The New Yorker – April 30, 2018.Pdf

4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

17 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Amy Davidson Sorkin on Trump’s legal woes; records of a gay-rights icon; lawfully gleaned; picturing Black Power; apps for the tipsy.

PROFILES Dana Goodyear 22 Life Sentences Rachel Kushner’s boundary-pushing ﬁction.

SHOUTS & MURMURS Megan Amram 29 Captain’s Log

ANNALS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT Ashley Powers 30 Lone Stars The sherifs laying claim to the Constitution.

A REPORTER AT LARGE Patrick Radden Keefe 36 McMaster and Commander A general’s struggle for dignity under Trump.

LETTER FROM TOKYO Elif Batuman 50 A Theory of Relativity Japan’s rent-a-family industry.

FICTION Robert Coover 62 “Treatments”

THE CRITICS A CRITIC AT LARGE Alex Ross 66 What Hitler learned from America. 73 Brieﬂy Noted

POP MUSIC Kelefa Sanneh 74 Jon Hopkins’s immersive electronica.

THE THEATRE Hilton Als 76 The class conﬂict of “My Fair Lady.”

THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 78 “This Is Our Land,” “Le Corbeau.” Great Minds POEMS Cecily Parks 44 “Girlhood” Alex Dimitrov 64 “June” Think. COVER Kadir Nelson “Stickball Alley” 6 issues for 6

Try the LRB today, visit: DRAWINGS Danny Shanahan, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Benjamin Schwartz, Mick Stevens, Victoria Roberts, Will McPhail, Pia Guerra, William Haefeli, www.lrb.me/nyer Roz Chast, Jeremy Nguyen, P. C. Vey, Zachary Kanin, Lars Kenseth, Kim Warp, Paul Noth, Carolita Johnson, Amy Hwang, Sam Marlow SPOTS Olga Capdevila

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 1 CONTRIBUTORS

Elif Batuman (“A Theory of Relativity,” Patrick Radden Keefe (“McMaster and p. 50) is the author of, most recently, Commander,” p. 36) is a staf writer. His the novel “The Idiot.” new book, “Say Nothing,” about the leg- acy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Alex Dimitrov (Poem, p. 64) has pub- will be published in 2019. lished the poetry collections “Together and By Ourselves” and “Begging for Dana Goodyear (“Life Sentences,” p. 22), It.” He lives in New York City. a staf writer, is the author of “Honey and Junk,” “The Oracle of Hollywood Ashley Powers (“Lone Stars,” p. 30), a Boulevard,” and “Anything That Moves.” contributing writer for The California Sunday Magazine, lives in Brooklyn. Kadir Nelson (Cover), an artist, has re- Reporting for this piece was supported ceived Caldecott Honors, a Sibert by a grant from the Reporting Award Medal, and N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards. at N.Y.U.’s Arthur L. Carter Journal- Most recently, he illustrated “Blue Sky ism Institute. White Stars,” by Sarvinder Naberhaus.

Robert Coover (Fiction, p. 62) most re- Megan Amram (Shouts & Murmurs, cently published the story collection p. 29), whose ﬁrst book, “Science . . . “Going for a Beer.” for Her!,” was published in 2014, is a writer for NBC’s “The Good Place.” Amy Davidson Sorkin (Comment, p. 17), a staf writer, is a regular contributor Kelefa Sanneh (Pop Music, p. 74) is a to Comment. She also writes a column staf writer. for newyorker.com. Cecily Parks (Poem, p. 44) teaches at Julie Belcove (The Talk of the Town, p. 20) Texas State University. She is the au- has contributed art and culture pieces to thor of the poetry collections “Field the magazine since 2011. Folly Snow” and “O’Nights.”

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SOCIAL ANIMALS TRAUMA AND THE MIND

It was a pleasure to read Larissa Mac- Like John Seabrook, I once spun out, Farquhar’s article on Andy Clark’s the- on the narrow Northern State Parkway, ories about embodied intelligence and and I, too, have a vivid recollection of its relationship with A.I. and neurosci- the incidental details of those forty- ence (“Mind Expander,” April 2nd). ﬁve seconds (“Six Skittles,” April 9th). Iconic Style Clark’s theories underemphasize the Seabrook explains how stress-induced From classic cartoons importance of other people as the pri- hormonal responses “can produce ex- to signature covers, mary embodiment of external repre- traordinary feats of perception.” In the New Yorker sentation, rather than our own bodies, past thirty years, we have begun to un- the archive machines, or objects in the world. The derstand that our ability to turn percep- has memorable images story of Clark’s collaborations—with tion into memory is greatly heightened for your walls. his wife, Chalmers, Friston, and oth- by a highly emotional experience. Stud- ers—is a perfect example of the fact ies suggest that emotionally charged newyorkerstore.com that humans are fundamentally social content enhances not only attention and animals. This insures our survival: or- arousal but also our ability to form sta- ganisms working together can do so ble memories. Accidents can result in a much more than organisms working continuous mental replay of a traumatic apart or in parallel. The greatest chal- event, strengthening and extending in- lenge for A.I. is not the slow progress cidental associations with every replay. in top-down intelligence but the lack Physicians and scientists should look to of attention to teaming intelligence vivid stories like Seabrook’s to help study that would allow the pairing of humans’ how the mind’s ailments emerge from remarkable predictive powers with A.I.’s normal brain functions. superior bottom-up analysis of data. Alex Dranovsky, M.D. Alonso Vera New York State Psychiatric Institute NASA Ames Research Center 1New York City Mofett1 Field, Calif. FINDING REALITY TEXTURED HISTORY What stood out to me about Joshua As D. T. Max indicates in his article on Rothman’s article on virtual embodiment Prints, gifts, Chinese textile workers in Prato, Italy, was just how much of the virtual-reality mugs, and more. the city has seen a proliferation of Chi- experience can be inward-looking (“As nese clothing workshops (“Made in Italy,” Real as It Gets,” April 2nd). Most of us Enter TNY20 April 16th). Prato has a long history as are familiar with V.R. as being intended for 20% off. an important textile town, going back to for a wholly escapist experience, a plane the twelfth century; today’s Prato must in which to exercise both freedom and have seemed a logical place for a contem- control over oneself. But Rothman’s V.R. porary Chinese colony in Europe. A few experience, in which he acts both as Freud blocks away from the centro storico, on the and a patient, ofers an alternative. It also site of a former mill, is the Textile Mu- reveals the fragility of our self-percep- seum, which, in 2010, had an exhibit of tion and the limitations of attempts to Tuscan textiles exported to Russia over “see another perspective.” the centuries. The most magniﬁcent were Sol Lee Orthodox Church ecclesiastical vest- Los Angeles, Calif. ments, onto which Russian artisans had sewn jewels, along with a letter from Tsar • Boris Godunov himself, saying, “You Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, Tuscans do splendid work and are wel- address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited come any time you want to come.” for length and clarity, and may be published in Nicholas Cliford any medium. We regret that owing to the volume Middlebury, Vt. of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 3 APRIL 25 – MAY 1, 2018 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

