PRICE $8.99 NOV. 13, 2017

NOVEMBER 13, 2017

7 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 25 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Steve Coll on the President’s turbulent year; Stuyvesant reflects; a write-in move; Souza’s Obama; atop the Panorama. THE POLITICAL SCENE Jeffrey Toobin 32 Trump’s Inheritor Tom Cotton and the future of the G.O.P. SKETCHBOOK Roz Chast 39 “Wine Review” ANNALS OF LAW Ken Armstrong 40 Conflicting Convictions When prosecutors use contradictory evidence. OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS Ian Frazier 46 Clear Passage Making space for ships by saving a bridge. SHOWCASE Richard Avedon 53 “Nothing Personal” A REPORTER AT LARGE Larissa MacFarquhar 56 Our Town What makes a rural community thrive? FICTION Thomas McGuane 66 “Riddle” THE CRITICS THE THEATRE Hilton Als 70 “People, Places & Things.” BOOKS Adam Gopnik 74 Philip Roth’s collected nonfiction. 77 Briefly Noted POP MUSIC Carrie Battan 78 The hip-hop-infused R. & B. of Ty Dolla $ign. DANCING Joan Acocella 80 Mark Morris’s “Layla and Majnun.” MUSICAL EVENTS Alex Ross 82 John Eliot Gardiner conducts Monteverdi. THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 84 “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” POEMS Rebecca Hazelton 50 “Generic Husband” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 63 “Above the Mountaintops” COVER Jenny Kroik “At the Strand”

DRAWINGS Benjamin Schwartz, Emily Flake, Amy Hwang, Harry Bliss, Liana Finck, Maddie Dai, Glen Le Lievre, Frank Cotham SPOTS Hugo Guinness

CONTRIBUTORS

Larissa MacFarquhar (“Our Town,” Ken Armstrong (“Conflicting Convic- p. 56), a staff writer, is the author of tions,” p. 40) is a co-author of “A False “Strangers Drowning.” Report: A True Story of Rape in Amer- ica,” coming out in February. The ar- Ian Frazier (“Clear Passage,” p. 46) most ticle in this issue was published in part- recently published “Hogs Wild: Se- nership with the Marshall Project, a lected Reporting Pieces” and is work- nonprofit news organization covering ing on a book about the Bronx. the U.S. criminal-justice system.

Rebecca Hazelton (Poem, p. 50) is the Roz Chast (Sketchbook, p. 39), a New author of the poetry collections “Fair Yorker cartoonist since 1978, is the au- Copy” and “Vow” and a co-editor of the thor of, most recently, “Going Into anthology “The Manifesto Project.” Town: A Love Letter to New York.”

Thomas McGuane (Fiction, p. 66) began Alex Ross (Musical Events, p. 82), a staff regularly contributing short fiction to writer, is the author of “The Rest Is the magazine in 1994. His latest book, Noise” and “Listen to This.” “Cloudbursts: Collected and New Sto- ries,” comes out in March. Jenny Kroik (Cover) is an illustrator. This is her first cover for the magazine. Joan Acocella (Dancing, p. 80) became the magazine’s dance critic in 1998. Her Steve Coll (Comment, p. 25), a staff latest book is “Twenty-eight Artists writer, is the dean of Columbia Uni- and Two Saints,” a collection of essays. versity’s School of Journalism.

Jeffrey Toobin (“Trump’s Inheritor,” Carrie Battan (Pop Music, p. 78) is a con- p. 32) is the author of “American Heir- tributor to newyorker.com. She has also ess: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, written for the Times Magazine, GQ, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst.” and Bloomberg Businessweek.

NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more.

PHOTO BOOTH PODCAST Hilton Als on Richard Avedon John Cassidy discusses Robert and James Baldwin’s joint Mueller’s indictments and the exploration of American identity. Republican tax plan.

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4 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 THE MAIL

WHEN THE ROBOTS TAKE OVER Kolhatkar’s article mentions the steady decrease in job opportunities for people Having worked as a manufacturing en- without a college degree. This points to gineer for forty-five years, and having a greater problem: the ever-growing installed fifteen robotic manufacturing achievement gap in high schools. Here systems, I was impressed by Sheelah in Atlanta, as in many other metro areas, Kolhatkar’s comprehensive piece on standardized-test results reveal that stu- how robotics and artificial intelligence dents at magnet tech schools in the sub- are replacing human workers (“Dark urbs have been outperforming their urban Factory,” October 23rd). The world of counterparts for years. The latter group manufacturing is undergoing rapid will not be able to participate as fully in changes, and the number of highly the workforce in the future, and that will skilled people who are needed to de- seriously limit the nation’s economic sign, program, test, install, and service growth. If more factories are employing the robots and the manufacturing sys- fewer workers, and only workers who are tems does not come close to the num- highly skilled, then the companies that ber of people who have lost their jobs own those factories have a social respon- to these technologies. We should all be sibility to acknowledge this changing en- concerned about where humans will fit vironment, and to prepare our students in in the future, not only in the manu- for it. Perhaps we should explore an facturing sector but also in aviation, incentive-based system of reducing tax finance, medicine, transportation, and rates for corporations that assist in train- construction. Sometime in the next ing our future workforce. twenty-five to two hundred years, A.I. Darwin L. Brown will be capable of writing its own code, Atlanta, Ga. and will do it much faster and better than humans. We need to think very In my career as a foreign-service officer, seriously about that, and take steps to I spent a significant amount of time in avoid the scenario depicted on R. Kikuo places that had tried using one or another Johnson’s cover of the magazine. variant of a universal basic income to fix Robert B. Price problems stemming from economic in- Delanson, N.Y. equality. In my experience, they all ended badly for citizens in every income bracket. While it is true that the world has If we overtax high earners, at some point endured several technological revolu- they will respond by producing less or in- tions reasonably well, it seems naïve vesting less (or both). The result is a down- to suppose that past performance is ward spiral in economic activity and a re- an indicator of future success. Kol- duced capacity to afford social-equity hatkar lays out the frightening pros- programs. It’s true that A.I. and robotics pect of a world free of inefficiency and will create real issues that will need to be want, economically sustained by pro- resolved, but the solutions lie in reducing gressive taxation of the wealthy but the population and in making people less bereft of satisfying employment for consumption-oriented and better edu- low-skilled workers. We are now per- cated. Relying on redistribution alone is haps within reach of the scenario that too simplistic, and is doomed to failure. Kurt Vonnegut prophesied in “Player Rene R. Daugherty Piano” (1952), in which people lack Aztec, N.M. not for resources but for the self- respect that a profession provides. Yes, • we are trying to “eliminate waste.” Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, That “waste” just happens to be the address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited blue-collar worker. for length and clarity, and may be published in Philip Bunn any medium. We regret that owing to the volume Madison, Wis. of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 5

NOVEMBER 8 – 14, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

A Caribbean island ravaged by storms: it’s a sadly familiar image from the news, but one that sets the stage for romantic fable in the 1990 musical “Once on This Island,” adapted from Rosa Guy’s novel “My Love, My Love” and featuring a calypso score by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. A Broadway revival begins previews on Nov. 9, at the Circle in the Square, starring the eighteen-year-old newcomer Hailey Kilgore (above), as a peasant girl who braves the gods and the elements on her quest for love.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC 1 MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES

Museum of Modern Art A RT “Max Ernst: Beyond Painting” The founder of Cologne’s branch of Dada and an early Surrealist, Ernst started using the phrase “beyond painting” in the early nineteen-twenties. Sometimes he applied it to technical innovations, as in his arresting 1928 piece “The Sea,” in which a photographic-looking black-and-white moon rises over a colorful ocean of painted stripes and lines in- cised in plaster. But more often he was referring to collage: pieces made from found type, cut-up and reconfigured prints, painted-over medical charts, and scraps of wallpaper. Even if they don’t always succeed, Ernst’s incongruous juxtapositions do re- liably awaken a free-floating strangeness that lin- gers in the mind. In “The Hat Makes the Man,” from 1920, Ernst covered a found millinery adver- tisement with gouache, pencil, oil, ink, and addi- tional elements, joining the shadowy black hats into translucent yellow and green towers. In an il- lustration from “Répétitions,” a 1922 collaboration with the poet Paul Éluard, a headless woman in a leopard-print boat holds a giant sparrow under her The exhibition “Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman & Designer” opens at the Met on Nov. 13. arm. The standout in this overstuffed show is the 1926 portfolio “Natural History,” in which Ernst collocated leaves and pieces of bark to make such high school, in the mid-sixties he took monsters as a tabletop rhinoceros (“The Repast Winter Preview pictures at Warhol’s Factory. In the of Death”) and a zeppelin with a giant mechanical eyeball (“The Fugitive”). Through Jan. 1. Michelangelo Buonarroti was a painter, subsequent decades, Shore took his 1 a sculptor, a poet, and an architect of camera out on the road, to sites ranging almost supernatural gifts—not for from Texas, Montana, and Mexico to GALLERIES—UPTOWN nothing did his Renaissance peers call Galilee and Ukraine. (This being 2017, Alessandro Pessoli him il divino. A hundred and twenty- he has spent the past few years posting After his recent move from Italy to Los Angeles, eight of the Master’s drawings are on on Instagram.) MOMA mounts his larg- the artist found himself creatively blocked. So he put aside painting and made wooden bows and ar- view at the Met in “Michelangelo: Di- est show in New York in a decade. rows instead, an elegant, neon-embellished instal- vine Draftsman & Designer,” with one (Opens Nov. 19.) lation of which opens the show. Once he picked up gallery devoted entirely to studies for “Peter Hujar: Speed of Life,” at the his brush again, Pessoli produced a winning pas- sel of mixed-media works that caricature his self- the Sistine Chapel. They’re accompa- Morgan Library & Museum, is the first doubt. In one painting, a yellow condom nose is nied by three marble statues, a wooden comprehensive look at another Ameri- beset with flies; in another, his naked backside is model for a chapel vault, and works by can photographer, who has been over- on the receiving end of a disembodied blue boot; in a third, his right eye is composed of red letters other artists. (Opens Nov. 13.) looked for too long. Hujar, a key figure that read “Fuck you, Alessandro.” Through Nov. 11. There’s more to Edvard Munch than of the East Village scene, who died, in (Kern, 16 E. 55th St. 212-367-9663.) “The Scream”—his soul-searching 1987, of AIDS-related causes, was drawn 1 paintings had a profound effect on art to themes of momento mori. As Susan GALLERIES—CHELSEA of the twentieth century. The Met Sontag wrote in 1976, even the subjects Breuer begins at the end of his story, of his searing black-and-white por- Cecily Brown The painter’s most impressive show ever confirms opening its six-decade survey with the traits—artists, writers, performers—“ap- her as a late-entry Abstract Expressionist—not Norwegian painter’s last masterpiece, pear to meditate on their own mortality.” nostalgically but competitively. She long ago mas- “Between the Clock and the Bed”; this (Opens Jan. 26.) tered the melted Cubism of de Kooning-esque brushwork—making space with every bending self-portrait from 1940-43 also titles the In 2012, the Guggenheim awarded stroke—but in pictures that don’t always add up to show. (Jasper Johns made close study Danh Vo the Hugo Boss Prize; with the something unique. That’s not a problem in three of the crosshatch design on its bed- exhibition “Take Your Breath Away,” it immense painterly cadenzas, one of them thirty- three feet long, which excite the eye and engulf spread.) “Scream” obsessives won’t be takes a deep dive into the work of the the body with unflagging intensity. The effect re- disappointed: the earliest version of the quicksilver conceptualist. Vo was born calls pre-drip Jackson Pollock: a will to sublimity indelible icon, “Sick Mood at Sunset, in Vietnam in 1975; his family fled the no more cautious than a cavalry charge, trampling detachment. Bits of figuration come and go, like Despair,” from 1892, is also on view. country by boat when he was four and drowning sailors of the smashed Pequod. As you (Opens Nov. 15.) relocated to Copenhagen, after being look, you know just how they feel. Through Dec. 2. Born in 1947, the American photog- rescued at sea by a Danish freighter. (Cooper, 534 W. 21st St. 212-255-1105.) rapher Stephen Shore was developing (The artist now lives in Mexico City.) Thomas Hirschhorn film for his parents when he was in first Such displacements inform his intelli- The Swiss artist mounts another manifestation of grade; by the time he was fourteen, gent and empathetic, if elliptical, in- his politically inflamed, scrappy grandeur. Collages covered with plastic sheeting, in sizes ranging from Edward Steichen had bought several stallations. (Opens Feb. 9.) small to wall-filling, integrate grids of vastly en- —Andrea K. Scott of his pictures for moma. In lieu of larged, colored pixels with photographs of victims BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

8 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017

A RT of terrorism, often seen beheaded or blown to bloody pieces. Call the effect abstracted atrocity— or, maybe, atrocious abstraction. An accompany- ing text by Hirschhorn is as befuddlingly arcane DANCE as his borrowed imagery is horrific. He means to “de-pixelate” the world, he says. Given the world’s current state, anything may be worth a try. Through Dec. 22. (Gladstone, 515 W. 24th St. 212-206-9300.)

Jacqueline Humphries “A painting is better when there’s something wrong with it,” Humphries has said. The lucky faults in this show of large, squarish, stately canvases pertain to the mutually abrasive effects of lyri- cal brushwork and the stenciled, rat-a-tat lines of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks; happy- or sad-face emojis intrude on occasion, like tiny panic attacks. Humphries’s dissonances compli- cate but don’t overrule the sensuous glories of her color and texture. The works are like pleasurable invitations to think. Through Dec. 16. (Greene Naf- tali, 508 W. 26th St. 212-463-7770.)

“L.A. Invitational” An armada of West Coast art stars, both old and new, visits New York in the marketing equivalent Silas Riener, Rashaun Mitchell, and Charles Atlas explore spatial dimensions in “Tesseract.” of gunboat diplomacy. Battleships: installations by Mike Kelley and Chris Burden. Cruisers: huge sculptures by Nancy Rubin, Thomas Houseago, video capture. One suspects that Cun- and Robert Therrien. Destroyers: big paintings Winter Preview ningham would have approved. by Ed Ruscha, Mark Grotjahn, Sterling Ruby, and others. Small craft: whimsical whatnots by Frank We may think of the compulsion to doc- For a really good night at the ballet, Gehry and Piero Golia. What’s Californian? Non- ument even the most mundane occur- you can’t go wrong with New York City chalant confidence, as an evident rule. Not much rences on social media as a twenty- Ballet’s “Stravinsky & Balanchine” pro- else unites these fourteen artists. But each performs at the museum- ready top of his or her game. Through first-century affliction, but it has a gram (Feb. 24, Feb. 27, March 1, and Dec. 16. (Gagosian, 555 W. 24th St. 212-741-1111.) precedent: the abundant journal-writing March 3-4). Balanchine’s ballets set to 1 of the seventeenth century. The British the music of Stravinsky represent an GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN naval administrator and parliamentarian ideal symbiosis of the visual and the Samuel Pepys, for example, went on at aural. And the company is dancing es- Judith Bernstein great length in his journals about every- pecially well these days—during its The intrepid American artist, who has lived and worked in Chinatown for fifty years (most of them thing, from his bladder stones and his winter season (at the David H. Koch in obscurity), fills the main gallery here with “Cab- sexual escapades to what he had for Theatre, Jan. 23-March 4), keep an eye inet of Horrors,” a screed against Donald Trump in lunch. From those diaries springs Big out for Tiler Peck, Sterling Hyltin, and the form of big acrylic paintings on paper, installed on screaming orange walls. Subtle it’s not—in the Dance Theatre’s latest show, “17c” (at Unity Phelan. It’s also a chance to catch five-foot-tall “Capital Trumpenschlong,” a flag BAM Harvey, Nov. 14-18), an exploration the rarely performed “Divertimento flies atop the U.S. Capitol Building from a cock- of the art of self-revelation, then and now. from ‘Le Baiser de la Fée.’ ” and-balls pole—but Bernstein has been protest- ing abuses of power with such visions of manhood In their characteristically smart, post- Cuba is known for ballet, for good rea- since 1966, when George Wallace was the governor modern way, the piece’s directors, Paul son. The national company was founded of Alabama. It’s been gratifying to see the world Lazar and Annie-B Parson (who also long before the revolution, by the Cuban- finally catch up to her. Read the artist Mickalene Thomas’s freewheeling interview with Bernstein choreographs), create a parable of what born star Alicia Alonso, and remains a in the accompanying catalogue and discover why they call “the obsessively annotated life,” prized institution, as beloved as baseball. she is idolized by younger feminists. Through Feb. mixing dance and music, text and song. Modern dance has had a harder time 4. (The Drawing Center, 35 Wooster St. 212-219-2166.) 1 When Merce Cunningham died, putting down roots there, but lately that in 2009, his collaborators spun off in has started to change. Malpaso Dance GALLERIES—BROOKLYN all directions, like planets in a solar Company, founded in 2012, is part of this Kyle Vu-Dunn system that has lost its sun. Two of his new flowering. The independently run The young artist’s reliefs, carved into layers of plas- dancers, Rashaun Mitchell and Silas company, stocked with vibrant, beautifully ter and foam and painted violet, orange, and blue, Riener, began making work together, trained dancers, tours abroad extensively often begin with sketches or photographs of himself and his husband. But they leapfrog the specific to in a style that blends their choreo- and, thanks in part to the Joyce Theatre limn a languid ideal of homoeroticism, indulging graphic identities. They have joined Foundation, regularly commissions work in painterly tricks of refraction and reflection. In forces with the filmmaker Charles from outside choreographers. The com- “Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray,” a nude man ex- amines himself in a full-length mirror; he is joined Atlas, who worked with Cunningham pany’s run at the Joyce ( Jan. 17-21) will by an onlooker at the edge of the picture, who’s on a series of pioneering dance films, include pieces by its resident choreogra- sliced through by a pane of icy blue. In “Narcissy,” to create “Tesseract” (at BAM Harvey, pher Osnel Delgado, plus a new dance a figure slides out of bed to gaze upon his own face, mirrored in an oily pool on the floor. Through Nov. Dec. 13-16), which probes the intersec- by the Canadian Aszure Barton. —Marina Harss 12. (Sardine, 286 Stanhope St. 914-805-1974.) tion of 3-D film, live dance, and live- BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

10 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017

DANCE

Garth Fagan Dance Now in his late seventies, Fagan has recently been sharing choreographic responsibilities with his longtime star dancer, the coolly graceful Norwood Pennewell. The works of the disciple are faithful to the master’s style but show signs of fresh life and musical responsiveness. Of the four premières here, half are by Fagan (“In Conflict” and “Estro- gen/Genius”), half by Pennewell (“A Moderate Cease” and “Wecoo Duende”). The company re- mains distinguished by veteran dancers such as Na- talie Rogers—sexy, funny, and incredibly strong in her mid-fifties. (Joyce Theatre, 175 Eighth Ave., at 19th St. 212-242-0800. Nov. 7-12.)

David Dorfman Dance Visceral and hard-edged, Dorfman’s choreography is infused with the messiness and kinetic energy of daily life. His newest work, “Aroundtown,” explores love and connection in a time of anxiety and confu- sion. It includes a cameo appearance by the sixty- two-year-old Dorfman and his wife, the dancer and choreographer Lisa Race. (BAM Harvey Theatre, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Nov. 8-11.)

ZviDance / “Like” “Like” is the third part of a trilogy by Zvi Got heiner that focusses on technology and its discontents. The audience members are encouraged to “like” or dis- approve of what they are seeing onstage, using their cell phones to cast their votes; the “likes” are tallied and projected, and the dancers are deemed winners or losers. It’s art as social experiment. (New York Live Arts, 219 W. 19th St. 212-924-0077. Nov. 8-11.)

Hofesh Shechter Company A star of the British dance scene who was born and raised in Israel, Shechter combines an intermit- tently engaging physicality—low-slung, hunched, rawboned—with vapid rock-concert spectacle and arrested-development rage at a disillusioning world. In his latest baggy apocalypse, “The Grand Finale,” chamber musicians play Tchaikovsky and waltzes from “The Merry Widow” as bodies thrash and silently scream amid the sliding of monolithic panels. (BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 La- fayette Ave., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Nov. 9-11.)

Yvonne Meier The Swiss-born wild woman offers a free program, presented by Danspace Project and Invisible Dog Art Center, of her absurdist structured improvi- sations. In “Durch Nacht und Nabel” (“Through Night and Fog”), she switches between near- nudity and an array of extravagant costumes that includes an orange bodysuit festooned with tiny plastic babies. In her new “Durch Dick und Duenn” (“Through Thick and Thin”), she and the perform- ers Lorene Bouboushian and Lisa Kusanagi race through a kind of theatrical obstacle course, with fast-flying balls, an animated movie, and other booby traps of eccentricity. (Invisible Dog Art Cen- ter, 51 Bergen St., Brooklyn. 347-560-3641. Nov. 9-12.)

Step Afrika! The members of this terrific troupe, based in Wash- ington, D.C., are masters of stepping, the African- American tradition of body and foot percussion. In “Migration,” they draw upon “The Migration Series,” Jacob Lawrence’s set of paintings about the mass movement of African-Americans from the South to the North in the twentieth century. Lawrence’s images are projected on screens, as dancers and musicians bring them to life in a geo- graphical and historical journey of a revue. (New Victory, 209 W. 42nd St. 646-223-3010. Nov. 10-12. Through Nov. 26.)

12 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017

1 ROCK AND POP

Musicians and night-club proprietors lead NIGHT LIFE complicated lives; it’s advisable to check in advance to confirm engagements.

Juan Atkins Many young laptop musicians would find it difficult to imagine producing tracks without access to a com- puter screen, or to software that corrects and sim- plifies the process—which makes the precision and emotion found on the pre-PC tracks of Juan Atkins, known as the godfather of techno, and his Detroit ilk all the more impressive. “Clear,” which Atkins released with Richard Davis, as Cybotron, in 1982, is yanked forward by an uphill arpeggio, which has been sampled on dozens of records in the decades since—a literal sound of the future. His Korg key- board experiments were soon dubbed “techno,” and, even then, Atkins stressed that his output was a pro- gression not of music but of technology: “Stretching it, rather than simply using it.” (Elsewhere, 599 John- son Ave., Brooklyn. elsewherebrooklyn.com. Nov. 10.)

Bully Morrissey and Shakira both stage their newest records at Madison Square Garden this winter. On “Trying,” the single from this Nashville band’s début album, “Feels Like,” Alicia Bognanno recalls Rivers Cuomo’s droll lyricism in his work with home to Yo La Tengo’s annual Hanuk- Weezer and pulls off a damn good scream, digging Winter Preview kah concert series; each holiday season, at useless college degrees and imminent menstru- ation with the charisma of a star. She interned at “I recommend that you stop watching fans looked forward to eight crazy the Chicago recording studio of the grunge legend the news,” Morrissey sings on his recent nights of intimate shows, surprise ap- Steve Albini, the engineer behind formative early- single “Spent the Day in Bed,” “because pearances from titans of the art-rock nineties albums including Nirvana’s “In Utero,” and her education in straight-to-tape recording shines the news contrives to frighten you.” The tradition, and even comedy sketches through the album’s fuzz. The band’s latest effort, line issues a mission statement that sets from the likes of Wyatt Cenac and Amy “Losing,” was released in October; it’s murkier and a deep-blue tone for Morrissey’s up- Poehler. During a recent SummerStage more indulgent, and stands to play well across this headlining tour. Bully is supported by the local coming record, “Low in High School”; appearance, the band’s front man, Ira punks Aye Nako. (Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 its cover features a scrawny teen holding Kaplan, invited his mother, Marilyn, N. 6th St., Brooklyn. 718-486-5400. Nov. 13.) a sign that reads “Axe the Monarchy.” onstage for a run-through of “My Little Kelela Call him morbid, call him pale, but the Corner of the World,” and announced Since 2012, the Los Angeles-based visionary Kelela former Smiths singer long ago mastered that the Hanukkah shows were resum- has been tinkering with emotive, groovy gems. She his sombre persona; his current tour ing, this time at Bowery Ballroom, has contributed her chameleonic vocal talents to works by Solange, Danny Brown, and Clams Casino, kicked off on Halloween night in Port- Dec. 12-19. For another revived residency, but her début album, “Take Me Apart,” released last land, and hits Madison Square Garden don’t miss LCD Soundsystem’s ten-night month, is as disarmingly personal as its title suggests. on Dec. 2. return to Brooklyn Steel (Dec. 11-15, There’s “Better,” a crushing song about a couple real- izing that friendship may be the simpler option, and A few weeks later, on Jan. 17, the Gar- Dec. 17-19, and Dec. 22-23), their third the sultry jam “LMK,” in which the singer pleads for den snaps back into bright spirits to stand at the formidable new hall. clarity: “It ain’t that deep, either way / No one’s tryna host Shakira’s El Dorado World Tour, The latest earworm sneaking up settle down / All you gotta do is let me know.” Kelela performs from the new record for two nights. (Bow- the singer’s first in six years. During the from the R. & B. charts is “Crew,” re- ery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St. 212-260-4700. Nov. 12-13.) lead-up, she has shared clips of herself leased early this year by the D.C. rapper rehearsing hypnotizing waist rolls to Goldlink, and carried largely by a flaw- Pere Ubu This venerable art-rock group formed in Cleveland “La Bicicleta,” her 2016 collaboration less chorus from Brent Faiyaz. Fans of in 1975 and within months released a pair of ter- with Carlos Vives, sung in Spanish and turn-of-the-century outfits like 112 and rifying, intense songs—“30 Seconds Over Tokyo” boasting stream tallies in the billions. Jagged Edge can hear Faiyaz’s fluency and “Heart of Darkness”—with no clear anteced- ents. In 1978, two landmark full-length albums It’s a fun time to revisit the Colombian with boy-group harmonies, but his emerged, “The Modern Dance” and “Dub Hous- singer’s biggest crossover records, which breakout album, “Sonder Son,” which ing,” which continued the band’s aural trench war helped solidify contemporary Latin pop: arrived in October, suggests that the on rock convention by incorporating elements of musique concrète, harsh industrial sounds, and un- Wyclef Jean’s early-aughts guitar riffs singer has broader ambitions—it’s a usual, ever-shifting grooves. Despite endless lineup are back en vogue thanks to Rihanna’s self-aware pop-soul record that’s con- changes (the only constant member is the group’s reworking of his Carlos Santana col- cerned less with parties than with par- singer-provocateur, David Thomas), Pere Ubu has never stopped performing and recording compel- laboration, “Maria Maria,” and Beyoncé ents and politics. The Los Angeles-via- ling new music. (Music Hall of Williamsburg, 66 hopped on a reggaeton loop this fall. Baltimore singer takes the stage at N. 6th St., Brooklyn. 718-486-5400. Nov. 12.) Hips don’t lie, nor do hits. Rough Trade on Feb. 4, with an eye Slowdive Between 2001 and 2012, Maxwell’s, toward bigger venues. Contrary to its name, this Reading quintet rose —Matthew Trammell the legendary Hoboken haunt, was quickly in the late-eighties British rock scene. The BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

14 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017

NIGHT LIFE group pioneered the thunderous, atmospheric in- strumentals and non-effusive vocals of the genre that came to be known as shoegaze, because during shows guitarists often looked down toward the com- CLASSICAL MUSIC plex pedal boards at their feet. But Slowdive was also fast to fall: the music press gleefully panned the band’s full-length records in the early nineties, and the group broke up shortly after the release of its 1995 album, “Pygmalion.” In the twenty years since, however, a slew of contemporary groups have name-checked Slowdive, with its progressive ap- proach to layering guitars, as a critical influence. At these reunion performances, Slowdive will stage cuts from its new self-titled album. The band is joined by the garage-rock project Cherry Glazerr. (Terminal1 5, 610 W. 56th St. 212-582-6600. Nov. 12.) JAZZ AND STANDARDS

Ravi Coltrane Three decades into his career, the saxophonist Col- trane has beat a path that significantly diverges from those of his parents, John and Alice, but when the younger Coltrane digs into the marrow of a ballad you might just believe that there’s something to this The Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “Così Fan Tutte” is set in nineteen-fifties Coney Island. musical-DNA stuff. His stirring work on both tenor and soprano was heard in force on the lauded 2016 collaboration “In Movement,” with Jack DeJohnette their American counterparts. Lincoln and Matthew Garrison; here, Coltrane leads a quartet Winter Preview Center’s schedule includes an all-Vivaldi featuring the guitarist Adam Rogers. (Village Vanguard, 178 Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. Nov. 7-12.) The symphony orchestra is the basic unit evening at Alice Tully Hall (on Jan. 24, of American classical music: it requires including “The Four Seasons”)—and, Hal Galper more community buy-in than a chamber- when the orchestra is the renowned Con- The veteran pianist and educator Galper has put plenty of thought into the formal workings of his music society, yet compared with grand certo Köln, who’s to mind? (For a fine rhythmically skewed “rubato” style of playing, but opera—the ultimate international art home-town alternative, head to St. Jo- it’s apparent even to listeners who haven’t boned up form—it retains a local feel. For many seph’s Church, in Greenwich Village, on on the theory that something odd is going on. At the helm of a quartet of sympathetic improvisers, Galper discerning listeners, the finest is the Dec. 30, where the superb musicians of will demonstrate his intriguing, if challenging, ap- Cleveland Orchestra, which returns to TENET will perform Psalm settings and proach. (Smalls, 183 W. 10th St. 212-252-5091. Nov. 11.) Carnegie Hall this winter ( Jan. 23-24). It motets by their favorite composer, Mon- Pat Martino may hail from one of America’s great Rust teverdi.) Elsewhere on the campus, or- Martino’s roots are never far from the surface of Belt cities, but its music director, Franz chestral performances reach for operatic his extravagant guitar playing, yet his recent album Welser-Möst, continues the orchestra’s grandeur. The incoming music director “Formidable” is an unabashed celebration of the bebop and blues ethos he honed in his native Phil- profoundly European outlook. (Its 2017-18 of the New York Philharmonic, Jaap van adelphia, circa the early sixties. As on the record- classical season contains not a single work Zweden, will use one of his programs ing, the organ-and-drums base of his earthy trio by a living American composer.) The or- (Feb. 14-17) to show off not only his will be fleshed out by two horn men, Alex Norris, on trumpet, and Adam Niewood, on saxophone. (Jazz chestra will offer a New York première new-music chops, with a New York Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212-576-2232. Nov. 9-12.) from the respected Austrian composer première by John Luther Adams (“Dark Johannes Maria Staud, along with what Waves”), but also his growing profile as Eric Reed With his series of three Thelonious Monk-inspired re- will doubtless be delectable excursions a Wagner conductor, with a concert ver- cordings beginning in 2011, the pianist Reed beat by a through Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and sion of Act I of “Die Walküre,” featuring stretch this year’s onslaught of centenary-celebration Haydn’s glorious oratorio “The Seasons.” Heidi Melton and Simon O’Neill. At the homages to the iconoclastic jazz icon. Although Reed will be previewing original work from his upcoming Meanwhile, few maestros burn with more Met, James Levine will conduct several “A Light in Darkness” project, it’s unlikely that this Italianità than Riccardo Muti, a matchless concert performances of Verdi’s “Re- nimble and soulful instrumentalist will turn his back advocate for his country’s musical heri- quiem” (Nov. 24-Dec. 2). on enduring work from Monk. (Smoke, 2751 Broadway, between 105th and 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. Nov. 10-12.) tage. But his tenure at the head of the The Met’s new productions alternate Chicago Symphony Orchestra has in- between the traditional and the unex- Marc Ribot cluded some robust American program- pected. David McVicar’s staging of “Tosca” Guitarists who can be identified by a single plucked note constitute their own fraternity. Ribot, a proud ming, a trend that marks his own Car- (beginning Dec. 31) will recall Franco member of that fretboard brotherhood, is the rare negie concerts (Feb. 9-10), in which recent Zeffirelli’s beloved production, which was stylist who can delve deep into unforgiving avant- works by Jennifer Higdon and Samuel unwisely jettisoned in 2009. Phelim garde territory yet also produce apposite work for the likes of Robert Plant and Elton John when called Adams are nestled amid chestnuts by McDermott’s rollicking new “Così Fan on. Solo performances will make up the bulk of this Britten, Brahms, Stravinsky, Chausson, Tutte,” however, is set in nineteen- fifties residency, although Ribot will also front two trios and, of course, Verdi. Brooklyn (opening March 15). You can’t and a duet with the multi-instrumentalist Cooper - Moore. (The Stone, Avenue C at 2nd St. thestonenyc. In Baroque performance, European get more American than that. —Russell Platt com. Nov. 7-12.) groups, naturally, have much to teach BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

16 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 1CLASSICAL MUSIC OPERA concerto—after Cervantes—for viola (Cynthia Phelps), cello (Carter Brey), and large orchestra. Metropolitan Opera Nov. 9 and Nov. 14 at 7:30 and Nov. 11 at 8. (David Luis Buñuel’s absurdist 1962 film “The Exterminat- Geffen Hall. For tickets and a full listing of Bernstein ing Angel” skewers the comforts and complacency centennial events, see nyphil.org.) of the leisure class by forcing a group of guests to endure a never-ending dinner party that slowly Israel Philharmonic Orchestra drives them mad. Thomas Adès, in his gripping Zubin Mehta, who will step away from his lifetime operatic adaptation, turns Buñuel’s quiet, Surre- appointment as this storied ensemble’s music direc- alist satire into a psychological horror show. The tor in 2019, brings the group once more to Carne- music is filled with sinister foreboding, brutal- gie Hall. In the first concert, he teams up with the ist percussive noise, jagged vocal lines, and fleet- pianist Yefim Bronfman in Beethoven’s Concerto ing wisps of romance, and Tom Cairns’s produc- No. 3 in C Minor, a work bookended by the cus- tion fences in the well-heeled guests with a cold, tomary New York première of a piece by an Israeli monumental threshold that’s far removed from composer (Amit Poznansky’s “Footnote” Suite) Buñuel’s luxurious yet cozy interiors. The singers and by Strauss’s brawny “Ein Heldenleben.” The work together like a crack theatrical ensemble, and grand second program offers Mahler’s Symphony Adès conducts the orchestra in a blistering perfor- No. 3, an event that also collects the talents of the mance. Nov. 10 at 8 and Nov. 14 at 7:30. • Masse- mezzo-soprano Mihoko Fujimura, Master Voices, net’s “Thaïs” is unquestionably a star vehicle—when and the Manhattan Girls Chorus. The final evening Renée Fleming sang in the 2008 première of John brings Gil Shaham to the fore in a concert featuring Cox’s production, she was lavishly costumed by music by Weber, Tchaikovsky (the Violin Concerto), Christian Lacroix—but it also requires two com- and Schubert (the Symphony No. 9, “Great”). Nov. pelling singing actors who can carry a story that’s 7-9 at 8. (Carnegie Hall. 212-247-7800.) light on plot. For the current revival, the Met has entrusted Ailyn Pérez and Gerald Finley to flesh White Light Festival: out the inner conflicts of the courtesan title char- “The Psalms Experience” acter and of the holy man who is captivated by her; This ambitious series of hour-long concerts, cov- Emmanuel Villaume conducts. Nov. 11 at 1. • Also ering a millennium of responses to the Biblical playing: Franco Zeffirelli’s gloriously over-the- Psalms, continues with eight events addressing top production of Puccini’s “Turandot” is on offer such themes as “Gratitude,” “Lamentation,” and this week, with Oksana Dyka in the title role and “Celebration of Life.” The programs range from with Aleksandrs Antonenko and Maria Agresta as traditional songs and chant to premières by Nico Calàf and Liù; Carlo Rizzi. Nov. 8 at 7:30 and Nov. Muhly and Caroline Shaw; participating ensembles 11 at 8. • An early high point of Peter Gelb’s ten- include the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the Tallis ure, Anthony Minghella’s vividly cinematic stag- Scholars, and the Norwegian Soloists’ Choir, cul- ing of “Madama Butterfly” still feels clean, fresh, minating in a grand finale involving those groups and vital eleven years later. The revival stars Hui alongside members of the Choir of Trinity Wall He, Roberto Aronica, David Bizic, and Maria Zif- Street. Nov. 9-10 at 6:30 and 8:30 and Nov. 11 at 1, chak, whose ravishing Suzuki has been a fixture of 3, 5, and 8:30. (For venue and ticket information, visit the production since its première; Jader Bignamini whitelightfestival.org.) conducts, in his Met début. Nov. 9 and Nov. 13 at 7:30. (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.) Polyhymnia: “Christmas at the Court of Henry VIII” New York City Opera This week’s early-music find takes place at a welcome In honor of Dominick Argento’s ninetieth birth- venue for such concerts, the Church of St. Ignatius day, the company gives a concert of two vastly of Antioch. John Bradley conducts his long-admired different monodramas—the extended mad scene choir in a Christmas preview, a program consisting “Miss Havisham’s Wedding Night” and the come- entirely of music by a royal favorite, Robert Fayrfax dic monologue “A Water Bird Talk”—that show off (including the “Missa Tecum Principium”). Nov. 11 the Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer’s at 8. (West End Ave. at 87th St. 917-838-4636.) keen theatrical sense, gift for melody, and exact- ing craftsmanship. Gil Rose conducts the soloists White Light Festival: “Missa Solemnis” Heather Buck and Aaron Engebreth and the New Thomas Dausgaard, the vigorous Danish conduc- York City Opera Orchestra. Nov. 9 at 7:30. (Zan- tor who was recently named the next music direc- kel Hall. 212-247-7800.) tor of the Seattle Symphony, leads the Swedish 1 Chamber Orchestra and the especially renowned Swedish Radio Choir in Beethoven’s glorious cho- ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES ral masterwork, at David Geffen Hall. Nov. 12 at 3. (whitelightfestival.org.) New York Philharmonic The orchestra with which Leonard Bernstein built Juilliard Orchestra with Thomas Adès a renowned collaboration is closing its autumn fes- The major British composer of his generation, in tival, “Bernstein’s Philharmonic,” with the grand- town to conduct his new opera at the Met, crosses est of its centennial tributes: three performances the street to direct the conservatory’s flagship en- of the Symphony No. 3, “Kaddish” (1963). Dedi- semble in a concert featuring music by Elgar (the cated to the memory of John F. Kennedy, it is the Cello Concerto, with Rachel Siu), Stravinsky (the most personal of Bernstein’s symphonies, a work Symphony in Three Movements), and himself (in- of Mahlerian grandiosity in which the composer cluding “Three Studies from Couperin”). Nov. 13 wrestles, Job-like, with a frustratingly remote Old at 7:30. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-721-6500.) Testament God. Leonard Slatkin, long an expert in Bernstein’s music, conducts the piece, which in- White Light Festival: “Eternal Light” cludes contributions from the actor Jeremy Irons, Peter Dijkstra conducts the Swedish Radio Choir the soprano Tamara Wilson, the Concert Chorale in a program of seldom-encountered twentieth- of New York, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. century a-cappella choral works, with brief pieces The first half of the program is also substantial: by Maija Einfelde (“Lux Aeterna”), Sven-David Strauss’s “Don Quixote,” a magical quasi-double Sandström, and Anders Hillborg prefacing an

