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PRICE $8.99 MAY 8, 2017 MAY 8, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jelani Cobb on the death penalty in Arkansas; the Big Book in L.A.; after the Oregon stando; a bio-pic about Emily Dickinson; Jimmy Webb. LETTER FROM FRANCE Lauren Collins Can the Center Hold? Notes from a free-for-all election. SHOUTS & MURMURS Ann Beattie Flood Airlines ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS Andrew Marantz The Best Medicine Kumail Nanjiani turns pain into comedy. THE POLITICAL SCENE Evan Osnos Endgames How could Trump be removed from oce? A R E P O RT E R AT L A RG E Michael Grabell Cut to the Bone Using immigration law to exploit workers. FICTION Yiyun Li “A Small Flame” THE CRITICS BOOKS Garth Greenwell Édouard Louis’s “The End of Eddy.” Alexandra Schwartz The fiction of Grace Paley. Briefly Noted THE ART WORLD Peter Schjeldahl A Louise Lawler retrospective. THE THEATRE Hilton Als A sequel to “A Doll’s House.” POEMS Ryan Fox “And Both Hands Wash the Face” Sophie Cabot Black “Chorus and Anti-chorus” COVER Bruce Eric Kaplan “Man’s Best Friend” DRAWINGS Amy Hwang, Sam Marlow, Drew Dernavich, Mike Twohy, Will McPhail, Liana Finck, David Sipress, Harry Bliss, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Roz Chast, William Haefeli, Barbara Smaller, Seth Fleishman, Paul Noth, Trevor Spaulding SPOTS Pablo Amargo CONTRIBUTORS Lauren Collins (“Can the Center Hold?,” Evan Osnos (“Endgames,” p. 34) writes p. 20) is the author of “When in French: about politics and foreign afairs for Love in a Second Language,” which the magazine. His book, “Age of Am- was published in September. bition,” won the 2014 National Book Award for nonfiction. Andrew Marantz (“The Best Medicine,” p. 28) has been contributing to the mag- Alexandra Schwartz (Books, p. 66) is a azine since 2011. staf writer. Peter Schjeldahl (The Art World, p. 72), Michael Grabell (“Cut to the Bone,” p. 46) the magazine’s art critic, is the author writes about immigration and labor is- of “Let’s See: Writings on Art from sues for ProPublica. His piece is a col- The New Yorker.” laboration between The New Yorker and ProPublica. Yiyun Li (Fiction, p. 54) has written sev- eral books, including the novel “Kinder Sophie Cabot Black (Poem, p. 50) has Than Solitude.” Her memoir, “Dear published three books of poetry, in- Friend, from My Life I Write to You in cluding, most recently, “The Exchange.” Your Life,” came out this year. She lives in New England. Garth Greenwell (Books, p. 62) is the Bruce Eric Kaplan (Cover) has contrib- author of the novel “What Belongs to uted more than eight hundred and fifty You,” which was published last year. cartoons and nine covers to the maga- zine since 1991. His most recent book Jelani Cobb (Comment, p. 15), a staf is “I Was a Child,” a memoir. writer, is a professor of journalism at Columbia University. His most recent Sarah Larson (The Talk of the Town, book is “The Substance of Hope: Barack p. 19) writes about pop culture for Obama and the Paradox of Progress.” newyorker.com. NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. DAILY SHOUTS PHOTO BOOTH Using the classic form of the political Andrea K. Scott writes about cartoon, Edward Steed deftly explains Sara Cwynar’s portraits and the the current moment. meaning of rose gold. SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) COURTESYSARA PRODUCTIONCWYNAR/FOXYSTEED; RIGHT: EDWARD LEFT: 2 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 8, 2017 THE MAIL RACISM AND BARBECUE sine,” April 24th). Once, after eating an edible and getting really high, I tried a I read with interest Lauren Collins’s ar- seafood soup at a Thai restaurant in my ticle about the racist barbecue baron Mau- neighborhood. I had never tasted any- rice Bessinger, and his family’s handling thing so delicious, and I moaned with of his legacy (“Secrets in the Sauce,” April pleasure with each spoonful. The next 24th). Collins writes that “barbecue might week, I returned to the restaurant, eager be America’s most political food,” citing to try the soup again. This time, I was the social and civic role of barbecue feasts sober. The soup was . O.K. Nothing in American history. Barbecue has also special. I have replicated this dining ex- been used as a metaphor for the lynch- periment many times, always with the ing of black bodies, and was a social and same outcome. Which of these experi- civic ritual of white supremacy. In 1916, ences was “real”? Could it be that the the black teen-ager Jesse Washington marvellous flavors I experience when I was lynched in Waco, Texas. Afterward, am high are made possible