writing with the Rilkean title “Let- satrap with bloodstained hands.” and a revitalization of civil liberties. ters to a Young Novelist” (1997), Var- Vargas Llosa passed much of Latin The campaign was chaotic and thrill- gas Llosa describes the composition of America’s literary “Boom”—the years ing. The novelist fended off lies about fiction as a “backwards striptease,” in that made writers like García Márquez his finances, threats to his life, and at- which an author puts imaginative gar- and Carlos Fuentes more than hemi- tacks on the supposed depravity of his ments onto the naked autobiographical spherically famous—in Europe, teach- books: “In Praise of the Stepmother” basis of his every production. What he ing, translating, working in broadcast was read, one chapter per day, during has typically done in his own work is journalism, and publishing novel after prime time on government-run televi- not to make the personal political but— novel. His literary predilections were, sion. Slender and elegant, the author- even before his apostasy from the left— in great measure, European and North candidate looked more patrician than to render the political personal, shrink- American, and, while he tried out some he actually was, and couldn’t overcome ing it down to human size by inserting of the same narrative experiments as a cool, Kennedyesque refusal to be car- an analogue of himself into the com- other Boom writers, his defection from ried on his supporters’ shoulders, “a ri- motion of public events. the left made him a political outlier. diculous custom of Peruvian politicians “Conversation in the Cathedral” Spain became his second, adopted in imitation of bullfighters.” Vargas Llosa (1969), one of Vargas Llosa’s important homeland; years later, recalling its emer- was asking to lead a nation that he was early books, features Santiago Zavala, a gence from Francoism, he spoke of his beginning to recognize as “not one coun- feckless, more passive version of the au- discovery that “when good sense and try, butWorldMags.net several, living together in mu- thor in his youth. (Like his protagonist, THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 79 Vargas Llosa’s truest gifts have op- erated when he’s given in to what he WorldMags.nethas called, in his memoir’s doubly apol- ogetic phrasing, “an invincible weakness for so-called realism.” A youthful un- certainty about his stature relative to both the magical realists and the earlier modernists—who, like Virginia Woolf, decried reality’s “cheapness”—lingered, though by the time he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 2010, he was will- ing to acknowledge that “scope and am- bition are as important in a novel as sty- listic dexterity and narrative strategy.” Before he could make such a declara- tion, however, he had a series of liter- ary shadows to step out of. Called “the fierce little Sartrean” during his youth (“I thought, very naïvely, that serious literature never smiled,” he has said), he worked hard to shed the lugubriousness that had earned him the nickname. One result was “Captain Pantoja and the Special Service” (1973), an absurd- “In America, the streets are paved with gold. And everything ist comedy set just after the Odría years, else is stuffed with cheese and bacon.” and another novel that was used against Vargas Llosa during the Presidential •• campaign. The dutiful Pantoja is as- signed to set up a military brothel that the brass hope will reduce sexual as- the teen-age Vargas Llosa worked for structure and narrative, this great writer saults by Peruvian soldiers serving in the Lima newspaper La Crónica.) San- of fiction has never been a great formal- the Amazon region, an effort that leads tiago’s Peru is “all fucked up,” yet it is ist. Much of his first novel, about the him to new heights of lust and self- still, he tells us, “my Peru,” not an ab- military academy, is given over to Joyc- respect as the ever-expanding operation stract body politic but a welter of small ean streams of recitation, the boys’ re- becomes “the most efficient unit of the disasters and compromises. The “Ca- sentments rippling over one another. Its armed forces.” The author can’t resist thedral” of the novel’s title refers to the characters end up seeming like a chorus pouring some of his dialogues through dive bar in which Santiago has a long without a cast, and the book obligated his “communicating vessels,” but it is session of reminiscence with Ambrosio more to technique than to the moral in- usually a more graphic and exuberant Pardo, a black man at the bottom of Pe- quiry that generated it. The tremendous exchange of fluids that the novel takes ru’s racial pyramid, who has served as a vividness of “Conversation in the Ca- for its business. chauffeur to both Santiago’s father and thedral” has to be similarly glimpsed in The same high comedy is on display Cayo Bermúdez, a fictional version of flashes, amid the narrative’s almost con- in “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” the Odría regime’s security director. As stant chronological shuffle. The novel is (1977), Vargas Llosa’s fullest fictional the book leaps from subject to subject—a driven, and sometimes strangled, by a reconstruction of his Lima youth. Its failed coup attempt; the adventures of technique that the young Vargas Llosa protagonist, Mario, goes to work at Bermúdez’s lesbian mistress; the secret developed partly through the influence Radio Panamericana (the hustling Var- homosexual life of Santiago’s father; of what he has called the “communicat- gas Llosa did that, too), where he comes the murder of a radio singer and carni- ing vessels” of “Madame Bovary” and under the spell of Pedro Camacho, “the val queen—Santiago realizes what La Faulkner’s “The Wild Palms”: the braid- Balzac of Peru,” the prodigious author Crónica’s Weegee-like crime reporter al- ing of multiple episodes, or, in Vargas of the station’s soap operas. From Cama- ready knows: there “weren’t any pure Llosa’s case, dialogues, on the same page, cho, Mario learns to let “contrast, not people in the world.” Humans, to him, an alternation designed to squeeze in continuity, be the ruling principle of are just another type of “fauna,” a word as much irony and resonance as the con- composition: the complete change of that Vargas Llosa went on to use in trasting materials can produce. The place, milieu, mood, subject, and char- novel after novel, not with detachment effects are often more soupy than sym- acters.” Though this may sound like the or revulsion but, rather, with a sort of phonic, but Vargas Llosa has compul- equivalent of Vargas Llosa’s own alter- zookeeper’s tenderness for his charges. sively retained the method, to the point nations and narrative shifts—the sta- Despite continual manipulations of of itsWorldMags.net becoming a trademark. tion manager objects to Camacho’s 80 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 “modernist gimmicks”—Camacho’s exposition and a detached point of