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 17 CLASSICAL MUSIC account of Alfred Schnittke’s powerful Concerto for Choir. Nov. 14 at 7:30. (Church of St. Mary the Virgin, 145 W. 46th St. whitelightfestival.org.) MOVIES White Light Festival: “The Routes of Slavery” The Catalan viol master Jordi Savall has long proved an intrepid explorer and cultural cartog- rapher. Here, he illuminates one of mankind’s darkest pages, the path of slavery from Africa to the New World. Joining Savall and his exemplary ensembles, Hespèrion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, are a cadre of African and Latin- American artists and the American gospel quar- tet the Fairfield Four. Nov. 15 at 7:30. (Rose The- atre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Broadway at 60th St. whitelightfestival.org.)1 RECITALS

Music at the 92nd Street Y It’s a banner week for blue-chip chamber music at this admired venue. The magnificent Cana- dian pianist Angela Hewitt starts things off on Wednesday evening with an all-Bach recital (including the Partitas Nos. 3 and 5-6). A late- Daniel Day-Lewis plays a fashion designer in Paul Thomas Anderson’s drama “Phantom Thread.” night concert on Friday by the fascinating pia- nist Pedja Muzijevic features a typically eclec- tic mix of works by masters from the Baroque years his senior, in the nineteen-seventies. (C. P. E. and W. F. Bach) and experimentalist Winter Preview Fantasy always plays a big role in (John Cage and Henry Cowell) schools. And on Sunday afternoon the New York Philharmonic Some of the most prominent films of the Hollywood calendars, but it’s now being String Quartet makes its New York recital début, season ponder the romantic mysteries of conferred to the talents of leading au- performing quartets by Beethoven, Dvořák (in the artistic milieu. Paul Thomas Ander- teurs. “Downsizing” (Dec. 22), directed F Major, “American”), and Mendelssohn (No. 6 in F Minor). Nov. 8 at 7:30, Nov. 10 at 9:30, and Nov. son has long probed hidden corners of by Alexander Payne, is a science-fiction 12 at 3. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd St. 212-415-5500.) history, and in “Phantom Thread” (Dec. 25) satire set in the near future, when scien- he explores the fashion world of nine- tists seeking to reduce humankind’s Alvin Lucier Lucier, a composer whose groundbreaking works teen-fifties London. Daniel Day-Lewis, footprint manage to shrink people to a have stretched the limits of auditory perception, in what he has said will be his last per- few inches in height. Matt Damon plays celebrates the release of an elaborate new boxed set formance before retirement, plays a an Omaha therapist who volunteers to (four LPs, a CD, and a book), produced by Zürich University for the Arts, with a two-evening event high-society dress designer who collab- be shrunk. Payne, showing utopian plans at Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room. Lucier performs orates with his sister (Lesley Manville), going awry, depicts gated colonies of on each program, appearing alongside the compel- and then begins a professional and per- “smalls” in gleeful, quasi- anthropological ling vocalist Joan La Barbara and other musicians. Nov. 8-9 at 8. (22 Boerum Pl. issueprojectroom.org.) sonal relationship with another woman detail. Christoph Waltz and Hong Chau (Vicky Krieps). Anderson also wrote the play reduced-size neighbors. The direc- Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center script and, for the first time, was his own tor Ryan Coogler, who revitalized the The Society’s programs this week provide a broad view of its mandate. In the first, at Lincoln Center’s cinematographer. James Franco directed “Rocky” franchise with “Creed,” takes Rose Studio, the mostly female Daedalus Quar- and stars in—or, rather, as—“The Disas- on the Marvel universe in “Black Pan- tet (and the elegant clarinettist Romie de Guise- ter Artist” (Dec. 1), based on the real-life ther” (Feb. 16), starring Chadwick Bose- Langlois) showcases four North American com- posers of exceptional talent: Anna Weesner, Vivian story of the director and actor Tommy man as T’Challa, the king of Wakanda, Fung (a world première), Missy Mazzoli (“Quartet Wiseau’s production of the low-budget who becomes the superhero of the title for Queen Mab”), and a noted veteran, Shulamit film “The Room.” Seth Rogen, Alison while fighting a challenger (Michael B. Ran. The second, at Alice Tully Hall, reinforces the Society’s bend toward standard-repertory virtu- Brie, and Hannibal Buress co-star. In Jordan) to his throne. Lupita Nyong’o osity, with its exceptional string players—Arnaud “Call Me by Your Name” (Nov. 24), Tim- and Danai Gurira co-star. Ava DuVer- Sussmann, Paul Neubauer, and David Finckel— othée Chalamet plays an American teen- nay directs “A Wrinkle in Time” (March performing trios by Beethoven, Penderecki, and Mozart (the Divertimento). Nov. 9 at 6:30 and 9; ager who begins a relationship, at his 9), an adaptation of the 1962 science- Nov. 14 at 7:30. (212-875-5788.) family’s home in Italy, with a house guest fiction novel by Madeleine L’Engle. (Armie Hammer). James Ivory adapted Storm Reid and Deric McCabe play the An die Musik The chamber ensemble, an Upper West Side fix- André Aciman’s novel; Luca Guadagnino children who, with their friend (Levi ture since 1976, offers its annual show at Merkin directed. “Film Stars Don’t Die in Liver- Miller), are sent through a tesseract to Concert Hall. In addition to old friends (such as pool” (Dec. 15), directed by Paul Mc- find their long-missing father (Chris the violinist Mark Peskanov and the pianist Con- stance Emmerich), the lineup features a distin- Guigan, is based on a memoir by the Pine). Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Ka- guished newcomer, the cellist Thomas Demenga. British actor Peter Turner (played by ling, and Oprah Winfrey play the three The program includes music by Beethoven, Han- Jamie Bell), about his relationship with mystical beings who propel them on del (Halvorsen’s arrangement of the Passacaglia for Violin and Cello), Mozart, and Haydn. Nov. the former Hollywood star Gloria Gra- their journey.

12 at 4. (129 W. 67th St. 212-501-3330.) hame (Annette Bening), twenty-nine —Richard Brody BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

18 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 1MOVIES NOW PLAYING journey proceeds.—Anthony Lane (Reviewed in our issue of 11/6/17.) (In wide release.) Illusions In this thirty-four-minute featurette, from 1982, LBJ Julie Dash ingeniously revives classic-Hollywood The political intricacies and hearty bluster of Rob themes and styles in order to subject them to a Reiner’s drama, about Lyndon Baines Johnson’s sharp historical critique. It’s set in the fictitious accidental Presidency, help to overcome its wax- National Studios, during the Second World War, museum eeriness. The action spans the 1960 cam- where a black female executive, Mignon Dupree paign, in which Johnson (Woody Harrelson), then (Lonette McKee), is passing as white. She’s being a Texas senator, hoped in vain to snatch the nomi- harassed by a newly hired producer, a white Army nation from John F. Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) at lieutenant, while seeking to become a producer her- the Democratic Convention and was instead asked self, in the hope of telling stories in which ordinary to be his running mate; Kennedy’s assassination, people—including members of ethnic minorities— in 1963, which brought Johnson to office; and the will recognize their own experiences. Dash infuses early days of Johnson’s Presidency, when he de- the visual repertory of musicals and melodramas fied expectations in order to pursue a civil-rights with modernist inflections—most powerfully in a agenda. The enduring hostility that Johnson faced scene of vast symbolic impact, set in a sound stu- from Robert F. Kennedy (Michael Stahl-David) dio. There, engineers are dubbing the voice of a is matched by Johnson’s backroom gamesmanship black singer, Esther Jeter (Rosanne Katon), onto with Senator Richard Russell (Richard Jenkins), the image of a white actress. Dash blends intimate from Georgia, who wrongly counted on his South- portraiture with echoing reflections and multiple ern cohort to support Jim Crow. Reiner empha- exposures that capture Hollywood’s harrowing sizes Johnson’s pathos as a brilliant politician who game of multiple and hidden identities.—Richard felt unloved by the public, and his reliance on his Brody (BAM Cinématek, Nov. 13.) wife, Lady Bird (Jennifer Jason Leigh), for counsel and solace, but the issues play out in a vacuum; the Lady Bird film’s portrait of conscience and courage is drawn As writer and director, Greta Gerwig infuses this with a very broad brush.—R.B. (In wide release.) comedic coming-of-age drama with verbal virtu- osity, gestural idiosyncrasy, and emotional vitality. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) The loosely autobiographical tale is set mainly in In his new film, Noah Baumbach stays in his dis- Gerwig’s home town of Sacramento, in the 2002-03 comfort zone: messed-up modern families in New academic year, and centered on Christine McPher- York. The patriarch of the Meyerowitzes is Har- son (Saoirse Ronan), self-dubbed Lady Bird, a se- old (Dustin Hoffman), who aimed to be the great nior at a Catholic high school whose plan to escape sculptor of his generation and missed, though you to an Eastern college is threatened by her grades wouldn’t know it from his manner—lordly, in- and her parents’ finances. Lady Bird’s father (Tracy temperate, and blisteringly quick to take offense. Letts), with whom she shares a hearty complicity, is This has not made things easy for his sons, Mat- about to lose his job; her mother (Laurie Metcalf), thew (Ben Stiller), who lives in Los Angeles and with whom she argues bitterly, is a nurse who works makes good money, and Danny (Adam Sandler), double shifts to keep the family afloat. Lady Bird in- who does nothing much except fret, or for his des- filtrates the world of rich kids and risks losing true olate daughter, Jean (Elizabeth Marvel). Other friends; she dates a Francophile rocker (Timothée characters are tossed into the mix: Harold’s lat- Chalamet) whose walk on the wild side is comfort- est wife, the boozy Maureen (Emma Thompson), ably financed. Deftly juggling characters and story and his granddaughter, Eliza (Grace Van Patten), lines, Gerwig provokes aching laughs with gentle who, alone in the clan, seems lightened by hope touches (Metcalf’s etched diction nearly steals the and good sense. Baumbach not only finds time and show), but her direction remains self-effacing until room for these restless souls but makes us believe late in the film, when several sharply conceived in them as they clash, make peace, and clash again. scenes suggest reserves of observational and sym- The movie is comically intimate with their lives, bolic energy.—R.B. (In limited release.) yet it covers a lot of ground.—A.L. (10/23/17) (In wide release and on Netflix.) Last Flag Flying A curious project for Richard Linklater, whose Strange Victory most enjoyable films, light-headed with prom- Filming in 1947 and 1948, Leo Hurwitz uses news- ise, have scouted the territory of youth. The new reel images of the Second World War in his quest movie, on the other hand, dawdles among the for the source of the fear seen in the faces of urban middle-aged and attends to their crusty recita- passersby, who, he says, seem “haunted in broad tions of old times. In 1993, a mournful soul named daylight.” The setup of this extraordinary documen- Doc (Steve Carell) shows up at a bar run by the tary essay (featuring journalistic research, archival disreputable Sal (Bryan Cranston), a comrade footage, and fictional reconstructions) is that of a from Vietnam. Together, they seek out Mueller film noir, but Hurwitz, with his audacious editing (Laurence Fishburne), a fellow veteran of the and blunt commentary, infuses it with a substance war, whom they once knew as a hell-raiser, but far more radical and harrowing than anything Hol- who now, as a minister of the church, lifts his lywood could produce. The horrors of a world in gaze to heaven. Doc’s son has perished in Iraq, which concentration camps functioned untouched and he asks his friends for support as he accom- are shown to have a pathological parallel in Amer- panies the casket to Arlington. The manner in ican prejudice—anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, which this solemn plan goes awry, and the japes and especially racism in all its forms, from job and that arise along the way, confirm that the model housing discrimination to lynching, the victims of for Linklater’s film is Hal Ashby’s “The Last De- which Hurwitz calls “the casualties of a war.” Track- tail” (1973), in which a trio of service personnel ing Hitler’s rise to power, Hurwitz is shocked to took a roughly comparable trip. In Ashby’s film, find “the ideas of the loser still active in the land however, not only the mission but the mood was of the winner.” The film acts as a kind of collective very different; the sailors cackled, snapped, and psychoanalysis of a segregated and prejudiced na- snarled, whereas the three comrades in the new tion; its findings are yet to be worked through. Re- movie grow ever more plaintive and tired as their leased in 1948.—R.B. (BAM Cinématek, Nov. 13.)

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 19 MOVIES

Suburbicon The new George Clooney film is set in 1959, in the cheerful town of Suburbicon, home to Gard- ner Lodge (Matt Damon); his wife, Rose (Juli- THE THEATRE anne Moore); their son, Nicky (Noah Jupe); and Rose’s sister, Margaret (Moore again). Needless to say, all is not well—their home is invaded, and Gardner, sunk in debts, is menaced by the Mob. Meanwhile, on the same street, another family moves in; Mr. and Mrs. Mayers (Leith M. Burke and Karimah Westbrook) and their son, Andy (Tony Espinosa), are African-American, and their presence provokes a riot. The problem is that the two halves of the movie fail to mesh. The crimi- nal segment, which began as a screenplay by Joel and Ethan Coen, is only lightly linked to the ra- cial theme. Moreover, although there is no mistak- ing Clooney’s heartfelt condemnation of reaction- ary attitudes, his film pays surprisingly little heed to the black characters themselves; it’s as though they exist purely to demonstrate the rancor of white prejudice. That said, the story does come alive with the entrance of Oscar Isaac, who plays an insurance-claims investigator. His sense that something here smells fishy is quite correct.—A.L. (11/6/17) (In wide release.) Mark Rylance plays a melancholy Spanish monarch in “Farinelli and the King,” at the Belasco.

Thor: Ragnarok The director Taika Waititi brings exuberant visual intriguing casting is Nathan Lane as wit and comedic sensibility to the latest Marvel Winter Preview Roy Cohn, the conservative power extravaganza. Chris Hemsworth again plays the hero with the hammer; this time, after the death Alas, the movies have discovered Mark broker (and early mentor of Donald of his father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), Thor must Rylance, the fifty-seven-year-old actor Trump). Joe Mantello, who starred in fight his vengeful sister, Hela (Cate Blanchett), and sprite, who followed his Oscar- “Angels” in 1993, directs Edward Albee’s to save his home planet of Asgard and its resi- dents from her wrath. But, before he gets there, winning turn in Steven Spielberg’s “Three Tall Women” (Feb. 27, Golden), he’s taken prisoner on the remote planet of Sakaar “Bridge of Spies” with roles in “The with a trio of formidable actresses— and forced into gladiatorial combat against a fear- BFG” and “Dunkirk.” For theatregoers Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, and some monster—who turns out to be none other than Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). A lively set of sup- who have long enjoyed his elfin bril- Alison Pill—playing the same woman porting characters, including a Valkyrie (Tessa liance, it’s a bit like having your corner at different ages. Jessie Mueller and Thompson), an Asgardian warrior (Idris Elba), noodle bar get rave reviews and sud- Joshua Henry headline a revival of and a creature made of rocks (Waititi), contrib- ute heart and humor. Waititi makes the most of denly become mobbed by foodies. For- “Carousel” (Feb. 28, Imperial), staged the churn and flash of battles and settings realized tunately, Rylance is too committed to by Jack O’Brien and featuring Renée with C.G.I., filling the screen with wild whirls of the stage—and, frankly, too weird—to Fleming’s rendition of “You’ll Never color, launching characters and vehicles into loopy trajectories, and shifting from place to place with leave it for long. He returns to Broad- Walk Alone.” And Disney returns to an antic sense of surprise. Even the long exposi- way in a transfer of the West End hit Broadway with “Frozen” (Feb. 22, tion and the sentimental ending can’t burst the “Farinelli and the King” (starting pre- St. James)—prepare for “Let It Go” to giddy bubble.—R.B. (In wide release.) views Dec. 5, at the Belasco), playing lodge itself back in your brain. Wait for Your Laugh the Spanish monarch Philippe V, who Off Broadway features two expertly Rose Marie, one of the last of the vaudevillians, soothes his depression by summoning dyspeptic playwrights: Bruce Norris, is ninety-four, and Jason Wise’s lively and fasci- nating documentary about her career as an en- a silver-voiced castrato (sung by the with “The Low Road” (Feb. 13, Public), tertainer—beginning with her early radio star- countertenor Iestyn Davies). Like his a parable of the roots of American cap- dom, at the age of five—is filled with her vital, 2013 double bill of “Twelfth Night” and italism, and Martin McDonagh, with lucid recollections and her hearty presence. Her father was a small-time gangster; Al Capone was “Richard III,” the play, by Rylance’s wife “Hangmen” ( Jan. 18, Atlantic Theatre her “Uncle Al,” and Rose Marie (who never used and frequent collaborator, Claire van Company), in which the second-best her last name, Mazetta) was a Las Vegas headliner Kampen, will be staged with Baroque hangman in England finds out that under the tutelage of Bugsy Siegel and his cohorts (whom she calls “the boys”). Abandoning Hol- instruments, by candlelight. capital punishment has been abolished. lywood after a harrowing episode of on-the-set Another London import cannon- The downtown fixture Daniel Alexan- sexual harassment, she turned to television and, balling into the Broadway season is the der Jones brings back his soul-singing in the early nineteen-sixties, found new fame on “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” in the role of a com- National Theatre’s revival of “Angels in alter-ego, Jomama Jones, in “Black edy writer—the only woman in the writers’ room. America” (Feb. 23, Neil Simon), Tony Light” (Feb. 12, Joe’s Pub). And the col- Wise interviews Carl Reiner (the show’s creator), Kushner’s two-part epic about AIDS, lective the Mad Ones reprises its ab- Van Dyke, and others; mixes in an enticing batch of home movies and archival footage (plus a few Mormons, and the spiritual state of the surdist gem “Miles for Mary” ( Jan. 11, ill-advised reënactments); and unfolds a remark- nation. The visionary Marianne Elliott Playwrights Horizons), in which the able tale of show-biz smarts and steadfast pur- (“The Curious Incident of the Dog in faculty of an Ohio high school plans a pose. Ever a trouper, Rose Marie still yearns to work, and her past success is shadowed by her re- the Night-Time”) directs, with Andrew twenty-four-hour telethon. —Michael Schulman cent idleness.—R.B. (In limited release.) Garfield as Prior Walter. But the more BENDIK KALTENBORN BY ILLUSTRATION

20 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 1 THE THEATRE OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS Illyria this slick production of a thin play features twenty- Joe Papp, the founder of the New York Shakespeare three actors, so there’s not a lot of room for charac- The Band’s Visit Festival and the Public Theatre, was pugnacious ter development. But, in a way, that doesn’t mat- David Yazbek and Itamar Moses’s musical, about and punny, a lionhearted ideologue with a grand ter: sometimes it’s fun just to sit there and get off an Egyptian police orchestra stranded in the Israeli vision and the moxie to build it, smack-dab in on the testosterone and the swiftness of the action, desert, moves to Broadway; Katrina Lenk and Tony Manhattan. So a play about Papp, produced by the like most of the play’s guys do. (Vivian Beaumont, Shalhoub reprise their roles in David Cromer’s pro- Public, would seem destined for grandeur. Thank- 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.) duction. (Ethel Barrymore, 243 W. 47th St. 212-239- fully, the playwright Richard Nelson doesn’t have 6200. In previews. Opens Nov. 9.) a grand drop in his pen. Much like his “Apple” and M. Butterfly “Gabriel” family plays, this account of the Festi- David Henry Hwang’s most famous drama, which Describe the Night val’s scrappy beginnings is casual, conversational, won the 1988 Tony Award for Best Play, premièred Rajiv Joseph’s new play, directed by Giovanna Sar- and laid-back nearly to the point of inaudibility. on Broadway with John Lithgow in the role of delli, tells parallel stories connecting the Russian It’s 1958, and Papp (John Magaro) is struggling Rene Gallimard, a French official who falls fatally writer Isaac Babel, a K.G.B. agent in Dresden, and to keep his fledgling Shakespeare company afloat in love with a male Chinese opera star named Song a 2010 plane crash in Smolensk. (Atlantic Theatre in Central Park, despite the lure of better-paying Liling—whom Gallimard believes is a woman. Company, 336 W. 20th St. 866-811-4111. Previews jobs and the antagonism of the Parks Commis- Played by the handsome Clive Owen in this creaky begin Nov. 10.) sioner, Robert Moses. Under Nelson’s direction, revival (directed by Julie Taymor with atypical re- the well-attuned ensemble uses the stage not as a straint, despite the occasional spectacle), Galli- Downtown Race Riot pedestal but as a field of whispered dreams. (Pub- mard is less existentially confused than in Lith- The New Group presents Seth Zvi Rosenfeld’s lic, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.) gow’s interpretation, and thus less interesting. As play, directed by Scott Elliott and starring Chloë Song, Jin Ha is perhaps too self-righteous, but that Sevigny as a single mother during a 1976 mob at- Junk may have something to do with Hwang’s rewrite tack in Washington Square Park. (Pershing Square Ayad Akhtar (“Disgraced”) is a playwright who of the script, which explains and justifies myster- Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-279-4200. Pre- seems the most energized when he has big issues ies that should be left to the imagination. (Cort, views begin Nov. 14.) to dive into, and what could be juicier than Wall 138 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200.) Street greed and maleficence? The year is 1985, and Office Hour Judy Chen (a terrific Teresa Avia Lim) is a busi- Marcel + The Art of Laughter Julia Cho’s play, directed by Neel Keller, is about a ness journalist covering new financial strategies This two-part evening of clowning first shows, then college professor who faces an ethical crisis when that are redefining the idea of capital in America. tells. In “Marcel,” the wide-eyed Marcello Magni one of her students writes obscene work in class. Robert Merkin (Steven Pasquale) embodies those endures a test of endurance and fitness from the (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. Opens Nov. 8.) changes: sleek as a shark, he’s the head of an L.A.- vaguely bureaucratic Jos Houben. The humor comes based bank that’s been very aggressive about hostile largely from the juxtaposition of befuddled naïveté The Parisian Woman takeovers. Merkin lives in a world where guilt is a and sternness—and, of course, from pratfalls. Hou- Uma Thurman stars in a drama by Beau Willimon burden and loyalty an inconvenience: money is, as ben and Magni (both longtime associates of the (the creator of “House of Cards”), as a Washington Chen says, “the thing.” Directed by Doug Hughes, Complicité company and the director Peter Brook) socialite navigating power and relationships after the 2016 election. Pam MacKinnon directs. (Hudson, 141 W. 44th St. 855-801-5876. Previews begin Nov. 9.)

20th Century Blues Susan Miller’s play follows four women who meet once a year to take a group portrait and find their friendships tested when they learn that the pho- tos may go public. Emily Mann directs. (Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-279- 4200. Previews begin Nov. 12.)

What We’re Up Against WP Theatre stages Theresa Rebeck’s dark comedy about gender politics at an architecture firm, directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt and featuring Skylar Astin and Krysta Rodriguez. (McGinn/Cazale, 2162 Broadway,1 at 76th St. 866-811-4111. Opens Nov. 8.) NOW PLAYING

The B-Side As the abundantly charismatic performer Eric Ber- ryman explains in his disarming introduction, the Wooster Group’s “Early Shaker Spirituals” (2014) inspired him to create his own theatre piece based on an album he’d been obsessed with—“Negro Folk- lore from Texas State Prisons,” recorded by the eth- nographer Bruce Jackson in 1964—and the company (with Kate Valk directing) had the good sense to produce it. The rest of this singular and engross- ingly uncluttered show consists of Berryman play- ing the record in its entirety and singing and talking along with it, sometimes joined on harmonies by the superb vocalists Philip Moore and Jasper Mc- Gruder, and sometimes pausing between tracks to add explication. Berryman revivifies a distant world of pain, and the beauty that paradoxically derives from it, by way of meticulous attention to a beloved piece of vinyl. (The Performing Garage, 33 Wooster St. thewoostergroup.org.)

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 21 THE THEATRE

display a slapstick wizardry informed by Keaton and young man with severe developmental challenges; Fellini. Unfortunately, the one-act is followed by and Lali (Jill Frutkin), a child who has never smiled “The Art of Laughter,” a “seminar” originally cre- at or spoken to her mother. Though the writers strain ated for acting students, in which Houben dissects to give everyone a happyish ending, this humaniz- the mechanics of comedy. One may argue that noth- ing piece deals empathetically with people on the ing new has happened in the chuckle business since spectrum and the neurotypicals who care for them. man first slipped on banana peel, but imitations of (Sheen Center, 18 Bleecker St. 212-925-2812.) animals and banal remarks like “the misery, the pain 1 of others are funny” don’t exactly merit an hour’s worth of scrutiny. (Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 ALSO NOTABLE Ashland Pl., Brooklyn. 866-811-4111.) After the Blast Claire Tow. • The Home Place Irish Uncommon Sense Repertory. • Jesus Hopped the “A” Train Pershing Jess, a college student, marvels at the number of syn- Square Signature Center. • The Last Match Laura aptic connections in the brain. “There should be no Pels. • Latin History for Morons Studio 54. • Lonely wonder in difference,” she reasons. But Jess does feel Planet Clurman. • Meteor Shower Booth. • Oed­ different. She struggles to express her thoughts, has ipus el Rey Public. • People, Places & Things difficulty reading faces, and doesn’t respond to so- St. Ann’s Warehouse. (Reviewed in this issue.) • Pride cial cues. Jess is autistic, like and unlike three other and Prejudice Cherry Lane. • SpongeBob Square­ characters in this Tectonic Theatre Project show, Pants Palace. • Springsteen on Broadway Walter written by Andy Paris (who directs) and Anushka Kerr. • Strange Interlude Irondale Center. • Time Paris-Carter. Jess (Jessica Almasy) is joined by Dan and the Conways American Airlines Theatre. • Tiny (Scott Barrow), a high-functioning chatterer train- Beautiful Things Public. • Torch Song Second ing to work as an actuary; Moose (Andrew Duff), a Stage. • The Wolves Mitzi E. Newhouse.

ABOVE & BEYOND

Veterans Day Parade pressionists on Nov. 14, leading off with works by This annual procession dates back to the first Ar- Cézanne, Degas, and Chagall. The Chagall, “Les mistice Day celebrations, in 1919. This year’s pa- Amoureux” (1928), is a rapturous depiction of the rade, which runs north on Fifth Ave. from 26th painter and his wife, Bella Rosenfeld, locked in an St. to 52nd St., commemorates the centennial of embrace; some experts feel that it might achieve a the United States’ entry into the First World War, new record price for the artist. The auction also in- in 1917; Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut who helped cludes a rather austere work, in shades of luminous man Apollo 11 on its trip to the moon, serves as gray, by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi, “In- grand marshal. The opening ceremony, in Madi- terior with Woman at the Piano.” The evening auc- son Square Park, includes a wreath-laying at the tion is preceded, on Nov. 13, by a sale of African and Eternal Light Flagstaff at 11 A.M., the eleventh hour pre-Columbian art from a private collection and an- of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. (Enter other sale of American works, including a healthy the park at Broadway at 23rd St. Nov. 11 at 10 A.M.) quotient of paintings by Norman Rockwell. (York 1 Ave.1 at 72nd St. 212-606-7000.) AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES READINGS AND TALKS Once again, the auction houses are gearing up for their seasonal battle in the high-stakes arenas of Im- Cooper Union pressionist, modern, and contemporary art. Chris­ Does dissent have a look? Is the attitude recogniz- tie’s starts off the two-week extravaganza with a sale able in deep red tones, bold fonts, sharp corners, or of Impressionist and modern canvases (Nov. 13), led frayed edges? Every generation has had its share of by a Léger (“Contraste de Formes”) that has never rebellion, each with a texture of its own. The art- before seen the inside of an auction house; the paint- ist and designer Milton Glaser first attempted to ing, which features a bold red-checked pattern, has gather and analyze this history in “The Design of remained in the hands of a single family since the Dissent,” published in 2005, amid a swell of resis- nineteen-fifties. Other major works in the sale in- tance to the Iraq War. New culture battles are rag- clude a landscape by van Gogh (“Laboureur dans ing today; Glaser has updated the book, which he un Champ”), painted the year before his death, and co-authored with Mirko Ilić, and added the subhead the sunny “Les Régates de Nice,” a dreamy, pastel- “Greed, Nationalism, Alternative Facts and the Re- colored view of sailboats as seen from a balcony, sistance.” He discusses his work with the designer by Matisse. (20 Rockefeller Plaza, at 49th St. 212- Steven Heller, a former art director at the Times.

636-2000.) • Sotheby’s holds its evening sale of Im- (7 E. 7th St. cooper.edu. Nov. 13 at 7:30.) AMARGO PABLO BY ILLUSTRATION

22 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 F§D & DRINK

1 TABLES FOR TWO The crostinis appear airy, but they’re BA R TA B Belly topped with a hearty dollop of kimchee butter—an incongruous but delightful 219 Grand St., Brooklyn (888-777-0087) concept that could pass for a creamier “It takes real work to fuck up bacon,” a cousin of sriracha—and crisped bacon. first-time patron at this new Williams- Next up is a single, bite-sized piece of burg establishment remarked, in appre- bacon sushi, in which belly meat is ciation of the restaurant’s nearly fail-proof torched into an impossibly thin, streaky Mood Ring business plan. At Belly, a shrine to the strip and served with an electric hit of 1260 Myrtle Ave., Brooklyn (917-818-1738) protean appeal of the swine, pork might wasabi and Szechuan chili oil; it’s indel- Wong Kar-wai’s films inspired the feeling of this as well be its own syncretic religion, cel- ible in the mind but teasingly ephemeral new bar in Bushwick, where, inside, muted lighting ebrated in multitudinous forms through to the senses. With nine courses, it’s hard casts magenta shadows across faces, conjuring the intertwined culinary traditions. “We are to avoid some fillers; there’s also a five- dreamy intensity of classics like “In the Mood for Love” or—as a neon-pink sign suggests—“Happy the United Nations of Pork,” a paunchy, course edition, which leaves out a service- Together.” The dramatic setting turns even the jovial chef named Johnny likes to tell din- able stuffed pepper and a bland codfish simple gesture of raising an emerald bottle of Tsing- ers—or, more succinctly, “Bacon me crazy.” surf and turf. tao to one’s lips into something cinematic, but it also makes the cocktail menu awfully hard to read. Still, there is a method to the porcine Without a doubt, the pièce de résis- Diligent squinters are rewarded with creations like madness. Conceived by Anna Lee and tance is the chicharron de belly (which the Tony Leung (bourbon, Frangelico, egg white, Philip Cho, two marketing executives appears on both set menus). Although pistachio). A better move, though, is to bypass the menu entirely and order the monthly rotating cock- turned restaurateurs, Belly offers a cre- the name suggests South America, the tail, designed to capture the essence of whichever atively branded “omakase,” a nine-course caramelized chunk of pork belly, glazed star sign the sun happens to be passing through. pork-centric tasting menu served on com- with maple soy sauce—simultaneously Lately, the specialty drink has been a bold combi- nation of smoky mezcal, Campari, and chili liqueur, munal picnic tables. It’s best to skip your tender and crispy, and explosively rich garnished with star anise. “Scorpios are so intense afternoon snack. Or, better yet, follow in umami—harks back to Korean bar- sometimes, it’s hard for people to take it all in,” dinner with a visit to the karaoke bar becue, which Lee, Cho, and Johnny Vanessa Li, a co-owner and celestial scorpion, said on a recent Wednesday night. A spacious back room below the restaurant, Beats, to work off grew up eating. holds dance parties for Q.T.P.O.C. revellers; the some of those calories with energetic ren- On a recent evening, a young woman bathrooms are pointedly gender-neutral, painted ditions of pop ballads, chosen from a list treated her husband, for his thirtieth with the words “A restroom is a restroom.” Li wants Mood Ring to be a space for queer and trans people as diverse as Belly’s culinary influences. birthday, to both the five-course and the of color in the neighborhood, and the attention to “There’s Japanese, Chinese, Euro- nine-course dinners, per his request. “It’s inclusivity appears to have paid off, with an upbeat pean—and everything is mixed, because worth it just to have the chicharron if intimidatingly hip crowd—pierced guests with shaved heads or brightly dyed hair lounge in plush it’s a super-arrogant menu,” Johnny, a self- twice,” he explained, letting out an inad- red leather booths. At the bar, there are matchbooks taught cook, warns patrons with a grin, vertent belch. “Eat up,” his wife said. “We that look like tiny packs of Marlboro Reds. With though “ambitious” is perhaps a more apt are not taking any bacon home.” (Prix a few weeks before communication goes haywire thanks to Mercury in retrograde, patrons can still adjective. Do not be deceived by the light- fixe: $35 for five courses, $55 for nine courses.) confidently try out the line printed on their covers:

PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID WILLIAMS FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE JOOST BY ILLUSTRATION YORKER; THE NEW WILLIAMS FOR DAVID BY PHOTOGRAPH seeming first course of “bread and butter.” —Jiayang Fan “What’s your sign?”—Wei Tchou