At thirty-one, the actress Condola Rashad has become a force on Broadway. In roles like Juliet (opposite Orlando Bloom’s Romeo) and the smiling yet iron-willed daughter in “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” she’s shown a mixture of poise and fortitude echoing that of her mother, Phylicia Rashad. This combination will surely come in handy for her latest character: the warrior, martyr, saint, and troublemaker Joan of Arc, in George Bernard Shaw’s “Saint Joan,” opening this week at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC and stalks her ex-husband—suggests a quiet revolution in storytelling. Geraldine Chaplin, blade- like yet awkward, plays Emily, who shambles into MOVIES a downbeat Los Angeles apartment, ingratiates herself with the landlord (Moses Gunn), inds a 1 job at a store run by a benevolent geek (Jef Gold- arrogant jerk who alienates her best friends (Aidy blum), clashes with a co-worker (Alfre Woodard), NOW PLAYING Bryant and Busy Philipps) and is tempted to sleep and wreaks havoc on a construction worker (An- with one of the company’s heirs (Tom Hopper). As thony Perkins) and his new wife (Berry Berenson). Borg vs. McEnroe written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Sil- Rudolph builds scenes from pent-up feelings and The icy Swedish tennis champion Björn Borg verstein, Renee and her friends remain featureless searing memories, endowing his actors with a rich (played convincingly by Sverrir Gudnason) is the ciphers, mere puppets of a plot and vessels for hom- range of idiosyncratic actions and inlections and focus of the Danish director Janus Metz’s entertain- ilies. Nonetheless, Schumer delivers several mo- ilming them in languid panning shots. Chaplin’s ing sports ilm, a sharply edited drama centered on ments of antic inspiration (including a wild dance performance is a tour de force of frustrated ten- Borg’s historic 1980 Wimbledon match against the that, unfortunately, is ilmed clumsily); Lauren derness and impulsive violence; even just driving American bad boy John McEnroe (Shia LaBeouf). Hutton, as the founder of the cosmetics company, around, she seems ready yet unable to explode with Working with a script by Ronnie Sandahl, Metz brings a touch of wisdom.—R.B. (In wide release.) a volcanic force, and Rudolph captures both her de- poses the argument that Borg’s calm demeanor rangement and her vulnerability in jolting yet sim- and McEnroe’s volatility weren’t all that difer- Mrs. Hyde ple angles. Aided by songs performed by the octoge- ent—Borg just learned to channel his ferocity and Serge Bozon’s sharply political comedy—a giddily narian blues singer Alberta Hunter, the ilmmaker drive into a quiet stoicism. This is a thin psycho- imaginative reworking of Robert Louis Stevenson’s extracts new cinematic forms from venerable pas- logical insight, but the ilm is stylishly shot, and classic tale—stars Isabelle Huppert, who revels in sions.—R.B. (Quad Cinema, April 28 and April 30.) it zips along through lashbacks of the two play- its sly blend of dissonant humor, intellectual fer- ers’ early years of training and their very diferent vor, and macabre violence. Of course, she plays a You Were Never Really Here ways of preparing for the big match. LaBeouf de- double role, starting out as Marie Géquil (pro- Lynne Ramsay’s ilm, her irst feature since “We livers a sometimes seething, sometimes combus- nounced like “Jekyll”), a stily inefective science Need to Talk About Kevin” (2011), stars Joaquin tible performance, and the electrifying re-creation teacher in a nondescript working-class high school Phoenix as Joe, who is hired to solve other people’s of the inals does the sport of tennis, and compet- illed with students of African and Middle Eastern problems. The solution tends to involve extreme itive fury itself, justice.—Bruce Diones (In limited descent. Then, zapped by one of her own exper- brutality, with Joe favoring a hammer as his weapon release and on video on demand.) imental devices, Marie becomes the titular Mrs. of choice. His latest task is to ind a teen-age girl Hyde, a suddenly energetic and efective educator named Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), the daughter Godard Mon Amour who awakens her students—especially one boy, the of a New York state senator, who has run away and, Even if this drama, directed by Michel Hazana- formerly disruptive Malik (Adda Senani)—to the it is said, fallen into the clutches of sex traickers. vicius, weren’t based on the true story of the rela- beauties of science. Yet her newfound ardor for bold (We are asked to believe that they serve the dark tionship between the ilmmaker Jean-Luc Godard classroom initiatives is matched by literal ires that needs of the political establishment. It’s that kind and the actress Anne Wiazemsky, in 1967 and 1968, course through her body and eventually burst out, of movie.) Joe dispenses justice whenever it is re- but were merely the story of a pair of ictional art- to catastrophic efect. Bozon, working with a script quired, but such righteous vengeance brings him ists in political and romantic conlict, it would sink that he co-wrote with Axelle Ropert, confronts and no relief; every deed, thanks to Phoenix’s frighten- under the weight of its witless vulgarity. Louis Gar- overturns stereotypes of France’s white and non- ingly glum performance, is done with a penitential rel stars as Godard, who took an intense interest in white populations alike, yet his iercest satire tar- air. Piece by piece, in quick lashbacks, Ramsay re- left-wing ideologies and their cinematic implica- gets the bureaucratic bombast of by-the-book func- veals her hero’s wretched past—a boyhood wrecked tions and, at thirty-seven, was active in the Events tionaries. As in Stevenson’s story, the unleashing of by an abusive father, and a stint in the U.S. mili- of May, 1968, taking a leading role in shutting down Marie’s latent furies inevitably veers toward hor- tary, which also entailed the damaging of a child. the Cannes Film Festival. Stacy Martin plays the ror, infusing Bozon’s sociological satire with bit- The spell of sufering is rarely broken, sustained twenty-year-old Wiazemsky (on whose memoirs ter ironies about the forces of order and the uses as it is by the intensity of the director’s style, with the movie is based) as she attempts to join Godard of disorder. In French.—R.B. (In limited release.) its unyielding closeups and its weirdly heightened in his working life but inds herself shunted aside sounds. Jonny Greenwood contributes a hypnotic by his newfound political passions and wounded A Quiet Place score.—A.L. (4/16/18) (In wide release.) by his temperamental, egotistical outbursts. Ha- Behind John Krasinski’s ilm lies a pleasingly plain zanavicius skips over the detailed observations and idea. The world has been ravaged by sightless mon- Zama nuanced insights of Wiazemsky’s books in favor sters, whose enormous ears allow them to pick up The bureaucratic and intimate frustrations of a of parodies of Godard’s earlier work, replacing its the faintest noise—human speech, say—and attack Spanish magistrate in a remote Argentinean out- vast substance, ierce originality, and unsparing in- its source. Thus it is that Lee Abbott (Krasinski), post in the eighteenth century furnish the direc- timacy with empty stylistic winks. He also elimi- his wife, Evelyn (Emily Blunt), and their children, tor Lucrecia Martel’s new ilm with rareied pas- nates most of the fascinating, ambitious activities Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah sions and inspire a highly original style to match. that nourished the couple’s romance and their art Jupe), pursue their lives, as best they can, amid the The middle-aged oicial, Diego de Zama (Daniel (such as meetings with John Lennon and Paul Mc- sounds of silence. In an isolated farmhouse, they Giménez Cacho), is posted far from his wife and Cartney), and reduces his world-historical protag- walk barefoot along soft paths and communicate children, and his relentless requests for a transfer onists to igments of his own thin imagination. In in sign language. (Simmonds, a determined pres- are mocked and ignored by local governors. One French.—Richard Brody (In limited release.) ence onscreen, is deaf; you can feel the other ac- young subordinate openly deies him; another, a tors taking their cues from her.) Dialogue is sparse, writer, troubles his conscience. He hears from Span- I Feel Pretty although Lee and his son can talk if drowned out ish settlers who’ve murdered the indigenous popu- Amy Schumer works hard to infuse this comedy, by a thundering waterfall. The movie is curt and lation and now lack slaves; an aristocratic woman built around dated self-help clichés, with a bit of crisp, easily skirting the gaps in its plot, and the seeks his help and toys with his afections. With a substance and vitality. She stars as Renee Bennett, set pieces are laid out at careful intervals; one se- dreamlike obliviousness, Zama observes and col- a frustrated employee of a high-end New York cos- quence, packed with fear and resourcefulness, is ludes in the brutal injustices on which the colonial metics company who’s relegated to its grim base- set in a corn silo. Krasinski has not really made a regime runs. Then, in despair, he volunteers for a ment annex in Chinatown. She’s unhappy with her horror ilm; rather, he has taken the warmest of dangerous mission in pursuit of bandits. Adapting face, her body, and her life; seeking change in a spin American themes—the solace of family and home— a novel by Antonio Di Benedetto, Martel creates a class, she falls of a bike, bumps her head, and awak- and chilled it with suspense. Take popcorn if you cinema of dialectical tensions; the bustling activ- ens with boundless conidence in her beauty and her must, but crunch it at your peril.—Anthony Lane ity of oices and drawing rooms veers outside the abilities. Suddenly frank and assertive, she chats (Reviewed in our issue of 4/16/18.) (In wide release.) frame while voices of authority and complaint as- up a shy young man (Rory Scovel), who becomes sail the hero with a bewildering tangle of conlict- her boyfriend; talks herself into a job at the compa- Remember My Name ing demands and desires. The dramatic fusion of ny’s glamorous midtown headquarters; and is soon The writer and director Alan Rudolph’s modernist physical and administrative power captures noth- propelled into a prominent position representing refraction of classic melodrama, from 1978—about ing less than the bloody forging of modernity. In the irm’s new low-priced line. She also becomes an a woman who, after her release from prison, inds Spanish.—R.B. (In limited release.)

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 5 ART

Aztec warrior. Its blue metal body lurches forward, only to be yanked backward again and again—a slapstick war dance for an unwinnable war. Nearby, in “Coyote Inalienable,” from 2013, a soldier becomes a kind of Christ, hanging high on a wall, its arms extending outward, as if in a blessing. The exhibition is entertaining, but it’s also a slow burn, balancing chimerical imagination with political indig- nation, notably regarding disrespect for the natural world. The artist’s ren- ditions of restless deities, insects, and animals, which combine software, electronic components, and salvaged materials, appear purposefully humble, with dangling wires, exposed circuits, and notations on scraps of tape. High- tech but low-fi, they suggest the results of an especially fruitful dumpster dive. The pair of quivering butterflies in “Papalutzin” are cut from colorful alu- minum cans, with the Pepsi logo visible on one blue wing—a monarch reincarnated from industrial waste. “Nanahuatzin,” which is named for the Aztec sun god, involves an old sewing machine fitted on one end with a leather glove and, on the other, with the red-and-yellow mask of the lucha libre wrestler Solar. Activated, like most of the works here, by a motion sensor, its rapid-fire movements will Fernando Palma Rodríguez combines software and salvaged materials in his kinetic sculptures. either startle or terrify, depending on your nerves. It recalls a line from Ghost in the Machine his impressive museum début in the Shakespeare, recently popularized by United States, at MOMA PS1, with a another robot, on the TV series A Mexican sculptor disrupts MOMA PS1 compact two-decade survey of robotic “Westworld”: “These violent delights with his soulful, unreliable robots. sculptures, titled “In Ixtli in Yollotl, have violent ends.” You may not be familiar with the Na- We the People.” (The show also The artist calibrates his machines huatl language, a lingua franca of marks the auspicious début of the to act unpredictably, as if to signal a Mesoamerica, but you already know museum’s incisive new curator, Ruba world out of balance—bodies de- a few words. “Ocelot,” “chili,” and Katrib.) tached from their souls in thrall to “avocado” all made their way into En- Another word from Nahuatl is technologies, trapped in an endless glish courtesy of the Nahua people, “coyote,” the wily trickster that crops cycle of upgrade and discard. But, for via sixteenth-century Spanish invad- up across American culture, from na- all its intimations of chaos, “In Ixtli in ers. More than a million and a half tive lore to Looney Tunes. The animal Yollotl” has a dark optimism. Like few people still speak it today. One of appears twice in the show. First, it artists can (Bruce Nauman comes to them is Fernando Palma Rodríguez, shows up in “Soldado,” made in 2001, mind), Palma Rodríguez balances a sixty-year-old indigenous Mexican a cyborg Sisyphus, its cardboard head frustration and empathy.

artist, engineer, and activist, making graced with the bright feathers of an —Andrea K. Scott ARIEL DAVIS BY ILLUSTRATION