view is a horrifying epic of castration, rape, transitions are a matter not of painstak- that keeps Casement’s tumultuous inner gangrene, and vultures—the brutal and ing design but of manic,WorldMags.net uncontrollable life at an oddly chilly remove. pointless suppression of a harum-scarum movement, suggestive of the whirligig A few decades before the Boom, Pe- utopia peopled with ex-slaves, healers, that art, life, and the subconscious all ru’s Indigenista movement sought to lo- outlaws, peddlers, and pilgrims. ride together. cate the country’s literary identity in One might expect Vargas Llosa to “Aunt Julia” is a silly, first-rate book, tribal lore and native legends. Though identify with the cultured, skeptical capacious enough to make room even leery of the “demagoguery and aesthet- baron whose hacienda is torched during for some touches of magical realism: icism” that sentimental primitivism can the conflict, and who sees politics as Camacho’s suitcase could no more hold engender, Vargas Llosa nonetheless tried “an inane, depressing occupation.” But all the acting costumes that are said to coming to terms with the movement’s his surrogate turns out to be a “near- be in it than the single valise in García legacy in “The Storyteller” (1987). The sighted journalist,” who, during the Márquez’s “Chronicle of a Death Fore- book’s narrator goes off in search of a mayhem, lets himself be galvanized told” could contain nearly two thousand friend from university days, an ethnol- from timid chronicler to ecstatic ad- unopened love letters. As the novel ogist who has deliberately lost himself herent. The novelist does much the quickens and builds, the soap-opera inside the Machiguenga tribe along the same. Moments of the book are madly plots get tangled. The pharmaceutical Amazon. “This, too, was Peru,” the nar- compelling—unlike “The Storyteller” salesman who had the road accident rator says, “a world still untamed, the or the Casement novel, it feels driven morphs into the pensión owner stabbed Stone Age, magico-religious cultures, by obsession, not obligation—but the by a crazy boarder, before presenting polygamy, head-shrinking . . . that is to allegorical dimension that Vargas Llosa himself as a potential husband for the say, the dawn of human history.” Var- hoped for (“We have a living Canudos woman who began carrying her broth- gas Llosa blends his quest with tales in the Andes,” he pointed out, with the er’s child many episodes before. Like from the hablador, or tribal storyteller, Shining Path in mind) is never clearly Vargas Llosa, Mario weds the much that his friend has become, immersing focussed; the material is too religious older, juicy, and brash sister-in-law of the reader in a wearying flow of cre- and outré, and the writer’s ability to his uncle. (Vargas Llosa’s more endur- ation stories, conversations with fireflies, give his heart to the rebellion isn’t an ing second marriage was to a cousin.) and fabulist factoids: “When you cook expression of his democratic stance but Camacho’s inability to unsnarl the a talking monkey, the air is filled with a vacation from it. threads of his soap operas mirrors Var- the smell of tobacco, they say.” Another twenty years passed be- gas Llosa’s admission, decades later, Vargas Llosa’s more striking encoun- fore Vargas Llosa found his way to his that he can no longer distinguish “mem- ters with politics and history have come political masterpiece, “The Feast of ories and flights of fancy” in the de- when, looking for material, he has the Goat” (2000), a blazing re-creation tails of Mario’s autobiographical story left Peru. He found his most consum- of the 1961 assassination that put an line. ing subject for historical fiction over end to Rafael Trujillo’s three-decade the Brazilian border, in the eighteen- rule in the Dominican Republic. s a young man, Vargas Llosa thought nineties Canudos insurrection. Under Avoiding the biographical trap of his A of becoming a historian, and he the sway of a magnetic preacher known Casement book, he focusses as much developed a colorful, Carlylean sense of on Trujillo’s henchmen, sycophants, the field’s possibilities. Even after he and assassins as on the strongman him- committed himself to fiction, the desire self, who is richly bedevilled by the to find a deep-seated cultural explana- Church, his prostate, and the advent tion for Peru’s political failures period- of John F. Kennedy. Parts of the novel ically drove him into the country’s past. are realized with the specificity of a In “The Dream of the Celt” (2010), he roman à clef—the dictator’s most re- imagined the early-twentieth-century liable and physically repulsive flunky, investigation by the British consul Roger a man whose multiple offices and vile Casement into the atrocities commit- manners are rendered in squalidly ted by the Peruvian Amazon Compa- as the Counselor, a band of rebels in the funny Homeric catalogues, is said to ny’s “rubber barons” against indigenous state of Bahia had defied the new Bra- be based on a Fujimora-era Peruvian laborers. The novel also follows Case- zilian federal republic to form a break- congressman. Yet it achieves its gran- ment, an Irish nationalist, as he is vilified away state that abolished property and deur through the fictional Urania for the homosexual encounters described championed both free love and religious Cabral, a woman who returns to Santo in his journals and eventually executed devotion. It took the republic four sav- Domingo decades after her father, an for treason. The material is rich, but the age military expeditions before the set- official seeking to recover from a tem- conundrums particular to historical fic- tlement at Canudos—today an artifi- porary loss of favor, pimped her out tion here trip up the novelist. “The cial lake—was wiped out. Vargas Llosa’s to the dictator. Emotionally cauter- Dream of the Celt” was so arduously rendition of this episode, in “The War ized by the experience, she reappears researched that it reads almost entirely of the End of the World” (1981), his in middle age to confront her dying like nonfiction, with dialogue stilted by longestWorldMags.net book and his personal favorite, parent. She recalls the night of her THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 81 proffering, when Trujillo recited Neruda’s here—but his heart retains an elemen- story into the hands of a private eye and poetry and poured out his troubles: tal decency. Homesick for Piura, prone a shrink; the possibility is even raised WorldMags.netto falling in love with hookers, he as- that this precocious sexual manipulator She tried not to look at his body, but sometimes her eyes moved along his soft suages his loneliness and lust by listen- may have had a spiritual experience and belly, white pubis, small, dead sex, hairless ing to the erotic adventures of his dep- become an angel. legs. This was the Generalissimo, the Bene- uty. He waits to be killed or kidnapped “The Discreet Hero” is most mem- factor