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 23

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT his victory. Yet the latest revelations do oly power, or abuses of its platform by A LONG YEAR not bode well for the President. malevolent actors. Mark Zuckerberg, its Last week, congressional committees chief executive, and Sheryl Sandberg, its t was only a year ago that voters de- summoned representatives from Face- chief operating officer, did not go to Ilivered Donald Trump to the Presi- book, Google, and Twitter to grill them Washington last week. They were on a dency. It feels much longer. Trump’s Twit- about how they could possibly have al- conference call about Facebook’s quar- ter storms and erraticism can seem to lowed polarizing, race-baiting ads to be terly profits of nearly five billion dollars. slow time. There was his initial travel placed on their platforms by companies The Justice Department has also made ban, last January, followed by protests at linked to the Kremlin. On Facebook a leap forward in its efforts to clarify airports, court injunctions, a new travel alone, during the campaign, Russian ads Russia’s interference and to prosecute ban, further injunctions, and an inter- reached more than a hundred million anyone involved in illegality. Last week, vention by the Supreme Court. Add to Americans. It is shocking that only now, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, an- this his adventures in nuclear brinkman- and after early denials from Facebook nounced the indictment of Paul Manafort, ship; his assault on Obamacare; his moves that the ads were a serious problem, are Trump’s former campaign manager, and to tear apart the world’s free-trade sys- we discovering the vast online spread of an associate, Rick Gates, on charges of tem; and his use of the White House manipulative content linked to Russia. fraud and money laundering stemming bully pulpit to normalize white suprem- At a minimum, as Representative Adam from their work for pro-Russian politi- acy. It may seem many months ago, yet Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House cians in Ukraine. Most of Manafort’s it was only in mid-August that he took Intelligence Committee, put it, “the Rus- activity was previously known, and the note of the “very fine people” attending sians mounted what could be described charges did not touch upon collusion be- a neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, where as an independent expenditure campaign tween the Trump campaign and Russia. a white nationalist murdered a counter- on Mr. Trump’s behalf.” Yet Facebook Still, the indictment served notice to protester. Steve Bannon may think of has often evaded accountability, whether Manafort that if he wishes to avoid a all this as a strategy of disruption. But regarding privacy violations, its monop- long prison sentence he might consider Trump’s conduct rarely suggests delib- talking with Mueller’s investigators about, eration; it more often seems to express for example, what Trump knew about his anger, his tiresome ego, and his in- Russia’s efforts to help him get elected. stincts for performance. Another former Trump aide has al- It requires fortitude to accept the like- ready decided to turn state’s evidence. lihood that the Trump Presidency is about Mueller announced that George Papa- to become more eventful still. The in- dopoulos, who advised Trump on for- vestigations into Vladimir Putin’s inter- eign policy during the campaign, had ference in the 2016 election, and the pos- pleaded guilty to making false statements sibility that Trump’s campaign colluded to the F.B.I. Papadopoulos was arrested with Russia, are intensifying. The accu- in July, but it was revealed only last week sation that Russian covert operations in- that he has apparently been coöperating fluenced the Presidential vote clearly with Mueller’s team. Sometimes a wit- drives Trump to distraction. He has re- ness’s coöperation is kept secret so that peatedly denied that his campaign col- the person can clandestinely record laborated with Russia, and he insists that conversations with other targets of an

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS Putin’s activity contributed nothing to investigation; it’s not known whether

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 25 Papadopoulos did this. In any case, the that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation, biguous one, given Nixon’s fate. The Pres- statement chronicling his admissions in 1974. The political equation is more ident’s allies at Fox News and at the Wall reads like a treatment for a mediocre po- favorable for Trump than it was for Nixon. Street Journal’s editorial page continue litical thriller. It recounts Papadopoulos’s During Watergate, when the evidence to denigrate Mueller, priming the Re- discussions in Italy and London with a against the President began to look publican base for a day when Trump Russia-connected “Professor.” ( Joseph damning, Republican leaders in Con- might decide to fire him. Judging by Mifsud, who is affiliated with the Uni- gress encouraged him to resign, for the Trump’s tweets, there can be no doubt versity of Stirling, in Scotland, has ac- sake of the Party. Since then, the G.O.P. that he would if he thought he could get knowledged that he is that individual has shifted sharply to the right, and it is away with it. but has denied any wrongdoing.) It also now consumed by conflicts between pop- Such an intervention would precipi- contains repeated references to getting ulists and traditionalists. Trump remains tate a political crisis with an unpredict- Russian help in obtaining “dirt” on Hil- popular with committed Republican vot- able outcome. Trump occupies the White lary Clinton. Papadopoulos’s LinkedIn ers, and the Party’s congressional wing House in an era of heightened Presiden- profile includes an endorsement of him has so far been largely supine. tial powers. He may be constrained by from Trump: “Excellent guy.” Last week, The most resonant episode from Wa- his unpopularity outside the Republican on Twitter, Trump changed his assess- tergate may be the Saturday Night Mas- Party, as well as by the professionalism ment, calling Papadopoulos a “low level sacre, carried out by Nixon in October, of the F.B.I., the judiciary, and the press. volunteer” who had proved to be a “liar.” 1973. The President found an official to But, as Archibald Cox observed just be- A Justice Department investigation fire Archibald Cox, a special prosecutor fore he was fired, “Eventually, a Presi- of a sitting President or his senior aides investigating Nixon’s inner circle for ob- dent can always work his will.” In all creates its own ecosystem of betrayals structing justice, after the Attorney Gen- probability, the country’s most danger- and political calculations. When consid- eral and the Deputy Attorney General ous trials during the Trump Adminis- ering Donald Trump’s position, it is nat- resigned rather than do so. The episode tration lie ahead. ural to reflect on Watergate and the events offers a precedent for Trump, but an am- —Steve Coll

SHELTERING IN was the year this building opened,” she ing throughout the world,” Berger writes. TEACHABLE MOMENT said. “I was in calculus class. We heard “Manhattan is a concept. It also exists.” a big boom, and then my teacher turned Cenaj reflected. “It was a lesson about on the TV, and we saw what it was. I re- New York, and Manhattan, and my member seeing the big line of emergency teacher related it to this—like, why do vehicles, with lights flashing.” they always choose to do this in Man- More than a dozen schools are situ- hattan?” she said, referring to terrorists. ated within blocks of last week’s attack She was ten years old when her family fter a man drove a rented truck site. Around noon on the day after Hal- moved to New York, from Albania, and Adown a bike path along the West loween, two freshmen at the Borough of she doesn’t remember 9/11. But her Side Highway on Halloween afternoon, Manhattan Community College sat to- teachers do. “They’re really concerned,” murdering eight people and injuring gether at the college’s café, in the shadow she said. “But now I feel safe. There are twelve, Annie Thoms, an English teacher of the new World Trade Center. Flavia cops here.” at nearby Stuyvesant High School, fol- Cenaj wore a white sweater and Levi’s By two-fifteen, police, following lowed “shelter-in” protocol. The next day, and had a ponytail. The previous day, heightened security measures, were es- when her students returned, she opened she’d commuted in from Bensonhurst to corting Stuyvesant students out of the her class with a writing prompt. “I asked find her African-American-history mid- school. They streamed onto Chambers them to write about whatever they were term cancelled. “When I got off the train, Street, where kids buy pizza slices and thinking and feeling this morning,” she I was, like, ‘Why is it so crowded?’ Cops cans of soda and linger outside delis until said later that day. She told them, “There’s everywhere, ambulances,” she recalled. they are shooed away; and into the net- no wrong reaction, and sometimes reac- “Someone in my class was speaking on work of parks along the Hudson River, tions take time to occur.” the news. She’d heard gunshots, that’s where after-school basketball games take “One girl wrote that this was a mo- what she said.” place. The students exited quickly, ment which made her reflect on her own On the next stool, Sarvinoz Sayfil- hunched under their heavy backpacks. life’s importance,” Thoms went on. “I laeva nodded. Her face had a watchful Camera crews huddled nearby. had one kid who said, honestly, ‘I feel expression. “I texted my friends to make The previous day, from a window in like I should be feeling more.’ ” sure they were O.K.” the student union, on the school’s sec- Thoms had been teaching at Stuyve- Cenaj had just come from her En- ond floor, Matt Polazzo and his students sant for a year when 9/11 took place, and glish seminar. The class had discussed had looked down at the immediate af- three thousand students were evacuated John Berger’s short essay “Manhattan,” termath of the attack. “There were two after the first tower fell. She was a se- from his 1985 book, “The Sense of Sight.” bodies on the bikeway, and they were nior at the school when the 1993 World “As a moral idea, an abstraction, Man- there the whole three hours I was there,” Trade Center bombings happened. “That hattan has a place in everybody’s think- he recalled. He moved his students away

26 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 1 from the window. Polazzo was also teach- DEPT. OF INFLUENCE civil-rights bureau, and who earlier this ing at Stuyvesant on 9/11. “I couldn’t be- ON PARADE year mounted an unsuccessful run in the lieve I was in this position again,” he said. Democratic primary for Brooklyn D.A., “I guess I have the dubious honor of hav- explained why he had entered the race ing a little bit of a script here.” against Vance so late. “I had never thought Polazzo, who teaches American gov- about running in Manhattan,” he said. ernment and Western philosophy, has “The Weinstein thing, coupled with the been discussing Plato’s “Republic” in class. Trump thing, incensed me.” As a former “Plato says that, in the ideal city, chil- ast Tuesday night, at a Democratic prosecutor, he’d found Vance’s arguments dren learn their craft from their parents: LSocialists of America Halloween for not pursuing those cases unsatisfac- if we’re going to have children who are Party, at Hotel Chantelle, on Ludlow tory. “Part of a prosecutor’s job is to step guardians and warriors who protect the Street, Marc Fliedner was dressed as a up to the plate so there aren’t more vic- city, they’re going to have to see war close yellow No. 2 pencil. Fliedner, a former tims down the line,” he said. at hand,” he said. “One of my students prosecutor in the Brooklyn District At- Fliedner wants to see changes in how brought this up. He analogized it to what torney’s office, was running a last-min- candidates for District Attorney finance was happening yesterday.” He went on, ute write-in campaign against the Man- their campaigns—Vance took contribu- “I always tell the students that we’re sto- hattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, tions from lawyers who represented both rytelling animals. You show someone a Jr. Earlier in the evening, at the Village Weinstein and the Trump siblings—and bunch of random numbers, and they’re Halloween Parade, Fliedner, in pencil he also wants to see the Manhattan D.A.’s going to try to find a pattern.” costume, had walked down Sixth Ave- office embrace bail reform, stop overcharg- Down past Teardrop Park, some nue handing out specially made cam- ing defendants, amend sentencing to ninth-grade Stuyvesant boys gathered paign pens (“Write-in Marc Fliedner for for a basketball game. “The attack was Manhattan DA on Nov. 7”) and talking first reported by students on the bridge,” to potential voters about why he was Saqif Abedin, in a zip-up sweatshirt, running and how to go about voting for said, referring to a walkway over the him. It had been difficult, along the pa- West Side Highway. “We didn’t know rade route, to engage in substantive dis- who’d get out, who was already out, cussions. The D.S.A. shindig was a more who was on their way home, who got receptive environment. home.” “Are you Marc Fliedner?” a socialist “On Facebook, a couple of my friends named Tiffany, dressed as a resident of were setting up safe lists,” Yousef Amin, the Paris Commune, exclaimed at the a lanky fourteen-year-old, said. He was check-in desk. “I’m a big fan.” wearing a Superman T-shirt. “If you were Fliedner’s campaign was only a few away from the incident, safe at home, weeks old. He’d launched it in the wake you would add your name.” He said that of news articles that drew public atten- school the next day was “awkward”: “In tion to Vance’s decisions not to prose- every single class, we discussed the inci- cute potential cases against Harvey Wein- dent and, like, everyone had their own stein for misdemeanor sexual abuse, in story.” 2015, and against Ivanka Trump and Don- Marc Fliedner Amin’s English class, like Annie ald Trump, Jr., for false statements and Thoms’s, was reading “The Joy Luck fraud, in 2012. To be eligible to receive respond to circumstances like poverty and Club,” by Amy Tan. “In the story, there’s write-in votes in Manhattan, Fliedner mental illness, and address institutional this incident that involves an attack, and had moved from his apartment in Bay racism in the criminal-justice system. “A somebody compared it to yesterday,” he Ridge to one in Stuyvesant Town, tak- lot of just plain progressives in New York said. “I saw the connection also—I was ing his eighty-seven-year-old father with City want those things, too,” he said. going to talk about it, but somebody beat him. He was hoping to garner a few thou- To take a break from the music, Flied- me to it.” He shrugged. sand votes on Election Day against Vance, ner slipped out of the venue with two Two friends arrived, and the group who is still technically running unop- campaign deputies—Dylan Hansen- turned back to the game. They called to posed—Vance’s will be the only name Fliedner, his twenty-five-year-old son, one another over the clang of the hoop that is printed on the ballot as a candi- and Steven Panovich, a Brooklyn-based and the sounds of other people in the date for District Attorney. activist and artist—who had come park. “Ballin’, bro,” a boy said. Among the guests at the D.S.A. party dressed as Dougie Jones and Mr. C, “Did you sign up for J.V.?” another were a variety of socialist ghouls, spec- characters from “Twin Peaks: The Re- asked. tres, and bogeymen. Sitting on a bench turn,” both played by Kyle MacLach- “I thought tryouts were today,” an- in the middle of the room, speaking loud lan. Hansen-Fliedner had on a lime- other called back. “I brought basketball enough to be heard over booming music, green blazer, while Panovich wore a ratty shoes and everything.” Fliedner, who, until resigning last year, black wig. The trio stood in a semicircle —Anna Russell was the head of the Brooklyn D.A. office’s and described how Fliedner’s write-in

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 27 campaign had begun on the night of in Souza’s five-pound book, “Obama: An posted a picture of the former President October 10th. Intimate Portrait,” released this week by and First Lady consoling a family whose “He was speaking at a book launch Little, Brown. son was killed in Afghanistan. for Alex Vitale’s ‘The End of Policing,’ ” Shortly before the book’s publication, In Vegas, Souza appeared onstage in Hansen-Fliedner said. “And we just start Obama still hadn’t seen a copy. But he’d dark clothes, chewing gum. He began by getting a hundred Twitter notifications, offered Souza some advice. As the pho- showing images from his years as Rea- because this Twitter user”—a Brooklyn tographer culled millions of Presidential gan’s White House photographer. Then resident who had met Fliedner at the images down to hundreds, Obama told shots of the Middle East. “We’re trying West Indian American Day Parade, in him, “Sometimes you’ve got to choose to get through this,” he said, “so we can September—“was responding to every the aesthetic over the narrative.” Souza get to the Obama pictures.” Then: there tweet about Cy Vance, ‘You should write agreed. The former Commander-in- in Marc Fliedner.’ ‘You should write in Chief, he realized, “is a photo editor, too.” Marc Fliedner.’ ” Other Twitter users Souza has been telling such stories joined in, urging Fliedner to run. The around the country at standing-room- notion spread so fast that it reached other only talks that have functioned, unexpect- people at the book party before he had edly, as group-therapy sessions. In Las decided what to do about it. Vegas—as in Atlanta and New York— “By the time I got up to speak, there members of the audience wept. “Souza’s were these people talking about this guy work has been a beacon of light and hope who was being recruited—and then one in these dark times,” Caroline Kustu, a of the journalists there said, ‘That’s the graphic designer living in Dallas, said be- guy, he’s here,’ ” Fliedner said. fore the talk at the Venetian. A box of “And then all of a sudden Shaun King tissues was nearby. “It’s a reminder that was tweeting about it,” Panovich said, there were good times, and there will be referring to the Intercept columnist, who good times again. His work makes me has more than eight hundred thousand emotional. But I’m also pregnant.” followers. Spencer Harding-McDermott, a “That was within hours—that was video-production intern from Lincoln, Pete Souza huge,” Fliedner said, nodding. Nebraska, sat beside Kustu. “I could “We found out, after he said yes, that kind of see myself in Souza’s images of was Obama playing in the snow, on the he had to move to Manhattan,” Han- Obama,” he said. “How joyful and open White House lawn, with his daughters; sen-Fliedner said. that felt. That White House was part of palling around with Joe Biden; working Panovich interjected: “I actually us. It was an open book.” in the Treaty Room late at night; stand- tweeted, ‘Marc, move to Manhattan.’ ” “Souza was able to just, like, be invis- ing in an elevator with Michelle, before 1—Eric Lach ible,” Drew Fowler, a creative director his first Inauguration; bending over so a from Sacramento, sitting nearby, said. small African-American boy could touch LEGACY DEPT. “But not afraid to be right in the mid- his hair. BEACON dle of everything.” A picture of Obama and his national- “I never heard his name until the security staff watching the bin Laden end of Obama’s Presidency,” Harding- raid required C.I.A. clearance. “We McDermott said. showed it to the deputy director, Mike “And then he started trolling Trump,” Morell,” Souza recalled. “And we’re, like, Fowler replied. ‘Is this document on the table classified?’ Souza has a million and a half Insta- He said, ‘Yes.’ I thought about it for two welve thousand photographers, gram followers. Many discovered him seconds and said, ‘Can we declassify it?’ Tgraphic designers, creative directors, after the Inauguration of President Trump, He said, ‘No.’ So I said, ‘What if we pix- and filmmakers attended a recent con- the unnamed but obvious target of Sou- elize it?’ He said, ‘I’d be O.K. with that.’ ference hosted by Adobe, in Las Vegas. za’s feed. “His Instagram has helped me So that’s what we did.” For many, Barack Obama’s official White get through this year,” Kustu noted. “Was that work done on Adobe Pho- House photographer, Pete Souza, was When Trump declined to throw the first toshop?” the moderator asked. the main attraction. Nine hundred peo- pitch at the Washington Nationals’ home “Yes,” Souza said. The crowd laughed. ple filled a ballroom in the Venetian for opener, in March, Souza shared a pho- That was the only product plug. a “fireside chat” with Souza, a sixty-two- tograph of Obama winding up. When An image of Obama embracing the year-old former Chicago Tribune pho- Melania Trump swatted away her hus- parents of a boy killed in the Sandy Hook tographer and professor of photojour- band’s hand, in May, Souza posted a pic- shooting silenced the room. “It was the nalism at Ohio University, who took ture of Barack and Michelle’s fingers in- hardest thing I ever did,” Souza said. nearly two million pictures of Obama tertwined. Last month, when Trump He described driving to Newtown, Con- during his two terms in office. Three claimed that Obama hadn’t called the necticut, to ask the parents if they’d per- hundred and nineteen of these appear families of fallen U.S. soldiers, Souza mit him to publish it. “They said they’d

28 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 be honored.” He continued, his voice It was a Thursday afternoon, and going to be updated,” Weinberg said. cracking. “Shame on us for not getting Weinberg was showing in a frequent vis- “One of our board members wanted to anything done on gun control.” itor, the children’s-book author Brian Selz- 3-D-print the entire thing, which would Afterward, fans mobbed Souza to ask nick. A boyish fifty-one-year-old, Selz- have taken the soul away from it.” for selfies. “I love what you’re doing to nick gave the Panorama a starring role in Selznick, who wore a flannel shirt and Trump on Instagram,” one woman told his 2011 novel, “Wonderstruck,” which had a Philippa Gregory novel stuffed in him. traces the parallel meanderings of two the back of his jeans, peered through “I don’t know what you’re talking deaf children fifty years apart. It’s now a mounted V.R. goggles. “I can’t quite get about,” Souza replied. movie, directed by Todd Haynes. (Selz- it to focus, but it looks cool,” he said. He 1—Charles Bethea nick’s previous book, “The Invention of pointed to Park Slope, where he lives Hugo Cabret,” became the Martin Scor- with his husband. Selznick grew up in THE PICTURES sese film “Hugo.”) Selznick first saw the New Jersey, which is represented by a SMALL WORLD Panorama about a decade ago, when he black outline along the west wall—No brought some friends’ kids. “Everybody Man’s Land. “The whole book was in- was really cranky by the time we got to spired by the fact that my parents hated the museum,” he said, but, upon stepping New York when I was a kid,” he said. “So into the room, “we all woke up.” Not long I developed this very deep fear of it. It after, he contacted Weinberg, and she let wasn’t until I was out of college that I him take closeup photographs, from which got the nerve to move to the city.” n the Queens Museum, just past Ar- he drew the book’s crosshatched illus- Weinberg offered to let Selznick join Ithur Ashe Stadium, there’s a large, trations. She also let him root through her in actually walking on the Panorama, quiet room containing a 9,365-square- archival materials, including photos of which requires special booties and a cau- foot replica of New York City. Made of women in flared skirts affixing miniature tious tread. (While filming “Wonder- urethane foam, wood, plastic, and hand- water towers to rooftops. struck,” a cameraman accidentally broke painted paper—except for the bridges, “Maybe we should walk down closer the George Washington Bridge, but “they which are etched brass—the Panorama to Manhattan,” Selznick said, as he and took it to their shop and re-welded it,” of the City of New York has a scale of Weinberg hovered over Coney Island, Weinberg said.) The pair ducked through one inch to a hundred feet. (The Em- complete with a Lilliputian roller coaster. a small employees-only door and emerged pire State Building stands at fifteen inches In “Wonderstruck,” Julianne Moore plays onto the Lower Bay, where Weinberg tall.) To gaze on it from the walkway a museum worker who keeps the sky- picked up some bits of trash. “This is the along its perimeter is to feel like a great line up to date with new buildings, but Verrazano Bridge,” she said, “so just take god beholding creation, or, more to the no such job exists in real life—the Pan- a giant step over it.” point, like Robert Moses, who conceived orama, like the city, has modernized in Selznick tiptoed up the Hudson and the sculpture for the 1964 World’s Fair. fits and starts. Citi Field is there, but you pointed out a building on West Eighti- “Moses designed the Panorama as a teach- won’t find a teensy Barclays Center. (De- eth Street where he lived in the nineties, ing tool,” Louise Weinberg, the muse- velopers have to pay for their projects to while working a day job at Eeyore’s Books um’s archives manager, said the other day, be miniaturized.) The Twin Towers have for Children. Before that, he lived on “and obviously as a paean to himself.” remained. “It’s kind of hit or miss what’s Ninety-ninth Street (“right around here”) with four roommates. “My landlord told me Madonna used to live in my bed- room,” he recalled. “No one ever believed me. Years later, I was at a party in the East Village and I met this woman, and we got to talking about where we’d lived in New York. She said she’d lived on Ninety-ninth and Riverside. And I said I’d lived on Ninety-ninth and Riverside. And she said, ‘Madonna was my room- mate.’ So it turns out it was true!” A tourist on the walkway called out from above in a Spanish accent: “De Cloisters?” Selznick hopped uptown to find it for her. Another museumgoer was flashing a laser pointer at a tiny airplane suspended on a string over Queens. (When it’s turned on, it lands at tiny LaGuardia.) “See?” Selznick said. “Ev- erything’s interesting when it’s small.” “I spy with my little eye something heading toward divorce.” —Michael Schulman

what as a speaker, even if he still proj- THE POLITICAL SCENE ects more intelligence than warmth. In this manner, he gave an assignment to the two hundred or so guests in the TRUMP’S INHERITOR hotel ballroom. “Go home tonight and turn on one Tom Cotton and the future of the G.O.P. of the nighttime comedy shows. To- morrow morning, turn on one of the BY JEFFREY TOOBIN cable morning-news shows. This Sat- urday, watch ‘Saturday Night Live,’ ” he said. “All the high wardens of pop- ular culture in this country, they love to make fun of Donald Trump, to mock him, to ridicule him. They make fun of his hair, they make fun of the color of his skin, they make fun of the way he talks—he’s from Queens, not from Manhattan. They make fun of that long tie he wears, they make fun of his taste for McDonald’s.” He went on, “What I don’t think they realize is that out here in Arkansas and the heart- land and the places that made a differ- ence in that election, like Michigan and Wisconsin, when we hear that kind of ridicule, we hear them making fun of the way we look, and the way we talk, and the way we think.” It was, on one level, a breathtaking leap—to equate mockery of a louche New York billionaire with attacks on the citizens of this small, conservative city, which lies across the Arkansas River from Oklahoma. But Cotton’s appeal to his audience for solidarity with Trump, which was greeted with strong applause, represented just one part of his enthusiastic embrace of the President. Stephen Bannon, Trump’s former top strategist and the chairman f you believed the national media, junior senator, Tom Cotton, who seized of the right-wing Web site Breitbart Ithe week of the annual Republican the chance to address the disquiet in News, told me, “Next to Trump, he’s Party fund-raising dinner, in Fort the nation’s capital. the elected official who gets it the Smith, Arkansas, in late August, was At forty years old, Cotton is the most—the economic nationalism. Cot- one of the worst of Donald Trump’s youngest member of the Senate, and ton was the one most supportive of us, Presidency. The President had just re- he retains the erect posture and sol- up front and behind the scenes, from sponded to the unrest in Charlottes- emn bearing that he displayed as a the beginning. He understands that ville with statements that appeared member of the Army’s Old Guard, the Washington élite—this permanent sympathetic to neo-Nazi demonstra- which presides at military ceremonies, political class of both parties, between tors, and even some members of his including funerals, in Washington. the K Street consultants and politi- own party were denouncing him. The He’s let his hair grow, a little, since his cians—needs to be shattered.” At the White House staff was in turmoil, fol- Army days. When he first ran for office, same time, Cotton has maintained lowing the departure of Reince Prie- in 2012—he served a single term in strong ties with the establishment wing bus as chief of staff, and the Senate had the House of Representatives before of the G.O.P. Karl Rove, President failed to pass a replacement for the winning his Senate seat, in 2014— George W. Bush’s chief political ad- Affordable Care Act. The featured Cotton was often described as robotic viser, told me, “Cotton is not like a speaker for the evening was the state’s on the stump, but he’s improved some- Steve Bannon, who wants to blow up the existing structure, uproot the ideol-

Cotton plays successfully to the warring constituencies of the Republican party. ogy of the Republican Party and replace GIBSON/POOL/GETTY ZACH PHOTOGRAPH:

32 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN RENTERIA it with something new. He’s a ris- the childish tweets. For those who see ing star. He’s capable of building Trump’s Presidency as an aberration, bridges within the Party. He wants to or as a singular phenomenon, Cotton get things done.” offers a useful corrective. He and his In recent weeks, several Republican supporters see Trump and Trumpism Senators have denounced Trump for as the future of the Republican Party. his intemperance and his dishonesty. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, and Bob Corker, n the early days of the Trump Ad- of Tennessee, condemned Trump and Iministration, Cotton exercised in- announced that they would not seek fluence from behind the scenes. Ban- reëlection in 2018. Ben Sasse, of Ne- non told me, “He spent a lot of time braska, whose term is not up until 2020, in my little war room, and he gave us said that, by threatening journalists, a lot of good advice. He was the one Trump was violating his oath to de- who told us about John Kelly,” the for- fend the Constitution. Cotton has made mer Marine Corps general who is now a different bet, offering only the gen- Trump’s chief of staff. (The Senator tlest of criticisms of the President. and Kelly had met at a security con- When, in the course of several weeks ference when Cotton was in the House.) of conversations, I asked Cotton about In recent months, however, Cotton’s one or another of Trump’s controver- influence has become more apparent, sial statements or tweets, he always as Trump has embraced some of his responded in the same manner. “The most high-profile positions. President puts things sometimes in a In September, President Trump re- way that I would not,” he said in early pealed the Obama-era executive order October. “But he was still nominated known as DACA, which protected the by our voters and elected by the Amer- so-called Dreamers from deportation, ican people to be our President, and if but he said that he also wanted Con- we want him to accomplish our agenda gress to pass a law that would allow we need to set him up for success.” them to remain in the United States, Even Trump’s latest political trau- even making a preliminary deal with mas have not shaken Cotton’s faith Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi, the in him. Following the indictment of Democratic congressional leaders. But, Trump’s former campaign manager after Cotton spoke out against a quick Paul Manafort and former campaign deal to protect the Dreamers, Trump adviser Rick Gates, last week, Cotton made a formal proposal to Congress urged a prompt resolution of the in- that attached many strings Cotton had vestigation into the Trump campaign, demanded. “I had dinner with the Pres- but he did not call for the removal of ident and General Kelly on October 2nd, Robert Mueller, the special counsel. and we talked about DACA,” Cotton “What’s in the best interest of every- told me. “They said that Chuck and one is for these inquiries to move for- Nancy had done some post- dinner spin, ward, and to follow them to their to go along with the post-dinner des- proper conclusion as quickly as pos- sert, about what the President actually sible,” Cotton said. agreed to on DACA. I think the fix that Roby Brock, who hosts the leading the President announced is a better public-affairs television program in Ar- step in the right direction.” kansas, told me, “From the beginning, The following month, Trump gave Tom could play to both the establish- Cotton a victory on the touchstone ment and the Tea Party. Everyone rec- issue of his Senate career by decertify- ognizes he’s got a firm set of conser- ing Iran’s compliance with the nuclear- vative principles, but that makes him arms deal that the Obama Adminis- a polarizing figure. There are a lot of tration had negotiated. “I told the people here, too, who hate him and Presi dent in July that he shouldn’t cer- think he’s the Antichrist. The only thing tify that Iran was complying with the everyone agrees on is that he wants to agreement,” Cotton told me. “Putting be President someday.” To make that aside the issue of technical compliance next leap, Cotton expresses the milita- or noncompliance, it’s clear that the rism, bellicosity, intolerance, and xeno- agreement is not in our national inter- phobia of Donald Trump, but without est.” Following Trump’s action, Cotton

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 33 joined forces with Senator Corker, the He offers Trump a certainty that can, as he was not afraid to let his new chairman of the Foreign Relations matches his own, especially about the neighbors know. One late night during Committee, on a proposal that, if threats the nation faces and the best his freshman year, he and his room- passed, would likely lead to the termi- ways to address them. mates were joined by Kristin Gore, the nation of the Iran nuclear deal and the daughter of the Vice-President, who reimposition of American sanctions. n August, I visited Cotton in the had a room nearby. Gore began dis- “Let there be no doubt about this Ihouse where he grew up, in Yell cussing the environmental ills of cat- point,” Cotton said, in a recent speech County, Arkansas. When I arrived, tle farming. As one roommate recalled, to the Council on Foreign Relations. Cotton’s father was also walking in the Cotton listened for a time, and then “If we are forced to take action, the door. Len Cotton did not offer to fumed, “Kristin, you don’t know shit United States has the shake hands right away, about cows!” (Neither Gore nor Cot- ability to totally destroy because he had just wel- ton remembered this exchange, though Iran’s nuclear infrastruc- comed two newborn calves Cotton, who said he had a friendly re- ture. And, if they choose to the family farm, and lationship with the Vice-President’s to rebuild it, we could he thought it prudent to daughter, remarked, “That sounds like destroy it again, until wash up first. something I might say.”) they get the picture. Nor The Cottons have Cotton began writing an opinion should we hesitate if been in Arkansas for six column for the Crimson, the campus compelled to take mili- generations, and Tom’s daily, where he made a name for him- tary action.” In describ- parents make their living self as an outspoken dissenter on a lib- ing his preferred ap- running what’s known as eral campus. Shortly before he gradu- proach to negotiations a cow-calf operation, on ated, in 1998, Thomas B. Cotton wrote with Iran, Cotton said, “One thing I several plots of land in the Arkansas a farewell to his readers. “I never sought learned in the Army is that when your River Valley. In the specialized world to be loved or to be treated justly,” he opponent is on his knees you drive of beef-and-dairy production, the Cot- said. “How could I? I wrote against sa- him to the ground and choke him tons’ business is the first stage—the cred cows, such as the cult of diversity, out.” In response, a questioner pointed production of the cows, which are sold affirmative action, conspicuous com- out that killing a prisoner of war is to ranchers. The Cottons have always passion and radical participatory de- not “American practice.” (It is, in fact, done some farming, but when Tom mocracy. I wrote in favor of taboo no- a war crime.) was a boy his mother was a public- tions, such as Promise Keepers, student Similarly, in North Korea, Cotton school teacher and a middle-school apathy, honor and (most unforgivably) supports Trump’s brinkmanship with principal, and his father worked for conservativism.” After college, Cotton Kim Jong Un, and excoriates China state government, doing inspections went to Harvard Law School. He for its failure to rein in its ally. “Time for the Department of Health. Like worked in law firms during the sum- and time again, Beijing shows that it most people in Arkansas at the time, mers and landed a clerkship with a fed- is not up to being the great power it Tom’s parents were Democrats. But eral appeals-court judge. aspires to be,” Cotton said. (His hos- the leitmotif of Tom Cotton’s politi- He appeared headed for a life of tility toward China endears him to cal career has been the decline of the prosperous anonymity in law, but the the Bannon wing of the Republican Democratic Party among white vot- attacks of September 11, 2001, upended Party, which views the U.S.-China re- ers in Arkansas. “The Democratic Party his plans. “I was going to play intra- lationship as the defining conflict of has drifted away from them,” Tom told mural basketball, enjoy my last year in the modern world.) me, as his parents sat nearby. “Bill Clin- school, and then, in the second week Cotton has emerged as such a close ton would be repudiated by his own of school, the attacks happened, and ally of the Trump White House that party today. Hillary Clinton repudi- that changed my orientation,” he told one recent report suggested that the ated a lot of her husband’s chief ac- me. “I spent a lot more time from that President would name him director complishments when he was in office. point forward thinking about the threat of the C.I.A. if Mike Pompeo, the cur- So that’s a real fundamental story about we faced, reading about history, read- rent director, were to replace Rex Til- politics in Arkansas and politics across ing military history, started thinking lerson as Secretary of State. (Trump the heartland.” about joining the Army.” is widely believed to be dissatisfied Tom had an idyllic boyhood in the Cotton approached the matter with with Tillerson.) In a conversation in town of Dardanelle, centered on sports the careful deliberation that has char- mid-October, Cotton did not dismiss and school, where he excelled, and he acterized his career. He decided to take the possibility of taking the C.I.A. job. won admission to Harvard. When he the clerkship he had already accepted, “I am pleased to be a senator,” he told arrived in Cambridge, in the fall of with Judge Jerry Smith, on the Fifth me. “But, of course, I will always take 1995, he still had braces on his teeth, Circuit, then work at Gibson, Dunn & a call from the President, and he has though he had grown to a full six feet Crutcher, in Washington, to start pay- called me many times.” As a member five; friends remember him as a bit of ing off his student loans. “I thought he of Trump’s Administration, Cotton a loner, at least at first. He was also al- had a great future at the firm,” Bill Kil- would ratify the President’s instincts. ready a conservative, if not a Republi- berg, the partner who supervised Cotton’s