6 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 it’s needed. it towhere when you move is more powerful moving water Because MAKE THE WORLD RUN BETTER. RUNMAKE THEWORLD THE BEST-RUN BUSINESSES those inIndiawhodesperatelyneedit. waste andoffermorereliableserviceto efficiency. Sotheycouldeliminatewater to streamlineoperationsandincrease With SAPS/4HANA In India,millionslivewithoutcleanwater. VECTUS IS A BEST-RUN BUSINESS. Source: Water.org. © 2018 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. For more, go tosap.com/cleanwater ® , Vectus was able , Vectuswasable 1 ART MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and ty-nine index cards adorned with forms that Lesbian Art look like stretched-out musical notes, and a Museum of Modern Art “Haptic Tactics” row of drawings, from the mid-ifties, in which “Stephen Shore” This lively group show brings together artists violent crayon scribbles create bright pops of This immersive and staggeringly charming ret- who emphasize the tactile nature of their cho- unintegrated color, Twombly’s protean mark rospective is devoted to one of the best Amer- sen materials, tapping into a recent ground- takes shape as demure scratches, elegant, hand- ican photographers of the past half century. swell of art that celebrates craft. One need writing-like loops, and tidal bubbles and pin- Shore has peers—Joel Meyerowitz, Joel Stern- not be persuaded by the curatorial positing stripes, as in one 1969 series in white crayon feld, Richard Misrach, and, especially, Wil- of these modes as queer to enjoy Jesse Har- on black paper. An untitled 2001 acrylic-and- liam Eggleston—in a generation that, in the rod’s macramé archway of turquoise parachute crayon drawing crowns the nearly six decades nineteen-seventies, stormed to eminence with cord, which hangs in the center of the gallery, of work on view with golden, melting bursts. color ilm, which art photographers had long dis- or the mystical abstraction of Laurel Sparks’s Uptown, at the gallery’s 980 Madison Avenue dained. His best-known series, “American Sur- canvases, rendered in papier-mâché, beads, location, is the stunning “Coronation of Sesos- faces” and “Uncommon Places,” are both from and marble dust. Sarah Zapata’s lush, shaggy tris,” an epic ten-part painting cycle inspired by the seventies and were mostly made in rugged installation—an explosion of color in a cor- the adventures of an apocryphal pharaoh and Western states. The pictures in these series share ner—is a patchwork of Peruvian weaving and graced with lopsided red-and-yellow stick-ig- a quality of surprise: appearances surely unap- American rug-making techniques. “Resilience ure suns. Through April 28. (Gagosian, 522 W. preciated if even really noticed by anyone be- of the 20%,” by Cassils, is an outlier, both be- 21st St. 212-741-1717.) fore—in rural Arizona, a phone booth next to a cause it’s a bronze sculpture and in terms of its 1 tall cactus, on which a crude sign (“GARAGE”) subject matter—the percentage in the work’s is mounted, and, on a small-city street in Wis- title refers to the alarming increase in the mur- GALLERIES—DOWNTOWN consin, a movie marquee’s neon wanly aglow, ders of trans people since 2012. The lumpy, at twilight. A search for fresh astonishments craggy monument, cast from a clay mold, is Brent Green has kept Shore peripatetic, on productive so- imprinted with ists, as if formed by violent A tumultuous installation—a video animation of journs in Mexico, Scotland, Italy, Ukraine, and blows. Through May 20. lovers and monsters and big mechanized sculp- Israel. He has remained a vestigial Romantic, 1 tures in painted wood and wire, with an audio stopping in space and time to frame views that track of choral music, recited poetry, and itful exert a peculiar tug on him. This framing is res- GALLERIES—UPTOWN song—repeats every four and a half minutes. Fe- olutely formalist: subjects composed laterally, brile paintings, scribbled drawings, and a photo- from edge to edge, and in depth. There’s never Eva Hesse graph of a naked woman wearing an open-worked a “background.” The most distant element is as “Arrows and Boxes, Repeated,” the poetic title of sculpture like an A-line dress or a cage stand by. considered as the nearest. But only when look- this concise, career-spanning show, identiies a The mood yaws between nightmarish dread and ing for it are you conscious of Shore’s formal through line in the German-born American art- enraptured amour, welcoming you inside a mind discipline, because it is as luent as a language ist’s early drawings—busy, doodle-like abstrac- that seems driven by anxiety into non-stop in- learned from birth. His best pictures at once tions—and the corporeal post-Minimalist sculp- vention. You likely wouldn’t want to live here, arouse feelings and leave us alone to make what tures for which she’s best known. (Hesse died in but a visit enthralls. Through April 28. (Edlin, 212 we will of them. He delivers truths, whether 1970, at the age of thirty-four; all the works here Bowery, at Spring St. 212-206-9723.) hard or easy, with something very like mercy. were made in the preceding, proliic decade.) An Through May 28. untitled work on paper, from 1963-64, features Matthew Wong swaying stacks of boxy cells, one of them ren- This young Chinese-Canadian artist, a self- Whitney Museum dered in bleeding tangerine gouache—a play- taught painter with degrees in anthropology and “Zoe Leonard: Survey” ful forerunner to the sombre, cast-latex “Sans photography, startles with eye- and heart-seiz- The American artist’s strangely beautiful, un- III,” from 1969, installed nearby. The amber ing abstracted landscapes and fantasias. Wong’s pretentiously intimate, and adamantly politi- form resembles a lexible, narrow ladder, its mode is decorative—powerfully so—with cob- cal work is the subject of this powerful show, a irregular rectangular compartments climbing bled brushstrokes and saturated colors; Poin- nuanced selection of photographs, punctuated from the loor up the wall. While such juxtapo- tillism, Fauvism, Klimt, and Bonnard come to by rescued-object sculptures and text. (The ex- sitions convey Hesse’s long-standing interest in mind not as inluences but, rather, as collegial hibition was curated by Bennett Simpson with imprecise geometry and repetition, the exhibi- parallels. Wong’s compositions cohere emotion- Rebecca Matalon, of the Museum of Contem- tion as a whole also illuminates a more whim- ally, before you are done looking, like cadenzas. porary Art, Los Angeles, and calibrated for sical side of the artist. Through May 25. (Starr, His watercolors are little rhapsodies of the ev- the Whitney by Elisabeth Sherman.) Carefully 5 E. 73rd St. 212-570-1739.) eryday. When were you last wowed by a bowl of structured, on the museum’s ifth loor, in seven 1 cherries? Through April 29. (Karma, 188 E. 2nd parts, the survey includes a hundred-and-four- St. 212-390-8290.) foot-long collection of vintage postcards of Ni- GALLERIES—CHELSEA 1 agara Falls; color shots of New York’s vanished mom-and-pop shops, printed in the now obsolete Joel Shapiro GALLERIES—BROOKLYN dye-transfer process; and a subversively enter- A delectable show of recent works inds the vet- taining archive of photographs of Fae Richards, a eran New York sculptor reminiscent. A nearly “Living Still” black lesbian actress from the nineteen-thirties, ten-foot-high spiral of four wooden irregular A painting, by Robin F. Williams, of a pine- which is so lushly convincing you’ll be shocked polyhedrons, painted sky blue in tender casein, apple, a paint can, and a rope, makes unmis- to learn it’s a iction. Some of Leonard’s subjects suggests a lyrical rif on Shapiro’s forbearer Tony takable allusions to glowing screens and es- go unnoticed because they’re mundane, the way Smith. Energetic ink-blotch abstractions reairm tablishes the theme of this seven-person nature becomes incidental in cities (eight pic- Shapiro’s ilial kinship to David Smith, too, as a show: that the still-life genre remains fresh tures document trees, resilient survivors that sculptor who is luent in drawing. Shapiro recy- in the digital age. Nine penumbral images have grown enmeshed with the metal fences cles past modes of his own with small abstract of refracted clocks by Michael Stamm rif on around them). Others are rendered invisible and semi-igurative sculptures on pedestals and painting as a time-based medium. Mark Dorf’s when society turns a blind eye. Between 1992 shelves, mounted to walls, set on the loor, and plywood installation “Landscape 07,” which and 1995, Leonard memorialized victims of the suspended in space. Might the backward steps includes a fake plant, a real plant, and large AIDS epidemic in the coruscating installation presage a coming stride forward? Through April color photographs of a plant, conlate the real “Strange Fruit,” discarded peels of citrus, avo- 28. (Cooper, 521 W. 21st St. 212-255-1105.) and the virtual. Arguing for sheer visual plea- cado, and bananas, their bruised skins pains- sure are Pedro Pedro’s small canvas “Sunday takingly made whole again with sinew, zippers, Cy Twombly Morning,” a Day of the Dead-style skull ren- buttons, and thread. Seen in 2018, the tenderly The American painter’s scrawl is by now so dis- dered in textile paint, and Jonathan Chapline’s devotional project assumes new dimensions—a tinctive that its range, as seen in this extensive “Domestic Objects,” a purple-and-orange liv- meditation on bodies violated by gun violence show of works on paper celebrating the coming-room scene based on a computer model. and police brutality, and on the redemptive pletion of Twombly’s catalogue raisonné, can Through May 6. (Transmitter, 1329 Willoughby power of love. Through June 10. feel almost overwhelming. Starting with thir- Ave. 917-653-8236.)