of the Nation, the Father of the New Nation, the Restorer of Financial Indepen- himself, and wonders, as did more so- orable for its optimism (Silva, for whom dence. The Chief whom Papa had served for phisticated people in the same period, Lituma still works, cracks his case), and thirty years with devotion and loyalty, and whether only magic can explain the vi- for the way in which Don Rigoberto is presented with a most delicate gift: his fourteen-year-old daughter. olence around him. forced away from his etchings and pho- It is hard to imagine Vargas Llosa’s nograph records and into the “sordid “The Feast of the Goat” operates in a new novel without Lituma. Although warp and woof ” of the world he has way that is more personal than pan- it contains up-to-the-minute references scorned. “My God,” he thinks, “what oramic; it remains intimate and local, a to Justin Bieber and social media, “The stories ordinary life devised; not mas- character-driven tale instead of a con- Discreet Hero” feels retrospective in a terpieces to be sure, they were doubt- scious historical enterprise, and in so personal and perhaps valedictory way, a less closer to Venezuelan, Brazilian, Co- doing it becomes the first great politi- fulfillment of themes and characters that lombian, and Mexican soap operas than cal novel of the twenty-first century. have populated his work for decades. to Cervantes and Tolstoy. But then again Much of it is set in Lituma’s Piura, now not so far from Alexandre Dumas, Émile or nearly sixty years, Vargas Llosa a fast-developing and prosperous city. Zola, Charles Dickens, or Bénito Pérez Fhas been welcoming a character The sergeant is said to have a double Galdós.” He even seems willing to ac- called Lituma, a police sergeant from chin and to be “close to fifty now”— cept the happy ending that Vargas Llosa the city of Piura, into his immense, never mind that a less novelistic math offers, one that invites this old rejec- restless œuvre. He first appears in “A would put him nearer to a hundred. Liv- tionist to remain, like the author, a fish Visitor,” a short story from the mid- ing alone in a boarding house, he is poor, in the water. As his family takes off on nineteen-fifties, tying up a suspect and in part, because he is fundamentally hon- a trip, Don Rigoberto feels “reconciled observing that he doesn’t think it will est: he has never taken a bribe, even with his son, with life. They had risen rain. He shows up more fully in Vargas though, in these post-Fujimori years, the above the cloud cover and a radiant sun Llosa’s second novel, “The Green House” country is awash in venality, beset by lit the interior of the plane.” (1965), where we learn of his youthful kidnappings that are no longer political Vargas Llosa has said that his first stretch in jail; of how his wife became but, rather, the means by which to make childhood compositions were continu- a prostitute; and of how he once fool- a bigger financial killing. Lituma blames ations of things he had read. As he ap- ishly started a game of Russian roulette. things on all the money coming over the proaches eighty, his works are the ex- Even so, the Sergeant Lituma who en- border from Ecuador and sighs about tension of things he has already written. dures over decades in book after book the supposed “price of progress.” He remains fundamentally true to his is mostly a malleable, decent Everyman, “The Discreet Hero,” an energetic earthy, non-utopian vision: what lies a mixed-race cholo stuck in the middle book with a more straightforward nar- below Don Rigoberto’s sun-filled plane of Peru’s race arrangements, a good- rative method than almost any other is what the author long ago accepted as natured grunt with whom Vargas Llosa Vargas Llosa novel, centers on an ex- an ideal of imperfection, a world “made has little autobiographical kinship but tortion plot against the self-made owner up of relative truths, in permanent di- about whom he was almost certainly of a local transport company, a good alogue,” always in medias res and never thinking in 1990, as he appealed to vot- man who refuses to pay, and whose son looking for the revolutionist’s Year Zero. ers by the million. and mistress may be in on the crime. It The new book is actually the only In “Who Killed Palomino Molero?” also brings the return of Don Rigoberto, one in whose title Vargas Llosa has ever (1986), a brief detective novel set in the the irresponsible aesthete through whom put the word “hero.” (His first novel may fifties, Lituma works a case with a Lieu- Vargas Llosa mentally dodged some of have reached English-language readers tenant Silva; he suffers nightmares, wor- the worst of the Peruvian eighties. Still as “The Time of the Hero,” but in Span- ries that he’s too fearful for the work bemoaning the “barbarism” of the coun- ish it was “La Ciudad y Los Per- he’s doing, and begins feeling a need to try beneath his window, Rigoberto is ros”—“The City and the Dogs.”) A understand evil. He rises to eponymous now sixty-two and ready to retire from “discreet hero”—in this novel, the ordi- status only once, in 1993, in “Lituma en the insurance company. His son, Fon- nary businessman resisting illegality— los Andes” (published in English as chito, however, is maturing with the borders on being a literary contradic- “Death in the Andes”), a novel in which same magic-realist slowness as Lituma: tion, someone insufficiently larger than Vargas Llosa makes him endure a haz- he should be easily past thirty but is still life, but such a figure is the essential ardous posting in a former mining town no more than fifteen, driving Don Rigo- component of a modest, meliorist dream, now beset by the murders and kidnap- berto and Doña Lucrecia to distraction one Vargas Llosa has sustained in times pings of the Shining Path. Lituma may with tales of an older man who keeps even darker than the present by noting have transgressed since he was last seen mysteriously appearing to him. The par- that “a novel is something, while despair by the reader—he’s only a corporal entsWorldMags.net finally put their doubts about his is nothing.”  82 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 BRIEFLYWorldMags.net NOTED

SATIN ISLAND, by Tom McCarthy (Knopf ). This experimental novel takes the form of a brilliant series of numbered digres- sions on parachute accidents, Lévi-Strauss, hub airports, and many other things. The narrator, who calls himself U., is an anthropologist working for the “Company” on something called the Koob-Sassen Project. The project’s goals are oblique, but its influence, we are told, is all-pervasive. U.’s job is to draw connections, and he does so with frenzied panache; an imagined presentation on oil spills concludes, “Is not the flow of oil the flow of time itself: slowly but inevitably crawling, in a series of identical, repeating pulses, to some final shore- line?” If the novel ultimately feels like a bravura display of empty rhetoric, who’s to say that’s not precisely the point?