34 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 work, told me. “Then, one day in 2004, in the espionage laws relevant to this teered for a tour in Afghanistan, where Tom came and said he was thinking story and others—laws you have plainly he won a Bronze Star, before leaving about leaving the firm to join the Army. violated. I hope that my colleagues at the service, in 2009. After a brief stint I said, ‘Tom, the Army has plenty of the Department of Justice match the working at McKinsey, Cotton returned lawyers, they really don’t need you, and courage of my soldiers here and pros- to Arkansas to run for Congress in his it’s not necessary for you to join the ecute you and your newspaper to the home district. Mike Ross, a Democrat, Army to serve.’ He said, ‘Oh, no, I’m fullest extent of the law. By the time had retired, and Cotton, campaigning not going to be a lawyer. I’m going to we return home, maybe you will be in with a heavy emphasis on his military be an Airborne Ranger.’ And I looked your rightful place: not at the Pulitzer service, won the open seat with about at him and said, ‘Tom, have you talked announcements, but behind bars.” sixty per cent of the vote. to your mother about this?’ ” When Cotton returned to the base, he When I asked Cotton about the de- learned that the Times hadn’t run the rkansas, though generally regarded cision, he said, “The Army needs law- letter but the Web sites had, and the Aas a Southern state, exists at a yers, but that’s not the heart of the Ar- chief of staff of the Army had distrib- crossroads of regions that have been my’s mission. The Army’s mission is uted it to his subordinates. slipping away from Democrats for de- the infantry’s mission.” He went on, “I started hearing about Tom when cades. The booming north, along the “So I wanted to do that mission, wanted he was still in the military, when I was Missouri border, has a Midwestern to do the heart of it. I wanted to lead state chair of our party,” Dennis Mil- feel, especially because Walmart’s head- troops in combat.” ligan, who is now the Arkansas state quarters, in Bentonville, has attracted Cotton served with the 101st Air- treasurer, told me. “As chair, you’re al- so many newcomers. The mountain- borne Division in Iraq. He led ninety- ways looking for new talent, and peo- ous west owes much to its neighbors six-hour patrols in the field, followed ple were talking about him even then. in Texas and Oklahoma; the plains of by thirty-six-hour stretches at a base They knew he had given up all that the east and the south, with their cot- near Baghdad. The base had Internet money in the law to serve his country.” ton fields and rice farms, are conspic- access, and one day in the summer of From Iraq, Cotton was summoned to uously Southern. “You can tell from 2006 Cotton saw that the Times had serve in the Old Guard. (Cotton hoped the music,” Mark Pryor, a former Dem- disclosed, over objections from the Bush he had won appointment to the pres- ocratic senator from Arkansas, told me. Administration, the existence of cer- tigious unit on merit, but the Army “In the mountains, it’s bluegrass and tain terrorist-surveillance programs. had simply summoned the six tallest folk music, but in the east and south Cotton fired off a letter to the editor, lieutenants in Iraq.) Later, he volun- it’s blues. Memphis is just across the copying several conser vative Web sites, and then left on a patrol, where he was cut off from all electronic contact with the United States. “Congratulations on disclosing our government’s highly classified anti-terrorist-financing pro- gram,” the letter begins. “I apologize for not writing sooner. But I am a lieu- tenant in the United States Army and I spent the last four days patrolling one of the more dangerous areas in Iraq.” The letter combined outrage, over- statement, and savvy politics in a man- ner that Trump would perfect a decade later. “You may think you have done a public service, but you have gravely en- dangered the lives of my soldiers and all other soldiers and innocent Iraqis here,” Cotton wrote. “Next time I hear that familiar explosion—or next time I feel it—I will wonder whether we could have stopped that bomb had you not instructed terrorists how to evade our financial surveillance.” He contin- ued, “And, by the way, having gradu- ated from Harvard Law and practiced with a federal appellate judge and two Washington law firms before becom- ing an infantry officer, I am well-versed Mississippi. Half of those people at Sun tle Rock Central High School, in 1957, mous outside spending by conserva- Records were originally from Arkansas.” racial politics in the state calmed for a tive groups, including some affiliated Pryor, more than anyone, has lived time. This was in part because of the with the Koch brothers, who have sub- the recent political evolution of his state. relatively small number of African- stantial holdings in Arkansas. Accord- His father, David (governor from 1975 Americans; they make up roughly ing to the Center for Responsive Pol- to 1979, and senator from 1979 to 1997), fifteen per cent of the population, as itics, outside groups spent twenty-three along with Dale Bumpers (governor opposed to thirty per cent in the Deep million dollars for Cotton, compared from 1971 to 1975, and senator from 1975 South. “Discrimination was not as ev- with fourteen million for Pryor. to 1999), and Bill Clinton (governor ident in Arkansas as it was in other Cotton rejects the notion that race from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992), Southern states,” Joyce Elliott, a vet- had anything to do with his victory, or constitute the gifted political triumvi- eran state senator, said. “It took a black with the rise of the Republican Party rate that kept the Democratic Party President to bring out the threat.” She in Arkansas. “I don’t think that’s all alive in Arkansas after it had faded in added, “I would always say to my lib- that different from the intense unpop- nearby states. Clinton, of course, par- eral white friends, ‘Oh, come on, surely ularity of George Bush in 2006 and layed his moderate liberalism into two it’s gotten better.’ And they’d say to me, 2008,” he told me, in a conversation in terms as President. Mark Pryor was ‘Oh, no, it hasn’t. You can’t believe what his Senate office. “The President’s the elected state attorney general in 1998, white people say about Obama in pri- head of the Party, he takes up most of and then won his Senate seat in 2002. vate—he’s Kenyan, he’s Muslim, they’d the attention in American politics, and Six years later, Republicans didn’t even call him unprintable racial epithets.’ ” when he’s very unpopular opponents field an opponent against him. But just Brantley told me, “You needed to be in the other party tend to run against six years after that, in 2014, Pryor lost here to see how quickly the politics him, whether they’re running for the in a landslide to the thirty-seven-year- changed after Obama came in. He is United States Senate or whether they’re old Tom Cotton. so deeply disliked here. I think a lot of running for justice of the peace.” Be- “For a long time, Arkansas Dem- people in Arkansas thought he was ‘up- sides, he said, Democrats in Arkansas ocratic politics was kept separate from pity,’ to use the old smear.” had a special reason to disdain Obama: national Democratic politics,” John Obama’s Presidency certainly coin- “It wasn’t because Barack Obama was Brummett, a political columnist at the cided with, if it didn’t directly cause, black, it was because Barack Obama Democrat-Gazette, the leading news- the decimation of the Democratic Party stopped the Clinton restoration.” paper in the state, told me. “That con- in Arkansas. Republicans thrived by As reviled as President Obama was tinued in Arkansas through the nine- targeting Obama even in contests that in Arkansas, the Affordable Care Act ties and into the two-thousands, had nothing to do with him. Repub- has proved successful and popular in because of Clinton. White rural con- lican candidates for justice of the peace the state. About three hundred thou- servatives here could look on the na- inveighed against Obamacare, which sand people, which amounts to more tional Democratic Party and see the they never referred to as the Afford- than ten per cent of the state’s popu- same guy as President that they were able Care Act. When Cotton chal- lation, have taken advantage of the happy enough with in Arkansas.” But lenged Pryor, in 2014, he put Obama law to obtain health insurance. The the trends that were altering the pol- state’s governor, Asa Hutchinson, is itics of neighboring states were per- a conservative Republican, but he’s colating in Arkansas as well. “ ‘God, urged Congress to protect the money guns, and gays’—social issues—were that the state receives under the pro- driving white conservatives to the Re- gram. He has, however, made a change. publicans all along,” Brummett said. The program is not called Obamacare “It just exploded when Obama be- but, rather, Arkansas Works. It appar- came President.” Before the Obama ently took the removal of the Presi- years, Republicans had won the oc- dent’s name to make the law palat- casional race in Arkansas; Mike Huck- able to Arkansans. abee was first elected governor in the at the center of his campaign. In one nineties. But in the past decade the television advertisement, featuring n the day after I visited Cotton’s state’s six-person congressional dele- a grainy black-and-white video of Ofamily’s home, I told him that I gation and seven statewide elected Obama, Cotton vowed, “We need a had driven the scenic route back to Lit- officials have gone from nearly all senator who will hold the President tle Rock. “That’s because you drove Democrats to all Republicans. accountable.” Another showed Obama along the Ouachita Mountains, which Toxic racial politics contributed to saying that he wasn’t on the ballot but is the only range in Arkansas that goes this shift. Max Brantley, a longtime his policies were. “President Obama is west to east,” he said. “It provides more local journalist, now with the Arkan- finally right about something,” Cotton attractive views of the sunset than the sas Times, said, “It is impossible not to said, in response. A third ad ended with north-south ranges.” This was an ac- see race as a central element in the fall the tag line “Mark Pryor—voting with curate, if rather bloodless, assessment of the Democratic Party here.” After Obama, voting against Arkansans like of the aesthetics of the countryside, the crisis over the integration of Lit- you.” Cotton also benefitted from enor- one that might be made by “Star Trek” ’s

36 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 Mr. Spock, whom Cotton, with his air ful effort to persuade John Boehner, ing to get care, that makes it more of icy certainty, somewhat resembles. then the Speaker, to block the bill from dangerous to drive in the roads be- “I remember the first time I met even coming up for a vote in the House. cause people don’t have driver’s li- Tommy,” Trey Gowdy, a South Caro- When we chatted at the kitchen table censes or they don’t have insurance, lina congressman, told me. “We were of his boyhood home, Cotton explained or if they are bidding down the wages debating a medical-malpractice bill on his opposition. “It was the élite, bipar- or even taking jobs away from you, the floor of the House, and he comes tisan consensus—‘It’s the only possi- then it doesn’t look nearly so good,” up and starts talking about the details ble solution’—another idea which the Cotton said. He endorses Trump’s of the bill. And I said, ‘First of all, who great and the good in Washington love, plan to build a wall on the Mexican are you?’ He said he was the new con- but wrongheaded in almost every par- border—“Walls work,” he often says— gressman from Arkansas. And I said, ticular,” he said. “If you live in a big and is a lead sponsor of a bill, strongly ‘You can’t be from Arkansas, because city and you work in an office build- supported by the White House, that you’re wearing shoes.’ And then he ing, immigration is almost an unal- would cut legal immigration roughly starts telling me to read some law- loyed good for you. . . . It makes the in half. (Cotton’s views on immigra- review article about malpractice by price of services that you pay for a lit- tion are debatable in every particular. Robert Bork or someone. And I said, tle bit more affordable—whether it’s It’s far from clear that a border wall ‘Dude, the chess club meets around the your nanny to take care of your kids with Mexico would “work” to stop il- corner.’ ” (Gowdy later became a close for you, or landscaping your yard, or legal immigration in any meaningful friend of Cotton and his wife, Anna, a pedicures, manicures, that sort of thing. way. Most economists believe that im- lawyer and former prosecutor.) And you get a lot of exciting new fu- migrants, legal and otherwise, add Shortly after Cotton was elected to sion restaurants as well. more to the economy than they take the House, the Senate passed a com- “But if you live and work in a com- from it, and that their presence in the prehensive immigration-reform bill, munity where they have a large illegal- labor force does not lead to lower which offered a path to citizenship for immigrant population that’s straining wages over all.) some undocumented aliens. Cotton the public school, that’s clogging up As a legislator, Cotton has shown lit- was among the leaders of the success- the emergency room when you’re try- tle deference to his elders. John Cornyn,

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 37 the senior senator from Texas, told me that he favored keeping open the de- had been waiting for a Senate vote that new senators used to sit back for tention facility at Guantánamo Bay. for eight hundred and thirty- five days a while. “But Tom proved right away “In my opinion, the only problem with when, in May, 2016, she died suddenly, that he was very engaged and knowl- Guantánamo Bay is there are too many of an undiagnosed cancer. Cotton said, edgeable,” Cornyn said. “He probably empty beds and cells there right now,” “I feel very badly about her death and knows more about geopolitics than Cotton said. “We should be sending the timing of it. I wish the White most senators.” In March of his first more terrorists there for further inter- House had just addressed this much year in the Senate, Cotton wrote an rogation to keep this country safe. As earlier.” Still, Cotton’s actions left a open letter to the “Leaders of the far as I’m concerned, every last one of bitter aftertaste for some of his col- Islamic Republic of Iran,” which was them can rot in hell, but as long as leagues. “I thought what he did was co-signed by forty-six other Republi- they don’t do that they can rot in outrageous,” Richard Durbin, an Il- can senators, warning the mullahs that Guantánamo Bay.” (Even McCain fa- linois Democrat and the assistant mi- Congress might undo any agreement vors closing Guan tánamo, which he nority leader, said. “There is a point they reached with Obama. The letter believes stains the reputation of the where winning a political battle isn’t was denounced by Executive Branch United States and serves as a recruit- worth it.” officials as an attempt to interfere in ment tool for terrorists.) a diplomatic initiative, but Cotton During the last days of the Obama or the moment, at least, Cotton regards it as a triumph. In his recent Administration, Cotton also helped Fappears to be a hybrid of insur- speech at the Council on Foreign to sabotage a criminal-justice-reform gent and old guard, who can play Relations, he boasted about the letter: bill, which had a meaningful chance of successfully to the warring constitu- “Didn’t I warn the ayatollahs that this passage. Senator Cornyn, the second- encies of the Republican Party. As deal might not survive if it wasn’t a ranking Republican, was pushing the Bannon put it, “How many guys in treaty? I think I did.” bill, which would have ended man- town can give a speech at the Coun- When I asked Cotton what he datory minimum sentences for some cil on Foreign Relations and also get learned during the Iraq War, he re- narcotics offenders. Cotton took the kudos in the pages of Breitbart? The plied, “Security comes first.” He con- public lead in making statements about answer is, one guy.” tinued, “In 2003, there were a lot of the proposal which, as with his com- Cotton has carved out a clear grand ambitions of what a postwar ments on Guantánamo, skirted the Trumpism-without-Trump agenda: Iraq would look like, and all the differ- edge of demagoguery. “I don’t think limits on immigration through leg- ent things that needed to happen. And any Republicans want legislation that islation, deportations, and a wall; we neglected the most basic thing, is going to let out violent felons, which longer prison sentences for Ameri- which is physical security for the peo- this bill would do,” Cotton said. His can convicts and suspected terrorists ple there and for our troops. You see rhetoric helped turn a difficult polit- abroad; a bigger budget for the De- that now in Afghanistan as well. You ical challenge into an impossible one, partment of Defense. The question is see it in so many places around the and the Republican leadership in the whether he has the charisma to sell world. You simply cannot neglect se- Senate never even brought the bill up that agenda to a broader public. Re- curity, and without security there can- for a vote. Cotton told me, “I think cently, at his Little Rock office, Cot- not be political compromise and rec- most Arkansans believe they elected ton presented several medals to the onciliation, there cannot be good me to help keep dangerous people in family of George Anderson, a Second governance, there cannot be economic prison.” Jeff Sessions, Trump’s Attor- World War veteran who had died in development, there can’t be anything.” ney General, shares Cotton’s disdain 2006. Cotton began with a solemn in- If Rand Paul is the leading Repub- for criminal-justice reform, and the troduction, but then, unexpectedly, lican isolationist in the Senate, Cot- move toward shorter sentences at the Anderson’s family members, most of ton, in short order, has become heir federal level has halted. whom were elderly, took over the pro- to the opposing wing of the Party, the For some Democrats, however, Cot- ceedings and began telling stories one associated with Senator John Mc- ton made his name in the Senate in about George, who had made his Cain, whose efforts to increase the de- a more personally poisonous way. In living running car washes and coin- fense budget Cotton has championed. his first year, Cotton placed a hold on operated laundries. Cotton’s staff mem- “Tom is a veteran of Iraq and Afghan- Obama’s nominations for the Ambas- bers and the assembled local reporters istan. He’s got mud on his boots,” Mc- sadors to Sweden, Norway, and the began chuckling at the rambling ac- Cain told me. “That means he has Bahamas, because of an unrelated dis- counts of how George stacked his special credibility on those issues, just pute regarding the Secret Service. As coins. A more deft politician might like the World War Two generation months passed, Cotton released the have joined in the fun, but Cotton just did around here for a long time. We holds on the Sweden and Norway en- stood there, seemingly paralyzed by need Tom and people like him.” But voys—because, he said, those coun- the deviations from good order. The Cotton has gone well past McCain in tries were NATO allies—but he pre- ceremony came to a close when George his swaggering belligerence. In a Feb- vented a vote on Cassandra Butts, an Anderson’s surviving sister turned to ruary, 2015, hearing of the Armed Ser- old friend of the President’s, as the Cotton and said, “As for you—you vices Committee, Cotton announced Ambassador to the Bahamas. Butts keep standing up for our President.” 

38 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 SKETCHBOOK BY ROZ CHAST

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 39 with aggravated murder, and were pros- ANNALS OF LAW ecuted separately at the Guernsey County Courthouse. Stumpf ’s case went to court in September, 1984. A county prosecutor, CONFLICTING CONVICTIONS urging the death penalty, argued that Stumpf had shot Mary Jane: “Believing What happens when a prosecutor puts the same gun in two hands. that he had killed Mr. Stout, this defen- dant then turned the same chrome-colored BY KEN ARMSTRONG Raven automatic pistol upon Mary Jane Stout as she sat on the bed and shot her four times. Three times in the left side of the head and neck and one time in the wrist, obviously in order not to leave any- one available to identify him.” Stumpf was convicted and sentenced to death. Seven months later, the prosecutor re- turned to court for Wesley’s trial. Again seeking the death penalty, he argued this time that Wesley had fired the fatal shots: “Believing that he had killed Mr. Stout, John David Stumpf pitched the gun aside.” At that point, the prosecutor con- tinued, “this defendant, whose own gun was jammed, picked that chrome-colored Raven up and, as Mrs. Stout sat helplessly on her bed, shot her four times in order to leave no witnesses to the crime.” Wes- ley was convicted and sentenced to life.

everal years ago, a lawyer contacted Sme about a case in which he said prosecutors had argued contradictory theories of a crime. Looking into the subject, I didn’t find much—a few law- review articles and the occasional news story. The author of an article from 2001, a professor emeritus at Villanova Uni- versity’s law school named Anne Bowen Poulin, told me that when she began her research a colleague said to her, “This ate one spring night in 1984, the as one of the men, after finishing the call, is stupid. It never happens.” The next L doorbell rang at the home of Nor- took out a handkerchief and wiped off day, Poulin got a call from a former stu- man and Mary Jane Stout. The Stouts, the receiver. The two men—their names dent, now a defense attorney, who had married thirty years, with three grown were John David Stumpf and Clyde Dan- just such a case, in Philadelphia. “It does kids, lived in Guernsey County, Ohio, iel Wesley—pulled guns. “Oh, by the way, happen,” Poulin said. “And probably about a hundred yards off Interstate 70. this is a stickup,” Wesley said. When Nor- more often than we’d like to think.” Norman was a heavy-equipment oper- man rushed at Stumpf, Stumpf shot him There’s no saying exactly how often. ator; Mary Jane, who once worked as twice in the head; the first shot, Norman But, in a recent canvass of court rulings, an office manager, was a collector of later recalled, hit “the bridge of my glasses, I turned up more than four dozen cases, Holly Hobbie plates and figurines. They right between my eyes.” He lost con- from California to Massachusetts, in were at the kitchen table, paying bills. sciousness and fell to the ground. After- which the defense attorney argued in an Norman opened the door to find two ward, one of the robbers shot and killed appeal that the prosecution had told men, who looked to be in their mid-twen- Mary Jane. Norman came to in time to conflicting stories about the crime. Pros- ties. They said that their car had bro- hear the men’s voices in another room, ecutors have offered contradictory the- ken down on the highway and asked to and then the shots that killed his wife. ories about which defendant stabbed use the telephone. But he couldn’t see who fired the gun. someone with a knife, or chopped a Norman invited them in, then watched Stumpf and Wesley were both charged woman’s skull with a hatchet, or held a man’s head underwater. The most com- Judges have referred to inconsistent prosecutions as “unseemly” and “troubling.” mon scenario involves a fatal shot: the

40 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER JAƒN prosecutor puts the gun in the hand of on aiding and abetting, Stumpf could have nineteen, had been friends since middle one defendant, then another. Under the been convicted of aggravated murder no school. Bankhead had two children and legal principle of accomplice liability, a matter who fired the gun. The question, had flipped burgers at Wendy’s; Shad- defendant can be convicted of murder the Court determined, was whether the wick had a daughter and had worked without being the killer. But, if the pros- prosecution’s inconsistency should inval- there, too. Bankhead told me that he had ecutor says that a defendant pulled the idate Stumpf ’s death sentence. The Sixth met the other two men, Alvin Washing- trigger, it’s easier to ask a judge or a jury Circuit had not tackled that issue, so the ton and I. V. Simms, who were both eigh- for a death sentence. At least twenty-nine Supreme Court sent the case back for an teen, more recently. men have been condemned in cases in answer. To this day, the Supreme Court Two of the men approached Pascall, which defense attorneys accused prose- has not ruled squarely on the validity of wearing black baseball caps and gold ban- cutors of presenting contradictory the- conflicting prosecution theories. dannas, which left only their eyes exposed. ories. To date, seven of those twenty-nine Cases like Stumpf ’s have long offered The caps had lettering affiliated with a have been executed. the courthouse equivalent of what the local gang. One of the two pulled a pis- More often than not, judges who are counsellor to the President Kellyanne tol, a .380 semiautomatic. They told Pas- confronted with inconsistent prosecutions Conway described, in January, as “alter- call to get out of the car and demanded have affirmed convictions, while, at times, native facts.” In 1935, the Supreme Court his jewelry. Pascall resisted and ran to- expressing distaste for the tactic. The de- said that a federal prosecutor “is the rep- ward the grocery store. A bullet hit him scriptions applied by judges include “un- resentative not of an ordinary party to a in the left side of his chest, and, as he seemly,” “unseemly at best,” “troubling,” controversy, but of a sovereignty,” and reached the entrance, he collapsed into “deeply troubling,” and “mighty troubling.” that his “interest, therefore, in a criminal the arms of a woman who was shopping “The state cannot divide and conquer in prosecution is not that it shall win a case, with her son and three grandchildren. this manner,” a federal appeals-court judge but that justice shall be done.” A prose- “Somebody help me,” she heard him say. wrote in one Georgia case, in which the cutor who presents contradictory theo- The gunman and the second robber court threw out a defendant’s conviction ries risks violating this vision of his role. jumped into Pascall’s Lincoln and sped on other grounds. “Such actions reduce In “Do No Wrong,” a 2009 book about away. Pascall died at Saint Louis Univer- criminal trials to mere gamesmanship and legal ethics, Peter Joy and Kevin McMun- sity Hospital, shortly after midnight. rob them of their supposed purpose of a igal wrote, “Public respect and trust in search for truth.” our criminal justice system will suffer if etectives interviewed at least eigh- In 2004, the Sixth Circuit Court of factually inconsistent charges are pursued Dteen eyewitnesses to the murder. Appeals overturned John David Stumpf ’s that result in an innocent person being Aside from race—both robbers were conviction in the murder of Mary Jane convicted.” “Imagine,” they continued, black—their descriptions were not con- Stout, writing, “Inconsistent theories ren- how jurors “would feel about the prose- sistent. One witness described both men der convictions unreliable.” The state ap- cutor and the criminal justice system” if as four feet eleven. Another said that pealed, and on April 19, 2005, the Su- they learned that the prosecutor had told both were maybe five feet six. A third preme Court heard oral arguments in them one story of the crime—and then said that both were between five feet Stumpf ’s case. Justice David Souter said, told another jury the opposite. nine and five feet ten. Yet another said of the prosecution’s contradictory theo- that one was short, the other tall. Three ries, “It has to be the case that one of n the summer of 2000, Demetrius witnesses said that one robber wore white those arguments, if accepted, would lead I Pascall was twenty-seven—a large or tan shorts, while three others said both to a false result.” Souter asked how the man, six feet tall, three hundred and two wore bluejeans. use of conflicting arguments could square pounds, who played the bass guitar at The day after the shooting, police with due process. Justice Antonin Sca- Faith and Hope Ministries in Wellston, spotted Washington driving the Path- lia said that he saw no such problem: Missouri. He had been married two finder, which had been stolen the previ- “Due process doesn’t mean perfection. years, and he and his wife were looking ous week. They cornered him in a ga- It doesn’t mean that each jury has to al- to buy their first house. At about 10 P.M. rage, where they found the gun that had ways reach the right result.” Scalia’s lan- on July 30th, he pulled into the park- killed Pascall. guage was so blunt that even Ohio’s State ing lot of a Schnucks grocery store in That same day, police found Pascall’s Solicitor saw a need to soften it. “I agree St. Louis. The store, open twenty-four Lincoln, stripped and partially burned. with that, Your Honor, and I hate to hours, was busy. The only prints recovered from the car argue against my position, so I do this Pascall was driving a white 1990 Lin- were Washington’s. He told police that, gently,” he said. “One of the old saws of coln Continental with a blue ragtop. He on July 30th, the four men had driven to American law is, it’s better one guilty dropped off a cousin at the store’s en- the Schnucks so that he could buy some person should go free than that one in- trance, then pulled alongside a couple of dog food. Washington said that Shad- nocent person should be punished.” women walking to their car. According wick and Bankhead had robbed Pascall, Two months later, the Supreme Court to police, as he chatted with one of the and that Shadwick had fired the gun. issued a unanimous opinion, written by women, his Lincoln caught the attention Three days later, Shadwick turned Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, affirming of four men nearby, in a black Nissan himself in, accompanied by a lawyer, who Stumpf ’s conviction while avoiding the Pathfinder. Antoine Bankhead, who was advised him not to talk to the police. On due-process question. Under Ohio’s law eighteen, and Martez Shadwick, who was August 14th, police arrested Bankhead

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 41 and Simms. Asked who committed the Shadwick shot him, and the two fled At the trial’s end, on June 20, 2002, the robbery, Bankhead named Washington in Pascall’s car. judge complimented both attorneys for and Simms, and said that Washington “Did that happen, Mr. Washington?” “an excellent job of presenting evidence” fired the fatal shot. Simms, on the way the judge asked. and found Shadwick guilty of first-degree to the police station, told two officers that “Yes, sir,” Washington said. murder, robbery, and the two other charges. Washington and Shadwick were the rob- At the hearing, and in others to come, bers, and Washington the shooter. Then, Pascall’s family described their loss. In t Antoine Bankhead’s trial, which at the station, Simms claimed that Shad- July, 2000, Pascall’s church had held a Abegan on July 1st, Craddick appeared wick, Washington, and two-week revival, where he before a third judge, Joan M. Burger. Bankhead had all got out played the bass guitar. The This time, he changed his lineup of wit- of the Pathfinder, and that day he was shot, he had nesses. The woman and her son, who Shadwick shot Pascall. persuaded his father to at- had identified Washington as Shadwick’s Police created at least tend. “He was smiling all accomplice, weren’t called to testify, but four different photo line- day,” his dad said. “We had the three witnesses whom Craddick had ups and showed them to dinner, he was playing with not asked about the second robber’s iden- eyewitnesses, asking if they me. And at the end of that tity were called again. could pick out the robbers. day I didn’t have a son any- At Shadwick’s trial, the defense attor- Some selected Washing- more.” Pascall’s wife wrote ney had asked two of those witnesses to ton, some Shadwick, some Bankhead. of seeing his body at the morgue, a tube identify the second robber: the gas-station The task was complicated by the fact still in his mouth. She said that, at the cashier said it was Washington; the sales- that Shadwick and Washington were funeral, “I just wanted to fall into the cas- woman said that while looking at police both five-eleven and a hundred and fifty ket with him.” photos she “couldn’t pick that second per- pounds, while Bankhead and Simms In exchange for Washington’s plea, son out.” Now both said that the second were both short and slim. “If you see his the state recommended a sentence that robber was Bankhead. The third witness, picture and my picture, we kind of favor would make him eligible for parole in the nurse, named him as well. each other,” Bankhead told me. Police about twenty-two years. The judge ac- Bankhead’s attorney later said that he settled on Shadwick as the shooter, and cepted the recommendation, but told had attended part of Shadwick’s trial, but Shadwick, Bankhead, and Washing- Washington, “I think I must be getting he did not ask the cashier or the sales- ton were all charged with murder, rob- cranky in my old age. I think you prob- woman about the inconsistencies in their bery, and two counts of armed crimi- ably deserve to die.” testimony from one trial to the next. nal action. Bankhead recalled that, after Washing- The task of trying the three went to ine months later, Martez Shadwick ton’s and Shadwick’s convictions, he found Robert J. Craddick, an assistant prose- N went on trial, before another judge. the case against him baffling. “I’m, like, cutor with the St. Louis Circuit Attor- Craddick, in his opening statement, again hold on, this ain’t right,” he said. “I’m not ney’s office. Craddick, who was in his said that Shadwick and Washington were the smartest man in the world, but this mid-forties, had received his law degree the two robbers, and that Shadwick was doesn’t make sense.” from Washington University, in St. Louis, the gunman. Five prosecution witnesses In Craddick’s closing argument, he and had been with the office since 1984; identified Shadwick as one of the rob- told the jury that there was “no doubt” at one point, he had been responsible bers. Craddick didn’t ask the first three that Shadwick was the shooter, and that for training new prosecutors. Police are witnesses—a nurse, a shoe saleswoman, the evidence that Bankhead was the sec- often critical of prosecutors for being and a gas-station cashier—about the ond robber was “uncontradicted.” If overly cautious, but in St. Louis the po- identity of the second robber. But he did Washington had been the second rob- lice praised Craddick. “He’s the best ask the last two: the woman in whose ber, he said, why had no eyewitnesses they’ve got. He’s been an aggressive pros- arms Pascall had collapsed, and the wom- picked out his photo? Any suggestion ecutor who knows the importance of an’s son. Both testified that in a photo that Washington was Shadwick’s accom- getting murderers off the street,” one de- array they had picked out Washington. plice was a “smoke screen.” The jury, after tective later told the St. Louis Post- In closing arguments, Shadwick’s law- deliberating for less than two hours, con- Dispatch. Craddick told the paper that, yer challenged the reliability of the pros- victed Bankhead of all four charges. during his twenty-one years in the office, ecution’s witnesses. One witness’s descrip- When I spoke to Bankhead recently, he had won all but four of a hundred tion of the robbers didn’t fit Shadwick’s he gave me his account of Pascall’s mur- and sixty- seven cases. height. Another’s didn’t match his skin der. He’d been drinking and smoking On September 21, 2001, Washington tone. The most damning evidence was marijuana that evening, he said, and was appeared in circuit court with his attor- against Washington: he had been found asleep in the back seat of the Pathfinder ney and pleaded guilty to the four charges. with the murder weapon, and his finger- when the sound of the gunshot woke Craddick, asked to summarize the prints were the only ones recovered from him. He saw that Shadwick was sitting state’s evidence, said that it would show the Lincoln. “Alvin Washington killed in the front seat. (Shadwick’s lawyer told beyond a reasonable doubt that Wash- Demetrius Pascall, Your Honor, and Mar- me that her client was not present. Wash- ington and Shadwick had “decided to tez Shadwick had nothing to do with it,” ington and Simms could not be reached take it upon themselves” to rob Pascall. the defense lawyer said. for comment.)

42 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 A couple of days after Bankhead’s conviction, while his sentencing was pending, he wrote to Burger, asking for a retrial. “I’m a innocent man,” he said. Only two people had committed the crime, but Bankhead was the third to be convicted. He wrote, “Now don’t you think somethings wrong with that pic- ture your honor.”

lvin Washington might have helped A Shadwick’s and Bankhead’s de- fenses, and at one point he had prom- ised to do so. In June, 2002, a few days before the start of Shadwick’s trial, Wash- ington wrote to Bankhead’s mother, “i’m sorry for you having to lived these last 2 years without your son and no-dout i feel as if it was my fault because if i wouldn’t have said nothing he wouldnt be in this situation … i was thinking selfish at that time … getting them be- fore they got me.” He said that he would help Bankhead and Shadwick when their trials came, “cause theirs no reason for everybody to go down for one dead body.” He even signed an affidavit, saying that Bankhead and Shadwick played “no ac- tive part” in the crime. Shadwick’s lawyer arranged for Wash- ington to testify at Shadwick’s trial, and had him transported from prison. But at the courthouse Washington balked. Bank- head’s lawyer wanted a jail officer to tes- tify that she had overheard Washington tell other inmates that he was the shooter, and that Shadwick and Bankhead had stayed behind in the S.U.V. But the judge prohibited the account as hearsay. On July 26, 2002, the sheriff ’s depart- ment carried Shadwick into court for sentencing, restrained with a belly chain and leg irons. “You convicted me for something I didn’t do, man,” Shadwick said as the hearing started. “Why you doing this, man? God, I don’t know why you’re doing this—” “Mr. Shadwick, please,” the judge said. Shadwick kept saying that he was in- nocent: “I didn’t do it, man…. God know I didn’t do it…. I know you think in your head, oh yeah, I got gold, I got braids, I’m black, I’m a teen-ager, but that ain’t me, man…. I’m not no robber, I’m not no murderer.” Shadwick said, “Craddick know that I’m innocent. He know. He just wants a conviction, man.” He claimed that Bankhead was innocent, too, and all but named Washington and Simms:

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 43 “The dude that done it may be sitting use inherently factually contradictory prosecutor is to represent the parties that in the penitentiary right now, laughing theories.” It had accused the three de- he represents with an eye to doing the at me, and the other dude did it, man, fendants of “acting with each other.” right thing. And the right thing means, and he didn’t even get convicted, man.” Burger was unmoved. Two months after right or wrong, present the truth. And if On Craddick’s recommendation, the the hearing, she threw out Bankhead’s the truth stacks up against your position judge sentenced Shadwick to life with- conviction, writing, “The state has con- do not prosecute.” out parole. victed three people for the acts of two.” Seifert went on, “Truth is not a block “Why? Why life without? Why?” of stone. It is a malleable gray area. There Shadwick asked. here is no simple explanation for can be nuggets of truth, bits of lies. It’s “Mr. Shadwick, please,” the judge said. T why a prosecutor might argue con- all—it’s a fluid idea, even. What’s true The following month, Bankhead re- tradictory theories. In a 2012 law-review one day may not be true another. Pluto turned to court to be sentenced by Joan article on inconsistent prosecutions, Bran- is no longer a planet.” Burger. “I thought it was a just trial,” don Buskey, now a senior staff attorney Martin Sabelli, one of Allison’s law- Burger said, in court. She knew that two with the A.C.L.U. Criminal Law Re- yers, recalled that Seifert seemed indiffer- other men had been convicted in the form Project, identified “three basic types” ent to the importance of the case: “He case, but she wasn’t aware of the partic- of prosecutor in these cases: the “win at had a smile that leaned more toward ulars: a judge is supposed to see only the all costs” prosecutor, obsessed with con- sarcasm than irony.” evidence presented in her court. Burger viction rates; the “agnostic” prosecutor, “In the Bonner trial, you had argued sentenced Bankhead to life with the pos- who feels no need to be convinced of a that Mr. Bonner had been in Mr. Polk’s sibility of parole. defendant’s guilt and defers “responsi- apartment?” Sabelli asked Seifert. bility for protecting innocence to the “Absolutely.” n late 2003, Bankhead asked to have trial judge, defense counsel, and the jury”; “And in the Allison trial you argued I his conviction thrown out based on and the “genuinely uncertain” prosecu- that Mr. Bonner had never been in Mr. the prosecution’s conflicting theories tor, who doesn’t know which defendant Polk’s apartment.” and his trial attorney’s failure to capi- did what, and is fine with leaving it to a “Well, huh. That was a booboo. You talize on the inconsistencies. The mo- judge or a jury to decide. can quote me.” tion went before Burger, and, for the On rare occasions, attorneys for a de- When Seifert was asked about argu- first time, she was presented with tran- fendant get a chance to ask prosecutors ing in the first trial that Bonner was the scripts from Washington’s plea hearing under oath about their thinking. That triggerman, then in the second trial that and Shadwick’s trial. happened in one case with conflicting Allison was the triggerman, he referred Burger told me that when she read the prosecutions in California. In 1982, Sam- to that switch as “the big oops.” two court files she was shocked by the uel Bonner and Watson Allison robbed Seifert didn’t say those words with any contradictions. Burger had been a circuit- an apartment in Long Beach. One resi- sense of embarrassment, Sabelli told me. court judge for thirteen years and, before dent, twenty-three-year-old Leonard “It was more, like, boastful, it was more that, an attorney in the same office as Wesley Polk, was shot twice in the head a ‘What are you going to do about it?’ Craddick. As a prosecutor, she said, “you and killed. Kurt Seifert, of the Los An- kind of tone.” Michael Clough, another have a duty to justice, for both the victim geles County District Attorney’s office, of Allison’s lawyers, said he believed that and the defendant, and we took that to prosecuted both men. Seifert wasn’t being flippant. His words heart.” Craddick had often appeared in At Bonner’s trial, in November, 1983, were an “honest, direct reaction” to real- Burger’s court, and she considered him a Seifert, pursuing the death penalty, argued izing what he’d done. (At another point, good, experienced prosecutor. “He was that Bonner and Allison went into the Seifert, reviewing the contradictions in very serious. There was no lighthearted- apartment, and Bonner fired the two shots. his arguments, said, “Whoa.”) ness in him,” she said. “He didn’t think The jury convicted Bonner of murder and A minute or two later, Seifert said, he did anything wrong. But, wow.” robbery but concluded that he wasn’t the “There was only one issue ever in the Burger held a hearing on Bankhead’s shooter, and Bonner received a life sen- case, and that is triggerman. And, motion in March, 2004. Arthur Allen, an tence. Two months later, at Allison’s trial, frankly, I don’t know who pulled it. assistant public defender, represented Seifert again pursued the death penalty. Today, if you asked me who pulled the Bankhead, who had turned twenty-two This time, he argued that Allison went trigger, I don’t know.” the week before. “He just struck me as a into the apartment alone, and that he fired “At the time, you didn’t know, either?” kid,” Allen told me, adding that Bank- the shots. Bonner, Seifert now argued, was Sabelli asked. head was small and “extremely quiet.” only a “wheelman,” who drove Allison to “I would have to say that’s true based Going into the hearing, Allen didn’t give and from the crime. Allison was convicted on the way things panned out,” Seifert said. much of a chance to his argument about and sentenced to death. (He could not be reached for comment.) conflicting theories. “It seemed to be In 2008, Allison’s attorneys questioned In 2010, a district-court judge ruled something that prosecutors got away with,” Seifert as part of Allison’s federal habeas- that Seifert’s first theory—that both Bon- he said. But that changed when Burger corpus petition. Seifert, now retired, had ner and Allison entered the apartment— summoned the lawyers to the bench. “She been a prosecutor for thirty-two years, was more likely true than his second, and was angry. You could tell that,” Allen said. and said he believed that “the role of the threw out Allison’s death sentence. Alli- Craddick wrote that the state “did not prosecutor is not to win. The role of the son is now serving twenty-five years

44 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 to life at the California State Prison in Solano. Bonner is at the California Men’s Colony, in San Luis Obispo.

n the Missouri case, Bankhead re- I mained in prison while prosecutors ap- pealed Burger’s ruling. The case came up for oral argument in August, 2005, before the Missouri Court of Appeals. The three judges—all former prosecutors—left lit- tle doubt that they believed the state’s theories to be irreconcilable. “This has a smell-test problem,” one of them said. The following month, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Craddick was leaving the Circuit Attorney’s office to practice civil law. Craddick said that he had four children and couldn’t afford “several college tuitions on a government salary.” “His leaving is a great loss,” one police detective told the newspaper. An- other said, “He’s the only guy over there “It’s difficult to attract a younger customer when who would take a chance on a case. It our main demographic is babies.” didn’t have to be a slam-dunk winner for him to take it.” In January, 2006, the Court of Appeals •• unanimously upheld Burger’s ruling. Bank- head was released from state custody later second robber wasn’t Bankhead but Last month, I spoke on the phone to that year. Shadwick also appealed his con- Washington. When I told her, she gasped. Norman Stout, who is eighty-seven and viction, but lost. Both Shadwick and “That is terrible. That is just terrible. still lives in Guernsey County. I asked Washington remain in prison. Bankhead, I think our justice system should actu- him if he wanted to attend Stumpf ’s ex- who later spent another five years in prison, ally be”—she paused—“justice. I think ecution. “Absolutely,” he said. “I offered for unrelated crimes, works at a packag- that is awful.” Later, she began to cry. to pull the lever.” For Stout, the use of ing warehouse in southern Illinois. “My goodness, I really need to think contradictory stories was unimportant— Craddick now serves as in-house about this one.” the man who didn’t fire the gun did noth- counsel for a health-care company. When She said that the deliberations were ing to stop his wife’s murder. He recalled I asked him about Bankhead’s trial, he short and straightforward. “Based on that Mary Jane sang Patsy Cline tunes recalled that the jury’s deliberations had what we were told, it was hard to come on a weekly radio show, and wore her been short—“one hour and thirty-three up with a different conclusion.” hair the way Cline did. After his wife’s minutes”—but said he hadn’t heard that I asked if it would have made a differ- death, Stout continued to add to her col- the conviction had been overturned. I ence to know that the prosecutor had lection of Holly Hobbie memorabilia, explained that Burger and the Court of earlier accused someone else. “Absolutely,” eventually opening a gallery where he Appeals had found that he had violated Conway-Wiesen said. “Oh my gosh, displays more than twelve hundred items. Bankhead’s due-process rights. Craddick that’s outrageous.” He thinks about her constantly, he said. said, “Hmm. I don’t have any real com- Stumpf is scheduled to be executed ment about that, because it was so long ore than thirty-three years after in the spring of 2020. In 2005, during ago.” He added, “I prided myself on being M John Stumpf and Clyde Wesley oral arguments in Stumpf ’s appeal, Jus- a prosecutor who played by the rules,” appeared at the Stouts’ door, the debate tice Scalia suggested the clemency stage but otherwise declined to talk about his over Stumpf ’s fate will soon be renewed. as the time to argue the right and wrong time in the Circuit Attorney’s office. “It In 2011, six years after the Supreme Court of alternative theories. Let the governor doesn’t do any good to talk about some- declined to rule on whether the con- “figure out which one of the two wasn’t thing so long ago,” he said. flicting prosecutions should invalidate the shooter,” he said. That’s an invita- Stumpf ’s death sentence, the Sixth Cir- tion Stumpf ’s attorney, David Stebbins, his past August, I called one of the cuit Court finally ruled on the question. will likely accept, when it comes time T jurors from Bankhead’s trial, Susan A three-judge panel vacated the sentence. to ask Ohio’s governor for mercy. In Conway-Wiesen, who described herself Two years later, the court agreed to re- clemency, the issues can be esoteric. But as “a little old lady with gray hair.” She hear the case with all judges sitting, and that’s not true in this case. Stebbins said, had no idea that, two weeks before that reinstated Stumpf ’s death sentence. The “This is one issue that I think everyone trial, the prosecutor had argued that the vote was 9–8. can understand.” 