8 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 Allan Harris “The Genius of Eddie Jefferson” Vocalese, the art of applying original lyrics to NIGHT LIFE the contours of previously recorded jazz impro- visations, was perfected by the vocalist Eddie 1 Jeferson, an irrepressible performer who was nights in Edinburgh dance halls before they formed killed at age sixty, in 1979. Harris pays tribute ROCK AND POP a group and starting noodling around with karaoke to this pioneering singer, bringing his own equipment. They soon lash-recorded two demo lustre to such touchstones as “Moody’s Mood Musicians and night-club proprietors lead tapes, employing rattled ragga, tender soul hooks, for Love,” a Jeferson concoction that’s been complicated lives; it’s advisable to check and snow-static noise to jump from sound to sound interpreted by everyone from Aretha Frank- in advance to conirm engagements. with impressive ease. All three members are vo- lin to Amy Winehouse. (Smoke, 2751 Broad- calists and percussionists, a versatility that can be way, between 105th and 106th Sts. 212-864-6662. The Breeders heard in the pop harmonies and stomping rhythms April 27-29.) In the mid-eighties, a young musician named Kim that seem to glue their avant sounds together. Deal answered a classiied ad, in the Boston Phoe- “Dead,” their 2014 début, won the prestigious Mer- Houston Person nix, for a female bassist who appreciated Peter, cury Prize. “Cocoa Sugar,” the trio’s latest album, The immediacy and the soul-stirring beauty Paul, and Mary and Hüsker Dü, and ended up retains their expansive spirit. (Elsewhere, 599 John- of old-school tenor-saxophone playing is still joining the Pixies, one of the touchstones of the son Ave., Brooklyn. elsewherebrooklyn.com. May 1.) embodied in the form of this vital eighty- alternative era. As the group’s popularity soared, 1 three-year-old. Coating blues, ballads, and its internal tensions mounted, culminating in an snatches of bebop in a tone as rich as arti- infamous fax from the lead singer, Black Fran- JAZZ AND STANDARDS sanal honey, Person is keeping the tradition cis, informing Deal that the band was kaput. (It alive. (Jazz Standard, 116 E. 27th St. 212-576- has since returned, both with and without Deal.) “Black, Brown & Beige” & “The Best of 2232. April 26-29.) This gave her more time to focus on the Breeders, Basie” an outit she shares with her guitarist twin sister, An utterly fail-safe program mates gems from the Chucho Valdes Kelley. They’re best known for their sophomore classic Count Basie band with a full-length per- Irakere, co-founded by the virtuosic pia- record, “Last Splash,” from 1993, a collection of formance of Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown & nist Chucho Valdes, was a pioneering Cuban scrappy alt-rock treasures capped by the slinky sin- Beige,” the master’s 1943 extended piece relect- band that irst gained prominence, in the nine- gle “Cannonball.” Their 2013 reunion still hasn’t ing on the African-American experience. As El- teen-seventies, for its tangy blend of Carib- concluded, to fans’ delight: they play a run of lington performed the three-movement suite in bean inluences and jazz. Valdes, a volcano of area shows in support of a celebrated new album, its entirety only three times in his career, it will a stylist, will assemble a version of the outit “All Nerve.” (Brooklyn Steel, 319 Frost St., East be a joy to hear the sweeping work brought to life to celebrate the forty-ifth anniversary of the Williamsburg. 888-929-7849. April 30. Terminal 5, once again. (Rose Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Grammy-winning ensemble’s inception. (Blue 610 W. 56th St. 212-582-6600. May 1.) Broadway at 60th St. 212-721-6500. April 26-28.) Note, 131 W. 3rd St. 212-475-8592. April 24-29.)

The Coathangers Firing out of basements in Atlanta, Georgia, this all-girl agitprop punk group made a name for itself bashing through rickety no-wave bangers with all the subtlety of a controlled demolition. The lead guitarist, Crook Kid Coathanger (Julia Kugel), recently decamped to Long Beach, a move that has coincided with the rough edges of the band’s screechy garage rock being sanded away. Though much of its new material has a subdued, beach- psych glow, its live shows are still guaranteed parties. A particular onstage highlight is Rusty Coathanger (Stephanie Luke), a commanding drummer with the kind of gravelly rasp that is generally discouraged by vocal instructors. (The Stone Pony, 913 Ocean Ave., Asbury Park, N.J. 347- 987-3971. April 25.)

Ryan Hemsworth The Canadian music obsessive Hemsworth prides himself on creating soft-touch synthesized melodies and rubbery drums drawn from ield re- cordings, unreleased vocal demos, and snatches of video-game efects—all manipulated beyond recognition. His sound was a precursor of the bubbly pop that has become easy to access on Spotify playlists. He’s etched out a vast and varied œuvre through his own releases and remixes as an electronic producer, and with the singles he curates on his Se- cret Sounds label. He’ll have a similarly fetching library for this marathon set. (Elsewhere, 599 John- son Ave., Brooklyn. elsewherebrooklyn.com. April 28.) Eugène Delacroix, Tigre Royal, lithograph, 1829-30. Estimate $30,000 to $50,000. Young Fathers Old Master Through Modern Prints The members of this Scottish group are rappers, but just barely. They squirm around categoriza- May 8 tion so nimbly that pretty much any comparison— Todd Weyman • [email protected] to Joy Division, Saul Williams, the Raincoats, the Ronettes—its if you squint just so. It’s best to take Preview: May 3 & 4, 10-6; May 5, 12-5; May 7, 10-6 them as they are: Graham (G) Hastings, Alloys- 104 East 25th St, New York, NY 10010 • tel 212 254 4710 • SWANNGALLERIES.COM ious Massaquoi, and Kayus Bankole spent many

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 9 1 OPERA

Metropolitan Opera CLASSICAL MUSIC Laurent Pelly’s tightly focussed staging of Mas- senet’s “Cendrillon,” an enchanting operatic adaptation of the Cinderella story, takes the idea of a storybook production literally. Sentences from the fairy tale are neatly printed on the walls, and, since the director also serves as the costume designer, much of the characterization is built into the witty and endlessly inventive outits. The top- notch cast includes a trio of distinctive mezzo- sopranos: Alice Coote (a tenacious yet romantic Prince Charming), Stephanie Blythe (a wicked stepmother with scene-stealing panache and a bullhorn of a voice), and Joyce DiDonato (whose singing as Cinderella is shiny and luttery with hope). The orchestra plays with gusto and gaiety for Bertrand de Billy. April 28 at 1. • Also playing: A revival of Mary Zimmerman’s staging of Doni- zetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor” features Pretty Yende and Michael Fabiano as the opera’s vola- tile lovers; Roberto Abbado. April 25 at 7:30 and April 28 at 8. • Anna Netrebko sings the title role of Puccini’s “Tosca,” an alluring, larger-than-life Gustavo Dudamel leads two concerts, one featuring the Texan countertenor John Holiday. diva who delivers one of the most beloved arias in the Italian repertoire. Yusif Eyvazov and Mi- chael Volle vie for her afection in David McVic- Maestro Fever the Los Angeles Philharmonic this week, ar’s handsome production; de Billy. April 26 at 8 at David Gefen Hall. and April 30 at 7:30. • Bartlett Sher’s production The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s of Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” doesn’t exactly The first, on April 27, follows a famil- superstar conductor returns to New York. lend Shakespeare’s great love story new impact, iar blueprint, setting a popular standard but it brings a satisfying simulacrum of Verona to In October, 2009, eighteen thousand peo- (Shostakovich’s wrenching Symphony life. Ailyn Pérez and Bryan Hymel play the lovers; Plácido Domingo. April 27 at 8 and May 1 at ple packed the Hollywood Bowl to see No. 5) against more challenging modern- 7:30. • One Sunday each spring, the Met opens its Gustavo Dudamel, a twenty-eight-year- ist material—in this case, “Amériques,” doors for the National Council Grand Finals Con- old Venezuelan conductor, in his first an explosive work that Varèse completed cert, giving a handful of young competitors the chance to sing two arias apiece with the house’s re- outing as the music director of the Los in 1921, while living in Greenwich Village. markable orchestra. Winners receive a cash prize Angeles Philharmonic. Dudamel, an The Philharmonic also takes advantage and immediate national recognition; de Billy. April alumnus of El Sistema (a program, funded of a unique asset by opening with “Pollux,” 29 at 3. (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.) by the Venezuelan government, that is the first of planned twin pieces written “21st Century Sound Stories” half social-justice initiative, half mass for it by Dudamel’s predecessor, Esa- Qubit, a contemporary-music and performance-art conservatory, reaching hundreds of thou- Pekka Salonen. initiative, mounts site-speciic productions of theatrical works by three of its composer members. sands of children each year), was already a On April 29, Dudamel conducts two “The House of Inluence,” by Alec Hall, examines celebrity. As the conductor of the Simón major choral works. The countertenor the eroding boundaries between visceral and vir- Bolívar Youth Symphony Orchestra, El John Holiday, whose high, clear voice is tual reality. “Lonelyhearts,” by David Bird with Kelsey Torstveit, employs dramatic gestures in- Sistema’s flagship ensemble, he was known a thing of astonishing beauty, sings, in spired by Hitchcock and Lynch. And Aaron Ein- for performances of buoyant, joyous vigor, Hebrew, the tender second-movement bond’s “Hidden in Plain Sight” uses quotations and also for his enviable charisma. solo in Leonard Bernstein’s “Chichester from Debussy in a series of intimate, immersive encounters. Joshua William Gelb directs the TAK Now Dudamel’s hair—the luxuriant Psalms,” which the composer stipulated Ensemble. April 28 at 8. (Project Q, 1850 Amster- curliness of which was often admired in could be delivered only by a male alto or dam Ave. qubitmusic.com.) those early days—is graying, and his con- a boy treble. (The piece, a characteristic S.E.M. Ensemble ducting, in which he takes evident plea- blend of finely calibrated schmalz and The composer Petr Kotik has grappled produc- sure, has mellowed somewhat. A sincere devilish brio, has been getting plenty of tively with Gertrude Stein’s chimerical prose for interest in music education and acces- attention during the composer’s centen- decades, a fascination made manifest in “Mas- ter-Pieces,” a seventy-minute chamber opera he sibility, notably through his Sistema- nial.) As at Dudamel’s Hollywood inau- completed in 2014. Kotik’s libretto draws from a inspired Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, guration, the main event in New York will lecture on the creative process that Stein delivered has helped him avoid being pegged as a be Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with a in 1936, interspersed with fragments from a diary she kept during the Second World War; his music diva. Dudamel’s reluctance to engage in quartet of excellent soloists. Davóne is spare and arresting. Jiří Nekvasil directs the irst the political ructions of his native coun- Tines, an expressive bass-baritone of co- U.S. staged performance. April 28 at 8:30. (Bohe- try was a rare point of vulnerability until lossal range, whose performances have a mian1 National Hall, 321 E. 73rd St. semensemble.org.) last year, when his criticism of President hypnotic quality, will begin the famous Maduro led to the cancellation of two “Ode to Joy.” Its celebration of universal ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES tours with the Bolívar orchestra. Still, his brotherhood suits Dudamel. As he says, New York Philharmonic programming courts the spotlight, as with “I’m nothing without my musicians.” The pianist Leif Ove Andsnes headlines a pro- two attractive concerts in which he leads —Fergus McIntosh gram that questions the principle of the concerto ELENI KALORKOTI BY ILLUSTRATION