ALL DAYS ARE NIGHT, by Peter Stamm, translated from the Ger- man by Michael Hofmann (Other Press). In this engrossing story of recovery, the host of a TV arts show wakes up in the hospital after a car accident. Her husband is dead, and she is disfigured. With a feeling of “weightlessness,” she goes over her life before the crash: her marriage, her career, her entan- glement with an artist named Hubert. As she prepares for reconstructive surgery, she wonders, “What’s left of me?” It’s a version of a question that has long troubled her. She’d hoped, when Hubert made images of her, “to be told something about myself.” Stamm switches between her viewpoint and his, as their experiences of art and disaster start to overlap.

MR. AND MRS. DISRAELI, by Daisy Hay (Farrar, Straus & Gir- oux). This intricate history takes aim at myths surrounding Benjamin Disraeli, the Victorian Prime Minister and nov- elist, and his wife, Mary Anne Lewis. From the start, their marriage provoked extreme reactions. She was a wealthy widow; he was Jewish, twelve years her junior, and mired in debt. Rumors of homosexuality (his) and desperation (hers), together with their often theatrical displays of affection, helped create an uncommonly gossipy historical record. Dis- raeli’s own mythmaking didn’t help. In numerous speeches, he romanticized Mary Anne, turning her into an ideal of womanhood. Hay reveals a reality both less sensational and more interesting: the Disraelis squabbled frequently, but their affection, if showy, was genuine.

WHY ACTING MATTERS, by David Thomson (Yale). In this con- sideration of the actor’s craft, a noted film historian anat- omizes favorite performances and speculates on ones that might have been (such as a Philip Seymour Hoffman Hamlet). Thomson demonstrates a subtle understanding of the mind-set of the actor, adept at storytelling, spying, lying, and secrecy. The ardent nature of Thomson’s fan- dom often turns this extended essay into hagiographies of Marlon Brando and Laurence Olivier, but he always re- turns to a central point: our lives are filled with repetition as we play the same roles day after day, but watching an extraordinary actor perform lets us imagine that another life is possible. WorldMags.net 83 characters who represent ruin in the world THE THEATRE (such as the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin, WorldMags.netwho figures so lushly and cruelly in the 2006 film Morgan co-wrote, “The Last LADY AND THE TRAMP King of Scotland”). Morgan’s celebrities do double duty: Helen Mirren and Larry David on Broadway. they act out the complications of being human while coping, or not coping, with BY HILTON ALS the public responsibility of fame—of in- habiting a narrative that the whole world o watch Larry David make his Broad- to know the chronology of the lives of reads and dumps its ideas into. While his Tway début, in his self-penned “Fish Robert Browning and Sigmund Freud English predecessor that genius scenar- in the Dark” (at the Cort), in the same than because they wanted a window into ist Dennis Potter described the effect of week that Helen Mirren stars as Queen those famous souls, through which the fantasy on ordinary life, Morgan, a ratio- Elizabeth II, in Peter Morgan’s “The Au- view would, inevitably, be romantic: didn’t nal surrealist—his pacing recalls Buñuel’s dience” (at the Gerald Schoenfeld), is to famous people live bigger, starrier lives late films—likes to burrow into the only learn something about the benefits and than the rest of us? Many contemporary thing that can remain obscure in a uni- the limitations of shtick. Derived from theatre artists have a similar romantic verse of the known: feelings. But what the Yiddish word shtik, meaning “an act” view but temper or critique it by apply- are feelings if they’re inseparable from or “a gimmick” (from the Ger- rumor or gossip? Morgan sug- man Stück, for “piece”), it can gests that the famous have to also refer to an adopted per- fight for the right to be “no- sona that is consistently body,” in Emily Dickinson’s maintained. David’s shtick is sense of the word (“How familiar to legions of fans of dreary to be somebody! / How his HBO show “Curb Your public, like a frog / To tell your Enthusiasm,” in which he name the livelong day / To an played a thin, sour-voiced TV admiring bog!”). writer and producer. Mirren’s Queen Elizabeth’s per- shtick, on the other hand, is sonal equerry (the very fine to transform herself into what Geoffrey Beevers) may be a she is not: in this case, Eliz- nobody beside the woman he abeth II, a role she first took serves, but it’s his access to on in the 2006 movie “The her fame and power that ac- Queen” (also written by Mor- counts for at least part of his gan), for which she won the stiff-backed, pissy hauteur. In Best Actress Academy Award. black boots, jacket, and sash, Mirren’s goal is not to reën- he walks to center stage and act but to interpret; she has addresses the audience: spent a considerable amount of time grappling with this Every week the Queen of the United Kingdom has a private real-life figure, and looking audience with her Prime Minis- at the divide between what a ter. The meeting takes place in famous woman is perceived the Private Audience Room lo- cated on the first floor of Buck- to be and what she actually ingham Palace. A large, duck- is—if she manages to hold egg-blue room. High ceilings, a fireplace, a Chippendale bu- on to some version of that. reau. Four gilt-framed paint- It would be a mistake to ings, two by Canaletto, two by walk into the Schoenfeld— Mirren plays Queen Elizabeth II in “The Audience.” Gainsborough. At the center of the room, two chairs made by or any other space where a François Hervé, acquired in so-called “historical drama” is playing ing it to anti-romantic characters—peo- 1826. Their original color was burgundy, but Queen Mary had them re-upholstered in these days—and expect a literal tran- ple we are fascinated by, but who can, at more optimistic yellow Dupioni silk. . . . Ac- scription of life. Veracity does not make times, make our flesh crawl. Morgan bor- cording to household rec ords, they were last excellent stage work; imagination and ex- rows extensively from history—the TV re-upholstered . . . just in time for an audi- ence with Her Majesty’s ninth Prime Minis- trapolation do. Years ago, Broadway au- interviewer David Frost’s notorious en- ter, on the 17th January, 1995. diences flocked to melodramas like Ru- counters with Richard Nixon were the dolf Besier’s “The Barretts of Wimpole basis of his 2006 smash, “Frost/Nixon,” The director of “The Audience,” Ste- Street” (1931) or Henry Denker’s “A Far for instance—to write stage and film es- phen Daldry, knows that facts are es- Country” (1961) less because they wanted saysWorldMags.net about fame, sometimes featuring