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 45 OUR LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS CLEAR PASSAGE

Making space for megaships by saving a majestic bridge.

BY IAN FRAZIER

To enter the Port of New York, vessels have to traverse the Kill Van Kull and pass under the Bayonne Bridge. In order for today’s

46 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 enormous new container ships to fit, the channel had to be made deeper and the bridge’s roadway higher.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF CHIEN-HSING LIAO he Bayonne Bridge is an arch new roadway higher up through the the ship’s stern. The maneuver is like of steel that swoops up from arch, then removing the old roadway. carrying a dining-room table through T Staten Island and alights, about The beauty of the bridge influenced a bedroom door while stepping on slip- seventeen hundred feet later, on Ber- their decision, as did the fact that it’s pery carpets. In fact, these thousand- gen Point, at the southwestern tip of a National Historic Civil Engineer- plus yards of the K.V.K. may be the Bayonne, New Jersey. The arch supports ing Landmark. Steven Plate, the Port trickiest passage in any major port in a roadway that goes through it like the Authority official who oversaw the lat- the world. slash through a cent sign. Of all the ter stages of construction, compared Accidents used to happen here all city’s bridges, the Bayonne Bridge is the his job to restoring the Sistine Chapel the time. The rock ledges under the most powerful and intimate work of ceiling. water obtruded near the channel, and modernist-era art. Nothing half as tall going aground was not hard to do. Hun- stands near it. Sky fills the girders’ in- rom where I live in New Jersey, it’s dreds of thousands of gallons of oil and terstices and geometries, and above the Fabout twenty-five miles to the gasoline have been spilled here. From arch the clouds rise dramatically. The bridge. After I heard about the road- the fifties to the mid-sixties, twenty- bridge spans the Kill Van Kull, a body raising, I began to drive over there every three accidents occurred in the vicinity of water about two thousand feet across so often to see how it was coming along. of the bridge. On June 16, 1966, the Tex- at its widest and about eight hundred Watching construction gives me a sense aco Massachusetts was coming out of feet at its narrowest. It is the color of of personal accomplishment, and all I the bay and turning into the K.V.K. lead and looks beat-up and hard-used. have to do is show up. By the foot of when it ran into the Alva Cape, which Just past the bridge, the Kill Van the bridge on the Bayonne side there’s was carrying 4.2 million gallons of Kull makes a sharp right into Newark a city park that provides a good view- naphtha from India. (Naphtha is a sol- Bay. Almost all the cargo that comes ing point—you pull into the parking vent used in dry cleaning.) The naph- into the Port of New York and New lot and the sight of the bridge fills your tha gushed out and then ignited, killing Jersey unloads at the docks in Eliza- windshield. I always get out and walk men on the tug alongside. Bodies were beth and Newark, on the west side of around. At a well-situated bench I lis- floating in the water, and it took fire- the bay. Docks in Manhattan and ten to the machinery on the bridge, boats eight hours to extinguish the blaze. Brooklyn used to handle most of the the shouts of the workers echoing in Thirty-three men died in the accident; port’s cargo, but they had no room to the steel beams, the hammering of it was the second-worst loss of life ever store the huge accumulations of eight- metal on metal, and the beeping of to occur on a New York waterway. Af- by-eight-by-forty-foot containers em- lifter-arm vehicles backing up. terward, as workmen at Gravesend Bay ployed in shipping today. New Jersey’s Ships of all kinds, from tugs to tank- were pumping out the Alva Cape’s re- coastal flatland stretches for miles, and ers to police boats to container ships, maining naphtha, it blew up again, kill- the vast container fields of Elizabeth go by on the Kill Van Kull. Sometimes ing four more. The Coast Guard had and Newark are unpeopled cities in they are in a slow-moving line, and one the deadly hulk towed far offshore and themselves, with their long, echoing tug will become impatient and pull out then sank it with barrages of artillery canyons of containers stacked high. and pass another. Canada geese and fire. It went down still flaming. Ships that want to unload or load gulls and mallards land on the water, New York was once the busiest port there—that is, almost all the cargo ships but the traffic is always scattering them, in the world, but for decades the Port that come to the Port of New York— or the non-stop wakes shake them loose. Authority turned its attention away must pass under the Bayonne Bridge. The name Kill Van Kull may mean from the waterfront, to new highways When it was built, in 1931, the bridge something like “the channel that comes and real estate like the World Trade had a maximum vertical clearance of from the bay.” The Middle Dutch word Center. By the early two-thousands, a hundred and fifty-one feet. In the kille means “channel” or “stream,” but the port had fallen to fifteenth busiest mid-two-thousands, officials at the Port the K.V.K. (as people who travel it reg- in the world and third in the country Authority of New York and New Jer- ularly refer to it) is, more precisely, a (after the West Coast ports of Long sey, which manages the port as well as strait; its three miles connect Newark Beach and Los Angeles). In 2004, not other metro-area bridges, tunnels, air- Bay with the Upper Bay of New York wanting it to slide further, the Port Au- ports, and highways, realized that the Harbor. As it continues around Staten thority, with the Army Corps of Engi- enormous new container ships sched- Island, the K.V.K. merges into the Ar- neers, began a $2.1 billion dredging proj- uled to come into service in the near thur Kill, another strait, which con- ect of the port’s major channels, all the future were not going to fit. The su- nects to the ocean on that island’s way to the start of the Ambrose Chan- perstructure of these ships tops a hun- southern end. nel, twelve miles out at sea. The proj- dred and ninety feet. Port Authority Clashing tides from two directions ect took twelve years and involved scores planners considered tearing down the meet beneath the bridge, and soon after of dredges: blowing up massive amounts bridge and replacing it with a tunnel a ship goes under it the pilot must of submerged rock, digging hundreds or a new, higher bridge. Eventually, finesse the turn of a hundred and of millions of tons of rock, mud, and they decided to keep the existing bridge twenty- seven degrees into Newark Bay; sand, and putting the contaminated and to raise its roadway by sixty-four meanwhile, Staten Island’s shoreline, spoils under future luxury golf courses feet. This they would do by building a close by on the left, narrowly confines and in other ingenious places.

48 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 Fully loaded, the biggest container ships draw about fifty feet of water. The companies that own them had made clear that they were going to need water deeper than the prevailing thirty-five-to-forty-five-foot minimum average in key areas of the harbor. In compliance with this new standard, the bottom of the narrow Kill Van Kull now resembles a canyon. Its depth has been increased to a minimum of about fifty-one feet; at high tide, it’s about six feet deeper.

hen Gouverneur Morris, a prin- Wcipal author of the U.S. Consti- tution and a New Yorker of multiple accomplishments, visited the Swiss town of Schaffhausen, in 1794, he ad- mired its famous bridge over the Rhine. “If time would permit, I would get a plan of it, for it would certainly be use- ful in America,” he wrote in his diary. Morris had no idea that he was look- ing at the ur-bridge, the future mother of the greatest twentieth-century bridges in his home state and country. A boy named Othmar H. Ammann, born in Schaffhausen in 1879, found ¥¥ his vocation as an engineer while con- templating that bridge. His grandfa- Delaware Memorial Bridge, and the “Lucky!” snapped his wife, disagreeing. ther had been a famous landscape Golden Gate Bridge. The northern- “Lucky,” he repeated, silencing her with a painter, and O. H. Ammann sketched most towers of his Triborough Bridge quiet, gentle authority. the bridge often. After graduating from (now the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge), Ammann built bridges bigger than the Zurich Polytechnikum, Ammann on the southern edge of the Bronx, any that had existed before, and he immigrated to New York. As his ship stand very near the site of Gouverneur praised the new technologies of better entered the port, he imagined the great Morris’s family home, a manor house cement and steel that enabled him. But bridge he would someday build across in the French style, which was torn he well understood how things could the Hudson River. down to make way for some railroad go wrong; perhaps he was thinking of Ammann made his reputation in tracks in 1906 and of which no trace this when he called himself lucky. Am- his new country when he wrote a much or historical marker remains. mann built at a scale where no one admired report analyzing the collapse Ammann believed that bridges knew for certain how the calculations of the Quebec Bridge, the 1907 disas- should be beautiful, and that “scientific on paper would prove out. The Golden ter near the Canadian border that killed and economic expediency cannot jus- Gate, the Verrazano-Narrows, and the seventy-five men. He began to work tify incongruous forms.” He was a lean, George Washington were then the lon- as a design engineer for the Port of reserved man who wore a high starched gest suspension bridges in the world. New York Authority (as it was called collar when Gay Talese interviewed The Bayonne Bridge, at the time of its at the time), and in that capacity, with him, for the Times, in 1964. By then completion, was the longest arch bridge the architect Cass Gilbert, he designed Ammann was eighty-five years old and in the world. and built the Bayonne Bridge, as well living with his wife on the thirty-sec- as the bridge he had envisioned over ond floor of the Carlyle Hotel, in Man- checked out the progress of con- the Hudson. The George Washington hattan. From that aerie he could see I struction on a foggy morning in late Bridge opened on October 24, 1931, the eight of his bridges, including part of fall, when all you could see of the bridge Bayonne Bridge three weeks later. In the Bayonne Bridge. was the top of its arch, rising like the his long career, Ammann also worked Here is how Talese ended the story: spine of a breaching sea creature in the on the Throgs Neck Bridge, the Bronx- mists. From the enveloping grayness Throughout his own career, his bridges have Whitestone Bridge, the Lincoln Tun- known no tragedy through his own engineer- that hid the workmen, engine noise nel, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, the ing miscalculations, and yesterday he conceded and occasional shouts came down. On Mackinac Bridge (in Michigan), the that he was “lucky.” a clearer morning I arrived early enough

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 49 to watch the sun rise beside the stee- ple of the old St. Mary of the Assump- tion church, across the water in Staten GENERIC HUSBAND Island. The reddish-gold dawn made the bridge stand out in an annuncia- Who mows the lawn. Who prunes the rangy rose. tory way and gave the wavelets on the Who whacks the weeds by the chain link with mafioso panache. K.V.K. a quality almost of allure; dou- Who drinks the beer. Who has no questions. Who knots ble-crested cormorants idling on the a tie four-in-hand. Who washes the car. Who drives stick. rock beach perked up and flew across Who smoked but did not inhale. Who wears the drugstore cologne the K.V.K., their wings spanking the his kid gave him. Who wakes up beside the same wife. water. On the park’s flagpole a lanyard Who has no questions. Who parts his hair. Who has a bald patch. clanged in the breeze. Who plays golf. Who plays Call of Duty. Who plays Sometimes I left my car near the the stock market, responsibly. Who reads biographies park, in front of the house where Tom of generals. Who does not dream. Who climbed trees Cruise’s character lives in Steven Spiel- as a boy. Who leaves his towel beside the hamper. berg’s remake of “War of the Worlds.” Who has never swum nude. Who knows cardinal directions. No doubt the director chose this setting Who sees the sun set without a sense of unease. because of its visuals. The Tom Cruise Who walks to the train. Who watches sports. Who reclines. character works in the shipyard and op- Who maintains a sense of calm. Who has a small, bad tattoo. erates a gantry crane, unloading container Who wears humorous socks. Who tells the tame, dirty joke. ships. He is at home with his daughter Who reads the newspaper online. Who is politically unmoved. when the aliens appear. They loom over Who had a job upon graduation. Who go-gets. Who has no questions. the K.V.K. from the Newark Bay side Who shovels the walk. Who did not keep his letters and shoot rays at the bridge and smash from his college sweetheart. Who had a college sweetheart. it to smithereens. That is aliens for you. Who called her “baby.” Who was sincere. Who did not ask If the Ammanns were still alive, the why she left him. Who does not climb trees. Who drinks one beer scene would probably upset them. at the end of the day. Who remembers meeting his wife and how young Often I saw bridge aficionados with she was then. Who does not question. Who kills the spider. cameras around their necks taking pho- Who clips a dog with his car and keeps driving. Who adjusts the mirror. tographs. They showed one another fa- vorite shots—of the bridge lit up at —Rebecca Hazelton night, or with lightning in the back- ground, or in a snowstorm. Workmen sometimes pulled up in their trucks and process of smoothing fresh concrete. ing all the way from Staten Island, ate lunch in the parking lot, regarding Oset said that his father had also through the arch, and down to Bay- the bridge through their windshields been a member of Local 472, and got onne. On land, T-shaped concrete as they chewed. On an afternoon in him into the union forty years ago, when pillars of ascending heights held the early spring, I talked to two painters he was eighteen. He had been work- roadway until it reached the arch. from Ahern Contractors, in Woodside, ing on this bridge for four years, since School-bus-yellow steel pylons gave New York, who told me that they were the project began. He was quiet for a the T-pillars added support. Still lack- painting the bridge pewter-cup gray. moment, and then he said, “I’ve worked ing streetlights and the anti-suicide It’s a nice shade, and everything that on plenty of bridges. I like this bridge. fencing that would eventually go up, day—bridge, water, clouds, birds, sky— My younger brother worked on bridges, the new roadway had the carefree look seemed to be a version of it. too. He died while working on the re- of a Nike Swoosh. In order to reach One afternoon I got to talking with surfacing of the Alfred Driscoll Bridge, the requisite height, it was obliged to Jeff Oset, a general laborer on the proj- on the Garden State Parkway. He was begin at a steeper angle. When I went ect and a member of Local 472 of the walking along a board walkway and to Staten Island and checked out the Heavy & General Construction La- one of the boards broke and he fell approach on that side, the machines borers’ Union. He had just finished ninety-six feet. It was August 11, 2007. working on it looked as if they were lunch and was relaxing in his truck He left two young sons who I’ve raised grooming a ski slope. with the windows rolled down. Oset as my own. He was forty-five years old. Meanwhile, traffic still flowed on is a big, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed Thomas W. Oset was his name. Au- the lower roadway. On February 20th, man, and he wore a vest of high- gust 11, 2007—the worst day of my life.” the upper roadway opened to one-lane visibility chartreuse over a blue T-shirt. traffic in both directions, and the lower He told me that he was the union hen I started watching the con- roadway shut down. Then the process shop steward on the site. I asked him Wstruction, two lanes of the new of dismantling that roadway began. In about the machine moving slowly upper roadway had already been put in March, a middle piece of it disap- along the bridge’s upper level, and he place. It was like a sky road—a ribbon peared. I did not see it go; Jeff Oset said that it was a road grinder in the of chalk-white new concrete extend- had told me that pieces of roadway

50 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 spanning the water would be lowered and crossed oars. Getting in and out four of the sea pilots are women.) He onto barges. About a quarter of it was of the harbor, for pilots unfamiliar with and Captain Naples are friends and gone by mid-April. In the parking lot, the waters, used to be much riskier sometimes go to Giants games to- seagulls fought for run-over scraps than it is now. Between the Verrazano- gether. When asked if they are the best of matzo. A week later, cherry trees Narrows and the deeper ocean, you of all the pilots, both scoff at the no- bloomed along a nearby path, more of never knew what sandbars you might tion and praise their fellows. the roadway came down, and the matzo run onto. Many of these were spinoffs scraps had disappeared. of the original and permanent sand- MA CGM is a multibillion- dollar In May, I sat and contemplated the bar, Sandy Hook, the almost-peninsula CFrench shipping company with bridge as jackhammers or rivet guns that reaches from the New Jersey coast headquarters in Marseilles. Its un- racketed somewhere up in the steel. up toward the city as if to stopper its catchy name combines the first initials Japanese knotweed had grown around harbor forever. Local pilots who knew of two French companies, one of which the chain-link fence enclosing the con- the shoals boarded vessels in the har- bought the other in the nineteen- struction trailers under the bridge. bor or at sea and took them safely nineties. Many of the biggest ships in Workmen were climbing the eleven through. In three hundred and twenty- the world are in its fleet. The Port Au- flights of stairs in scaffolding that led three years, the Sandy Hook Pilots thority, wanting to demonstrate the from the ground to the bridge’s top. have rescued victims of shipwrecks, new receptivity of the Bayonne Bridge Their feet rang metallically. Beneath fought the British during the Revo- and the increased depth of the chan- the arch, the lower roadway had almost lution, served as privateers by luring nels, arranged with CMA CGM to all been removed, except for short sec- enemy merchant ships onto sandbars, send one of its ships to the port in early tions at each end. Viewed through the won international sailing races, helped September. This would be the biggest arch, the newly opened space where ships avoid German U-boats, and fer- cargo ship ever to enter New York Har- the lower roadway used to be looked ried thousands of people trapped in bor—the biggest, in fact, ever to visit smug and valuable; a lot of effort had lower Manhattan on 9/11. Certain local any port on the East Coast. gone into freeing up those sixty-four families have been producing Sandy In preparation, groups of the port’s feet of sky. Hook pilots for generations. docking pilots and sea pilots practiced In times past, the sea pilots brought over the summer on a ship simulator • ships all the way from the open ocean in Maryland. None had previously pi- aptain Steve Naples has been a to the dock, and back again. More re- loted a vessel that was much longer CSandy Hook pilot for thirty years. cently, pilots associated with the port’s than a thousand feet. The Maritime The Sandy Hook pilots, also called sea tugboat companies have taken over Institute of Technology and Graduate pilots, steer ships coming and going the harbor part of that job. Today’s pi- Studies, near Baltimore, is a nonprofit between the start of the Ambrose lots are of two kinds—sea pilots and organization that trains pilots from all Channel, twelve miles at sea, and the docking pilots. The docking pilots re- over the country and around the world Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. They be- place the sea pilots at the Verrazano- in operating ships of all sizes in all of long to an organization called the Narrows Bridge when ships are in- America’s main ports, including on the Sandy Hook Pilots’ Association. Cap- coming, and vice versa at the entrance Great Lakes, and in many of the major tain Naples did not go to a merchant- ports of the globe, as well as in the marine academy but began as a deck- Panama and Suez Canals. hand in his early twenties. Then he I called Glen Paine, MITAGS’s ex- joined the organization’s long appren- ecutive director, and asked what the tice program, received his license from simulator simulates. He said that it the state of New York, became a dep- puts trainees in an imitation of a ship’s uty pilot, and eventually rose to the wheelhouse, with a mobile view of level of “first grade” pilot, qualified to whatever land features the vessel is ap- operate any size ship that enters the proaching, so the trainee will recog- port. Reaching the top in this way, nize landmarks and other visual bear- by hands-on experience and tenacity, to the Kill Van Kull when outgoing. ings. The computer compiles all kinds is called “coming up through the Captain Robert F. Flannery, Jr., is the of data—from the tidal currents at var- hawsepipe” (the hole in the ship’s bow president of Metro Pilots, an organi- ious depths, to the prevailing winds, to through which the anchor chain de- zation of docking pilots associated the tonnage and length and width and scends). Captain Naples has a raspy, with the Moran tugboat company. He height and draft of the ship, to the time nautical voice, still refers to ships as has blue eyes, a grayish-brown mus- of year of the voyage. During the sum- “she,” and is sixty years old. tache, and a merry disposition. An- mer, when the weather tends to be The Sandy Hook Pilots’ Associa- other “through the hawsepipe” veteran, calmer, ships are loaded to a deeper tion was founded in 1694. Its mem- he is sixty and has been a licensed pilot draft and a greater height, and handle bers sometimes wear navy-blue base- for twenty-two years. He also calls differently. “The wheelhouses on some ball caps with that date inscribed, ships “she.” (There are about thirty of these ships are a long way off the enclosed in a circle with an anchor docking pilots and eighty sea pilots; water,” Paine said. “The program also

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 51 allows for how high you are and how ples did not bring a hat, and he forgot the dredging of the channel to accom- much you can’t see.” to buy a newspaper. (The tradition modate the new, deeper-draft cruise He continued, “The pilots bring the with the newspapers continues only ships of that time. ship into or out of the harbor in the sporadically.) “The biggest concern in the chan- conditions the computer provides, and From the dock in Staten Island, a nel is currents and wind,” Captain the simulator shows them how a ship forty-five-foot pilot boat took him to Naples told me when I talked to him of that size responds. The New York what’s called a station boat, one of the afterward. “The channel is two thou- pilots knew their stuff pretty well al- two vessels that anchor at the mouth sand feet wide, but if you get driven to ready, it goes without saying. They’ve of the Ambrose Channel. These ves- either side of it you hit rock almost im- got a tough port to work with, and the sels, the New York and the New Jer- mediately. Ten knots isn’t much of a Kill Van Kull is a challenging piece sey, alternate duty at this site in the wind, but I was mildly surprised at how of water.” ocean, and one or the other is always much force it exerted, coming from the On July 26th, the CMA CGM The- there. A platform with living quarters, west and pushing up against the ship’s odore Roosevelt, a brand-new con- a light tower, and a landing pad for profile. She was drawing only 40.85 feet tainer ship, left the Hyundai Heavy helicopters used to stand at the chan- of water, so she could not have been Industries shipyard, in Ulsan, South nel entrance, but ships kept bumping very heavily loaded. As we came in Korea. The ship is twelve hundred feet into it and finally the Coast Guard closer to land, we felt the effect of a long and a hundred and fifty-eight feet took it down. flood tide flowing from the east, off wide, and its draft when fully loaded Captain Naples spent the night on Coney Island. But the wind coming is fifty-two and a half feet. For its board the New Jersey. Early the next from the west and the tidal current maiden voyage, the ship took on cargo morning, the CMA CGM Theodore flowing from the east offset each other, at Asian ports, such as Hong Kong and Roosevelt appeared on the horizon. and she went in straight on a rail.” Shanghai. A typical cargo list includes Captain Naples, in his suit and tie, Half a mile before the Verrazano- machinery, appliances, clothes, elec- boarded the pilot boat that would take Narrows Bridge, the ship slowed to tronics, toys, plastics, and decorative him to it. A wind of about ten knots pick up Captain Flannery, the dock- items like Christmas lights. The ship was blowing from the west, with mod- ing pilot, who arrived by tugboat, along has the capacity to carry fourteen thou- erate swells. The ship approached, then with about a dozen Port Authority offi- sand four hundred and fourteen con- veered to the north so the pilot could cials and other dignitaries. Captain tainers, some in its hold and some board on its lee side, out of the wind. Flannery then took the conn from Cap- stacked on its deck to a maximum The hull of a ship of this size resem- tain Naples, who remained on board height of eleven containers—almost bles a sheer building of five or six sto- as an observer. ninety feet. Previously, the largest cargo ries, and the thought of climbing it ship ever to come to New York had a on a rope ladder with wooden rungs ews of the impending arrival of maximum capacity of nine thousand while wearing a suit and dress shoes Nthe largest cargo ship ever to four hundred containers. From Shang- as the ship heaves in the sea would enter New York Harbor had appeared hai, the CMA CGM Theodore Roo- give anyone pause. International mar- on the Port Authority’s Web site, which sevelt set out across the Pacific with itime regulations say that a pilot should announced that the CMA CGM The- New York as its easternmost destina- not have to climb more than nine odore Roosevelt would go under the tion. It reached the Panama Canal on metres above the water’s surface in Bayonne Bridge on Thursday, Septem- August 21st, and on August 28th it ar- boarding. Like many ships, this one ber 7th, at 9:30 a.m. When I got to the rived in Norfolk, Virginia, where CMA has a pilot-entry port in its side, re- park by the bridge that morning, ex- CGM has its American headquarters. quiring only a short ascent on the rope cited onlookers were all over the place. From there, the ship went down to Sa- ladder. The pilot boat pulled along- Camera tripods lined the railing along vannah, Georgia, and then back up to side the ship, and Captain Naples the K.V.K. People had brought their Charleston on September 2nd. climbed aboard. dogs, and children in strollers. Seeing On September 6th, Captain Naples Taking an elevator up to the wheel- the park so crowded was weird. As usual left his house in Jackson, New Jersey, house, he met the captain, the first at any New Jersey gathering, jokes about and drove to the Sandy Hook Pilots’ officer, and the helmsman, and then Governor Christie could be heard. (In Association dock off Edgewater Street, assumed the “conn”—control—of the fact, he did not participate in the day’s in Staten Island. He was wearing a ship (though the captain always retains observances.) blue suit; throughout their history, the ultimate responsibility). At a speed of Everyone was looking in the direc- Sandy Hook Pilots have maintained about seven knots, the CMA CGM tion from which the ship would appear. the tradition of arriving on board the Theodore Roosevelt proceeded into Cameras waited, ready and aimed. “I vessel they’re about to pilot wearing a the Ambrose Channel. As it happens, heard it just went under the Verrazano- business suit. Old photographs show Theodore Roosevelt, the person, was Narrows. It should be here in about them also sporting derby hats and bear- involved in naming the Ambrose Chan- thirty minutes,” someone said. More ing copies of the latest New York City nel, back in 1901, when he was Presi- waiting. Then, sooner than expected, newspapers. People long at sea were dent. John Wolfe Ambrose, a civil en- at just before nine-thirty, the bow of usually eager for news. Captain Na- gineer, had had the vision to push for the ship nosed around the nearest

52 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 SHOWCASE BY RICHARD AVEDON THE RICHARD AVEDON FOUNDATION AVEDON THE RICHARD ©

In 1964, Richard Avedon and James Baldwin published “Nothing Personal,” their collaborative exploration of American identity. This fall, a facsimile edition will be released, along with a set of previously unpublished photographs, including this image, taken by Avedon in Algiers, Louisiana, of William Casby, one of the last living Americans born into slavery. He is surrounded by several generations of his family. “It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere,” Baldwin writes in the book. “To know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith.” bend. It kind of came out of the trees. me. “When she passed under, I was at that one was the ship’s captain, Maksym The rest of the ship followed slowly, the same level as a bunch of construc- Kononov, and the other his chief officer, almost stealthily, like a massive big-box tion guys standing at the end of the Valeriy Kozratskyy. Both had chestnut- store sneaking up on something. A old roadway. We waved and cheered colored beards that lightened to blond Moran tug preceded it, attached to the and gave each other the thumbs-up.” at the ends, and both were Ukrainian. bow by a long rope. Other tugs shep- A fireboat pumping red, white, and All the officers on the ship were herded its sides, and yet another fol- blue streams of water welcomed the Ukrainian, and all of the crew Filipino. lowed it, also attached by a rope. As ship into Newark Bay. Not long after None of the latter had come onshore. the ship went by, its vast blue hull and it tied up at an Elizabeth Marine Ter- I asked what cargo the ship carried, stacked-up containers blotted out a minal dock, a press conference ensued and Captain Kononov said, “General good part of Staten Island. People ex- on the pavement between the ship’s merchandise.” As for the ship’s con- claimed, and the cameras made their looming bow and the nearby border of tainers, all of which stood in rows much insistent cicada noises. The ship moved the container city. A bagpipe band of more orderly than is customary on con- closer to the bridge, and closer. It ap- policemen marched out of an alley in tainer ships, the captain explained, “We peared to have plenty of clearance. Still, the stacked containers, playing “The stacked them neatly like that for the many in the crowd held their breath Minstrel Boy.” Eminences seated on a photographs.” and leaned one way or another, like dais stood up at a podium and praised The moment the press conference football fans trying to help a field goal one another and recited shipping sta- ended, the captain and the first officer through the uprights using body En- tistics and plans for the future while returned to the ship. They walked glish. Then the ship went under the fifty or sixty assembled newspeople along the dock beside it—and walked, bridge, and past it, and swung slowly looked on. and walked, until they were small into the hard right-hand turn. During a period of milling around figures in the distance. Then they As the ship was approaching the beforehand, I noticed two young men climbed a tiny, distant staircase up the bridge, Captain Naples stepped out of in ship-officer’s attire on the edge of ship’s side. the wheelhouse and stood on the bridge the crowd. Hearing one speak to the wing beside it. “The wheelhouse on other in what sounded like Russian, I aptain Flannery, known as Bobby, that ship is at the same height where said hello and asked if they were Csometimes patronizes a Staten the old roadway used to be,” he told officers from the ship. It turned out Island restaurant called Blue, on the shore of the K.V.K. From the tables by the windows, diners can see the ships going by, and the refineries and tank farms of Bayonne on the other side. I sat with him there on the terrace one afternoon. He wore a blue T-shirt that said “Metro Pilots,” and on his left wrist was a New Agey metal bracelet. He is a lifelong Grateful Dead fan. When I asked him how many Dead concerts he has been to, he said, “Oh, Jesus! I have no idea. Hundreds.” He ordered buffalo wings and a club soda with lime. He grew up in Brooklyn, in Sunset Park—“We didn’t say the neighbor- hood we lived in, we said the parish.” Of his parents’ seven children, he’s the oldest. Pete Hamill, the writer, is his second cousin. Captain Flannery went to Bishop Ford Central Catholic High School, in Brooklyn, tried college but didn’t like it, and began working on tugboats as a deckhand at twenty-two. His family had been in tugboats start- ing with his great-grandfather, and there was once a Flannery Tugboat Com- pany. His uncle helped him get into the International Longshoremen’s As- “I knew there would be a time I could wear sociation. As a deckhand, he “handled them without destroying my feet.” the lines, cleaned the heads.” He had a dream of being a docking pilot, and in charge, you’re calm and focussed. I abeth and Newark, the cranes lined he began to study for the pilot exams, always remember that my pencil has up like giant red-white-and-blue for which a candidate must have com- no eraser. I mean, you’re directing a kitchen appliances—hand-crank juic- mitted to memory every channel, buoy, ship worth many tens of millions of ers, maybe—with container ships light, and other significant feature on dollars. She’s displacing a lot of water, docked alongside or waiting in New- twenty-nine different contiguous charts so if you bring her through too fast, ark Bay, and the Passaic River joining of harbor waters. (Sea pilots take a sim- her wake will push the K.V.K. up onto the bay on the left, and the Hacken- ilar exam.) He carried three-by-five the shore and then suck boats off their sack River entering it up ahead, and cards in his back pocket and studied moorings after you go by. I stayed at the long I-78 bridge over the bay; and, during any spare minute he had. Once four or five knots, just enough so she farther off on the left, the runways of or twice, he wanted to quit, but his wife, had steerage. And you always keep in Newark Airport, the planes coming Donna, kept telling him that he could mind that in a ship twelve hundred and going above it; and, beyond that, do it. “And I listened to her,” he said. feet long, in a channel eight hundred the vague gray-blue hills of New Jer- “She always tells me that I’m the cap- feet across, if things got out of hand sey curving westward around the earth tain, but she’s the admiral.” you could go aground in New York and toward the rest of America. He passed the exams, which were New Jersey simultaneously. And you And, on the right, the unspectacu- administered by the Coast Guard, and don’t want that. lar houses and office buildings and fac- thereby became a junior pilot. In 1995, “She went under the Bayonne Bridge tories of Bayonne, like foothills to the he piloted his first ship on his own— at slack tide—after the tide had come distant range of Manhattan, with its the Arctic Ocean, a four-hundred-and- in, and before it started going out dim, heart-quickening skyline, includ- eighty-five-foot cargo ship carrying again—so we had no tidal currents to ing the World Trade Center and the fruit. He has piloted thousands of ves- worry about,” Captain Flannery con- new, obnoxious rich-persons’ high- sels since then. Today he is licensed to tinued. “I was in touch with all my tug- luxury spike of an apartment building pilot from the Verrazano-Narrows all boat captains by radio—I know every farther uptown, and maybe also the the way to Albany. one of them personally. The tug that’s thirty-second floor of the estimable Unlike the sea pilots, the docking got the bow rope helps me into that Carlyle Hotel, from which O. H. Ham- pilots don’t have a tradition of dress- sharp turn, and then we’re in Newark mond used to look out on his creations. ing in business suits. When Captain Bay. When I’m piloting a ship, I’m keep- Manhattan drops off behind as you Flannery came aboard the CMA ing all the factors of wind and tide and descend the new roadway on the Bay- CGM Theodore Roosevelt, he was draft and speed in my head; I’m like onne side, and it’s possible to make out wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt and the conductor of a symphony.” the giant warehouses and stores (IKEA, khakis. “I like to keep everybody re- Toys R Us) near the airport. You can’t laxed by being relaxed myself,” he told n my way home from Staten see the trucks, but they’re out there, me. “I introduce myself around in the OIsland, I took the Bayonne Bridge. like ants hurrying from a recently flat- wheelhouse; I tell ’em, ‘Hey, how you It’s a less direct route, but pleasanter, tened anthill, many carrying the con- doin’, I’m Bobby, nice to meet you,’ because fewer cars use it. According to tainers brought by the ships. In the and so on. Sometimes I start with a Port Authority statistics from a few weeks before Christmas, the number joke, to provide a little frivolity. Maybe years ago, seven million vehicles cross of ships increases and the containers I ask for a chair, sit outside if the the Bayonne every year. About a hun- full of plastic general merchandise from weather’s nice. I don’t steer the ship dred and three million vehicles use the China and elsewhere proliferate, and myself; I give orders to the ship’s George Washington. As I drove onto the trucks take the general merchan- helmsman. The guy on the Roosevelt the bridge’s new roadway, I felt the ski- dise out into other parts of the coun- was Ukrainian but, no problem, ev- slope effect that I had previously ob- try and it undersells local stores and erybody speaks English—or, at least, served from the ground. The grade, businesses and no one knows what to some English.” and the view ahead, make you feel as do because, after all, it’s cheaper. The French officials of CMA CGM who if you were driving into the sky. The Port Authority says that eighty million had come on board for the occasion bridge’s additional lanes, with walkway, people, the richest consumer market wanted Captain Flannery to go farther bicycle path, and space for light-rail in the world, live within a twenty-four- up the harbor and sail past the Statue tracks, will not be finished until 2019. hour drive or train ride of the Port of of Liberty, for the photographers in ac- Orange plastic-mesh fencing bordered New York and New Jersey. The P.A. companying helicopters, and because the road; construction vehicles and also says that four hundred thousand the French gave us the statue. After Port-O-Sans and air compressors and local jobs depend on the port. How the sail-by, mindful of the shoals in the whatnot sat alongside. many jobs the goods that come through vicinity of Liberty Island, he didn’t turn In the arch itself, the road now goes the port destroy is harder to say. around but backed the ship up so that through so high up that it’s as if you Another half mile, and the road- he could ease into the K.V.K. “This is were in the bridge’s rafters. As you way has left the bridge and emerged an important part, going through the begin the descent, a grand scene sud- as New Jersey Route 440 northbound. K.V.K. You want to let everybody know denly appears before you: on the left, An orange- and-black sign announces by the sound of your voice that you’re the vast expanse of the ports of Eliz- “End Road Work.” 

