PRICE $7.99 APRIL 6, 2015 APRIL 6, 2015 5 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Steve Coll on Obama and the Iran talks; Charles Grodin; Jersey bikes; Hilary Mantel; James Surowiecki on Puerto Rico’s troubles. ELif Batuman 24 ELECTRIFIED A mysterious new brain therapy. HallIe cantor 33 COUPLE’S FIRST DINNER PARTY, SERVES SIX Stephen Rodrick 34 THE NERD HUNTER A casting director’s influential comic taste. Evan Osnos 42 BORN RED Where is China heading under Xi Jinping? JOnathan Franzen 56 CARBON CAPTURE Environmentalism vs. conservation. FICTION Kamel Daoud 66 “MUSA” THE CRITICS POP MUSIC Kelefa Sanneh 74 Katie Crutchfield and Waxahatchee. BOOKS Adam Kirsch 77 Two new histories of Nazi concentration camps. 81 Briefly Noted Alice Gregory 82 Sarah Manguso’s memoir of a diary. POEMS John Koethe 26 “Covers Band in a Small Bar” Mark Doty 60 “Deep Lane” Carter Goodrich COVER “Everybody Who’s Anybody” DRAWINGS Paul Noth, Kim Warp, David Sipress, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Frank Cotham, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Farley Katz, Edward Steed, Edward Koren, William Haefeli, Tom Chitty, Danny Shanahan, Michael Shaw, Harry Bliss, Victoria Roberts, Emily Flake, Zachary Kanin, Mike Twohy, Kaamran Hafeez SPOTS Christoph Abbrederis THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 6, 2015 1 CONTRIBUTORS evan osnos (“BORN RED,” P. 42) won the 2014 National Book Award for Nonfic- tion for “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China.” steve coll (COMMENT, P. 17), the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Ghost Wars.” betsy morais (THE TALK OF THE TOWN, P. 20) is a member of the magazine’s editorial staff. elif batuman (“ELECTRIFIED,” P. 24) is the Sidney Harman Writer in Residence at Baruch College. John Koethe (POEM, P. 26) is the author of, most recently, “ROTC Kills.” His new book, “The Swimmer,” is due out next year. hallie cantor (SHOUTS & MURMURS, P. 33) wrote for the third season of Comedy Central’s “Inside Amy Schumer.” She lives in Brooklyn. stephen rodrick (“THE NERD HUNTER,” P. 34), the author of the memoir “The Magical Stranger,” is a contributing editor for Rolling Stone and for Men’s Journal. jonathan franzen (“CARBON CAPTURE,” P. 56) has written for the magazine since 1994. “Purity,” his fifth novel, will be published in September. kamel daoud (FICTION, P. 66) is an Algerian journalist based in Oran. His first novel, “The Meursault Investigation,” was published in France last year, and won several awards. It comes out in English in June. adam kirsch (BOOKS, P. 77) directs the master’s degree in Jewish studies at Columbia University and is a columnist for Tablet. carter goodrich (COVER) is a writer, illustrator, and character designer for feature animation. His new children’s book, “We Forgot Brock!,” will be published in August. NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more than fifteen original stories a day. ALSO: DAILY COMMENT / CULTURAL COMMENT: PODCASTS: On the Political Scene, Opinions and analysis by Michael David Remnick and Nathan Thrall talk Specter, Elif Batuman, and others. with Dorothy Wickenden about Israel and the two-state solution. Plus, Amy PAGE-TURNER: An excerpt from Karl Davidson, Patrick Radden Keefe, and Ove Knausgaard’s next book, with an Philip Gourevitch on Out Loud. introduction by Cressida Leyshon. FICTION: The monthly fiction podcast, VIDEO: The latest episode of “Comma with Deborah Treisman and Thomas Mc- Queen,” with Mary Norris. Plus, a video Guane. by Matt Black and Sky Dylan-Robbins about the forty-three missing stu- JOHN CASSIDY: Coverage of politics, dents of Guerrero, Mexico. economics, and more. SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) 2 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 6, 2015 THE MAIL DRAMA AT THE MET amount equal to the concessions offered by unions. The unions made conces- We were disheartened to read James sions by taking pay cuts. The Met saved Stewart’s piece about the Metropoli- money not by limiting the number of tan Opera, which presents a one-sided, expensive new productions but by firing negative view of what is, in fact, a thriv- and laying off twenty-two employees. ing, vital organization that is essential The board has failed to rein in Gelb’s to the cultural life of New York, and out-of-control spending, and the re- of the world (“A Fight at the Opera,” lationship between Gelb and Met em- March 23rd). The article emphasizes ployees continues to be antagonistic. the challenging economics of grand A union-driven efficiency committee, opera and the difficulties of the Met’s a partnership between the singers and recent union negotiations without pro- the orchestra, keeps track of—and pro- viding a balanced perspective on a com- tests—the waste and extravagance that pany that is at the height of its artis- are still the order of the day at the Met. tic powers. Today, the Met is at the Alan Gordon fore, making opera globally accessible Executive Director, American Guild of through our game-changing, live, Musical Artists, A.F.L.