sential to our understanding of myth. 84 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY CONOR LANGTON Working closely with Morgan’s long and Thatcher years—the vast divide between But there was a heart—a very real essentially plotless script—during the the haves and the have-nots, the racism, heart—in Fields’s best work, most of course of the play, ElizabethWorldMags.net meets with the willful ignorance about AIDS—can which took place in silence. The peren- eight of the Prime Ministers whose terms take royalty, let alone politics, to heart? nially modern Louise Brooks under- have coincided with her reign—he not Daldry and Mirren don’t ridicule Eliza- stood that Fields’s art was based on re- only shows us how the scene is assem- beth II; they ridicule her job and its end- jection. “As a young man, he stretched bled but makes its construction part of less mundanities, while focussing on the out his hand to Beauty and Love and his theatre magic, which is warmer than moments when she sneaks out from be- they thrust it away,” she wrote. David Brecht’s, but “alienated,” too. As the hind the discipline, the steely hair, the stomps on Beauty and Love to the great equerry talks, we see footmen position perfunctory half-smile. Elizabeth behaves delight of people who are too passive or the chairs in a sort of Christian Bérard- like a lady (legs crossed at the ankle, hand- polite to do it themselves. He’s not an influenced half-world. (Daldry is aided bag at the ready), even as she refuses to anarchist in the Lenny Bruce mode, or in the creation of his splendid world of perceive her gender as a limitation: a confused humanist, like Louis C.K. illusions by the designer Bob Crowley Instead, he preaches hatred through and the lighting designer Rick Fisher.) ELIZABETH: At least you HAD a formal education. I wasn’t that lucky. . . . self-hatred, a strident “Jewish” minstrelsy. The first Prime Minister to visit Her MAJOR: I’m curious. Was that because The comedy in “Fish in the Dark,” Majesty is the Conservative John Major you were . . . female? such as it is, has to do with family. We (a slightly frantic Dylan Baker), who is ELIZABETH: You’re ahead of me, Prime Min- meet Norman (David) in a Los Ange- ister. I was banking on the idea that I still AM. trying to turn the British economy around. MAJOR: I meant the home education. les hospital, where his father, Sidney As the two take their seats, Elizabeth ELIZABETH: You mean had my sister and I ( Jerry Adler), is dying; family mem- sighs, her face a mask of weary tolerance. been boys, would we have been sent to bers, including Norman, his brother boarding school? Probably. The conversation begins in absurdity: MAJOR: So you were victims of gender Arthur (Ben Shenkman), and their discrimination? MAJOR: I only ever wanted to be ordinary. mother, Gloria ( Jayne Houdyshell), are ELIZABETH: I suppose we were. Do you taking turns at Sidney’s bedside. Soon, A silence. The Queen stares. think I should sue? ELIZABETH: And in which way do you the secrets and revelations come crowd- consider you’ve failed in that ambition? MAJOR: What’s going on in my political Mirren is not a coquettish queen, but ing in, including the fact that the fam- life at the moment is just so EXTRAordinary. she is a sexy one, because she is so con- ily maid, Fabiana (Rosie Perez), has My government is tearing itself apart. . . . trolled, and such a good comedienne be- borne Sidney’s child, Diego ( Jake Can- And now Margaret sniping at me all the time from the wings. Claiming I am betraying her hind her cardigan, her sensible shoes, and navale). After the funeral, Norman and legacy. . . . We’re just all caught up in a tran- her pearls. She won’t let Elizabeth’s pale his brother argue over who should take sition that none of us yet fully understands. public persona neuter her, and she uses her care of their nag of a mother. In a bid And the papers are being so AWFUL. . . . ELIZABETH: It’s a dangerous business impassive stare, sometimes, the way a dom- to get her out of his house, Norman reading newspapers. . . . inatrix might when looking at a tiresome cooks up a scheme with Fabiana: Diego MAJOR: I know. I just can’t help myself. client. Must she whip him again? For Eliz- will go to Gloria as the ghost of Sid- Can’t walk past one of the things without pick- ing it up, hoping for a lift. And then I get crushed abeth, that would be about as exciting as ney’s younger self (he resembles the fa- when they’re so . . . VILE. Most of my political brushing that piece of lint off her skirt. ther he never knew) and persuade her life it was fine because I was generously over- Judith Ivey’s Thatcher could do with a to move in with Arthur. looked. . . . Did you know eighteen months be- fore I became Prime Minister just two per cent bit of that control. She’s so anxious to define Norman is a greedy, self-interested of the country had even heard of me? . . . When herself in opposition to the Queen—as schlemiel, not unlike the one David played I walk into a room, heads fail to turn. the country lass resentful of privilege— on “Curb Your Enthusiasm”—a stereo- ELIZABETH: (sighs) How lovely. . . . that you can barely make out what she’s type of loathing, who views everything Obscurity may be a dream of Elizabeth’s, saying behind the prosthetic teeth. Still, you through the lens of his own vindictive but she knows that it’s just that—a dream, can see the chip on her shoulder. She’s des- cowardice. The director, Anna D. Sha- which must be set aside in order for her perate for the Queen’s attention, and re- piro, moves bodies around the stage with to deal with the realities of her role as, sentful of her shopgirl’s need. The Queen little visible evidence that she’s concerned she jokes, “a postage stamp with a pulse.” understands that her Prime Ministers are about their inner lives, and rarely steps aspirants. They don’t want to be royals, but outside the Broadway machinery to reën- here is nothing like watching a great they want to be royally treated. Morgan’s vision the dreck she’s stuck with. (She Tdirector with a great star; the rela- play is as much a treatise on class resent- staged last year’s poor revival of “Of Mice tionship can and often does transcend ment as anything else, and Daldry knows and Men.”) And still I can’t help won- weak material. Morgan’s material is not that each of these characters is both more dering how she was able to reconcile her- lacklustre. There’s enough air in it for and less than human, representative of an self to this script, with its cynical manip- Mirren to interpret, and for Daldry to aspect of life, rather than life itself. ulation of sentimentality and humor, guide her interpretation and add an el- where even Grandma is craven, and it’s ement that only the stage can contain: ut for a show-business figure like standard