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 55 The Chamber of Commerce in Orange City, Iowa. The town was founded by immigrants from Holland, and, until recently, almost

PHOTOGRAPHS BY BRIAN FINKE A REPORTER AT LARGE OUR TOWN

As America’s rural communities stagnate, what can we learn from one that hasn’t?

BY LARISSA MACFARQUHAR

range City, the county seat of ways to spend it, at least locally. There Sioux County, Iowa, is a square are only so many times you can redo your O mile and a half of town, more kitchen. Besides, conspicuous extrava- or less, population six thousand, sur- gance is not the Orange City way. “There rounded by fields in every direction. are stories about people who are too Sioux County is in the northwest cor- showy, who ended up ruined,” Dan Ver- ner of the state, and Orange City is iso- meer, who grew up in the town, says. lated from the world outside—an hour “The Dutch are comfortable with pros- over slow roads to the interstate, more perity, but not with pleasure.” than two hours to the airport in Omaha, The town was founded, in 1870, by nearly four to Des Moines. Hawarden, immigrants from Holland looking for another town, twenty miles away, is on farmland, and until recently almost ev- the Big Sioux River, and was founded eryone who lived there was Dutch. as a stop on the Northwestern Railroad Many of the stores on Central Avenue in the eighteen-seventies; it had a con- still bear Dutch names: Bomgaars stant stream of strangers coming through, farm-supply store, Van Maanen’s Radio with hotels to service them and drink- Shack, Van Rooyen Financial Group, ing and gambling going on. But Or- DeJong Chiropractic and Acupunc- ange City never had a river or a rail- ture, Woudstra Meat Market. The road, or, until recently, even a four-lane town’s police force consists of Jim Potte- highway, and so its pure, hermetic cul- baum, Duane Hulstein, Audley De- ture has been preserved. Jong, Bruce Jacobsma, Chad Van Ra- Orange City is small and cut off, but, venswaay, Wes Van Voorst, and Bob unlike many such towns, it is not dying. Van Zee. When an Orange City teacher Its Central Avenue is not the hollowed- wants to divide her class in half, she out, boarded-up Main Street of twenty- will say, “A”s through “U”s to one side, first-century lore. Along a couple of “V”s through “Z”s to the other. Once, blocks, there are two law offices, a real- many years ago, an actual Dutch estate office, an insurance brokerage, a woman, from Rotterdam, moved to coffee shop, a sewing shop, a store that town with her American husband. She sells Bibles, books, and gifts, a notions- found the Dutchness of Orange City and-antiques store, a hair-and-tanning peculiar—the way that most people salon, and a home-décor-and-clothing didn’t speak Dutch anymore but sprin- boutique, as well as the Sioux County kled their English with phrases that farm bureau, the town hall, and the red nobody had used in the Netherlands brick Romanesque courthouse. for a hundred years. There are sixteen churches in town. In the early part of the twentieth The high-school graduation rate is century, the question of how much ninety-eight per cent, the unemployment Dutchness to retain caused a religious rate is two per cent. There is little crime. schism in the town: the American Re- The median home price is around a hun- formed Church broke off from the First dred and sixty thousand dollars, which Reformed Church in order to conduct buys a three- or four-bedroom house services in English. But, as the last with a yard, in a town where the median Dutch speakers began to die off, Or- income is close to sixty thousand. For ange City took measures to embalm the twenty per cent of residents who its heritage. The shops on the main make more than a hundred thousand stretch of Central Avenue are required everyone who lived there was Dutch. dollars a year, it can be difficult to find to embellish their façades with “Dutch

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 57 fronts”—gables in the shape of bells were for a long time the most mobile newness as such. Where voting for and step-edged triangles, painted tra- people in the world, and this geographic Trump is attributed to economic de- ditional colors such as dark green, light mobility drove America’s economy, and spair, staying home is also. gray, and blue, with white trim. Across its social mobility as well. Because Orange City is one of the most con- the street from Bomgaars is Windmill Americans moved for work, mostly servative places in the country, and those Park, with its flower beds and six dec- from poor areas to richer ones, after who leave it tend to become less so. It is orative windmills of varying sizes along 1880 incomes around the country not despairing, however, nor is it stag- a miniature canal. Each year, at the end steadily converged for a hundred years. nant. Change happens differently in a of May, Orange City holds a tulip fes- But Americans are not moving as place where people tend to stay. But stay- tival. Thousands of bulbs are imported much as they once did: the number of ing is not for everyone. from the Netherlands people migrating within and planted in rows, the country is now about an Vermeer left Orange City, al- and for three days much half what it was forty years D though his roots in the area went of the town dresses up ago. In the mid-nineteen- back almost to the founding of the in nineteenth- century fifties, nearly eight per town. His great-grandparents on his Dutch costumes, sewn by cent of unemployed men father’s side emigrated from Holland volunteers—white lace moved across state lines; at the end of the nineteenth century; caps and long aprons, in 2012, two and a half per his mother’s family came a generation black caps and knickers— cent did. Workers used to later. His father, Wally, grew up on a and performs traditional follow jobs, but now those farm outside town, one of eleven chil- dances in the street. There is a ceremo- who do move often go to places where dren; his mother, Joanne, was the third nial street cleaning—kerchiefed boys unemployment is higher and wages of ten; both were poor. throwing bucketfuls of water, aproned lower, because housing is cheap. All of In high school, Dan couldn’t wait to girls scrubbing with brooms—followed this has set off sounds of alarm. Why get out—he felt stifled by a moral claus- by a parade, in which the Tulip Queen aren’t people leaving to find work, or trophobia. He hated the constant scru- and her court, high-school seniors, wave better lives, as they used to? Part of the tiny, everybody knowing everybody else’s from their float, and the school band worry is economic: if people become business. Gossip is the plague of most marches after them in clogs. less willing to move for work, unem- small towns, but Orange City was es- Every June, a couple of weeks after ployment will persist in some places, pecially judgmental. The Dutch were Tulip Festival, another ritual is enacted: and jobs will go unfilled in others. Peo- particular about behavior. They mowed a hundred of the town’s children gradu- ple staying put is one reason that re- their lawns often, but never on Sundays. ate from the high school. Each of them gional inequality has risen. But another Alcohol was considered unseemly; peo- must then make a decision that will set part of the alarm is cultural. What does ple would usually buy it elsewhere, so the course of their lives—whether to it mean that Americans are now mov- nobody would see them. Kids felt eyes leave Orange City or to stay. This deci- ing less often than people in old Euro- watching them all the time. Adults wor- sion will affect not just where they live pean countries like France? Has Amer- ried constantly about appearances—were but how they see the world and how they ica’s restless dynamism run its course? their houses clean enough, were their vote. The town is thriving, so the choice Since the 2016 election, staying has kids behaving nicely and doing well in is not driven by necessity: to stay is not taken on a political cast as well. Be- school, were they volunteering for enough to be left behind but to choose a certain cause suspicion of those who move town projects, were they in church as kind of life. Each year, some leave, but around—immigrants, refugees, global- often as they should be? The façades of usually more decide to settle in—some- ized élites—is associated with voting the buildings on Central Avenue be- thing about Orange City inspires loy- for Trump, attachment to home has came a metaphor for the way that peo- alty. It is only because so many stay that come to look like a Trumpian value. ple tried to hide any difficulties they had the town has prospered. And yet to stay And, indeed, of white people who still living up to these standards: they kept home is to resist an ingrained American lived in their childhood home town, up their Dutch fronts. belief about movement and ambition. nearly sixty per cent supported Trump; But, even more than escaping the of those who lived within a two-hour gossip, Dan wanted to leave because he n most places on earth, staying is the drive of their home town, fifty per cent felt wedged in. “You are who you are,” Inorm. Mobility is regarded with am- supported him; of those who had he says. “I am a Vermeer, a child of Wally bivalence: leaving is turnover; it weak- moved more than two hours from and Joanne, the younger brother of Greg, ens families and social trust. But in where they grew up, forty per cent. A Brent, and Barry, and in Orange City America, a country formed by the ro- survey, conducted in 2014, found that that’s who I am for my whole life. It’s mance of the frontier and populated more conservatives than liberals val- not that I felt discriminated against—I mostly by people who had left some- ued living near to extended family. The felt known and loved. But I also felt where else, leaving has always been the decision to stay home or leave is a pow- that that was nowhere near all of me, celebrated story—the bold, enterpris- erful political predictor. For this rea- and that to know who I was I had to ing, properly American response to an son, resistance to moving somewhere define myself on my own terms.” By unsatisfactory life at home. Americans new can seem to be just resistance to the day of his high-school graduation,

58 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 in 1984, he had packed up his car, and After six months in Kathmandu, working you met new people, and your at seven the following morning he left Dan bought a ticket to Delhi and found professional self became your identity. Orange City for good. a bed in a cheap tourist camp. It was But in Orange City you would always He enrolled in Hope College, a so hot there that he couldn’t sleep, and be So-and-So’s kid, no matter what you Christian college in Holland, Michi- for ten days he walked around in the accomplished. People liked to point out gan. Away from home, he started to crippling heat in a daze of existential that even Jesus had this problem when feel more intensely religious than he confusion. He realized that he had no he tried to preach in his home town: ever had before, and spent his first sum- idea at all what he was going to do with They said, “Where did this man get all this? mer working for a Christian ministry his life, and that the nearest person he What is this wisdom that has been given to in the Blue Ridge Parkway. He found knew was seven thousand miles away. him? What deeds of power are being done by himself alone there, responsible for de- He felt intensely anxious, but also hope- his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of livering two sermons every Sunday for ful. He realized that he had spent his Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas the campers in the park. On Saturday first eighteen years becoming his Or- and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at Him. evenings, he drove around and let peo- ange City self, and the next five years ple know about the services. One man peeling off that self and letting it die. But, while this was for some kids a told him, with a smirk, You’re young, He had travelled halfway around the reason to leave, for others it was why and I have a feeling you’re going to world to slough off the last of it. Now they wanted to stay. In Orange City, question this eventually. I used to be he could start again. you could feel truly known. You lived religious, and then some things hap- among people who had not only known pened in my life and now I don’t be- ome of the kids who left Orange you for your whole life but known your lieve it anymore. “That was like an S City left for a profession. There was parents and grandparents as well. You arrow through my heart,” Dan says. “I work you couldn’t do there, lives you didn’t have to explain how your father thought, Maybe he’s right, maybe this couldn’t live—there weren’t a lot of tech had died, or why your mother couldn’t is all going to collapse around me.” jobs, for instance, or much in finance. come to pick you up. Some people didn’t The next year, it did. He took classes Not many left for the money; you might feel that they had to leave to figure out in world religions, studying Islam, Bud- make a higher salary elsewhere, but the who they were, because their family dhism, and Hinduism, and the thought cost of living in Orange City was so and its history already described their occurred to him that he believed what low that you’d likely end up worse off. deepest self. he believed simply because of where Some left for a life style: they wanted Besides these sentiments, which were he was born. “I started to question not mountains to ski and hike in, or they widespread, there was another crucial only my religious beliefs but also my wanted to live somewhere with sports fact about Orange City that enabled it political beliefs, and I had this incred- teams and restaurants. But most left to keep more of its young than other ible sense of vertigo, where I didn’t for the same reason Dan Vermeer did— towns its size: it had a college. North- know what I believed about anything,” for the chance to remake themselves. western College, a small Christian school he says. “That was really hard for six In bigger places, when you started of twelve hundred students, affiliated months. But after I got through the crisis I had a sense of exhilaration. I felt that anything was possible—that I could put together a world view that was truly mine.” When he graduated, he got a mis- sion assignment at a Christian crisis center for foreign travellers in Kath- mandu, Nepal. He loved Kathmandu— the mishmash of Western and East- ern, old and new, real and fake. The crisis center was busy. There was a man from Turkey who’d heard that there were jobs in Hong Kong and decided to walk there, got as far as Nepal, and ran out of money. He slept in the bunk under Dan’s, muttering about all the people who had wronged him. There was a young woman who’d had a psychotic break on a hike and had tried to take off all her clothes and jump off the mountain. There was an alcoholic Sri Lankan political ref- ugee with four children. with the Dutch Reformed Church, was we have to buy their house so they, our And, when you get your degree, why not founded not long after the town itself. kids, can live in our house, next door. And settle down here? There are plenty of Northwestern offered a variety of liberal- that would be fine with me!” jobs, and it’ll take you five minutes to arts majors, but was oriented toward drive to work. When you have children, Christian ministry and practical subjects n many towns, the most enterprising we’ll help you take care of them. People like nursing and education. Ikids leave for college and stay away here share your values, it’s a good Chris- Stephanie Schwebach, née Smit, grad- rather than starting businesses at home, tian place. And they care about you: if uated from the high school in 1997 and which means that there are fewer jobs anything happens, they’ll have your back. went to Northwestern to train as a teacher. at home, which means that even more This pitch was often successful. Even She had never felt restless in Orange people leave; and, over time, the town’s some kids who left soon realized what City. “I really didn’t have an adventur- population gets smaller and older, shops they were missing. Growing up, Joe Clarey ous spirit,” she says. “I’m going to stay and schools begin to close, and the town had not liked Orange City; after he grad- with the people I know.” Her profes- begins to die. This dynamic has affected uated from Northwestern, in 2009, he sional goal was to get a job teaching in Iowa more than almost any other state: fled to Chicago, where he got a job as an the same school she’d gone to as a child. during the nineteen-nineties, only North analyst in a global investment firm. At When she was growing up, she lived Dakota lost a larger proportion of edu- first, he loved the anonymity of the city; next door to her grandparents, and every cated young people. In 2006, Iowa’s then he loved his job, too, and started putting Sunday after church her family went to governor, Tom Vilsack, undertook a walk- in seventy-hour weeks. He worked with their house for lunch, as was the custom ing tour of the state, with the theme a portfolio manager with two billion dol- then in Orange City. She met her future “Come Back to Iowa, Please,” aimed at lars’ worth of business. At twenty-six, he husband, Eric, in seventh grade, and they the young and educated. He threw cock- became a portfolio manager himself. started dating in eleventh. Eric came tail parties in cities around the country, But then, just when he was right where from a huge family—his father was one at which he begged these young emi- he’d wanted to be, he found that he didn’t of sixteen. Most of Eric’s many aunts grants to return, promising that Iowa want to be there anymore. He realized and uncles still lived in the area, and if had more to offer than “hogs, acres of he’d ignored everything but work for five anyone needed anything done, like lay- corn, and old people.” But the campaign years, and everything else had fallen apart. ing cement for a driveway, the family was a failure. In 2007, the legislature in He didn’t have a girlfriend, he had no would come and help out. Des Moines created the Generation Iowa friends other than colleagues, and he’d After high school, Eric thought about Commission, to study why college grad- barely seen his family or his friends at joining the military—he thought it would uates were leaving; two years later, a fifth home. Riding on the El to work, sur- be fun to see a bit of the world—but of the members of the commission had rounded by strangers, he wondered, What Stephanie talked him into sticking themselves left the state. am I doing here? Some relatives had started around, so he stayed in his parents’ house The sociologists Patrick Carr and having serious health problems; then his and went to a local technical school to Maria Kefalas spent several months in brother had a baby, and although Clarey train as an electrician. When Stephanie a small Iowa town and found that chil- wasn’t good with children, he found that was a junior in college, they became en- dren who appeared likely to succeed were he wanted to know his nephew as he grew gaged. He got a job with the manufac- from an early age groomed for depar- up. He wanted to move back, but he was turer of Blue Bunny ice cream, and she ture by their parents and teachers. Other embarrassed. What would people say, after started teaching. They had two children. kids, marked as stayers, were often ig- he’d gone on and on for years about how Some years ago, Stephanie and Eric nored in school. Everyone realized that he couldn’t wait to get out of Orange City, were both working in Le Mars, a town encouraging the ambitious kids to leave and after his fancy Chicago job? twenty minutes away, and they considered was killing the town, but the ambition He decided to deal with the embar- moving there. But then Stephanie thought, of the children was valued more than the rassment and go home. He found work It just makes it harder to stop in and say life of the community. The kids most in a local financial firm, but it felt paltry hi to your parents if you don’t live in the likely to make it big weren’t just permit- now to be buying ten-thousand-dollar same town, and the kids can’t wander over ted to leave—they were pushed. mutual funds. He thought, I’ve already by themselves—we won’t be close in the In Orange City, that kind of pushing made one giant change—why not an- same way. Instead, they moved into the was uncommon. People didn’t seem to other? One of his high-school friends house that Eric had grown up in, on an care about careers as much as they did in managed a local Walmart; Clarey found acreage at the edge of town, and his par- other places. “Even now, my friends there, a job in another Walmart, nearby, run- ents built a smaller house next to it. I’m not sure what many of them do, and ning the produce department. He discov- When Stephanie thought about what I don’t think they know what I do,” Dan ered that he liked managing people and she wanted for her children in the future, Vermeer says. “That’s just not what you inventory as much as investments. Mean- the first thing she thought was, Stay close. talk about.” You could be proud of a child while, he was getting close to high-school “I want them to live right next door, so I doing something impressive in another friends again, and spending time with his can be the grandma that takes care of their part of the country, but having grown family. “I just wanted a simpler life,” he kids and gets to see them grow through children and grandkids around you was says. “I’m a big golfer. I get off work at all the different stages,” she says. “Our kids equally a sign of success. Go to North- five o’clock, I’m home in fifteen minutes, have told us that once Eric’s folks are dead western, Orange City parents would say. I’m at the golf course in twenty-five. I

60 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 fish all the time. I’m at one friend’s house for dinner two or three times a week.” He bought a house and settled in.

t was in large part because of peo- Iple like Joe Clarey coming back to town, or sticking around in the first place, that Orange City was flourish- ing. Small towns usually competed with one another to recruit compa- nies from across the country, but most of the industry in Orange City was founded by locals. Diamond Vogel Paints is the oldest industry in town, founded as Vogel Paint and Wax, in 1926, by a Dutch immigrant; it is still run by the Vogel family. A man from Orange City who started a medical- equipment company in Texas moved his business back to town about thirty years ago, and now the renamed com- pany, CIVCO, manufactures ultrasound probes and patient-positioning devices for radiation and oncology. More re- cently, CIVCO spun off another busi- ness, Quatro, which makes carbon-fibre composites for aerospace, medical- imaging equipment, and robotics. Ten years ago, the corporate headquarters Each May, for Tulip Festival, the town dresses up in traditional Dutch costume. of the Pizza Ranch chain moved to Orange City from its original location, they could provide more things to do. they moved to Orange City from Min- in Hull, fifteen miles away. There was already a swimming pool, a nesota when Roesner was in eleventh Orange City thinks of itself as a movie theatre, and a golf course, but grade, and later his parents left again. progressive town—not in the political live-entertainment options were lim- But Roesner married a Dutch woman sense but in the sense that it embraces ited, so they went in on a theatre with from Orange City, and stayed. When he change and growth. This growth is the Christian school. They bought an got an M.B.A. and started out on the guided by a group of town business- old sandpit pond and put in a dock so executive track himself, he decided that men who have known one another for people could fish. he didn’t want to do what his father years. Steve Roesner, the C.E.O. of People were always talking about would have done—he didn’t want to go Quatro, lives close to the C.E.O. of the the Dutch work ethic and entrepre- to Beaverton to work for Nike, or to town’s hospital; they played on the foot- neurial spirit, but Orange City was in Minneapolis for a job at Target, then ball team together at the high school, many ways a less than ideal place for move on somewhere else. “I said to my- and both went to Northwestern. An- a business. Because its unemployment self, ‘What is all this about?’ ” he says. other neighbor and friend of Roesner’s rate was so low, it could be hard to find “ ‘Is it just about me and where I can from Northwestern is the chief admin- enough workers, and its isolation made take my career, or is there something istrative officer of Pizza Ranch. Roesner transportation inconvenient and slow. bigger?’ Here, you feel like you’re con- is also friendly with Drew Vogel, the This was why so many Orange City nected—that you belong someplace.” third-generation C.E.O. of Diamond companies were founded by locals: you Vogel Paints. While other Iowa towns had to have another reason, a non-busi- he Orange City way of life was so were trying to stave off population col- ness reason, to be there. “If your mo- Tstringent and all-encompassing, lapse, these town fathers had ambitions tivation is only to maximize returns, so precise and insistent in every aspect, to enlarge Orange City’s population then you go elsewhere, and ultimately from behavior to ideals, that, when you from six to ten thousand, so they were that leads to moving to Mexico or Mo- were in it, it was difficult to imagine trying to make the town more attrac- rocco,” Roesner says. “But it’s not al- other ways to be. Not many of the rest- tive to outsiders. There was nothing to ways pure ‘maximize profits.’ ” less kids had much sense, before they be done about the winters, one of the Roesner was not an Orange City na- left, of what it was they were missing. main things people hated about north- tive. When he was a kid, his father’s But their restlessness often led, later west Iowa, and there weren’t any sce- climb up the corporate ladder involved on, to different ways of thinking. Peo- nic lakes or mountains to promote, but moving the family every couple of years; ple who began by questioning who they

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 61 were ended up questioning other things, ange City—she loves the town—but going to try to reverse Roe v. Wade, like their politics. because being a medevac nurse in Iowa people will vote for them, regardless If you lived in a place like Orange would have been boring. She wanted of what they say in other areas, re- City, for instance, you weren’t used to to be in a city, where the work was gardless of how ridiculous.” dealing with people you didn’t know. more intense; that choice then led her If your car broke down, you took it to somewhere politically that she did not range City is just such a small Mid- a mechanic who had fixed your par- expect to go. Owestern community. Opposing ents’ cars for decades, and whose son People often move for a reason that abortion is a deeply held religious prin- was on your baseball team in high seems to have nothing to do with pol- ciple for most people, and its importance school. As a result, you were apt to find itics but then turns out to correlate to is such that, for many, it is the only issue strangers more threatening than if you politics quite closely. According to a they consider when they vote. Orange had left. Also, if you moved to a larger Pew survey, for instance, nearly eighty City is in Iowa’s Fourth Congressional place, you tended to become aware of per cent of liberals like the idea of liv- District, that of Representative Steve poverty in a new way. People in Or- ing in a dense neighborhood where King, who is notorious for making in- ange City received government assis- you can walk to shops and schools, cendiary anti-immigrant remarks. Even tance, but the town was small enough while seventy-five per cent of conser- though voters in the Fourth District sup- and prosperous enough that it was pos- vatives would rather live in a larger ported a path to citizenship for undoc- sible to imagine a world without it. If house with more space around it. After umented immigrants by a two-to-one you belonged to a church and you had people move, the politics of the new margin, while King vehemently opposed a crisis, church members would likely place affect them. Those who move to it, they continued to vote for him be- help you out. If you moved to a city, a politically dissimilar place tend to cause he was reliably pro-life. Yet al- though, you saw a level of need that become independents; those who move though it was rare for someone from Or- could not be addressed by church to a place where people vote the same ange City to change his position on groups alone. way they do tend to become more ex- abortion, if he came to consider other In a small town, you knew what treme in their convictions. issues important as well, his politics people were up to most of the time; But there also seems to be some- shifted significantly. “I would still con- if someone did something strange or thing about the act of moving that sider myself pro-life,” John Cleveringa, annoying, it often got to you, because disturbs people’s beliefs, regardless of who left for Michigan to be a pastor, it said something about the town, and, where they end up. One woman left says. “But that has moved down the list. by extension, about you. The anonym- Orange City to attend college in a Pro-life is about defending those who ity of a larger place, on the other hand, place that was, if anything, more con- are not able to defend themselves, and was more forgiving. To live in a city servative than her home town, but, there are people in this world who have was to know that you were surrounded even so, the experience changed her. been born and don’t have the ability to by far too many people to ever keep “Both of my parents are vocally con- defend themselves, either.” track of: there was so much that was servative, so I thought I was a Re- In the past ten years, a large number outside your control that ignoring an- publican all these years, but my views of Latino immigrants have moved into noyances, human or otherwise, be- have changed,” she says. “Living out- Orange City and nearby towns to work came a habit. Moreover, repeated en- on the hog farms and the dairy farms counters with people who didn’t think and in the meatpacking plants. Although as you did could pry open a certain the change has been large and sudden— distance between your beliefs and in just a few years, some school classes your emotions. have gone from nearly all white to as Lynn Lail, who moved from Or- much as thirty per cent Hispanic—it has ange City to Texas twenty years ago been taken more or less in stride. Very and now works as a medevac nurse few people in Orange City were worried near Fort Worth, finds this sort of dis- that immigrants would take jobs away sonance difficult, but has learned to side of a small rural town gives you from natives; since most white workers live with her confusion. “I’m still ex- a different perspective. When I think didn’t seem to want to milk cows or tremely conservative,” she says. “Very about taxes now, what comes to my butcher hogs anymore, it was clear that old-fashioned in my morals. Down mind is school funding coming from without the immigrants local agriculture here, we have a huge gay and lesbian taxes, which perpetuates poverty, be- would collapse. On the other hand, the community, and some of my dearest cause schools in lower-income areas idea of breaking the law offended people. friends are gay and lesbian, and that have lower graduation rates. When I They wanted immigrants, but legal ones. has been a struggle for me, because I think about immigration, I think, We Occasionally, there were displays of was raised to believe that that’s not all immigrated at some point—well, overt racism. The next-door town, Sioux Biblical. But I love them uncondition- most of us—can we not remember Center, had a weekly cruise night, when ally for who they are as people, and I that? But abortion is what people vote young people would drive around and don’t judge them.” Lail moved to Texas on in the Midwest, especially in small around a park, and some of the cruisers not because she wanted to leave Or- communities. If someone says they’re had started flying Confederate flags on

62 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 roots, you gave yourself a chance to grow. Mahr also had another reason for ABOVE THE MOUNTAINTOPS staying. He thought of himself as an ag- itator, albeit a gentle one, and he wanted Above the mountaintops to push Orange City to live up to its re- all is still. ligious ideals. Although he now consid- Among the treetops ered himself a progressive Democrat, you can feel he’d been raised in a conservative Chris- barely a breath— tian family and used to vote Republican, birds in the forest, stripped of song. so he felt that the people in Orange City Just wait: before long were his people and he knew how to talk you, too, shall rest. to them. He believed that Orange City Christians could be moved by certain —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe kinds of moral arguments—ones that (Translated, from the German, by Rita Dove.) depended on the sanctity of life, for in- stance, or the command to love thy neigh- bor. He had one such argument about their trucks. A prayer vigil was orga- Mahr, who owned the coffee shop on refugees. Suppose you have a hundred nized in response—about a hundred Central Avenue, decided to do some- babies before they’re born, he would say, people gathered to pray and sing in the thing. He wanted to demonstrate that and one of them might grow up to be a park as the trucks were cruising. But not everyone in Orange City thought terrorist—should you abort all hundred most people in Orange City were too like King, so he organized a protest in babies just in case? Of course not, his in- polite to show hostility. The problem front of the courthouse. Although it was terlocutor would say. Well, suppose you wasn’t so much that people rejected the raining that day, he was gratified to see have a hundred refugees and one might newcomers openly as that they tended nearly two hundred people turn up. Mahr be a terrorist—should you risk a hun- not to see them in the first place. Most didn’t grow up in Orange City; he came dred lives by turning them all away? of the Latinos attended Catholic to Northwestern College from a tiny People in Orange City were apt to churches in other towns, so they were Iowa town sixty miles away. This was avoid discussing politics, because argu- invisible. They didn’t exist. another benefit that the college brought— ments could get personal, but Mahr Because of this, a group of people at yearly crops of young people to replace thought he could keep things friendly the Trinity Reformed Church decided the ones who left. These arrivals came over food and drink. He chatted with that Dutch and Latinos ought to get to with fresh ideas, but within limits: since customers in his coffee shop all day, and know one another. They decided to host Northwestern was a Christian college, it in the evenings he held events to discuss a potluck dinner at which guests would tended to attract those who fit. things like race and immigration. When sit together at tables for eight—four One day, someone asked Mahr and marriage equality passed nationally, he Dutch and four Latinos. One of the another young man who worked in the hung up a rainbow flag and put a sign sources of tension between the commu- coffee shop why they had stayed in Or- outside—“Wahoo!! Congrats LGBTQ nities, insofar as they interacted at all, ange City after graduating, and both of Friends!” One customer told him that had been what was perceived to be their them said, Kathleen Norris. Norris was she was offended by his sign, that mar- differing notions of time—the Dutch a poet who, after living a bohemian life riage equality was a symptom of degrad- were reputed to be rigidly punctual, the in New York City, had returned in 1974 ing morals, and that he had lost her busi- Latinos to be late. So the hosts told the to live in her late parents’ house in a ness. He said he understood her position, Latino guests that the dinner began at small town in South Dakota. Seeing but he wanted his restaurant to be a place five-thirty, and told the Dutch to come how the Dakotas had been eviscerated for everyone. Before long, she came back. at six. The evening of the dinner, the by the loss of their young, she had come “What are you going to do?” he says. Latinos, knowing that lateness irritated to respect the wisdom of the Benedic- “The town has one coffee shop!” the Dutch, turned up at precisely five- tine vow of stability—which is, as Mahr realized that in some ways you thirty; and the Dutch, thinking to ac- Thomas Merton put it, a renunciation could engage people in politics more effec- commodate Latino norms, turned up half of the vain hope of finding the perfect tively in a small town precisely because an hour late, at six-thirty; and so the Lati- monastery, and an embracing of the or- everything was personal and there was nos had to wait around for an hour while dinariness of what you already have. nowhere else to go. It was harder to push the embarrassed hosts explained the sit- Norris spoke at Northwestern while people in a larger place, who could shrug uation. But, in the end, the dinner was a Mahr and the other man were students off the sharp looks of their neighbors, success: fifty or sixty guests came, and there, and convinced them that mov- and who didn’t feel personally implicated several made plans to get together again. ing to a new place was not the way to in the failings of their community. Last March, Steve King declared in build a new self, because you brought In his 1970 book, “Exit, Voice, and a tweet: “Culture and demographics are your problems with you. If you didn’t Loyalty,” the economist Albert O. Hirsch- our destiny. We can’t restore our civili- distract yourself with moving around, man described different ways of ex- zation with somebody else’s babies.” Steve but stayed where you were and put down pressing discontent. You can exit—stop

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 63 buying a product, leave town. Or you can ists or syndicalists or anarchists, launched growing up, so in the end she went to use voice—complain to the manufac- strikes, organized coöperatives and ille- Northwestern and studied social work. turer, stay and try to change the place gal soviets, and fomented revolution. Peo- She met her future husband, Justin, there; you live in. The easier it is to exit, the ple who lived in areas where there was they married the summer after her ju- less likely it is that a problem will be a lot of organizing—where there seemed nior year. Justin was from central Iowa fixed. That’s why the centripetal pull of to be a chance to change things—tended and was studying to enter the ministry. Orange City was not just a conservative to stay; in places where the revolution One day, Vicki saw a notice on a bulle- force; it could be a powerfully dynamic didn’t catch on, people left. In Italy at tin board about a Dutch Reformed one as well. After all, it wasn’t those who that time, in other words, to stay could church in California’s Central Valley that fled the town who would push it on- be an optimistic, forward-looking thing needed a youth pastor. She and Justin ward, politically or economically—it was to do. Staying didn’t mean staying the prayed on it and decided that God wanted the ones who loved it enough to stay, or same; leaving, on the other hand, left a them to go. to come back. place as it was. They lived in California for three Americans, Hirschman wrote, have years. While Justin worked in the church, always preferred “the neatness of exit uite a few people came back to Or- Vicki took a job at a Christian home for over the messiness and heartbreak of Qange City eventually. Some came pregnant teen-agers, in Modesto. A few voice.” Discontented Europeans staged back when their kids were little, be- months after she started, one of the teen- revolutions; Americans moved on. “The cause they wanted them to have the same agers asked her to adopt her baby. The curious conformism of Americans, noted childhood they’d had. Others returned teen-ager wanted the baby to go to a by observers ever since Tocqueville, may when nieces or nephews were born, or white Christian family that would take also be explained in this fashion,” he when relatives got sick. Discontented the baby far away from Modesto, but continued. “Why raise your voice in con- kids leaving kept Orange City conser- she’d found that few such families would tradiction and get yourself into trouble vative; homesick adults returning brought consider a black child. Vicki was twenty- as long as you can always remove your- a combination of perspective and alle- two and had not been planning to start self entirely from any given environment giance that kept it alive. a family for several years, but she felt that should it become too unpleasant?” Vicki Schrock came back. Her fam- God wanted her to adopt. She called A hundred years ago in southern Italy, ily were Dutch farmers who had lived Justin, who, answering the phone in his many people were miserably poor, and near Orange City for four generations. car, was startled, but quickly agreed. there were a limited number of things She grew up poor on a small farm just Some time later, while Vicki and Jus- they could do about it. They could em- outside town, the second of five children; tin were on a vacation back home, peo- igrate, probably to America; they could she was born in 1979, at the beginning ple from her childhood church told join a militant labor union and start to of the farm crisis that crippled the re- them that they needed a youth pastor fight; or they could accept the world as gion for half a decade and forced many and wanted to recruit Justin. Vicki and it was. Some who emigrated sent money small farmers to sell their land. She Justin wondered what it would be like home, which helped, but they were gone, thought vaguely in high school of want- to bring up a nonwhite child in Sioux so they didn’t have much ability to im- ing to go somewhere else for college, but County, and Vicki wondered, too, if she prove the place. Many who stayed to her younger sister was only eight at the wanted to raise any kind of kid in the fight, on the other hand, became social- time, and she didn’t want to miss her blinkered and censorious atmosphere of Orange City, which she was now even more conscious of than she had been growing up. On a previous trip home, a man had remarked to her how nice it was that they didn’t have teen preg- nancies in Orange City as they did in Modesto, and she, dumbfounded, said to him, “Do you really think they’re not happening? I think people here take a different path.” After much indecision and praying, however, she and Justin chose to move home. It turned out bet- ter than they’d feared—Sioux County was changing. In their small church alone, there were nine or ten families that had adopted nonwhite kids, and many Latino families were settling nearby. During the next few years, Vicki and Justin had three biological kids and ad- opted biracial twin girls from Minne- sota. After Justin had served a decade as youth pastor, they moved to Guatemala ethics at Duke Divinity School; she then of her children. Still, it wasn’t prudence for a year and a half with the six kids to got a job at a small Christian college that prompted her to move home, or run a mission center. When they got near Philadelphia. even the desire for older friends: struc- back, Vicki went to work in a clinic, and Julie and Greg lived in the Philadel- turing her life around relationships was Justin took a job at a mentoring organi- phia suburbs for ten years. They tried a religious value as well. She believed zation in town that counselled people in to build a sense of community there, that because God was a trinity, to be cre- spiritual or material trouble—particu- but it didn’t work. They had friends, but ated in the image of God was to be cre- larly the unchurched and those new in after a decade their town still didn’t feel ated for relationships; so to make rela- town, who had nowhere else to go. like home. Around this time, when Julie tionships the purpose of your life was to Coming back to Orange City from was in her late thirties, her fulfill your human mission. Guatemala was considerably more jar- mother received a diagno- She thought that her ring than coming back from California. sis of leukemia, and Julie faith was a large part of why They found the town’s prosperity newly went to Orange City to be she’d returned to Orange astonishing, and they saw how Latino with her as she was dying. City, while her brothers had families in town were invisible to peo- She was struck by how not. Dan had found his way ple for whom Orange City would always many people came to see back to the church eventu- be Dutch. But it seemed to Justin that her mother. She noticed ally, but not the one he’d it could not be an accident that he and that some of these friends grown up in—he and his Vicki had returned home only to find had money and others were family belonged to a pro- dozens of people freshly arrived from poor, whereas in Philadel- gressive church in North parts of Guatemala that they had just phia her friends were all Carolina, where he taught spent time in. He figured this must be very much like her and Greg. Julie environmental business practices at one of the reasons God meant them to thought, Here is a woman who has ac- Duke. Julie, though, felt that to grow up come back. complished basically nothing, profes- in Orange City was to inherit a coher- sionally, and yet she has had an impact ent and beautiful world view, derived ll four of Dan Vermeer’s siblings on so many people. And she thought, largely from the Dutch Reformed Aleft Orange City, and only one of These are the kinds of deep friendships Church. At the heart of it was the idea them came back. It was normal in town that we don’t have in Philadelphia. that there was not one inch of God’s for some children to make their lives A couple of months later, her father creation that He did not claim as His— elsewhere, but to have five kids and be also became seriously ill and she wanted that all parts of life were sacred, even left with not a single one to show for it to take care of him, so she called North- the most mundane. Pietistic traditions was embarrassing. “My mom asked all western to ask about jobs. She inter- held that earth was merely a way station the time, What did we do wrong?” Dan viewed for the position of dean of stu- to Heaven, and all that really mattered says. The one who came back was the dent life, and Greg interviewed for a job was the state of your soul; Reformed youngest, Dan’s sister, Julie, and no one as a marketing manager in a nearby town. Christians believed that God would was more surprised by this than Julie They got the jobs—but in the middle of return to raise the dead and restore the herself. She had always disliked the it all her father died. Now they had to earth to what it was meant to be. Earth town’s tendency to consider itself a shin- decide whether to go through with the was the final home. ing little Christendom especially be- move anyway. They decided to do it, and Dan was glad that Julie had moved loved by God. moved into the house that Julie was raised back into their family house, but he Even when she was a child, Julie had in. For them, this meant building their never considered following her, even as resisted Orange City’s equation of Chris- lives around relationships rather than he saw the sweetness of that life. “Every tian and Republican. She had always professional ambition. Greg’s parents day after dinner, my dad used to hold been devout; but in third grade she made were still living nearby, and all around hands with Julie’s daughter and go watch Jesse Jackson buttons after she saw him were people they’d known since they the horses at the neighbor’s house, and on TV, speaking at the 1984 Democratic were kids. Julie also felt called by God chat with him, and then wander back,” National Convention. When she was to serve the town where she’d grown up he says. “If you love Orange City, those growing up, she assumed she would and the college that had taken her in as small, idyllic pleasures become what you leave town after high school and never a single mother. live for.” Because Julie moved back only come back. But then, her senior year in She noticed almost immediately that after both her parents were dead, home high school, she got pregnant. She the social world around her felt differ- did not feel idyllic to her in quite that wanted to keep the baby, and she knew ent. In Philadelphia, she’d had her close way; but she realized that would have she couldn’t raise a child and attend col- friends, and everyone else was more or been so, sooner or later, in any case. lege without help, so she enrolled at less a stranger; in Orange City, there was Imagining that moving home could re- Northwestern and raised her daughter a large middle category as well. She wasn’t solve your conflicts and fulfill your long- at home with her parents. She met her close friends with all her neighbors or ings was as misguided as imagining that future husband, Greg, in college. After her acquaintances from church, but she leaving would do the same thing. Home they graduated, they moved to North knew that if she got sick they would should not be idolized, she believed— Carolina so she could study Christian bring food and run errands and take care only loved. 