10 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 CLASSICAL MUSIC as a musical argument advanced by an orchestra Bargemusic Maurizio Pollini and a solo instrument. He performs Debussy’s Although the pianist Lisa Moore remains closely The steely virtuosity for which this iconic pianist Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra, a piece that associated with the edgy contemporary fare she earned his reputation has dulled slightly in recent vacillates between dewy pianistic efects and more championed during her sixteen years in the Bang years, but his formidable intellect and keen in- rigorous forms. The other two works, Bartók’s on a Can All-Stars, her repertoire is consider- sights remain undiminished. Roughly half of Pol- Concerto for Orchestra and Sibelius’s tone poem ably broader. Case in point: in the nineteen-nine- lini’s latest Carnegie Hall recital program—Cho- “Pohjola’s Daughter,” explore the expressive pos- ties, Moore issued a persuasive recording of Leoš pin’s wistful Barcarolle and Debussy’s second book sibilities of the orchestra’s many instruments, giv- Janáček’s complete piano works. She revisits that of Preludes—hails from his two most recent re- ing each a moment in the sun; Edward Gardner potent œuvre to mark ninety years since the Czech cordings. Rounding out the bill are Chopin’s Pre- conducts. April 26 at 7:30 and April 28 at 8. (David composer’s death. April 27 at 8. (Fulton Ferry Land- lude in C-Sharp Minor (Op. 45) and Sonata No. 2 Gefen1 Hall. 212-875-5656.) ing, Brooklyn. bargemusic.org.) in B-Flat Minor. April 29 at 2. (212-247-7800.) Emerson Quartet with Evgeny Kissin 92nd Street Y RECITALS The venerable ensemble, now in its ifth decade and Two top-light British musicians collaborate in a still boasting its original violinists, joins forces with recital of Baroque music. Stephen Isserlis, an ex- Orion String Quartet the Russian virtuoso to play three works for piano pressive cellist, plays the most mournful of Bach’s In the course of six concerts, beginning this week, and strings, in a highly anticipated concert at Car- cello suites, the Fifth. Later, the harpsichordist the formidable ensemble-in-residence at the negie Hall. In a program calibrated to showcase the Richard Egarr lifts the mood with Handel’s Suite Mannes School of Music is undertaking a com- musicians’ technical prowess and interpretative ma- No. 5 in E Major, with its iendishly diicult inal plete survey of Beethoven’s sixteen string quar- turity, Mozart’s pensive Piano Quartet in G Minor movement, known as the “Harmonious Black- tets—works that are by turns iery, gracious, pre- precedes works by Faure and Dvořák (the Piano smith.” A pair of delicate Bach sonatas, written cise, and deeply personal. The pieces are being Quartet in C Minor, and the Piano Quintet in originally for harpsichord and viola da gamba—an played out of order, putting the breadth of the com- A Major, respectively). April 27 at 8. (212-247-7800.) ancestor of modern string instruments—bookend poser’s mastery on display in every performance. the program. April 29 at 3. (Lexington Ave. at 92nd April 25-26 at 7:30. (Johnson/Kaplan Hall, 66 W. 12th “A World in Trance” St. 212-415-5500.) St. To register for free tickets, see events.newschool.edu.) This three-evening festival brings three exemplary instrumentalists to downtown Brooklyn, each rep- Mahan Esfahani Daniil Trifonov resenting an august musical tradition: Homayoun The world of the harpsichordist is generally a placid Trifonov’s season-long “Perspectives” series, at Car- Sakhi, among the foremost players of the rubab, one, but things have become livelier since this negie Hall, is showing the musical range and versa- a robust Afghan lute; Shahid Parvez Khan, a sev- Iranian-born player entered the fray. An accom- tility of a virtuoso who irst won notice for astonish- enth-generation proponent of an illustrious North plished controversialist, he has picked ights with ing feats of solo legerdemain. This week, he plays Indian sitar practice; and Hossein Omoumi, a po- fellow-players and received criticism in return. At two all-Chopin concerts with the great Latvian- born tent vocalist and performer on the ney, a plain- Weill Hall, Esfahani ofers a multinational program violinist-conductor Gidon Kremer and his ensemble tive Persian lute. April 27-28 at 8 and April 29 at 7. of Frescobaldi, Rameau, Jiří Benda, and Bach (his Kremerata Baltica. The programs include solo and (Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn. roulette.org.) French Overture). May 1 at 7:30. (212-247-7800.) concerto music, and two chamber works: the Cello Sonata, with Gautier Capuçon, and the Piano Trio, with Kremer and Giedrė Dirvanauskaitė. April 25-26 at 8. (212-247-7800.)

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center The Schumann Quartet, a young ensemble that plays with reinement and live-wire intensity, delivers two recitals as part of its CMS residency. First, at the Rose Studio, it collaborates with the pianist Gloria Chien in a program of works by Augusta Read Thomas, Arvo Pärt, and others. Then, on its own at Alice Tully Hall, the quartet (three of whom are brothers named Schumann) ofers the Quar- tet in F Major by its namesake composer, alongside Aribert Reimann’s “Adagio zum Gedenken an Robert Schumann,” in its U.S. première. April 26 at 6:30 and 9 and April 29 at 5. (212-875-5788.)

Ecstatic Music Festival Margaret Leng Tan, a dynamic doyenne of the toy piano and its grownup counterpart, presents the New York première of “Metamorphoses,” a substantial new work by George Crumb, a veteran composer with an ear for ingenious timbres. The program also includes new pieces by Suzanne Far- rin and Kelly Moran, inspired by Crumb and John Cage and commissioned for the occasion; works by Cage and Toby Twining complete a deftly bal- anced bill. April 26 at 7:30. (Merkin Concert Hall. merkinhall.org.)

John Holiday The numinous setting of Crypt Sessions lends emotional power to the series’ genre-bending programs. For the latest installment, Holiday, a Texan countertenor who began his career as a choirboy, takes a break from his current tour with the Los Ange- les Philharmonic. Equally comfortable with jazz standards and Baroque opera, he presents a program covering both. April 26 at 8. (Church of the In- tercession, Broadway at 155th St. deathofclassical.com.) gee from an old, crumbling discothèque, or like an Edward Gorey drawing. Elliott, who has won two Tonys, is especially adept at stage choreography, THE THEATRE though she does nothing to tone down the play’s butch-femme dichotomy. (Andrew Garield, as a 1 gay man with AIDS, engages too much in the limp- honor their late teacher, only to ind that her body wristed school of acting.) The nearly eight-hour, OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS has been stolen. Phylicia Rashad directs. (Pershing two-part play is illed with wishes, hope, rabbin- Square Signature Center, 480 W. 42nd St. 212-244- ical anger, fantasy—and with the kinds of errors The Boys in the Band 7529. Previews begin May 1.) in characterization that are bound to happen when Joe Mantello directs a iftieth-anniversary revival big ideas come fast and furious, and when authen- of the seminal gay drama by Mart Crowley, star- Paradise Blue tic characters with beautifully confused intentions ring Jim Parsons, Zachary Quinto, Matt Bomer, Ruben Santiago-Hudson directs Dominique serve or get run over by those ideas. But, just when and Andrew Rannells. (Booth, 222 W. 45th St. 212- Morisseau’s play, about a jazz trumpeter in De- you think Kushner is losing sight of how to han- 239-6200. Previews begin April 30.) troit’s gentrifying Black Bottom neighborhood dle his creations, he brings out a new and hitherto in 1949. (Pershing Square Signature Center, 480 unexplored empathy for a family that is not bio- A Brief History of Women W. 42nd St. 212-244-7529. In previews.) logical, let alone chosen. (Reviewed in our issue of As part of “Brits Of Broadway,” the playwright 4/16/18.) (Neil Simon, 250 W. 52nd St. 877-250-2929.) Alan Ayckbourn directs his comedy about a man’s A Pink Chair (In Place of a Fake Antique) encounters with remarkable women over six de- The Wooster Group explores the work of the Carousel cades. (59E59, at 59 E. 59th St. 212-279-4200. Pre- Polish director Tadeusz Kantor and his obses- The 1945 musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein views begin April 26.) sion with the Odysseus myth, in a production (in a new revival, directed by Jack O’Brien) is a directed by Elizabeth LeCompte. (The Perform- kind of intimate extravaganza, packed with so Henry V ing Garage, 33 Wooster St. thewoostergroup.org. Pre- many ideas about the body, gender roles, premar- The Public’s Mobile Unit performs the history views begin April 28.) ital coupling, and fear of closeness that at times play in its home theatre after touring New York its force and clumsiness weigh on you like another City community venues. Robert O’Hara directs. Saint Joan body. The two-act spectacle is about the fantasy (Public, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555. In previews. Condola Rashad plays Joan of Arc in the George of love, and how it gets even hotter when it’s in- Opens April 27.) Bernard Shaw drama, revived by Manhattan The- terrupted or shattered by lawlessness or by death. atre Club and directed by Daniel Sullivan. (Sam- In a small town in New England, Julie Jordan (Jes- The Iceman Cometh uel J. Friedman, 261 W. 47th St. 212-239-6200. Opens sie Mueller) inds herself attracted to Billy Bige- Denzel Washington stars in George C. Wolfe’s April 25.) low (Joshua Henry), a quintessential “bad boy,” revival of the Eugene O’Neill drama, set in a who works as a carrousel barker at the town fair. Greenwich Village saloon populated by dead-end Summer and Smoke O’Brien’s direction of Henry, who is black, and dreamers. (Jacobs, 242 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200. In Transport Group’s Jack Cummings III directs the Mueller, who is white, is strong, especially when previews. Opens April 26.) Tennessee Williams drama, in which a Southern it comes to the way the couple communicate their minister’s daughter falls in love with the neigh- desire: as if it were no big deal, even as you wait Light Shining in Buckinghamshire borhood doctor. (Classic Stage Company, 136 E. 13th for it to be a very big deal. (4/23/18) (Imperial, 249 Rachel Chavkin (“The Great Comet”) directs St. 866-811-4111. In previews.) W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.) Caryl Churchill’s political drama from 1976, which 1 retells the revolutionary history of England in the Happy Birthday, Wanda June sixteen-forties. (New York Theatre Workshop, 79 NOW PLAYING Kurt Vonnegut’s 1970 play, about a chauvinist E. 4th St. 212-460-5475. In previews.) blowhard aggressively clinging to antiquated so- Angels in America cial mores, has found its moment. In Wheelhouse Our Lady of 121st Street In Marianne Elliott’s revival of Tony Kushner’s Theatre Company’s revival, a blustering war- In Stephen Adly Guirgis’s 2002 play, a group of brilliant, maddening, and necessary masterwork, rior and huntsman named Harold Ryan (Jason former classmates reunite at a funeral home to the Angel (Amanda Lawrence) looks like a refu- O’Connell) returns home after a long absence to ind that his wife, Penelope (Kate MacClug- gage), has elected to remarry. Worse still, her i- ancé (Matt Harrington) is a peacenik whose most treasured possession is his violin. The aggrieved husband, breathing audibly and pantomiming like a primate, struggles to resurrect a past in which he was king, to no avail. (Yes, the whole thing is a satirical take on Homer’s Odyssey.) A number of scenes take place in Heaven, where Nazi war criminals play shuleboard alongside Walt Dis- ney and Jesus Christ. Rarely has surrealist gallows humor been so adroitly deployed in the service of social criticism. (Gene Frankel Theatre, 24 Bond St. 212-777-1767. Through April 28.)