for a man to use the word “cunt” camp. (This is especially true when Eliz- B Larry David is there a difference? to describe a woman—and then use it abeth recounts the story of her corona- His dyspeptic humor is, as far as I can again, for laughs, in his apology, as the tion: she is aglitter with her own celes- make out, most closely related to W. C. woman, stuck in her conventional wife- tial light.) What artist who survived the Fields’sWorldMags.net anti-utopian view of the world. shtick, looks on, disbelieving and silent. ♦ THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 85 spiky abstraction, probably of a thun- THE ART WORLD derbird, in red and black, which rivals WorldMags.netthe most exciting modern art. (Squint at it, and it can suggest the innovation MOVING PICTURES of an artist versed in but impatient with the aesthetic conventions of Art Deco.) Plains Indian art at the Metropolitan Museum. Other robes introduce a pictographic tradition, recording events in personal BY PETER SCHJELDAHL and tribal history, which climaxes with riveting late-nineteenth-century draw- ings of violent combat with soldiers, made in a ledger book (a common source of paper for Plains tribes at the time), by anonymous Northern and Southern Cheyenne artists. Except for a few ancient relics— the oldest a pipe in human form, from two millennia ago, which was found in Ohio—even the earliest works in the show evince contact with whites. Glass beads, acquired in trade, became a sta- ple of Plains Indian decorative artistry. Beadwork, metal cones, and cotton and silk cloth figure in a headdress from the Eastern Plains, circa 1780, along with local stuffs including bison horns, deer and horse hair, and porcupine quills. (The formal integration of so many elements into a shapely accou- trement of authority smacks of genius.) “The Grand Robe” (circa 1800-30), made by an artist from a Central Plains tribe. A menacing steel blade protrudes from a gracefully curved and tapered wooden t began with horses and ended in a million Native Americans in the en- war club, circa 1800-20, which its East- I massacre. The zenith of the cultures tire United States. What ensued is a ern Plains owner inscribed with a log that are celebrated in “The Plains In- story of reservations—including the of his conquests: pictures of seven peo- dians: Artists of Earth and Sky,” a won- immaterial sort, which trouble the ple, all but one of whom lack heads. drous show at the Metropolitan Mu- mind. But there’s an ameliorating ep- A boldly designed Comanche bridle, seum, lasted barely two hundred years. ilogue of revivals and transformations circa 1860, makes use of German silver, It started in 1680, when Pueblo Indi- of Plains heritage. an alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc. ans seized the steeds of Spanish set- The show, of some hundred and The Plains tribes’ adaptation of Euro- tlers whom they had driven out of what fifty artifacts, curated by Gaylord Tor- pean materials devolved, by the end of is now New Mexico. The horse turned rence (and coördinated by Judith the nineteenth century, into cottage- the scores of Plains tribes—river-val- Ostrowitz), is the most comprehen- industrial crafts for collectors and gift- ley farmers and hunter-gatherers who sive of its kind. It began at the Musée shop markets. (But some of those, to had used dogs as their beasts of bur- du Quai Branly, in Paris, whose col- this day, are aesthetically marvellous.) den—into a vast aggregate of mounted laboration accounts for many of the Just about everything in the exact- nomads, who ranged from the Missis- earliest items on view. French explor- ingly selected and elegantly installed sippi River to the Rocky Mountains, ers, missionaries, and traders were the show—war clubs, shields, garments, and from the Rio Grande into Can- first whites to encounter Plains Indi- headdresses, many pipes, bags, a sad- ada, hunting buffalo, trading, and war- ans, in territory that France ceded to dle blanket, a bear-claw necklace, dolls, ring with one another. The era ended the United States only in 1803, with cradleboards—impresses as a peak ar- with the killing of more than two hun- the Louisiana Purchase. (Lewis and tistic achievement. So high is the level dred Lakota men, women, and chil- Clark set out the next year.) The first of quality that it rather distracts, with dren by federal troops at Wounded seven of twenty superb items that are sheer pleasure, from the background Knee, South Dakota, in 1890. Mean- dated 1700-1820 come from the Branly. history and the anthropology of Na- while, epidemic smallpox and other The most astounding is “Robe with tive American experience. That’s good alien diseases took a toll far beyond Mythic Bird” (1700-40), from an un- if, having looked, you stay to reflect on that of military violence. The official known tribe of the Eastern Plains: a the lives that the objects comple- census of 1900 found only a quarter of tannedWorldMags.net buffalo hide pigmented with a mented. Notice that almost nothing BRANLY DU QUAI TORRE/MUSÉE GRIES AND VALÉRIE PATRICK COURTESY 86 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 on view bespeaks a settled existence ervation born,” of festivals, arts, schol- or the character of a particular loca- arship, and such religious expressions tion. The makers ofWorldMags.net the things sub- as the Native American Church and sisted on the move. Portability ruled. peyote ceremonies. The show ends with Plains art is a world apart from the sophisticated contemporary paintings, pottery of Southwestern tribes or the photographs, a video installation, and totems of the Northwest. (With just works in mixed media. two inventively carved wooden “feast Well-known Native American art- bowls,” the show suggests a relative in- ists who emerged in the nineteen-eight- difference on the part of Plains tribes ies—notably the conceptualist and to rituals of cooking and eating.) The sculptor Edgar Heap of Birds and the art was preoccupied with religious ob- painter and assemblagist Jaune Quick- servation and war—fighting that was to-See Smith—epitomize both the often governed by the performance force and the burden of identity poli- of “counting coup.” A Plains warrior tics in art. A red-lettered sign, in enamel won prestige by physically touching on aluminum, by Heap of Birds is from an enemy—fatally or not—and get- a public-art series, of 1990, that me- ting away. For each coup, he might be morializes forty Dakota Indians hanged awarded, quite literally, a feather in his in Minnesota in 1862 and 1865. Quick- cap. The European style of conflict— to-See Smith’s “Trade (Gifts for Trad- organized slaughter—tended to con- ing Lands with White People)” (1992), fuse as well as to scandalize the native a large painting with photographic im- Plains peoples, who effectively mas- ages and attached objects, amounts, for tered it only under Sitting Bull and a viewer, to a pitched battle between Crazy Horse, at the Little Bighorn, in furiously exercised virtuosity and illus- 1876, by which time it was too late to trated polemics. But such efforts now make a strategic difference. seem to have been necessary to estab- A richly informative essay, in the lish grounds for more relaxed recover- show’s catalogue, by the Oglala Lakota ies of tribal motives and forms, as in artist and writer Arthur Amiotte de- an intricate, stunningly lovely feath- scribes the ethos of Plains Indians as ered fan—or is it a sculpture of a fan?