-C.I.O. high-definition transmissions, which New York City have been seen by millions of people, in seventy countries. We’re certainly As a longtime opera buff and a sub- not suggesting that sustaining the Met scriber to the Met, I was stunned to is an easy task, but, under the watch- learn the extent of the institution’s ful eye of the energetic Peter Gelb, his financial problems. The Met’s oper- management team, and our dedicated ating deficits are so immense that its board, it is a mission that is being ac- assets must be pledged to fund them. complished. There is plenty of drama Gelb’s new “brilliant directors,” as he at the Met, both onstage and off, but has called them, have resulted in con- not as Stewart told it. troversial productions, unhappy opera- Kevin Kennedy, President goers, and a decline in attendance. Ann Ziff, Chairman Opera is primarily a musical genre, William C. Morris, Executive and the art form as we know it today Committee Chairman is the product of composers like Mo- Judith-Ann Corrente, Secretary zart, Verdi, and Wagner, who had keen Metropolitan Opera theatrical sensibilities. Productions by New York City directors who do not understand the scores, and who seek to reinterpret As the principal union representative the story lines, may get good press of solo singers and choristers at the coverage but do not age well. For a Met, I was disappointed by Stewart’s repertory company like the Met, the story about Gelb’s leadership and the goal should be to put on productions battle over contracts. A chorister’s day that enhance the musical experience might start at 10 A.M. and end around rather than detract from it. I hope midnight. During this summer’s con- that Gelb goes before the Chagall tract negotiations, much attention was murals do. focussed on principal artists, and in Franklin Bloomer particular on the plight of the mezzo- Riverside, Conn. soprano Wendy White, who expe- rienced a career-ending injury after • falling from a platform. Eugene Kei- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail lin, an independent financial expert, to [email protected]. Letters may be advised us on what we had to do to edited for length and clarity, and may be pub- lished in any medium. We regret that owing to “save the Met,” and he recommended the volume of correspondence we cannot reply that the Met management save a dollar to every letter or return letters. GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN APRIL WEDNESDAY • THURSDAY • FRIDAY • SATURDAY • SUNDAY • MONDAY • TUESDAY 2015 1ST 2ND 3RD 4TH 5TH 6TH 7TH The cartoonist Alison Bechdel grew up in a funeral home in Pennsylvania, before launching THE THEATRE | NIGHT LIFE the countercultural comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For,” in 1983. Her 2006 graphic memoir, “Fun Home,” traced a tragic irony of her past: even as the adolescent Alison was coming into her classical music lesbianism, her mercurial, possibly suicidal father was suppressing his gay identity. The playwright movies | art | DANCE Lisa Kron and the composer Jeanine Tesori adapted the book into an openhearted musical, which ABOVE & BEYOND ran at the Public last season and has just transferred to the Circle in the Square, under the direction FOOD & DRINK of Sam Gold. Pictured above, Beth Malone plays the adult Alison, who watches the action unfold with a pad and pencil; Michael Cerveris and Judy Kuhn play her anguished parents. photograph by Christaan Felber Openings and Previews (Bryce Pinkham) and a wheeler-dealer On the Twentieth Century Airline Highway called Scoop Rosenbaum (Jason Kristin Chenoweth has an energy level Manhattan Theatre Club presents a Biggs). Heidi doesn’t complain that goes beyond anything you find play by Lisa D’Amour, directed by about the unsatisfying nature of in nature, and what she does with Joe Mantello, in which a group of either relationship; together, the it in the Roundabout’s production, oddballs gather in a motel parking men form a kind of whole. Still, directed by Scott Ellis, is far more lot to celebrate the life of a burlesque her greatest affection is reserved for compelling than the musical itself. performer. In previews. (Samuel J. other independent women, alive or The show has a book and lyrics by Friedman, 261 W. 47th St. 212- dead. Heidi, who attended a women’s Betty Comden and Adolph Green 239-6200.) college in the sixties, took the era’s and a score by Cy Coleman.