because the his body was mutilated and burned. The part of my brain that limits taste sensa- murder was a public spectacle—a party, tions is turned of ? And, if that’s the case, even, with white women and children in why wouldn’t one wish to be transported attendance—and professional photogra- to gustatory heaven as often as possible? phers took pictures, which they sold as Simone LaDrumma souvenir postcards. One of these post- 1Seattle, Wash. cards, which survives, has a handwritten inscription: “This is the barbecue we had THE INSTAGRAM LIFE last night. Your son, Joe.” Julia Lee Rachel Monroe’s depiction of Emily King Los Angeles, Calif. and Corey Smith—who live out of their van and use corporate sponsors to sup- Maurice Bessinger’s son Lloyd claims port their surfing, biking, and yoga—re- that he doesn’t know how he can make veals the degree to which we have lost amends for his father’s racism. “I’m not ourselves in social media (“#Vanlife,” April objecting to doing that,” he told Collins. 24th). The excitement that I felt reading “I just need to know what that is.” If you the article’s opening paragraphs, which claim to have good intentions, then do describe young people finding meaning something good. How hard is that? Con- in the natural world, quickly turned to tribute to a scholarship fund. Canvass for disgust over the insidious means through a voter-registration drive in an African- which corporate sponsorships are driv- American neighborhood. Give money ing consumerism. Do King and Smith to the N.A.A.C.P. Donate resources to really believe that they are still free spir- help restore black churches that have its, despite constantly worrying about been attacked. Join the action to remove product placement and their Instagram the last Confederate flags. There’s a very following? Regardless of their initial in- long list of things that Bessinger could tent, they have become de-facto agents do. It doesn’t take much imagination to of the marketing behemoth whose phi- make amends, but it does take genuine losophy runs exactly counter to the hip- good will. pie ideal that they espouse. Ann Terry Arup De 1Bellerose, N.Y. Delmar, N.Y. TA S T E B U DS • Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, Lizzie Widdicombe’s article on Laurie address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited Wolf and edible marijuana got me think- for length and clarity, and may be published in ing about the diference between what any medium. We regret that owing to the volume is “real” and what is “unreal” (“High Cui- of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE NEW YORKER, MAY 8, 2017 3 MAY 3 – 9, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN The spindly compositions that Valerie Teicher records as Te i S h i are fierce in their modesty, making spare use of whispered high notes and loud screams for a well-studied blend of Janet and Gwen. On May -, the Buenos Aires native performs her début record, “Crawl Space,” at Rough Trade; the record’s nimble R. & B. is broken up deftly by home recordings she has saved since childhood. “I’m a bad singer, I confess it,” a young Teicher warns through cassette hiss. At twenty-six, she’s grown into her voice, and her tone is just as brave. PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION BY CARMEN DANESHMANDI song contest in 1945, whose members all served in or were widowed by the Second World War— is that the actors play their own instruments. THE THEATRE There’s little else to recommend it: Andy Blan- 1 kenbuehler’s direction and choreography are often sti and cluttered, Richard Oberacker and Rob- OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS celebrating white privilege. (3LD Art & Technol- ert Taylor’s songs are forgettable, and Corey Cott ogy Center, 80 Greenwich St. 800-838-3006. In pre- makes an unsympathetic leading man. It’s brazen views. Opens May 9.) the way it scolds showbiz for exploiting veterans Arlington while indulging in similar shtick. And it’s risible The Irish playwright Enda Walsh wrote and di- Venus the way it excludes nonwhite Americans from its rects this Orwellian tale o a man monitoring a Suzan-Lori Parks’s play, directed by Lear deBes- versions both o the war and o jazz music: aside young woman in the waiting room o a tower. sonet, is inspired by the life o Saartjie Baartman, from a single, strictly peripheral black actor in a (St. Ann’s Warehouse, 45 Water St., Brooklyn. 718- a South African woman who became a nineteenth- cast o twenty-one and the most eeting o ref- 254-8779. In previews.) century sideshow attraction because o her large erences to Fats Waller and Duke Ellington, it’s posterior.