— based in rites of passage, for men, and titled “We Pray for Rain” (2011), by in principles of endurance, for all: “cour- the young Navajo artist Monty Claw. age without complaint.” Elders were re- What sinks in, as you absorb the vered as conveyors of tradition. “The show, is the spiritual spell of the Great quality of hide tanning, tailoring, and Plains—an essence that will resonate decoration was the hallmark of an ac- with anyone who has spent time on complished, talented, and industrious the prairie. Standing out there, you are woman,” while “a man counted his at once dwarfed to nearly nothing and wealth in the number of fine trained made the dead center of everything horses he owned.” Religious beliefs var- that is. This inescapable paradox makes ied, but many tribes staged summertime living sense of works that, whether Sun Dance ceremonies, which entailed drawn or carved or beaded or feath- gruelling tests for young men. In line ered, invariably broadcast qualities of with federal policies of forced assimila- painstaking, economical craft and jolts tion, full observance of Native Ameri- of resilient pride. There is a singleness can rituals was proscribed from 1883 to each of them, preserving the here until 1978, when the American Indian and the now of its making by an indi- Religious Freedom Act was passed. vidual who was an intimate of bound- The popular perception of Native lessness, impelled often to move on American identity passed to Wild West with the maximum practicable speed. shows (in a grainy film clip at the Met, The enchantment of the prairie will we glimpse Buffalo Bill and galloping be a pretty lonesome transcendence for braves) and, of course, the movies, which most of us. (You get back in the car. appropriately are not addressed in the Turn the key. Find a motel.) It hardly show, since they were solely about the grants access to the subtleties of Plains attitudes of non-Indian audiences. But Indian worship and philosophy, but it the past half century has seen a surge, affords a vision that, once wholly theirs, led by “the fourth generation to be res- is nowWorldMags.net perforce also ours.  THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 87 remains a patron saint of Disney—far THE CURRENT CINEMA more so than the Grimms, who gave WorldMags.netus, in dripping detail, the stepsisters’ valiant efforts to make the slipper fit. YOUNG LOVE (One of them amputated her toes; the other sliced off a chunk of her heel.) “Cinderella” and “It Follows.” The father’s role, in many versions of the tale, was dismayingly dark, either BY ANTHONY LANE compliant with the abuse of his child or tarred with incest. New Disney, on the other hand, follows old Disney by arranging for the father’s demise, and thus for the enshrining of his virtue, although I did catch the breath of some- thing creepy in the closeups of Ben Chaplin’s fond and proprietary smirk. So what will summon children to the film? Not, I suspect, the exalting of courage and kindness in Weitz’s screenplay, which will leave them feel- ing more badgered than convinced; or the animated short, “Frozen Fever,” that will be shown with “Cinderella,” and which struck me as sickly and con- fused. Rather, what crowns the movie, flourishing the fullness of its purpose, is color. When, with the ball afoot, our heroine’s gown is converted from a de- Lily James and Cate Blanchett in Kenneth Branagh’s version of the fairy tale. mure and serviceable pink to an em- pyrean blue, starred all over with crys- he tone of the new “Cinderella” is What are we to make of this? It is tals as if it were cut from the night sky, Tset in an early scene, when the her- a Disney production, written by Chris the girls in the movie theatre—fans of oine’s mother declares, “I believe in ev- Weitz and directed by Kenneth Branagh, the full-length “Frozen,” I presume— erything.” O.K., here it is. For the next and it’s all in live action, brocaded with will not only swoon but get the hint hundred minutes or more, we get the special effects, and deeply in debt to that Cinderella is now ready to be royal. story straight, with no strings or second the animated version of 1950. Indeed, You could try telling them that they thoughts attached. Cinderella (Lily there is barely a frame of Branagh’s film are being drugged by sexist and impe- James) is the child of a loving mother that would cause Uncle Walt to finger rialist archetypes that lost their potency (Hayley Atwell) and an equally doting his mustache with disquiet. The effect decades, if not centuries, ago, but stand father (Ben Chaplin). They dwell in a is to erase any memory not just of by to be strangled with your own Twiz- meadow-girt house—a small and cloud- DreamWorks’ “Shrek” franchise, where zlers. Some myths just will not go away. less kingdom of their own—inside a Pinocchio gags were tossed around like The same is true of the tresses. Bra- larger kingdom that is smilingly ruled toys, but also of Disney’s own “En- nagh’s coiffure, when he played Reinhard by an elderly monarch (Derek Jacobi), chanted,” which held up the figures of Heydrich, in “Conspiracy” (2001), was soon to be succeeded by his merry yet legend, like the prince and the sugar- dyed to an Aryan lightness that made thoughtful son, Kit (Richard Madden). sweet maiden, as if in quotation marks. him frightening to behold, but, in the Cinderella’s mother dies, very gently, and At a time when that deconstructive spectrum of fairy tales, that won’t wash. her place is taken by a stepmother (Cate urge is the norm, and in an area of fic- Even if you haven’t read Marina War- Blanchett) and her querulous daughters tion—the fairy tale—that has been ner’s “From the Beast to the Blonde” (a (Holliday Grainger and Sophie McShera). trampled by critical theory, Branagh book that every legend-hunter should Cinderella’s father dies, on a journey, has delivered a construction project so own), you can scarcely miss the favor leaving her to be bullied and put to work. solid, so naïve, and so rigorously stripped that is routinely shown, by Perrault and When a ball is held at the royal palace, of irony that it borders on the heroic. his peers, to the flaxen-haired. Gentle- she