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 65 FICTION

66 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN MERRIAM must have been renting a place on was born on the Cherokee Strip and couple was looking to me for help. On H Street in Livingston at the time, had worked for Benny Binion. I’m not the contrary, the man was waving I so that I could meet clients in sure if that makes any sense. harshly at me to turn off my lights. town. (My home was several miles We don’t remember everything, but When I did, I could no longer see the south, toward Gardiner.) I was an ar- I’d love to know who’s in charge of two of them very well, and it was un- chitect, and I had a model of Frank what we forget. If there’s a system, it clear whether they wanted me to stay Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which I’d escapes me. I still remember that old or whether there was something pri- built in school, on a library table in the cowboy and the boy’s enchantment vate about the woman’s anguished wails front room. Most of my clients thought when I walk down Main, because head- that I should respect. The glimpse I’d it was my design. The H Street house ing home that night I was in a kind had of them with my headlights on was on an elevated lot, facing the old of trance that made me wonder later had suggested that they were unin- sewing-machine shop. I never went in if I’d dreamed the rest of the evening. jured. I don’t know why this encour- there, but I recall that they sold ma- I had not, of course, but it had that aged my bafflement or diffidence, but chines with a foreign name that were quality, and it’s hardly certain where I just sat in my car waiting to be asked. said to hem, darn, baste, and stitch— dreams leave off. I couldn’t just sit there, but I really back when people did those things, in- My head was clear as I drove home, couldn’t leave. I got out of the car, risk- stead of just throwing stuff away. Even- out Old 89 under the stars, though my ing the parking lights, which didn’t tually, the place went out of business. ears were still ringing from various seem to offend the man as my head- I had only the ground floor of the Doobie Brothers covers by locals who’d lights had. Now he beckoned me over, house; the upstairs was occupied by a learned rock and roll at an Air Force with the same kind of authoritarian schoolteacher, who entered her apart- base in Spain. The earliest houses in gestures with which he had ordered ment by way of a very unsafe-looking the valley were set close along the road my lights extinguished. When I reached exterior staircase that undulated and for easy access in deep snow. Their him, he stared me straight in the face squealed with her steps. lights were off at that hour, and I could in a disquieting way. He was not big After drinking at the Wrangler until just make out their shapes as I drove; but seemed fit, with close-cropped hair closing time one cold November night, up on the ridges, new homes glowed and noticeably long sideburns. He I wandered around to Main Street, with yard lights and long driveways, shook his head to indicate either that which was empty at that hour, except their owners indifferent to weather. I this entire situation was a mess or that for a crippled old cowboy who was turned on the radio, in case my post- there was nothing to be done about making his way toward the railroad Wrangler Bar attention wavered. the dramatic noises coming from the yards. There weren’t many of these fel- I lived alone in a two-story frame woman, a remarkably small person in lows left, the ones whom horses had house built in 1905, with a still incor- a cotton dress that went all the way to broken so often in accidents far from porated into the fireplace, in which the the ground, who was still directing her help, their hands still as hard as lari- owner had made bottles of hooch to cries toward the grass and underbrush. ats. They kept their worn-out Stetsons sell at country dances during Prohibi- The man put his hand on my shoul- so you wouldn’t confuse them with tion. Walking in the door by myself at der and moved me to a spot away from railroaders. I had stopped to watch the three in the morning would make me the noise. old man, perhaps wondering how far long for someone to live with—any- “She’s crying for her baby,” he said he’d make it in his condition, when a one—but I’d soon be asleep, and in the in an oddly confiding tone, almost as young boy, an urchin, appeared from morning I’d be glad to be alone again though he were selling me the idea. an alley and called out to him, “Jack! and would remind myself that I had When I asked if the child had been Hey, Jack!,” and the old man turned to keep better hours if I was going to thrown from the car, he said, “There toward the voice. I don’t know if I can get any work done. is no baby. She’s crazy. Just play along.” put my finger on it after all this time, Just south of the cemetery, where His gaze was very direct. “I think you but the excitement or joy, or whatever the road starts down into the Suce can do that.” it was that these two experienced when Creek bottom, was a car upside down At this, the woman rushed over to they saw each other, has never left me. and two people, a man and a woman, us and stood just at the level of my That’s all I can say about it. It was late standing beside it. The beams of my chest so that the peculiar arrangement at night on an empty street. Any eu- headlights carved a garish hole in the of her hair, piled atop her head with a phoria I may have accumulated at the dark. I could see that the man was comb thrust through it, drew my ex- bar was gone. The pair met up and holding and trying to calm the agi- hausted scrutiny. spoke in an animated way, though I tated woman, who was pointing to- “He don’t believe me! Timmy was couldn’t hear them from that distance. ward a vacancy of brush and prairie. I throwed from the back window. Out It doesn’t matter. I moved on before turned off the radio, so as to concen- in the pickers.” they did, and the boy is probably mid- trate on, or try to understand, what I The man was staring at her. She dle-aged by now, the old cowboy surely was seeing. I pulled up behind the over- touched a finger to a button on my dead. Somebody later told me that he turned car without any sense that the shirt. I thought it was a curious gesture

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 67 for someone in her position. Her dic- descent into the abyss was hilarious, tion, too, was in contrast to the refine- but I hardly laughed at the time. ment of her face and the delicacy of When I got back to the road, scuffed her clothing. The man watched her as up, fingernails packed with clay, I though he’d never heard her speak looked both ways as though I might before. be run over on this empty highway. I “Will you look for him? He don’t knew where I was, just at the rise to- believe me, and I got no shoes on.” ward Deep Creek, Pine Creek, Barney The man tilted his head and nod- Creek, and so on; I could smell the ir- ded, and I concurred that there was no rigated hay fields on the night air. I harm in going along with was more than ten miles this. It seemed entirely from my house, on a little- possible that there was a travelled road. The Absa- baby. As I set off, I won- roka Range made a sharp dered whom I believed. silhouette against the I stumbled through the starlight. brush and weeds, my eyes A car approached from not quite adjusted to the the north, a pair of lights starry night. I thought wobbling on the uneven something like a five-min- pavement. I stood at the ute loop would demon- edge of the road, arms at strate my willingness to help, but at my sides. It pulled up beside me, and the same time I listened for the sound from within I heard a woman’s anx- of a child. I hadn’t gone far before I ious voice: “Are you all right! You’re stepped into a badger hole and fell; by lucky to be alive!” I made an effort to the time I got the dirt out of my eyes sweep the dirt from my clothes before and my mouth, I was annoyed. I opening the passenger door; it gave thought of the old cowboy and the boy me the moment I needed to under- back on Main Street and how there stand this interesting development. was something important about them Then I got in, flinging myself back that I couldn’t put my finger on. I was against the seat. “Yes,” I breathed. “Very in no hurry as I stood up to pick the lucky indeed, thank you. I just need to thistles out of my left palm. get home.” It was thus that I observed my car “Shall I call someone, the—some- drive away, two little red tail-lights, one?” She held up her phone. A pretty and this threw me into a strange reflec- face, sharply focussed, very dark-brown tive state, in which my dissolute night eyes, shone in the thing’s green light. at the Wrangler and my ensuing ex- I said I didn’t think it was necessary. I haustion, the cowboy and the boy, the supposed that my own phone was trav- two crooks who had just stolen my car, elling somewhere in the night, in my my remote house and its unconquered car. I tried to make conversation as we air of vacancy, all seemed to have equal drove on. “Is that Cassiopeia?” She value—that is, no value. I have gone didn’t know; she was trying to watch back to this idea since, because I feel the road. I remembered the groceries it was a clue to my eventual burden, I’d had in the trunk of my car—some this set of random data points by which apples, orange juice, Lean Cuisine, two I simply moved across some screen be- tins of Science Diet cat food, a fifth fore being faced with a connivance that of George Dickel. I knew what was I couldn’t understand, though it seemed going to happen: it was three in the to belong to me. The flashing light on morning. We didn’t even get upstairs. a remote radio tower across the valley We fucked on the couch with the front looked almost like a beacon, and I re- door open. The cat was all over us. She call thinking that I could head for that started laughing and soon left. I car- as easily as go back to the road, where ried my clothes upstairs, threw them I no longer had a car. Later, misusing on the floor, and went to bed. these memories to impress some girl, Karen was her name. I don’t know I would try pitching the idea that this if she got mine or not. She was an

68 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 emergency-room doctor and smelled instinctively that this would be the like surgical tape. She was tired from right approach, given the startling ap- work and on her way home. I’m sur- pearance of the law. The chair made prised she took the time with me. I twerps out of most people, but the believe I enjoyed the experience, but I sheriff looked like he owned it. It may really couldn’t stop thinking about the even have added to his authority. He old cowboy and his young friend. She got right to the point. did tell me that her job was grim and “Do you know where your car is?” had taught her to “live it up.” Maybe “I don’t. It was stolen.” that explained it, if an explanation was “And you never got around to re- required. porting it?” “I was with an emergency-room woke up hungry, but it was almost doctor, tending to other matters. Has midmorning. I had work to do! One it been found?” Iof my skills was making models for “It’s in Torrington, Wyoming, full other architects’ projects. I was in far of bullet holes.” greater demand for these models than This was a good time to say noth- I was for my own designs. In fact, they ing. pretty well ate my career. I was mak- “They’ve got the guy,” he added. ing one now for a glamorous house in “What about the girl?” Bridger Canyon. It looked like a space- “In the hospital. She’s not gonna ship, with rooms cantilevered over a make it. They robbed the Sinclair Sta- spring-fed pond. I could just picture tion in town, rolled their car, and then it below the gorgeous massif of the got some help from you.” Bridger Range, a real piece of shit. Oh “Well, I wouldn’t call it—” well, it was a living. “Really? Then why didn’t you re- When I was this weary, I’d do var- port it?” ious mindless things to get myself ready “It was late.” for the day, which necessarily de- “Pard, we answer the phone 24/7.” manded physical deftness. I was try- “I should have called. Of course, I ing to drop two halves of a Lender’s should have. I should have picked up onion bagel into the slots of the toaster the phone and called.” simultaneously, a tough hand-eye ma- “I could probably make a case here. neuver: I’d nail one and the other would I’m not going to, because I don’t think flop out onto the counter. I was fur- it would fly. But it never needed to ther distracted by the beauty of the come to this. Maybe you should think morning, visible above the sink, a crowd about that. There wasn’t nothing in of finches in the lilacs beside the the world wrong with that young kitchen window, through which came woman. You ever see a pretty gal in a the most ambrosial air from the spruces morgue? I don’t recommend it.” surrounding the yard. He gave me time to absorb this, but I didn’t get a chance to eat the bagel at that moment my mind was else- until later in the day, when it was cold where. “Who’s that old cowboy walks and hard: a knock on my front door around town in the middle of the turned out to be our big Sheriff Holm, night?” bursting out of his olive uniform and It took the sheriff a moment to an- smiling suspiciously at me as he offered swer. “If he has a name, I wouldn’t know his hand. He had a large, round Scan- it. Why do you ask?” dinavian head and a blunt nose. He I still had my work to do. I was able didn’t want a bagel, so I led him into to use a shard of broken mirror for the the living room, where I offered him pond. I just couldn’t figure out how far a straight-backed chair, a white oak back I’d have to go to put together the Shaker knockoff I’d made myself, an pieces that wound up in Torrington. extraordinarily uncomfortable thing This was going to take a while. ♦ that gave its occupant the feeling of enduring an inquisition while in- NEWYORKER.COM suring the brevity of a visit. I knew Thomas McGuane on writing in free fall.

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 69 THE CRITICS

THE THEATRE WA S T E D

Acting and addiction in “People, Places & Things.”

BY HILTON ALS

ramas about addiction can be ex- saying, “I’m a seagull,” but the words Emma needs to get through rehab if Dciting to watch. And then dispirit- come out strangely—garbled or ill- she’s ever going to be hired as an actress ing. Exciting because degradation is fas- timed—as she lurches to and fro, nod- again. Indeed, the desire to act is never cinating to follow from the relative safety ding off and then trying not to nod, as far from her heart or her way of being: and smugness of an “appropriate” life, the scene disintegrates and dance music she signs into rehab as “Nina,” a dis- and dispiriting because if all that sad is piped in and, leaving her costume tressing and distressed character who mayhem can happen to this or that char- behind, she goes off to a rave in a world both is and is not herself. acter what’s to keep it from happening far from Chekhov’s, a club populated Emma hides behind her addictions, to me or you? by party people who don’t want the and she uses her sense of irony as a Emma (Denise Gough), the protag- night to end, if it is, in fact, night. distancing scrim. When she is shown onist in Duncan Macmillan’s “People, The next day—or some other day, to her room by a rehab administrator Places & Things,” a transfer from the Na- who can say—Emma sits, stoned while named Foster (Alistair Cope, who, like tional Theatre in London (at St. Ann’s trying not to be, in the lobby of a rehab the rest of the supporting cast, is excel- Warehouse), suffers greatly, but she is also facility in London. She’s on the phone lent), she flips him off with snotty re- interested in how far and fast she can fall with someone—we don’t know whom marks: she is defiant, or acting defiant. and still pull back before landing, perma- at first. She’s asking the person to clean Foster has seen it all before, and so has nently, in the gutter: she’s the star of her out her apartment and get rid of all the the Doctor (Barbara Marten, who plays own tinsel tragedy. Like many junkies, hidden pills and bottles. She says, in a several roles), but their patience and Emma is a brutalizing sentimentalist chas- rush between twitching and scratch- knowingness feel contrived to Emma. ing the dragon—a line of coke, a hand- ing, “Listen to me listen to me okay Not long after she starts to crash, she ful of tranquillizers, booze—while also alright please this is important to sees versions of herself climbing out of chasing some idea of love, which involves me… . Listen please for a second be- the bed and breaking through the wall, regret as well. She would “only connect” cause right now you’re being a com- frantic for the familiar escapes of drugs, if she could—or if that kind of connec- plete cunt.” Who is she speaking to so drink, and staunch make-believe. Emma tion held her interest for long enough. disparagingly? “Look, obviously I called is not pulled together because she’s never Emma’s an actress, a sloppily con- the wrong person. Obviously you’re been pulled together, and her job has frontational, drug-addled mess in a unable to help me, you can’t give me encouraged this splitting apart of the business populated by handlers who half an hour to do something that could soul in order to become other people. applaud inflated self-regard. She likes save my life… . Listen, Mum.” But Throughout the almost two-and-a- to be watched—she demands it—but Mum isn’t listening—perhaps she has half-hour play, Macmillan and the com- in her fucked-up state she demeans the listened and had her hopes dashed one mitted director, Jeremy Herrin, make the honor of drawing the audience’s atten- time too many—and, given the acri- point that drugs both allow Emma to tion. Onstage, she jerks and twists her mony in Emma’s voice as she struggles compartmentalize her various selves in way through a scene about failed dreams to form a sentence, one wonders if she her real life and encourage her not to and unrequited love. What play is this, has ever had anyone listen to her off- have a real life at all. Group therapy is though? Some of the lines are famil- stage, or if her family and friends are useless to Emma until she tells her life iar. Ah, that sad, tall guy is Treplev, finally revolting against her unbridled story—except that it’s not her life story. from Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” so selfishness. Another recovering addict, Mark (Na- Emma, in a long black dress, must be By seeking help, Emma puts us on thaniel Martello-White), recognizes it Nina, Treplev’s childhood friend and her side: who doesn’t identify with the as the plot of “Hedda Gabler.” Who is an aspiring actress, Nina, with her desire to be better, to be transformed, Emma without a script? A broken girl

dreams and her hysteria. Emma keeps rehabilitated? We all need “work.” And who was close to her brother, who died JOHN ST. TODD ABOVE:

70 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 Through some extraordinary process, Denise Gough becomes Emma and not Emma at the same time.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ELLIOTT JEROME BROWN, JR. THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 71 Emma, Mum’s a trigger; she’s one of the people, places, and things that her therapist warned might set her off. Emma returned home to escape the dangers of her independent life only to end up with the devil she knows. When we last see Emma, she’s at an audition, giving it her all—she appears to be sober—but after a casting person says “Thank you” we see other girls lin- ing up behind the actress, waiting for their chance. It’s a terrible moment, and it avoids being a cliché, thanks to Her- rin’s direction: he knew how easily the material could devolve into bathos if he wasn’t careful. (As Emma left the stage and the next actress stepped up, I thought of the scene in the movie “Klute” in which Jane Fonda’s character, Bree Dan- iels, goes to a casting call for a beauty commercial. The clients comment on the women as they walk past, asking to see their hands and faces and talking about them as though they weren’t quite human.) For actresses like Emma—who are too old to be ingénues but not phys- ically striking enough to be movie stars— the world is a limited place. When we go to the movies, we want to see not just the performance but also some ver- “I remodelled, but I left it so that when danger threatens sion of the performer, and Emma knows I can still take refuge in the redoubt.” that she is compelling enough to be a star only in her own mind—and not even there, at least not all the time. All •• she has going for her is her intelligence and her ability to dissemble. young—and she couldn’t grieve with her back home to work on her recovery, Through some extraordinary pro- parents, no way. Besides, if she stood up her mother (Marten) hands her a box cess, the Irish-born Gough becomes to the agony of her loss who would stand filled with all the pills, drug parapher- Emma and not Emma at the same time; up for her? Macmillan has written a bril- nalia, and alcohol that Emma asked that is, she knows how to play Emma’s liant evocation of what happens to per- her to get rid of. Mum, cold and self- lies without foregrounding them or try- formers when they can’t not perform, absorbed, says that she didn’t know ing to make us comfortable with Em- when they live lives in which the curtain what to do with it; the last time she ma’s psychology. Her performance is never seems to come down, ever. “tried to intervene” at Emma’s request, greater than the script, and the script is she says, Emma broke her fingers. terrific, if conventional; it gives Gough mma’s backstory—the dead-brother Emma has no memory of that violence. a framework through which to express Etrope—is O.K., but it doesn’t en- “Why do you think I don’t play piano her genius. Gough has said that before tirely explain who she is or why she anymore?” Mum asks. she auditioned for the role she was going uses. Macmillan likely knows that it Is it true? Mum may be a self-dra- to give up on acting—on competing doesn’t quite work, because he doesn’t matizing liar, too. At least Emma acts with other women for parts and being stress or try to elucidate the point. Any- out her contempt and her loss. For rejected. Playing Emma has given her way, Gough’s energy, her wild physi- Mum, those emotions are like a warm the strength to push on in ways that cality and imagination, is what we cardigan wrapped around her, enclos- Emma can’t, and the struggle you see want—it doesn’t take long for her to ing her. These two women are locked onstage draws on something bigger become our drug—and the text is, in in something awful and familiar: their than a single play: anger at a show-busi- the end, simply the foundation that apparent urge to compete with each ness world that condones the brutality she needs to leap off as she races to- other to please the ultimate director, of male power, degrades women, and ward us. I’ll never forget the look on Dad (the wonderful Kevin McMona- watches with delight as those women Gough’s face when, after Emma moves gle, who also plays several roles). For go on to degrade themselves. ♦

72 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017

from early on, was a natural essayist and BOOKS even an editorialist, a man with a taste and a gift for argument, with much to say about the passing scene as it passed. THE PATRIOT (A 1960 Commentary piece, “Writing American Fiction,” about a murder in The collected nonfiction of Philip Roth. Chicago and the impossibility of the writ- er’s imagination matching American re- BY ADAM GOPNIK ality, is a classic of that magazine’s high period.) He remains engaged, so much so that a mischievous essayist might ac- cuse Roth of being an essayist manqué, looking for chances to interpolate essays in novels. In “Exit Ghost” (2007), for in- stance, there are embryonic ones on (among other topics) the surprising ex- cellence of George Plimpton’s prose and the micro-mechanics of cell-phone use on New York streets, and though both are supportable as pieces in a fictional work, they could easily be excised, en- larged, and made to stand on their own. The editorialist in Roth is part of his art even when he’s writing straight fiction. Roth is a dramatic writer inasmuch as he typically begins with an inherently dramatic circumstance or situation: a writer pays a call on his hero, as in “The Ghostwriter,” or is suffering from un- bearable neck pain, as in “The Anatomy Lesson,” or has become a woman’s breast, as in “The Breast.” But the succession of events is presented more as rumination and reverie—as irony overlaid on inci- dent—than as “scenes,” something that becomes apparent when they are made into sometimes painfully static movies. The new collection divides neatly into three parts: the first, mostly from the six- ties and the early seventies, is devoted to hilip Roth’s new collection of nonfic- regularly about writing sometime in the setting up shop as a writer—announc- Ption, mostly writing about writing mid-seventies. Since then, there have ing themes, countering critics, with the and about other writers, is called, with been the slightly beleaguered interview author trying to defend himself from ac- Rothian bluntness, “Why Write?” (Li- when a new book came out, the care- cusations, which dogged him after the brary of America). It’s the first nonfic- fully wrought “conversations” in support publication of “Goodbye, Columbus” and tion collection Roth has produced in of writers he admired, particularly em- then “Portnoy’s Complaint,” that he was many years, though some pieces in it battled Eastern European ones, and, after callous or hostile to the Jews. Peace was have appeared in two previous volumes, his “retirement” from writing, a few years eventually made—he actually got an hon- “Reading Myself and Others” and “Shop ago, a series of valedictory addresses orary doctorate from the Jewish Theo- Talk.” Where John Updike, his compet- offered in a valedictorian’s tone. logical Seminary—perhaps because the itive partner in a half-century literary This turning away from topical non- novels in the “American” trilogy (“Amer- marathon—in which each always had fiction was not an inevitable develop- ican Pastoral,” “I Married a Commu- the other alongside, stride by stride, shed- ment. If our enigmatic oracles—Thomas nist,” and “The Human Stain”) were such ding books like perspiration—produced Pynchon, say, or Cormac McCarthy— undeniably Jewish meditations on eth- eight doorstop-size volumes of reviews, weighed in too often on general literary nicity and morality. essays, jeux d’esprit, citations, and gen- and political topics, they would cease to Like any writer worth paying atten- eral ponderations, Roth ceased writing be enigmatic, and oracular. But Roth, tion to, Roth turns out to be the sum of his contradictions. There is the severity

Roth wants to find a morally rigorous way to claim an American identity. of purpose that he loved in the literary BOB PETERSON BY PHOTOGRAPH

74 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 culture of the fifties, one that had him page even when what it illuminates is and Theodore Dreiser. “Through my coming to books “by way of a rather sordid or sad. reading, the mythohistorical conception priestly literary education in which writ- So, when Roth’s second act as a critic I had of my country in grade school— ing poems and novels was assumed to arrives, in the seventies and eighties, he from 1938 to 1946—began to be divested eclipse all else in what we called ‘moral becomes less inclined to argue with his of its grandiosity by its unraveling into seriousness.’ ” That’s the spirit that in- detractors—the comedy has already done the individual threads of American re- fuses the first third of “Why Write?,” the arguing for him—and instead puts ality the wartime tapestry that paid mov- and it is a state Roth has never really himself under a sort of self-imposed ing homage to the country’s idealized abandoned. (Even his announced retire- house arrest, sublimating his own criti- self-image,” he says. ment has the exigency of vocation: the cal opinions and complaints into inter- Reading them served to confirm what the gi- Archbishop makes a point of his with- views with writers he esteems. He not gantic enterprise of a brutal war against two for- drawal, whereas most writers just drift only relishes talking to these writers but midable enemies had dramatized daily for almost away from attention.) in some ways identifies with and even four years to virtually every Jewish family ours Yet peeking out mordantly from the envies their ironic detachment—the dig- knew and every Jewish friend I had: one’s Amer- start is Roth’s natural gift for comedy, nity of their inquiry, the seriousness with ican connection overrode everything, one’s Amer- ican claim was beyond question. Everything had which can’t help but rise to the surface which they are allowed to pursue a lit- repositioned itself. There had been a great dis- even amid the seriousness. And Roth is erary vocation that in America always turbance to the old rules. One was ready now as a comedian, really, rather than a humor- comes with cap and bells, with the only never before to stand up to intimidation and the ist or a satirist. The difference is that you questions being how odd the cap you get remains of intolerance, and, instead of just bear- can be humorous or satiric out of intel- to wear and how loud the bells ring. ing what one formerly put up with, one was equipped to set foot wherever one chose. The ligent purpose, while a gift for comedy “When I was first in Czechoslovakia,” American adventure was one’s engulfing fate. is, like a gift for melody, something you’re Roth wrote in an often quoted line, “it born with. Cracking up other kids as an occurred to me that I work in a society Roth sees that the immediate effects of adolescent is one of Roth’s core recur- where as a writer everything goes and this tradition were in many ways absurd: rent memories. In the opening essay in nothing matters, while for the Czech in eighth grade, he wrote, together with this book, the wonderful “Looking at writers I met in Prague, nothing goes an unnamed girl student, a “one act play, Kafka,” he makes his fellow Hebrew- and everything matters.” a quasi-allegory with a strong admoni- school mates sick with laughter by call- tory bent” that “pitted a protagonist ing the magically-summoned-to-Newark hen there comes a last third, gath- named Tolerance (virtuously performed Franz Kafka “Dr. Kishka.” Tered here for the first time, called by my coauthor) against an antagonist “Ungovernable” is Roth’s own adjec- “Explanations,” which is in many ways named Prejudice (sinisterly played by tive for comedy, and his readers may re- the most arresting and apropos part of the me),” climaxing in the defeated Preju- call such long, ungovernable happy ex- book. Roth’s great subject turns out to be, dice stalking off “in bitter defeat shout- ercises in comic voice as the monologues by his own account, patriotism—how to ing angrily at the top of his voice, in a of Alvin Pepler, the distraught ex-quiz- savor American history without sentimen- sentence I’d stolen from somewhere, ‘ This show contestant in “Zuckerman Un- talizing it, and how to claim an Ameri- great experiment cannot last!’ ” He rec- bound,” or the impersonation of an in- can identity without ceasing to inquire ognizes that Prejudice was the better tellectual pornographer, obviously based into how strangely identities are made. role, and that some aspect of him was on the late Al Goldstein, in “The Anat- Just as Updike’s œuvre, vast and var- unleashed in his not being the nice boy omy Lesson.” Meanwhile, the sequence ied, was built on the literary foundation onstage, but “it isn’t entirely far-fetched in which Portnoy visits his shiksa girl- of old, wry New Yorker humor, Benchley to suggest that the twelve-year-old who friend’s house for Thanksgiving and and White and Thurber, Roth’s default coauthored Let Freedom Ring! was fa- meets her parents is an extended mas- mode is a kind of earnest self-consciously ther to the man who wrote The Plot terpiece of American standup: American storytelling. As his work has Against America”—Roth’s 2004 novel, “How do you do, Alex?” to which of course evolved, and as he has a keener retro- about a mythical United States in which I reply “Thank you.” Whatever anybody says to spective sense of his own accomplish- the America Firster Charles Lindbergh me during my first twenty-four hours in Iowa, I ment, he has become aware, he says, that wins the 1940 Presidential election. answer “Thank you.” Even to inanimate objects. much of what he’s struggled for is rooted His American trilogy, written in the I walk into a chair, promptly I say to it, “Excuse not in the duly intoned roster of high late nineties, was already self-consciously me. Thank you.” modernism, Kafka and Beckett and Joyce, patriotic, dense with details of an Amer- Roth’s vision is bleak as bleak can be; but in a certain vein of American real- ican community. Yet people tend to for- there are no moments of Quiet Affir- ism, even regionalism—in a didactic dem- get that so seemingly “disruptive” a book mation. (Zuckerman’s father’s final whis- ocratic propaganda that was at large in as “Portnoy’s Complaint” is formed from pered word to his son is apparently “Bas- the nineteen-forties. “The writers who a tension between the narrator’s need to tard!”) But, whereas in Samuel Beckett’s expanded and shaped my sense of Amer- assert his sexual autonomy, to own his fiction—and Beckett’s name comes up ica were mainly small-town Midwest- human desires without shame, and his more often in this book than one might erners and Southerners,” he writes. He enormous estimation of the integrated expect—the comedy is as dark as the includes in this group Sherwood Ander- Jewish-Newark culture in which he grew drama, in Roth the comedy lights up the son, Sinclair Lewis, Erskine Caldwell, up—represented, most touchingly, by a

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 75 Saturday softball team on which the nar- have a larger loyalty that contains within forced choice—Must Harry marry Jan- rator dreams of playing. His adolescent it the necessary contradictions and lim- ice? Must Gabe take on the baby?— self hates the claustrophobia of his up- its, he both narrows his allegiances to suddenly outmoded, and also the com- bringing, but the narrating self has an working-class Newark and makes New- pound urban crises that made their small ungrudging affection for its many com- ark a miniature of America. Roth calls native towns unrecognizable. Both did munal virtues. Far from being a screed this, in a final summation, “the ruthless what real writers ought to do—bear wit- for sexual liberation, “Portnoy’s Com- intimacy of fiction.” He insists that “New- ness to the transformation rather than plaint” is a study in the ever-present pull ark was my sensory key to all the rest,” pretend it hasn’t happened. between the tribal and the transgressive and that “this passion for specificity, for Indeed, patriotism and its discontents in modern life. the hypnotic materiality of the world is the theme that both took on. In Up- The desire to find a liberal way of one is in, is all but at the heart of the dike, adultery is the most American of imagining the particulars of American task to which every American novelist acts, being a form of pursuit of happi- patriotism has become ever more ur- has been enjoined since Melville and ness available to otherwise constrained gent, especially in the light of Donald his whale and Twain and his river: to actors; in Roth, alienation from the Jew- Trump’s Presidency. It’s one of the rea- discover the most arresting, evocative ish tribe is the cost of the cosmopolitan sons that Richard Rorty’s “Achieving verbal depiction for every last Ameri- education that Jewish values promote. Our Country” (1998) has, however im- can thing.” The promise of acting irresponsibly in a probably, become so significant, quite This task can be encyclopedic, as in responsible way—pursuing pleasure and beyond its prophetic predictions of an Melville and Pynchon, or it can be mi- autonomy without actually being an out- approaching working-class nihilism. croscopic, as Roth now views his own. law—drives both of their imaginations. Rorty’s project was to find a way in which The job is to be attached to a place as The hipster idea that one might actually you could credibly talk about love of one is attached to a self: not looking past become an outlaw—take part in the blood country as a communal basis for reform- its flaws, but literally unable to imagine ceremony of violence that can seem cen- ing it, his point being that you can’t have life without it. (It is an emotion that was tral to American experience—was be- a reformist project that doesn’t have an already part of Roth’s arsenal of feeling yond their more domestic-minded and earlier idea of form within it. In the words as early as his first book, “Goodbye, Co- bourgeois East Coast imaginations. (“To of the old Ladies’ Home Journal, you have lumbus,” in which he wrote, “I felt a deep live outside the law, you must be honest” to answer the question “Can this mar- knowledge of Newark, an attachment so is one of the more fatuous untruths Bob riage be saved?” before you can save it. rooted that it could not help but branch Dylan ever uttered. To live outside the The current leftist critique, lit by the in- out into affection.”) law, you must lie to everyone all the time evitable disillusion of the post-Obama Roth’s notion about the particularity about everything, and cut friends loose period, is one of absolute original sin— of productive patriotism is trailed by a when today’s lies demand it.) the sins of the Constitutional Conven- history. As the Hungarian-American No writer of the more recent gener- tion, with its “three-fifths compromise,” historian John Lukacs has observed, the ations will participate in this patriotic reinforced by the evils of Reconstruction nationalist has a grievance and an ab- pageant quite so serenely. Not because and Jim Crow and its sequelae. Rorty’s stract category (it’s one of the reasons they are “anti-American” or indifferent point, in contrast, is the Obama-ish one that many of the more successful nation- to America—just the opposite—but be- that American history provides as much alists, including both Stalin and Hitler, cause younger writers take the world as reason for hope as for despair, and the don’t actually have to come from the na- a living principle within their work. They hope lies in a liberalism that crosses tions they lead), while the patriot has a go places, without eventfulness. The cri- classes and identities to become credi- well-furnished idea of home. Here, again, ses that stir them tend to be imagined bly popular. a compelling literary comparison is with on planetary rather than patriotic terms, Roth’s patriotic proposal invests not in Updike. Updike, like Roth, never stopped and are no worse for that. Though often the arc of history—which perhaps resem- singing his version of America. Their placed—who now knows the American bles too easily that eighth-grade pageant patriotism was almost quaint in its sim- novel who does not Brooklyn know?— of Tolerance defeating Prejudice—but in plicity of faith. The Second World War they seem less obsessed by one place, by a more fully realized sense of simple be- is for them above all an area of triumph the Newarks and Shillingtons of the longing. He proposes a patriotism of place and moral clarity. The differences be- world. Their Newarks and Shillingtons and person rather than of class and cause. tween Updike and Roth are obvious: are more often the genre fiction on which His patriotism recognizes how helplessly Wasp and Jew, poet and tummler. But they were raised—comic books and sci-fi dependent we are on a network of asso- both were poor boys from the East Coast, and indie cinema—and to which they ciations and communal energy, of which Shillington and Newark; both had the return again and again with the same we become fully aware only as it disap- shared experience of restlessness and mixture of nostalgia, longing, rancor, and pears. Not only can you go home again, discontent, in retrospect a kind of un- mockery that the older novelists devoted Roth insists. You can only go home again. conscious bliss in a small city; both found to their home towns. You get America right by remembering their sensibilities revolutionized and Toward the end of the book, Roth Newark as it really was. overturned by the events of the sixties. reflects on “The Plot Against America,” Making the point that only by hav- This upheaval involved the sexual rev- explaining why imagining the counter- ing a deep local sense of place can one olution that made their early fables of history of Lindbergh’s triumph felt both