King Lear Straightforward, unabridged, and never less than lucid, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production, starring a powerful Antony Sher, is an excellent opportunity to experience a top-light rendi- tion of this tragedy with a minimum of conceptual clutter. The director Gregory Doran ofers a grat- ifyingly fresh reading of several characters, most notably Nia Gwynne’s conlicted Goneril. His version is even more than usual about the eyes: David Troughton’s Gloucester becomes doubly engaging after he loses both of his, Paapa Essiedu’s fright- eningly sardonic Edmund wields a lethal side-eye, Set at a Manhattan birthday party, Mart Crowley’s 1968 drama, “The Boys in the Band,” was one of and in the background of many scenes are three

the irst to depict gay life, pre-Stonewall; a starry revival begins previews on Broadway this week. servants who say little but who noticeably notice BAGNARELLI BIANCA BY ILLUSTRATION

12 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 THE THEATRE everything. Design-wise, Niki Turner’s costumes rently inhabiting Conor McPherson’s 2006 play, Zürich stand out. The fur coat that envelops Lear for the directed by Ciarán O’Reilly. On Christmas Eve, A Swiss hotel room is the set of Amelia Roper’s in- play’s irst half makes him look like the personi- Sharky (Andy Murray) is gamely trying to keep geniously engineered play. Or, rather, hotel rooms: ication of a big gray beard, and nearly everyone his battered hearth and home together while car- each scene takes place in a diferent, albeit iden- else is dressed in fascinating variations on black ing for his inirm, explosive, controlling older tical-looking, home away from home. It quickly and gold. (BAM Harvey Theatre, 651 Fulton St., brother, Richard (Colin McPhillamy). Also on emerges that these scenes, which feel like self-con- Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Through April 29.) hand is Ivan (Michael Mellamphy), too drunk tained playlets, are happening at the same time. to have made it home the night before. Another (Sound cues turn into sound clues.) It’s an ambi- Lobby Hero friend, Nicky (Tim Ruddy), shows up later that tious concept, and this Colt Coeur production, Does anyone do awkward earnestness as well as evening and introduces a Mr. Lockhart (Matthew directed by Adrienne Campbell-Holt, does it jus- Michael Cera? In Kenneth Lonergan’s 2001 play Broderick), who will join the group for a game of tice, with the audience separated from the stage by (revived by Second Stage, inaugurating its new poker. It’s soon made clear that the gentlemanly a glass partition representing the room’s windows. Broadway home), he plays Jef, the night watchman guest is there to win more than the odd pot. The Taken individually, the parts tend to meander need- at a Manhattan apartment building. His boss, Wil- dialogue is fast, brash, vulgar, and utterly con- lessly, having apparently opted for the late-check- liam (Brian Tyree Henry), is a black man whose vincing; the action twists and surprises; and the out option, and the payof is far-fetched. Still, the brother has been arrested for a horrible crime; themes include love, despair, and eternity. (Irish whole clicks into place, helped by the excellent en- Jef gets sucked into the coverup and must de- Repertory, 132 W. 22nd St. 212-727-2737.) semble cast; Paul Wesley and Juliana Canield are cide whether to lie to two neighborhood cops, especially good in the very funny irst scene, as a a macho sleazebag (Chris Evans) and a mouthy Three Tall Women couple the morning after a one-night tryst. (Fourth rookie (Bel Powley). In a “Law & Order” episode, First staged in New York in 1994, Edward Albee’s Street Theatre, 83 E. 4th St. 212-460-5475.) Jef would be the guy with three lines, but Lo- Pulitzer Prize-winning play bristles with unre- 1 nergan expands this hapless Rosencrantz’s story solved and unresolvable guilt and, inally, with into a funny, provocative study of how diicult it hatred undone. A (Glenda Jackson), a widow, sits ALSO NOTABLE is to weigh right and wrong. The ending may be upright in a straight-backed chair, her mouth a red too tidy—criminal-justice issues certainly haven’t gash—she’s rich enough to aford B (Laurie Met- Admissions Mitzi E. Newhouse. • Bobbie Clearly had much resolution since the play was written— calf), her caretaker, and C (Alison Pill), a lawyer Black Box, Harold and Miriam Steinberg Cen- but Trip Cullman’s ine production, wonderfully who has come to look after her afairs. In the sec- ter for Theatre. • Children of a Lesser God Studio acted and staged, doesn’t miss a nuance or a laugh. ond half of the play, it becomes clear that A, B, 54. • Escape to Margaritaville Marquis. • Feeding (Helen Hayes, 240 W. 44th St. 212-239-6200.) and C are one woman—A—but at diferent stages the Dragon Cherry Lane. Through April 27. • Fro- of her life. Jackson, a two-time Oscar winner, is zen St. James. • Harry Clarke Minetta Lane The- Mean Girls a gift that the director, Joe Mantello, doesn’t so atre. • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts The witty and withering teen comedy is now a much squander as fail to unwrap. As in much of One and Two Lyric. • The Lucky Ones Connelly. fetch Broadway musical, with an updated script his directorial work, Mantello reconigures the Through April 28. • Miss You Like Hell Public. • My by Tina Fey—this time, the mean girls post mean script to emphasize the ire-and-brimstone mo- Fair Lady Vivian Beaumont. (Reviewed in this GIFs—and music by her husband, Jef Richmond. ments that he thinks Broadway audiences will re- issue.) • Rocktopia Broadway Theatre. Through (The lyrics are by Nell Benjamin.) Erika Hen- spond to, favoring the lash of show biz over the April 29. • Summer Lunt-Fontanne. • This Flat ningsen plays Cady, a homeschooled math whiz complications of the lesh. (4/9/18) (Golden, 252 Earth Playwrights Horizons. Through April who relocates from Africa to Illinois, where she W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.) 29. • Travesties American Airlines Theatre. must navigate the wilds of an American high school. At irst, she falls in with the “art freaks,” who persuade her to iniltrate the Plastics: a cabal of popular girls ruled by the glossy tyrant Regina George (the fearsome Taylor Louderman). Fey’s 2004 screenplay is so taut and quotable that the addition of songs seems almost gratuitous, and DANCE Richmond’s music has the interchangeable pop-anthem sound that’s become standard on Broadway. But who needs Tina Fey to reinvent musical com- New York City Ballet vival of “Dracula,” and, perhaps most famously, edy? She does just ine with the help of the ace di- The company marches on, without a clear succes- created the illustrations for the intro to PBS’s rector and choreographer Casey Nicholaw (“The sor to its recently retired former director, Peter “Mystery!” series. But in the dance world he is Book of Mormon”). (August Wilson, 245 W. 52nd Martins. (It is currently being led by three for- also known for having been an avid balletomane St. 877-250-2929.) mer dancers who are now ballet masters and the and, more speciically, an ardent follower of New choreographer and soloist Justin Peck.) Before York City Ballet—he attended almost every per- Mlima’s Tale launching into the main event of the season—a formance when the company was in season. He In her follow-up to “Sweat,” Lynn Nottage makes Jerome Robbins retrospective that begins on May even wrote and illustrated a slim volume, enti- a drastic turn in locale and genre, going from Rust 3—the schedule is dominated by works by the tled “The Lavender Leotard: Or, Going a Lot to Belt realism to a globe-trotting, stylized look at company’s founding choreographer, George Bal- the New York City Ballet,” which depicts a trio of the ivory trade. In the opening scene, Somali anchine. In addition to such familiar ballets as sophisticated children making witty (and highly poachers fell the “great tusker” Mlima (a pow- “Agon” and “Concerto Barocco,” a rarer item has informed) remarks about scenes from the com- erful, haunting Sahr Ngaujah, of “Fela!”) with been dusted of: “Le Tombeau de Couperin,” from pany’s repertoire. This exhibition, at the Wads- a poisoned arrow. The heartbreaking story then 1975. It’s a gentle and lovely piece, set to Ravel, worth Atheneum, in Hartford, includes the orig- tracks the distinctively grand tusks from a corrupt without lead dancers (atypical for Balanchine), inal drawings from that book, Gorey’s famous Kenyan police chief all the way to their end, as a in which the geometry of the corps de ballet, or- City Ballet poster depicting the ive positions, carved “statement piece” in the Beijing condo of a ganized into two mirroring groups, is the main and photographs of him attempting ballerina Chinese nouveau-riche couple. Despite its scope, event. • April 24 and April 26 at 7:30 and April poses for a laugh. (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum the show, which relies mostly on one-on-one en- 28 at 2: “Concerto Barocco,” “Agon,” and “The of Art, 600 Main St., Hartford, Conn. thewadsworth. counters (an ensemble of three play all the other Four Temperaments.” • April 25 at 7:30, April 27 org. Through May 6.) roles), unfurls on a deeply moving human scale, at 8, and April 29 at 3: “Apollo,” “Le Tombeau de and Jo Bonney’s production has a stark elegance, Couperin,” “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” and “Sym- Basil Twist / “Symphonie Fantastique” with crucial support from Lap Chi Chu’s lighting phony in Three Movements.” • April 28 at 8 and This musical puppet extravaganza premièred and Justin Hicks’s live score. Never do we forget May 1 at 7:30: “Dance Odyssey,” “Pictures at an twenty years ago. To Berlioz’s fantastical score, the barbaric cost of some people’s decor. (Public, Exhibition,” and “Year of the Rabbit.” (David H. Twist creates a world out of bits of fabric, plastic, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967-7555.) Koch, Lincoln Center. 212-721-6500. Through June 3.) and tinsel, all of which move in mesmerizing slow motion inside a giant tank of water, resulting in The Seafarer “Gorey’s Worlds” a kind of magical mystery realm. The music, in a You’re unlikely to ind a more accomplished en- The artist Edward Gorey wrote ghostly children’s piano arrangement by Franz Liszt, is played live by semble on the New York stage than the one cur- books, designed sets for the 1977 Broadway re- Christopher O’Riley. Not to be missed. (HERE,