is stopped from going by the step- You could call it “Apocalypse Never.” men prefer blondes, and they marry them. mother, only to be rescued and reclothed The principal source here is Charles Life, like the complexion of villains, isn’t by a fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Perrault, whose cluster of fairy stories, fair. That is why, in this latest “Cinder- Carter). Onward we dance, to the end- published in 1697, introduced the ella,” no fewer than three brunettes— ing that no spoiler can harm. The slip- pumpkins and the godmother. With Lily James, Helena Bonham Carter, and per is fashioned from glass, and it fits. thatWorldMags.net love of transformative magic, he Hayley Atwell—are kitted out with 88 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN JAY CABUAY neck-ricking heaps of golden locks, while from deep and rustling—suggesting not passed on, it will dispatch its vic- the one true blonde, Cate Blanchett, that her character, however sophisti- tim, then work its way back to you. becomes a vulpine orange-red.WorldMags.net As com- cated, has emerged like a primitive leg- “It Follows” is a fine title, blending pensation for this old-school moral pal- end from some Germanic forest—to a logician’s briskness with the job de- ette, the movie is granted a broader ra- an acidic lime sheen that would, we s cription of a stalker, and David Robert cial range; the king presides over a multi - feel, be poisonous to the touch. Al- Mitchell, the writer and director, has fun ethnic land, and his son’s black sidekick though her braying laugh is perhaps with his various predators. Some are old, (Nonso Anozie) proves crucial to unit- too vulgar a honk for an actress as sly others young. The most memorable is a ing the lovers. Branagh is at ease with as Blanchett, she atones for it with a naked, graying fellow perched on the roof this equality, not making a big deal of it, delicious scene in which, on a private of a house, staring at Jay as she drives just as his “Much Ado About Nothing” visit, she meets the Grand Duke (Stel- away, and the freakiest assails her in a (1993) was improved and beautified by lan Skarsgård). He is the court’s resi- swimming pool. (He also resembles her the presence of Denzel Washington, even dent bad apple, and the two of them father, as briefly seen in a photograph. if the film was a shade too sunny for that have plans. “Are you threatening me?” Try not to think about that.) In the wake troubled play. he asks. “Yes,” she says, with the calm- of another Detroit film, Jim Jarmusch’s The production designer, on the new ness of a seducer. Could they be en- “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Mitchell seeks movie, is Dante Ferretti, a trusted col- twined in anything more than the wish to conjure not just an atmosphere but a laborator of Scorsese and Fellini. (Forty to thwart Cinderella? Let’s just say it distinct genre: slacker-horror. Of course, years before “Cinderella,” he designed was no surprise to learn, in the final “It Follows” can be parsed as a parable of Pasolini’s “Salò, or the 120 Days of voice-over, that the two of them quit promiscuity, yet what nags at you is its Sodom.” It’s been a long journey.) You the kingdom, and were never seen again. dazed and aimless air. Jay and her friends can gauge Ferretti’s influence not just And they both lived hotly ever after. go from hanging out to freaking out, then in the lushness of the rooms but in the back to hanging out, and the risk that we doorways that frequently frame the ac- nother country, another blonde, and might be bored by watching bored young tion; in leading our gaze from one room A another danger in store. The her- folk, whatever their apprehensions, is not into the next, they kindle a quiet be- oine of “It Follows” is a teen-ager named one that Mitchell wholly avoids. His lief that we are not so much watching Jay (Maika Monroe), who, lacking a opening shot, with its placid suburban a story as glimpsing or overhearing it, golden coach, has to settle for the back street, reminds you of Haddonfield, Illi- much as it was told and retold through seat of a car, in a desolate parking lot, nois, where Jamie Lee Curtis was pur- time. As for the costumes, I imagine in Detroit. Like Cinderella, she’s into a sued in “Halloween,” and the director of that the Academy Award already has guy she barely knows, but there the sim- that movie, John Carpenter, supplied a Sandy Powell’s name on it, and has ilarity ends. The guy is no prince, and, throbbing electronic score that is con- been shoved in a drawer until she can after they’ve made love, he ties her up stantly echoed here. I happen to prefer swing by and pick it up next year. To and explains what is going to happen. the extreme unslackness of “Halloween,” date, she has ten nominations and three He won’t hurt her, but something will—a and the resourceful pluck of Curtis, to wins. One more won’t hurt. demonic plague that takes the form of the dreamier dread of Maika Monroe. The most telling shot in “Cinder- a different person, walking slowly and Nonetheless, like her pursuers, “It Fol- ella” is the first entrance of the step- unstoppably toward you, every time you lows” won’t leave you alone.  mother, the train of whose outfit we see it, but which remains invisible to gawk at, from behind, well before we others. You catch it by having sex, and see her face. (And even that is veiled.) you get rid of it by having sex with some- newyorker.com The greens that Blanchett wears run body else, although here’s the thing: if Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS, UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, PHOTOGRAPHS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS, UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY THE NEW YORKER IN WRITING. WorldMags.net THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 16, 2015 89 WorldMags.netCARTOON 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 Drew Dernavich, must be received by Sunday, March 15th. The finalists in the February 23rd & March 2nd contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the March 30th issue. The winner receives a signed print of the cartoon. Any resident of the United States, Canada (except Quebec), Australia, the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland age eighteen or over can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THE WINNING CAPTION

THE FINALISTS

“My bedroom? That’s where the sleep happens.” Christopher Monley, Redford, Mich. “We have to move out—I just sold a painting.” Pedram Razavi, Palo Alto, Calif. “It’s not what it looks like.” Caitlin McShea, Santa Fe, N.M.

“You seemed disillusioned.” Maggie Tishman, Brooklyn, N.Y.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

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