76 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 frightening and reassuringly distant. It didn’t happen. Now it has, or something BRIEFLY NOTED rather like it has. This time, the plot against America worked. Yet, while there is nothing Roth despises more than the Red Famine, by Anne Applebaum (Doubleday). In the early cheap turn of “consolation”—the mo- nineteen-thirties, at least five million people died of hunger ments in a play or a book where every- in the Soviet Union. Some eighty per cent of the deaths oc- one discovers love and feels better—the curred in Ukraine, and Applebaum draws on new archival real arc of Roth’s career, as he presents it research to show that food scarcity was not simply a tragic here, has a tincture of hope. He moves consequence of misguided state planning but, rather, a state- from detachment toward attachment, al- orchestrated program “specifically targeted at Ukraine and beit an attachment, like all real ones, Ukrainians.” The Soviet leadership, driven by “paranoia about more stormy than simple, and double the counter-revolutionary potential of Ukraine,” ordered the rather than Manichaean, with Tolerance confiscation of food from homes and imposed severe restric- and Prejudice played by the same actor, tions on travel and trade, while also carrying out a purge of often at the same time. scholars, writers, artists, and others. The Holodomor, as the Among all his alter egos, Roth seems result came to be known, was a “political famine.” to have come to prefer neither Portnoy, his heightened comic archetype, nor Na- Kierkegaard’s Muse, by Joakim Garff, translated from the than Zuckerman, his reliable literary Danish by Alastair Hannay (Princeton). Garff, the author of stand-in, but instead Mickey Sabbath, a masterly Kierkegaard biography, here narrates the mys- the tormented and ridiculous puppeteer terious love affair that shaped the writer’s later life. Not of “Sabbath’s Theater.” For Sabbath— much is known about Regine Olsen, who was engaged to who, significantly, is perhaps the one Roth Kierkegaard for a year before he broke it off and she mar- hero to have experienced the Second ried someone else. He often wrote of her in his journals, World War as a field of suffering rather and left everything to her in his will. For more than a de- than of triumph, having lost his beloved cade after their break, he scheduled his daily walks to co- brother in battle—is the most desperately incide with hers, yet they spoke only once in that time. oscillating of his creations. “Such depths Working from previously unseen letters provided by Ol- as Sabbath evinces lie in his polarities,” sen’s family, Garff fleshes out the sensitive, pragmatic Regine, Roth writes. “What’s clinically denoted illuminating her perspective on the affair and her influence by the word ‘bi-polarity’ is something on Kierkegaard’s work. puny compared to what’s brandished by Sabbath. Imagine, rather, a multitudinous Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng (Penguin). The little intensity of polarities, polarities piled fires of the title refer primarily to tiny pyres that Izzy, the shamelessly upon polarities to comprise youngest of the four Richardson children, sets alight on the not a company of players, but this single beds of her family members, causing the conflagration that existence, this theater of one.” opens this novel of suburban mores. But, before then, little The outward-moving correlation is fires are ignited within the Richardson children, when two apparent. Instead of seeing America as new arrivals—Mia Warren, an artist, and her daughter—be- a virtuous pageant of Good and Bad, friend them and widen their horizons. Mia challenges the with Tolerance coming heroically out community in many ways, and, during a trial resulting from of the bullpen in the bottom of the ninth her actions, Izzy’s mother feels an urge for justice burst into to strike out Prejudice, we are to see it flame like a “hot speck of fury that had been carefully banked as that theatre of overlaid opposites. Not within her.” an arc that bends, however slowly, but a series of contradictions that we expe- Montpelier Parade, by Karl Geary (Catapult). Sonny Knolls, rience most intensely in the close-up the protagonist of this accomplished début, is a working-class and near-at-hand observational theatre Dublin teen-ager—unhappy at school, friendless, and bored of literature. in his part-time job at a butcher shop—who steals bits of This vision seems to suit our mo- classmates’ bicycles to build his own. His yearning to tran- ment—with a negation now available scend the limits of his bleak life finds an outlet in Vera Hat- for every previous affirmation and a loss ton, an attractive but troubled Englishwoman who lives for every gain—better even than Rorty’s alone in a big house near the sea. “You were the hero in dream of the slow consolidation of a your dream of saving her, even with everything you didn’t pious coalition of goodness. “A multitu- know about her,” Geary writes. The novel is narrated en- dinous intensity of polarities”: it seems tirely in the second person, a stylistic choice that produces like a passably patriotic motto to inscribe moments of intense intimacy but also means that Vera re- on the current American coat of arms.  mains as elusive for the reader as she ultimately is for Sonny.

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 77 the cloying chivalry of commercial POP MUSIC R. & B., and zeroed in on the routine of seducing women and rejecting them with the swift coldness of a kicking horse. THE REDESIGN OF R. & B. On one of Ty’s songs from those tapes, “My Cabana,” he sings about how Ty Dolla $ign shows a new way. many women—and how many varie- ties of them—he can fit in his beachside BY CARRIE BATTAN bungalow. On his breakout hit, “Para- noia,” he wonders if the women in his orbit are plotting a conspiracy against him. “I see two of my bitches in the club,” he sings. “And I know they know about each other.” He presented him- self as a hedonist, but one far too mel- low to adopt the theatrical and manic depravity of artists like the Weeknd. The phrases and the narratives he uses are so filthy that they seem to smugly float, a challenge to his listeners: Go ahead and try not to enjoy my vulgarity. This attitude put Ty at risk of be- coming merely a punch line, but it was also resonant enough that it could have sustained his career. And yet, since he first achieved success, he has moved gently away from smut, while releasing some of the most essential R. & B. of the current moment. His major-label début, “Free TC,” from 2015, functions in part as an ode to his incarcerated younger brother. The Ty of early “Beach House” days is still there—assuring us that he’ll sleep with women but won’t date them—but the album also offers a glimpse into a well of emotion. He brings the concerns of the club to church on “Guard Down,” a light electro- gospel ear the end of Ty Dolla $ign’s drama apology tours, and drastic make- song in which he is both preacher and N new album, “Beach House 3,” the overs. Fans, accustomed to constant libertine, offering spiritual encourage- singer makes a startling declaration: “I novelty, no longer have the patience ment one moment and talking about think about you all the time.” This would for artists to take unhurried new 3 A.M. parties the next. His follow-up be standard fare for almost any radio- shapes. The rule is: reinvent yourself mixtape, “Campaign,” from 2016, inter- friendly chorus since the dawn of time, as often and as drastically as possible, sperses political matters, mostly in the but for Ty Dolla $ign it’s a gesture of or flame out. form of criticisms of Donald Trump, transformation. A few years ago, the If there is anyone who has success- with club-focussed songs about his sex- singer—who once referred to women fully avoided these traps, it is Ty Dolla ual escapades. Of course, the only cam- as “horses in a stable,” among other de- $ign, the prolific R. & B. singer- paign he was running was the one to risive descriptions—would have dis- songwriter. Born Tyrone Griffin, Jr., in further his own career, but Ty had wid- missed a line like this with a low chuckle. South Central Los Angeles, Ty broke ened his purview beyond the realm of The rapid churn of musical appe- into the mainstream by 2013, with his dead-eyed debauchery. tites rarely affords artists the oppor- “Beach House” and “Beach House 2” With “Beach House 3,” Ty has ar- tunity to evolve gradually. This is true mixtapes. The mixtapes—particularly rived at a place of thorough and unex- in terms of sound, certainly, but espe- “Beach House 2”—have become mod- pected spiritual change. Although he cially in the emotional realm. The ern classics, owing as much to the life maintains some of the loucheness of music business is fuelled by fresh blood style they advertise as to their lush, muted previous albums, women now occupy and hard resets—breakdowns, high- West Coast sound. Ty dispensed with his mind more often than his bed, and he can be someone who experiences Along with T-Pain, Ty helped create a movement for the hip-hop-minded singer. hurt rather than blindly inflicting it

78 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 PHOTOGRAPH BY AWOL ERIZKU upon his conquests. He yearns for human that was at risk of extinction. In the past connection and monogamy, and he sings five to ten years, hip-hop has seemingly of swapping out liquor for water in the swallowed R. & B. whole, taking select hope of preserving his soul and his liver. elements of the genre and discarding “Bet you ain’t know you was my the rest. Conventional R. & B. stars have baby / Even though you drive me crazy?” been pushed to the fringes by the un- he sings, on “All the Time.” This kind flagging cultural dominance of hip-hop. of shift risks sounding hollow, but Ty But Ty had the good fortune—or Dolla $ign is far too easygoing—and perhaps the wherewithal—to climb the not nearly famous or cynical enough— ranks of music using the ladder of hip- to engage in the merely performative hop. He packaged his early projects as exercise of reputation reform. When he mixtapes, which were hosted on hip- says that he’s “been stressing” and had hop Web sites in collaboration with to “leave them hos alone” to focus on hip-hop d.j.s. In 2014, he was named a his life, he sounds like he means it. member of XXL’s Freshman Class, an On many of his earlier projects, Ty honor historically reserved for rappers. sang through a haze of his own har- In a previous era, he might have be- monies and a swirl of bass and minor- come a full-blown R. & B. star, but chord melodies—the sound of much today he’s made himself a crucial hip- mainstream hip-hop today. The new hop accessory. He’s not a leading man album has less of this density and dark- but perhaps something more influen- ness; it is more concerned with mel- tial: a near-constant presence on urban ody and weightlessness. Collaboration radio. Last year, the Web site Stereogum is Ty’s default mode, and, perhaps out listed forty-five of his guest verses from of habit, he brings too many voices 2016 alone. He shows up on other art- onto the slightly too-long “Beach ists’ hits like a vapor, materializing in House 3.” His solo songs point to his the atmosphere of a song with heavy ability to prosper alone. eyelids and a satisfied grin. A typical The son of a funk musician, Ty learned example is Fifth Harmony’s ubiquitous to play the bass guitar and keyboards as “Work from Home,” where Ty adds a a child, and is an underrated songwriter. velvety, calm counterweight to the song’s He scored his biggest hit as a writer on shrill essence. “Girl, go to work for me,” the 2014 Chris Brown track “Loyal,” he sings, more backing instrument than which defined the sound of urban radio added flair. for much of a year: the lyrics cool and People often credit Kanye West and dismissive toward romantic interests, Drake with forging a path for the sing- with an effortless low bounce and a feath- ing rapper. Along with T-Pain, Ty de- erlight synth topline. Along with the serves just as much credit for creating producer DJ Mustard and the Los An- a movement for the hip-hop-minded geles gangster-rapper YG, Ty has helped R. & B. singer. It is difficult otherwise modernize and popularize West Coast to imagine the success of artists like hip-hop, reorienting low-rider music to Toronto’s PartyNextDoor, the nine- the present-day club. The high whine of ties-referencing Kehlani, or the bruised DJ Mustard’s synthetic organ, not un- egoist PnB Rock. They are all talented like the signature squeal of Dr. Dre’s singers whose native language is hip- beats, became a dance-floor dog whis- hop, and who have been able to find a tle, signalling that Ty—or someone like niche in part because Ty made it. It him—was not far behind. would have been easy for Ty to fully submerge himself in the world of hip- ust as Ty has transformed, so has the hop, pumping out songs filled with J landscape around him. He began his understated, half-sung verses. But, on career in the early aughts, when hip- “Beach House 3,” he acts as an ambas- hop and R. & B. had begun folding into sador from the land of R. & B., coolly each other. Rappers found that they advocating for the art of singing. He could break new ground by blending allows his voice to soar above the range sung melodies into their verses. This of what’s typical in his world, some- caused a panic among stalwart rap fans, times sounding as though he’s power- who saw R. & B. as encroaching on a less in the face of the urge to sing. What sacred art form. In fact, it was R. & B. better way to express his feelings? 

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 79 baijani opera, which is still a sort of DANCING national anthem for that country. (It opens the season at the Azerbaijani State Opera and Ballet every year and THE WRECK OF HAPPINESS is broadcast nationwide.) Morris uses an abridged version, a little less than Mark Morris’s new version of an ancient Middle Eastern fable. an hour long, which was made recently by the singer Alim Qasimov and two BY JOAN ACOCELLA collaborators. Qasimov, who sings in the show with his daughter Fargana Qasimova, is Azerbaijan’s foremost star of mugham, the traditional, improvisa- tional style in which the opera was written. “People at the airport in Baku push Yo-Yo Ma out of the way to get to him,” Morris told Marina Harss, in the Times, and when Qasimov and Qa- simova open their mouths and start producing the rich, nasal sound that is their musical native tongue—screamy, but without harshness, like a Russian tenor—you feel you would push a small building or two out of the way to sit at their feet. “Layla and Majnun” is a tale of star- crossed lovers. Layla (the girl) and Maj nun (the boy) fall in love as chil- dren, but when they come of age their parents will not allow them to marry, because Majnun’s love seems to them so extreme, so crazy. It may seem that way to us as well, when we read the libretto printed in the program and find the young man saying such things as “My only wish is to perish in the world of love” and “I yearn to feel this sorrow as long as I live.” Layla’s par- ents send Majnun away and marry her off to a nice man, who, however, dies when Layla refuses to forfeit her chas- tity to him. Pretty soon, Layla dies, ark Morris, as a teen-ager, in the ditions. Partly because of Morris, we too. Majnun returns, finds her body, Mseventies, did his longest and no longer speak loosely of “folk dance.” and expires alongside it. So complete most serious dance training as a mem- We call such dances by the name of is the wreck of earthly happiness that ber of a Balkan folk-dance troupe, the the folk in question: Macedonian, scholars over the years have interpreted Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble, a Greek, Indonesian, flamenco. the tale as a Sufi allegory of love for semi-pro group of Seattle hippies and Late last month, during Lincoln God rather than as a representation music geeks who got together on week- Center’s White Light Festival, Mor- of any human passion. ends, went to the woods, drank slivovitz, ris’s inspiration was Middle Eastern, Morris may have been thinking and danced till they dropped. When and the piece was “Layla and Majnun,” along these lines when he decided you see the sheer danciness of his a new version of an Arabic tale, more upon the most curious feature of his work—the twirling, the leaping, the than a thousand years old, that has been production: he parcelled out the lead- falling, the floor-smacking—Koleda, the subject of countless songs, poems, ing roles to four sequential pairs of in large measure, is what you’re seeing. and, more recently, films, in Hindi, dancers. In Act I, “Love and Separa- In time, fired up by that experience, Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi. At the be- tion,” the leads are Mica Bernas and and by the ethnic richness of his na- ginning of the twentieth century, the Dallas McMurray, who are indeed the tive city, he absorbed many other tra- story was the basis of the first Azer- youngest-looking members of the troupe. In Act II, in which Layla and The dances in “Layla and Majnun” are accompanied by Azerbaijani musicians. Majnun suffer the parents’ refusal, the

80 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY OLIMPIA ZAGNOLI lovers are Nicole Sabella and Do- ris deploys a simplicity that is almost mingo Estrada, Jr., she frenzied with too much for me. I don’t love it when grief, he nobly restrained. In Act III, a Layla/Majnun pair is doing some “Sorrow and Despair,” all the male marvellous, complicated thing and the dancers in the show lie down, as if ev- other dancers, watching, gesture to eryone in the world had died, and one another as if to say, “Look at what then the longest-legged woman in the Layla and Majnun are doing.” I see troupe, Laurel Lynch, comes on and, what they’re doing; I don’t need to be bending over in sky-high arabesques, told. On the other hand, this “indi- revives them one by one, as if raising cating” business is completely true to the dead. In Act IV, “Layla’s Unwanted art history. You can find it on pre- Wedding,” Lesley Garrison, with a Christian Sicilian vases. mane of blond hair that she can swing Speaking of realism, the stage is aw- wildly, plays the distraught bride, while fully crowded. Imagine what’s up there. Sam Black—always the most sincere- In the middle are the musicians—eight looking person on Morris’s stage— ensemble players, the stars Qasimov pursues her. and Qasimova, and their two sidemen, playing Azerbaijani stringed instru- his subdividing is actually typical ments that I will not try to describe. Tof Morris. In his “L’Allegro, il Pen- Behind and to the right and left of seroso ed il Moderato,” from 1988, prac- them are sixteen dancers, arrayed on a tically everything came in pairs. There structure of platforms. At the very back were even two moons in the sky. In his is a stage-wide canvas, an enlargement great “Dido and Aeneas” (1989), the of a painting called “Love and Death,” heroine is divided into the queen, Dido, by the British painter Howard Hodg- and her destroyer, the Sorceress. (The kin, a friend of Morris’s, who died this fact that this double role was originally year, at eighty-four. Even apart from played by a man, Morris, seemed to its title, the painting is perfect for the split it yet again.) In “Layla,” as in show, a storm of green brushstrokes “Dido,” he divides the movement style, being swallowed by a storm of red. too. Some maneuvers are very elabo- Morris’s longtime lighting designer, rate. When Layla and Majnun are James Ingalls, reshades the painting young, playing their love games, Layla repeatedly, as the plot thickens. All uses her arms to make a kind of house this is fabulous, but there isn’t enough for Majnun. He twirls in it, ecstatically, room onstage for everything that is and then makes a house for her body, going on. and she twirls in that. They do it again Nevertheless, this is the most am- and again, until the phrase’s momen- bitious and profound work that Mor- tum carries them across the stage. Later, ris has created in the past ten years or when the parents are separating the more. Sometimes it seems that there’s two lovers, the superb Estrada does a nothing he doesn’t know about the large, dramatic step—dégagé front to terms on which we live our lives. At développé arabesque back—over and the end of “Dido and Aeneas,” the over as he moves backward, away from dancers, one by one, slip through a slit his Layla, Sabella. Then Sabella does in a map of the world that is the show’s a series of spectacular ronds de jambe backdrop—dying like their queen, (big circles of the leg in the air, which more or less. At the end of “Layla and look even bigger in her red gown) as Majnun,” two dancers, Lauren Grant she moves toward him. We just sit back and Christina Sahaida, walk forward and enjoy Morris showing us every- with lit lamps in their hands. Meet- thing he can think of, everything he ing downstage, they trade lamps. can do, to say how people feel. (“What does it matter which is which?” Alongside these fancy steps are oth- they are asking. “Layla or Majnun, ers so ordinary that you could almost woman or man?”) Then, in a coup de miss them: the wonderful Aaron Loux théâtre, they put their hands over the jumping off a platform like a goat off tops of the lamps. The flames shine a rock, or, more amazingly, the swift, and spread and struggle, and then, like blunt death of the lovers: just clunk, the lovers, they are extinguished, and clunk, down they go. Sometimes Mor- the theatre goes dark. 

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 81 But the music moves at an unusually de- MUSICAL EVENTS liberate, meditative pace. Pairs of instru- ments play spectral ascending and de- scending scales, with the second part ORPHEUS RESOUNDING sounding as an echo. The harp echoes it- self. Monteverdi is relaxing his grip on John Eliot Gardiner presents Monteverdi’s operas at Lincoln Center. the narrative and delving deep into his character’s condition. This is the oppor- BY ALEX ROSS tunity afforded by the evening-length structure of opera. The clock slows; the horizon widens; we go walking in the landscape of Orpheus’ soul. Monteverdi’s resonance today is not just a matter of compositional mastery. His protagonists become expressive individu- als, yet they inhabit a world where hierar- chies are fixed and freedoms circumscribed. “Nothing delightful here below endures,” Apollo tells Orpheus, advising him to give up on life and go to Heaven. In “Poppea,” which is set at the court of Nero, the vir- tuous are punished and the wicked are re- warded. In Neronian America, such un- deceived realism seems more modern than the idealism of so many Romantic-era operas. “The Return of Ulys ses” is the happiest of Monteverdi’s stories, because its characters elude the grasp of fate. When Ulysses comes home to Penelope, he exits the nightmare of history.

ardiner launched his career with GMonteverdi. In 1964, while he was studying at Cambridge University, he or- ganized a performance of Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers. From that event arose the Monteverdi Choir, which has been at the core of Gardiner’s activities ever since. Gardiner, who launched his career with Monteverdi, likens him to Shakespeare. Recently, he has been known more for his Bach—above all, for his epic traversal hich music-theatre works of today pheus cast his fatal glance back at Eury- of the complete cantatas and for his for- Wwill play to sold-out houses in the dice, there was an audible gasp from the midable book “Bach: Music in the Cas- twenty-fifth century? Such is the chal- audience, even though no dramatic situ- tle of Heaven.” This year, he returned to lenge issued by Claudio Monteverdi, the ation could be less suspenseful. his point of departure, touring Europe former maestro di cappella at the Basil- Gardiner has likened Monteverdi to and America with “staged concert” ver- ica di San Marco, in Venice, who, four Shakespeare—a comparison that has be- sions of the Monteverdi operas. He had hundred and fifty years after his birth, come routine. Both artists give fathom- recorded “Orfeo” and “Poppea” but had still has a knack for putting butts in seats. less depth to familiar tales; both maneu- never conducted “Ulysses.” The stint at In October, the British conductor John ver adroitly between high and low. In a Tully, involving the Monteverdi Choir, Eliot Gardiner led vital performances of way, Monteverdi’s feat is more remark- the English Baroque Soloists, and nine- Monteverdi’s three surviving operas—“Or- able, since opera had been invented only teen solo singers, marked the end of a feo,” “The Return of Ulysses,” and “The a decade before he first addressed the seven-month, sixteen-city journey. Coronation of Poppea”—at Alice Tully genre, with “Orfeo,” in 1607. The break- At seventy-four, Gardiner is undi- Hall. Once again, this ancient music through comes in the aria “Possente minished in energy. On this occasion, he worked its wiles on posterity. We thrilled spirito”—the plea for mercy that Or- served not only as conductor but also as to the lustrous brass fanfares, swooned at pheus delivers to Charon, the ferryman co-director, alongside Elsa Rooke. The the liquid lyric lines, laughed at the bawdy of Hades. Orpheus’ vocal lines are typi- productions had no sets or props, but cos- jokes, and grew tense at moments whose cal of the period, with florid ornamen- tumes, lighting, and stage movement outcome was not in doubt. When Or- tation unfolding within narrow intervals. gave sufficient life to the dramas. Singers

82 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY HUGO GUINNESS appeared on all sides of the orchestra and he is already hair-raising in that role.) often in its midst. They also popped up He reaches down to low C, yet sings with in the hall’s balconies and entered through plaintive beauty two octaves higher. His the doors leading to the lobby. At times, performance as the noble, doomed Sen- as in Peter Sellars’s dramatizations of the eca, in “Poppea,” was the vocal pinnacle Bach Passions, the instrumentalists were of the cycle. Buratto clearly has a major drawn into the field of action. Gwyneth career before him, one that may soon take Wentink, the harpist, had two memora- him to the Met. His energetic banging ble moments. During “Possente spirito,” of a hand drum during the “Orfeo” pre- Krystian Adam, as Orpheus, held his lude suggested that he could find side hand above Wentink’s instrument, as work as a percussionist. if summoning music from it. And in The cast had few weak links, though “Ulysses,” during the uproarious lament I’ve heard several of the parts sung better by the clownish Iro, Robert Burt, a vet- over the years. Adam tackled the tenor eran of the role, began frantically strum- roles of Orpheus and Telemachus with ming the harp strings, prompting Wen- unflagging vigor, despite some fuzziness tink to bop him over the head with her in the lower register. Furio Zanasi, as Ulys- score. Monteverdi’s quicksilver changes ses, lacked penetrating power but showed of tone, from comic to tragic and back immaculate style. Hana Blažíková was again, were handled with fluidity and refined and agile in the roles of Eurydice, grace. “Orfeo,” in particular, was an or- Poppea, and Minerva; she also accompa- ganic, riveting piece of theatre. nied herself expertly on the harp when Although Gardiner specializes in early she took the role of La Musica in “Orfeo.” music, he has also explored nineteenth- Marianna Pizzolato brought plushness of and early-twentieth-century repertory, tone to Penelope in “Ulysses” and Otta- from Beethoven to Stravinsky. His cur- via in “Poppea.” The countertenor Kang- rent approach to Monteverdi seems to min Justin Kim gave a ferocious, gender- reflect his wider experience. When, after ambiguous edge to the decadent Nero. Eurydice’s death, the chorus sings “Ahi Anna Dennis made a sultry set piece out caso acerbo” (“Alas, fell chance”), the affect of Melanto’s aria in “Ulysses.” was almost Expressionistic, with sharp At the end of “Poppea,” and of the attacks and flaring crescendos. In “Ulys- cycle, came the duet “Pur ti miro” (“I ses,” when the chorus comments on the gaze at you”)—the loveliest Monteverdi gods’ decision to forgive the long- suffering music that Monteverdi probably did not hero the tempo slowed to a majestic crawl, write. “Poppea” had its première in early with eerie harmonies foregrounded. Else- 1643, during the Venice Carnival; the where, Gardiner did not skimp on the composer died that November. He may kind of rollicking rhythms favored by well have fallen ill while at work on the early- music revivalists such as René Ja- score, and turned to colleagues for help. cobs and Jordi Savall; the chorus aug- In any case, scholars have detected the mented the wedding rites of Orpheus and stylistic fingerprints of other composers Eurydice with syncopated handclaps and in more than one passage of the opera. foot stomps. A phalanx of cornetti and The late scholar-conductor Alan Curtis sackbuts provided glints of courtly splen- believed that “Pur ti miro” was the cre- dor. Before the start of “Orfeo,” the brass ation of either Francesco Sacrati or Ben- players greeted the audience by blaring edetto Ferrari, who, along with Fran- the work’s famous Toccata from a bal- cesco Cavalli, were younger stars of the cony above the lobby—a touch reminis- fertile Venetian scene. Gardiner insists cent of the outdoor Wagner fanfares that that the duet is entirely Monteverdi. Un- resound at the Bayreuth Festival. certainties about authorship remind us Among the singers, the big discovery that the cult of the individual genius was the young Italian bass Gianluca Bu- long postdates Monteverdi. Seventeenth- ratto, whose huge, rich, finely focussed century Italy witnessed a grand fusion voice made rows of music professionals of musical traditions, élite and popular sit up and scrutinize their programs. As alike, which powers the genre of opera Charon in “Orfeo,” Buratto unleashed to this day. What we celebrate in these stentorian, black-clad tones, suitable for three magnificent works is not only the the Commendatore in “Don Giovanni.” genius of a man but also the genius of a (A video clip available online hints that place, the genius of an era. 

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 83 Donagh’s ear is cocked, instead, for the THE CURRENT CINEMA noise of human dissonance, and never is the clash more jarring than when Wil- loughby explains to Mildred that he’s HUE AND CRY dying of cancer, and dying fast. His hope, evidently, is that she might rethink the “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” billboards, or remove them. Mildred doesn’t budge. “They wouldn’t be so effec- BY ANTHONY LANE tive after you croak, right?” she says. I’ve seen the movie twice, and each time I’ve s titles go, “Three Billboards Out- against a blood-red background: “Raped felt the people around me rear back at Aside Ebbing, Missouri” doesn’t while Dying”; “and still No Ar- that line, with a nervous gasp, suddenly sound like a movie. It sounds like a rests”; “How come, Chief Wil- forced to adjust their view of this woman, photograph. There’s a Walker Evans loughby?” The victim was Mildred’s and to wonder if they should curb, or even image, taken in 1936, called “Houses teen-age daughter, Angela (Kathryn withdraw, their pity. Does the ache for and Billboards in Atlanta,” and I like Newton), who died less than a year ear- revenge surpass more tender emotions, to think that Evans would have turned lier. Her body was set alight, and you or has she stepped too far beyond the de- his lens upon the Ebbing billboards, can still see the scorched grass where cencies of grief? If so, how far is too far? too. They stand in a misty meadow, she lay. The person whom Mildred holds These questions would scarcely plague us were it not for McDormand. Not since “Fargo” (1996) has she found a char- acter of such fibre. She doesn’t pitch it to us, still less try to make it palatable; she seems to state Mildred, presenting her as a given fact, like someone unroll- ing a map. If her demand for the blood of every guy in America is unreasonable, so what? A parent from whom a child has been torn may no longer feel the need to comply with the powers of rea- son that constrain society and insure its peace. Hence, not just the rarity of Mil- dred’s smile but also the warring outfit— overalls and a spotted bandanna—that makes her look like a distant relation of Rambo and which she wears on most occasions, even at dinner with James (Peter Dinklage), a friend who’s done In Martin McDonagh’s film, Frances McDormand is a mother seeking justice. her a favor. She will not rest. Hers is the battle of all mothers. with an empty road running beside responsible—not for the crime but for As commanding as McDormand is, them and nothing else around. The ad- failing to solve it—is Willoughby the film does not lie in her sole pos- vertisements that they once bore have (Woody Harrelson), the local sheriff. session. We meet her ex, Charlie ( John peeled away, leaving only scraps and On the basis of the billboards, we ex- Hawkes), a mean and wiry type, who’s broken slogans (“of your life”), of the pect him to be a slimeball or a slacker, dating a much younger woman; they melancholy kind that Evans loved. The but no. As played by Harrelson at his happen to be dining in the same restau- writer and director of the film, Martin homeliest, he’s a decent man and an in- rant as James and Mildred, and she ap- McDonagh, is right to accord such dustrious cop, and, in this case, he’s proaches Charlie’s table with a bottle prominence to the billboards; they get taken some necessary steps. DNA of wine, bearing it as a gift yet swing- the movie going, and thereby display matches have been sought, but with- ing it like a club. Then, there is Ange- its wares—bereavement, rage, small- out success. That’s not good enough la’s brother, Robbie (Lucas Hedges), town venom, and the strange spoors for Mildred, whose idea of necessity truculent and spiky, who is more exas- that you find yourself tracking when goes a little further. “Pull blood from perated than stirred by his mother’s you have to hunt down the truth. every man in the country,” she says. campaigning wrath. The sight of The main hunter is Mildred Hayes All our sympathies are with Mildred, Hedges cannot help but remind you (Frances McDormand), an Ebbing res- and we prepare to join her in the fight of his fine performance as another youth ident who runs a gift shop. She takes for justice, but “Three Billboards” is not in mourning, in last year’s “Manches- the step of renting the billboards and that kind of movie. No music soars in ter by the Sea.” He had more dramatic having three messages posted on them, tune with her righteous quest. Mc- space in that movie, but its method was

84 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 ILLUSTRATION BY PETRA ERIKSSON very different; rather than plowing ing, barrels upstairs, grabs hold of Red, become other than what he was. A good ahead in the pursuit of facts, it stayed and tosses him out the window. Passing man is hard to find, but not impossible. put and scraped away at unhappiness, citizens gaze in stupefaction, and so do Where “Three Billboards Outside twitching with flashbacks as if they we, and it wasn’t until the second view- Ebbing, Missouri” falls short, though were bad dreams. “Three Billboards,” ing that I began to see what is fuelling not woundingly so, is inside Ebbing. in contrast, has only a single flashback, Dixon’s frenzy. Sure, he’s got a grudge You don’t feel that you know it as well though it fells you utterly: a foolish against Red, but there’s more; a friend as you knew Manchester by the Sea, for family rumpus, with Mildred refusing of Dixon’s, the only person who spotted instance. The action shifts between Mil- to let Angela borrow the car and An- potential in him, has just died. In short, dred’s home, Red’s office, the bar, and gela saying, fine, she’ll walk, and shout- Dixon has joined the movie’s lamenta- so on, as if from one stage set to the ing, “I hope I get raped on the way.” tion gang, headed by Mildred, and this next, and the hum of other lives, around God help them all. is his choleric way of coping. Eventu- the central crisis, stays fairly low. Luck- ally, even he sees the light—or, at any ily, that crisis is compelling. We stick hat is most surprising about Mc- rate, squints at the thought of wrongs with these flawed and quarrelsome peo- WDonagh’s film is how far it trav- being rectified. The turning point comes ple, like Mildred and Dixon, because els. Apart from a few scenes beside the when he is burned in a fire, although, they alone can lay the memory of An- billboards, or up at Mildred’s house, unlike Angela, he survives. The film may gela to rest, and also because, would you which overlooks them, we don’t stray feature a diatribe against the Catholic believe, they are kind of fun to watch. much outside Ebbing. Nonetheless, Church, issued by Mildred to a priest McDonagh, who began as a play- there are inward journeys in progress— who deplores her billboards (she fears wright, made his name as a movie di- moral migrations that carry the char- that “there ain’t no God and the whole rector with “In Bruges” (2008), which acters, almost despite themselves, away world’s empty and it doesn’t matter what spat with nasty laughs. The comedy from where they began. Take Red Welby we do to each other”), but McDonagh here is less militant, not straining to (Caleb Landry Jones), the pallid creep is not averse to purgatorial flames, from intimidate but arising from a more tol- in charge of the town’s advertising which a soul, chastened and purified, erant sense that most folks, most of the agency, who is first seen at his desk, can emerge. time, mess up. Their speech betrays a reading Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good All this asks a lot of Sam Rockwell, basic puzzlement; often, what they de- Man Is Hard to Find.” Our last view but he thrives here as he has seldom liver are not lines so much as spurts of of him shows him in pain, offering suc- done before—not even in “Moon” (2009), clueless yammering—“How come? cor to a bandaged figure whose suffer- where he had the screen to himself. His What? What?” It seems only fitting, ings are, if anything, more acute than usual persona is that of the frowning then, that pure chance, rather than his. As for Dixon (Sam Rockwell), the goofball, at once puerile and intense, sleuthing or spadework, should lead to in-house racist at the Ebbing Police and “Three Billboards” is the first film a breakthrough in the murder investi- Department, where to start? He’s a bully, to explore that tricky compound. Look gation; as Willoughby says, you only schooled in abuse by his gravel-voiced at Dixon, standing in the police station get a break, long after a case has gone mother (Sandy Martin), and dumb to and listening to Abba’s “Chiquitita”—a cold, when you hear someone bragging boot. “How’s it all going in the nigger- sublimely ill-judged choice—on his in a bar. So it is that Mildred, at last, torturing business, Dixon?” Mildred headphones. When Mildred marches gets out of town. She goes in hope, and asks. He swiftly corrects her. “That’s into the place and shouts, “Hey, fuck- in search of a promising lead, leav- the person-of-color-torturing business head!,” he immediately answers, “What?” ing those damned billboards behind.  these days,” he replies. It’s difficult to imagine how Dixon could In a remarkable sequence, apparently ever grow up, let alone grow wise, yet NEWYORKER.COM shot in one take, Dixon enters a build- something in the fuckhead strives to Richard Brody blogs about movies.

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THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 13, 2017 85 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by Mick Stevens, must be received by Sunday, November 12th. The finalists in the October 30th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the November 27th issue. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

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THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

“It will be worth even more when he’s extinct.” Chip Rodgers, New York City

“Let me guess—you didn’t invent the wheel, either.” “Like I would date a guy from Notre Dame.” Joshua Eisenberg, Beaverton, Ore. John Glenn, Tyler, Texas

“If it’s a grocery list, we’re in trouble.” Mark Fitzgerald, Doniphan, Neb.