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 13 DANCE

145 Sixth Ave., near Spring St. 866-811-4111. April reprise these ballets and unveil a new work, cre- Long Island City. 866-811-4111. April 27-28 and 24-29 and May 1. Through June 17.) ated for it by the British choreographer Richard May 1. Through May 5.) Alston, with a score by John Cage, “The Seasons,” Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève originally composed to accompany a dance, now “Works & Process” / “AFTERITE” The Swiss company returns to the Joyce Theatre lost, by Merce Cunningham. (Florence Gould Hall, The British choreographer Wayne McGregor, with “Un Autre Passion,” by the in-demand Swed- 55 E. 59th St. 800-982-2787. April 27-28.) known for his use of extreme ballet technique— ish choreographer Pontus Lidberg. The music is moves requiring hyper-lexibility, perilous-look- Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” (the landmark 1959 Melinda Ring / Special Projects ing partnering, non-stop movement—is creating Karl Richter recording), but the story of Jesus is For her second show at the Chocolate Factory a dance for American Ballet Theatre’s spring sea- absent. Dancers in white seem to loat in Lidberg’s this month, Ring collaborates with Renée Ar- son. The music is Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” a gently elegant style, sometimes rearranging white chibald for “Shiny Angles in Angular Time.” It’s score that has not ceased to fascinate choreogra- panels that serve as screens for arty video of bod- a solo that places Archibald in a black-box-style phers since its première, in 1913. At the Guggen- ies loating underwater. (175 Eighth Ave., at 19th arrangement nestled inside the theatre’s usual heim, McGregor will discuss the ideas behind his St. 212-242-0800. April 24-29.) white, industrial template. Through video and interpretation, and work on the piece with danc- choreographic means, the work plays with the- ers from A.B.T., shedding light on his coöpera- Acosta Danza atrical perspective and the relation of a human tive and improvisational choreographic method. Carlos Acosta left his home country of Cuba to igure to the space around it. (5-49 49th Ave., (Fifth Ave. at 89th St. 212-423-3575. April 29-30.) become a ballet star, most enduringly with the Royal Ballet in London. Now retired from that company, he has returned to his native island to start a company of his own, and his fame has attracted many of the best young dancers in Havana. The plan is to mix classical pieces with contemporary ones, but the works programmed for the ABOVE & BEYOND troupe’s United States début all fall into the latter category. Two lively ensemble pieces by Span- ish choreographers balance two intimate duets by Cuban dancemakers. Acosta himself, regal as ever, shows of his partnering inesse in a duet by the modish Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. (City Center, 131 W. 55th St. 212-581- 1212. April 25-27.)

Mark Morris Dance Group Morris’s dancers are putting on a two-week season at their headquarters in Brooklyn, which includes a small black-box theatre. It’s good to see them on their home turf. They’re ofering two Brisket King decades. A psychiatrist and former professor at programs; in Program B, Morris himself shows Beef brisket is known among barbecue enthusiasts the University of Chicago, he has written books of his amazingly nimble footwork (despite his as one of the most diicult cuts of meat to prepare; on sleep patterns, disorders, and optimal prac- considerable girth) in the jokey piece “From Old it can demand as many as eighteen hours of atten- tices. In this talk, Mendelson frames slumber Seville.” (He was a serious lamenco student as tion, and there is a narrow window between under- in physiological, personal, and social contexts, a child.) That program also includes one of the cooking and overcooking. More than twenty chefs and discusses the causes of insomnia, excessive most striking works in the Morris canon, “One put their methods to the test at this annual com- fatigue, and other undesirable yet all-too-com- Charming Night,” about a vampire and the young petition, now in its seventh year, where celebrity mon conditions. (1395 Lexington Ave. 212-415- woman who loves him. Program A is a compen- judges—including Dana Cowin, the former editor 5500. April 25 at 6:30.) dium of dances set to the music of Lou Harrison, of Food and Wine, the cookbook author Peter Ka- a lover of Eastern musical traditions. (Mark Mor- minsky, and the onetime “Top Chef” contestant McNally Jackson Books ris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn. 866- Grayson Schmitz—will crown the city’s best bris- Viv Albertine reads from her latest book, “To 811-4111. April 25-29. Through May 6.) ket. Attendees can purchase tickets that are good Throw Away Unopened.” It follows her 2014 for unlimited tastings and drinks, and can cast memoir, “Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Megan Williams Dance Projects a vote for the People’s Choice Award. (110 Kent Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys,” which chron- In “One Woman Show,” Williams, an alumna of Ave., Williamsburg. brisketkingnyc.com. April 25 at 6.) icled her deiant years as the guitarist of the all- Mark Morris Dance Group with a zany streak, girl British punk group the Slits. The new book channels the tragic and comedic heroines of Street Games was inspired by Albertine’s mother’s diaries, golden-age Hollywood ilms and comments on Since 2007, neighbors of Thomas Jeferson Park which she found, after her mom died, in a bag aging and misogyny. There are elements of au- have welcomed spring by introducing their chil- labelled with the words that became the book’s tobiography, but, despite the title, Williams is dren to a bygone form of entertainment com- title. (52 Prince St. 212-274-1160. April 26 at 7.) not alone. The eight-member cast that supports monly known as “going outside.” At this event, her includes the excellent Dylan Crossman and kids ive and older can enjoy classic recreational Rizzoli Bookstore Kristen Foote. (Joe’s Pub, 425 Lafayette St. 212-967- activities from the nineteen-sixties and seventies, The watering hole enjoys its own category in 7555. April 26-28.) including pogo sticks, hula hoops, rumbling box- New York City landmarks of lore. Disappearing car races down First Avenue, and quick-skipped façades and storefronts make eulogizing a local New York Theatre Ballet double Dutch, while spectators may take in a yo-yo pastime; the few small businesses and mom-and- A few weeks ago, Diana Byer’s chamber company master at work or a performance by the Dance pop taverns that stick it out are bestowed with performed three intimate ballets by Jerome Rob- Theatre of Harlem. Food and drinks will be sold a mystical authenticity just for being present, bins, the largest of which, “Septet,” was for ive on site; children who complete ive of the ten ac- like a participation trophy awarded by natives. dancers. They’re late Robbins opuses, and none is tivities on their personal Street Games Passport The artist, writer, and bartender John Tebeau a masterpiece, but they exhibit many of the qual- can claim a prize. (112th St. at First Ave. nycgov- celebrates a collection of such spots in “Bars, ities for which Robbins is known and loved: keen parks.org. April 25 at 11 .M.) Taverns, and Dives,” an illustrated guide to his- musicality, humanity, and camaraderie among the 1 toric city saloons from the East Village to As- dancers. The most curious, “Concertino,” is a trio toria and back. Joining him in a discussion of for two men and a woman, set to Stravinsky. In its READINGS AND TALKS New York’s historic bars are the authors Amanda sparseness and air of experimentation, it echoes Schuster, Robert Simonson, and David Won- Frederick Ashton’s “Monotones.” First, the three 92nd Street Y drich. Toby Cecchini, a co-owner of the Long all dance together, and then each has an eccentric Wallace B. Mendelson has studied the mecha- Island Bar, moderates. (1133 Broadway. rizzoli-

little monologue. This weekend, the company will nisms and processes of sleep for more than four bookstore.com. May 1 at 6.) AMARGO PABLO BY ILLUSTRATION

14 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 FßD & DRINK

1 TABLES FOR TWO roasted mushrooms, or spicy fish stew. BAR TAB Miznon And stuf it you must: Miznon trades mostly in pita sandwiches, a dozen or so 435 W. 15th St. (646-490-5871) varieties each day, plus a few sides, includ- In 2016, Michael Solomonov, the Israeli- ing a whole-roasted baby cauliflower, a American chef and owner of Zahav, an dish Shani claims to have originated, and acclaimed “modern Israeli” restaurant in the more convincingly proprietary and Philadelphia, opened a stand in Chelsea surprisingly delicious “run-over potato,” Anyway Café Market called Dizengof, specializing in a baked spud so thoroughly flattened 34 E. 2nd St. (212-533-3412) hummus and pita. At the time, each was under parchment paper that it looks at Behind the blond-wood bar at Anyway Café, the perhaps the best in New York, the hum- first like a tray of nothing. When I asked, bartender is whittling a horseradish root, slicing mus whipped, with cumin, lemon, garlic, the other day, if I could purchase a plain of long pale strips with a little knife. They are and tahini, until tantalizingly silky and pita, my request was denied. “Sometimes bound for one of the large jars of vodka behind her, which are infusing, slowly, with ingredients light, the pita thick, soft, and chewy, with we have scraps that we give to children, including black currants, beets, honey, and gin- just a hint of charred crust. but the chef doesn’t want people taking ger. These ierce spirits are mixed into the bar’s Two years later, both are still excep- the pita home and reheating it, messing signature Martinis: Katherine the Great (pome- granate vodka, black-pepper vodka, rosewater), tionally good. But it’s lucky for Solo- it up,” a cashier told me apologetically. Madam Padam (blueberry vodka, champagne). monov that Miznon—the first U.S. There was nothing to do but order more Best and strangest of all is the borscht Martini— outpost of a small, beloved international pita: pita overflowing with thin but juicy beet vodka and dill vodka, sprinkled with Hi- malayan pink salt and crushed herbs, a pungent, chain started by the Israeli celebrity chef flaps of “rib-eye minute steak,” buoyed by tangy punch in a frosty glass. It’s easy to down Eyal Shani, which opened a few months tahini and spicy zhug. Pita sheathing a one after another, licking the salt from the rim. ago, also in Chelsea Market—doesn’t supple yellow omelet, laced with salt and In this cavernous subterranean space, the chairs are illed with East Village denizens out for an ofer hummus, because when it comes crunchy za’atar and adorned with a stalk evening of Russian music and appropriate re- to pita primacy Dizengof has been of raw scallion. Pita enveloping the freshments; chilled carafes of vodka and plates knocked of the podium. It seems almost “folded cheeseburger” that Shani devel- of pelmeni (Siberian dumplings) are scattered on the tables, consumed dreamily to the sound unfair to compare Miznon pita to any oped especially for New York, featuring of an accordion. A tall woman with a long black other pita. Miznon pita is plush, Miznon a sheet-like patty of grass-fed beef, grid- mane solicits an editorial from a curly-haired pita is pillowy—I would happily take dled briefly and then wrapped around writer, and another woman at the table tells a story set at a klezmer-music conference. The a nap on a stack of Miznon pita. It’s Cheddar and griddled some more, until man on the accordion, in a duet with a pale- as stretchy and pliant as Neapolitan the meat is medium-rare and the edges throated young woman in a shawl, sings the pizza dough, its surface similarly taut of the cheese have gone lacy and crunchy. Second World War ballad “Tyomnaya Noch’” (“Dark Night”) as evening settles in over the and golden brown, glistening ever so Smothered in sour cream, pickles, and neighborhood. “The dark night separates us, my slightly with oil. It cradles whatever you tomato, it turns New York’s best pita into love,” they sing, “and the black, tormented steppe stuf it with as supportively as a ham- one of New York’s best burgers.(Pita stretches between us.” One table speaks in a jumbled mix of Russian and Ukrainian; when it mock, eiciently absorbing the flavors sandwiches $7-$13.50.) comes time to make a toast, they say “Bud’mo,”

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COMMENT tures prominently in Mueller’s investiga- pointment, he paused for a long mo- UNRULE OF LAW tion, once worked for Giuliani, when ment and said, “I don’t know what to Giuliani was the U.S. Attorney for the make of it.” He added, “I don’t know he enlistment, last Thursday, of Ru- Southern District of New York. In the what the attorney-client dynamic is like Tdolph Giuliani—the former mayor book, Comey describes Giuliani stand- around the President.” of New York and now a purveyor of se- ing in his oice doorway, giving him a The same night, memos that Comey curity advice and partisan rants—as a “pep talk” about investigating Al Sharp- had written after his meetings and phone personal lawyer to Donald Trump marked ton, at the time a community activist, for calls with Trump, which multiple con- the entry into the President’s legal drama alleged embezzlement, which Giuliani gressional committees had obtained from of another character whose presence was concluded by saying, “Oh, and I want the the Justice Department, were leaked to unlikely and yet somehow inevitable. It fucking medal”—meaning the medallion the press. In one, about a dinner at the was of a piece with the moment, earlier that Sharpton often wore. (Sharpton was White House at which the President in the week, when lawyers for Michael eventually acquitted on state charges.) asked for his loyalty, Comey said that Cohen, another Trump attorney, asserted The Comey-Giuliani connection is the experience of talking to Trump was that a client whose identity Cohen was another reminder of how the Trump “chaotic, with topics touched, left, then anxious to keep secret was Sean Hann- Presidency has dragged us back to the returned to later, making it very diicult ity, of Fox News. That came during a gaudy, big-shouldered Manhattan of to recount in a linear fashion.” It was, he court hearing that was also attended by the nineteen-eighties. But even Comey wrote, “conversation-as-jigsaw-puzzle.” Stormy Daniels, the adult-ilm actress appeared thrown by the plot twist in- That description could it any attempt and director, who is in a legal ight with volving his old boss. During an inter- to summarize the various Trump scan- Cohen and Trump over a hush agree- view on Thursday night at Town Hall, dals. Trying to explain how they all in- ment. Giuliani says that his job is to when The New Yorker’s David Remnick tersect begins to sound like a verbal quickly “negotiate an end” to the inves- asked Comey about the Giuliani ap- version of those charts in investigators’ tigation by the special counsel Robert oices, with pictures and yarn connect- Mueller into Russian interference in the ing pins in locations as far-lung as Mos- 2016 election—as if that matter, and re- cow, Washington, Prague, Kiev, Ankara, lated issues that Mueller has uncovered, Baku, Dubai, Hong Kong, a parking lot were akin to a casino bankruptcy restruc- in Las Vegas, and various suites in Trump turing, in which debts and bad behav- Tower—and, at the center, the President. ior can simply be swept away. And yet, in the disparate cases, one Also last week, in the interval between can already glimpse a clear theme: Trump’s a statement from Hannity to the efect disdain for legal limits and, perhaps more that he wasn’t exactly Cohen’s client and dangerous, his almost uncanny ability to Giuliani’s claim that he was going to be draw others into his vision. Comey writes what might be called the ixer di tutti in his memoir that, in a White House ixers, James Comey, the former F.B.I. where lying, or remaining silent as the director, published a memoir, “A Higher President lies, is considered an essential Loyalty.” (A striking element of the book act of loyalty, he could “see how easily is Comey’s comparison of Trump’s circle everyone in the room could become a to the Mafia.) To complicate matters co-conspirator to his preferred set of

ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL TOM BY ILLUSTRATIONS even further, Comey, whose iring fea- facts, or delusions.” Michael Avenatti,

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 17 the lawyer for Stormy Daniels, whose This Wednesday, the Supreme Court ment, or at least lawyers’ fees, when one proper name is Stephanie Cliford, told will hear oral arguments in the case of is called as a witness. The New Yorker that he regards her case Trump v. Hawaii, about the Adminis- Last Wednesday, the Wall Street Jour- not as a sideshow but as a “sine qua tration’s latest revised order. One hur- nal reported that Trump had consulted non.” Avenatti, who is clear-eyed about dle for the Administration’s lawyers will with one of his divorce lawyers, Jay Gold- the uses of publicity, is eagerly envi- be explaining the President’s tweets, in berg, who is also a former prosecutor, sioning himself sharing headlines with which he suggested that this new ver- about the question of whether Cohen, Giuliani as the legal actions converge. sion was just a “politically correct” place- who seems to be facing a raft of charges What distorts the President’s judg- holder that should be the basis for some- for inancial crimes, might lip, and be- ment, Avenatti says, is “a misconcep- thing “much tougher.” come a witness against him. The idea tion as to the importance of loyalty, or Often enough, Trump drives away that Trump would consult someone who perceived loyalty.” lawyers when he doesn’t like what they was also his divorce lawyer on this point The assumption that, if one is Pres- tell him, a culling that might shape the is another sign of how much his concept ident, the law hardly matters is appar- character of the remaining herd. (A sim- of the law centers on him and his per- ent even in White House moves that ilar efect may be seen in the spate of sonal needs. Goldberg said that he had fall within traditional policy areas. Many resignations in the Republican congres- advised Trump not to trust Cohen, or legal observers, for example, were struck sional caucus.) But the rewards for stay- almost anyone facing a long jail sentence. by how poorly written the irst versions ing in Trump’s circle are increasingly The “attorney-client dynamic,” to use of Trump’s travel-ban executive orders elusive, even for the ambitious or the Comey’s phrase, between Trump and were, and the Administration’s initial public-spirited, who feel that it is their Cohen may, for the President, turn out attempts to argue that judges shouldn’t duty to serve any President. There is a to be explosive. And Cohen isn’t the Pres- even have a role in reviewing the orders growing prospect that the price for doing ident’s only lawyer, or his only problem. failed badly in several federal courts. so is not only indignity but an indict- —Amy Davidson Sorkin

RETROSPECTIVE DEPT. On a recent Friday evening, Leitsch’s on various items. “This card file is great,” THE ADVOCATE buzzer rang. “The party’s coming, the he said, flipping through a set of four- party’s coming!” he said, moving toward by-six index cards on which Leitsch had the door. He wore black pants and an neatly typed out gay slang terms from olive V-neck sweater over a plaid shirt, antiquity. In the seventies, an “Alice Blue and brown moccasins. “Since they told Gown” was a uniformed police oicer. me I’m dying, every day has been like A “basket” was “the bulge caused by the this. I get no rest whatsoever. Every- organs when wearing tight pants.” Some ick Leitsch, an early gay-rights ac- body in the world is turning up.” of the definitions were more nuanced: Dtivist, who is now in his eighties, At the door stood a burly man with an “auntie,” Leitsch had written, was “an arranged to donate his old working files a shaved head and a chevron mustache. ageing or middle aged homosexual, of- to the archives of the New York Pub- He was wearing khakis and a white times efeminate in character,” or “a per- lic Library. The decision was prompted button-down, and an I.D. aixed to a son of settled demeanor who cautions by a diagnosis of terminal cancer. “Be- lanyard around his neck announced against intemperate acts.” cause I’m dying, everybody thinks I’m that he was Jason Baumann, an assis- “As long as I’m alive, if you have any interesting,” he said the other day, in tant director for collection develop- questions, I’m around,” Leitsch ofered. his Upper West Side apartment. “Had ment and the L.G.B.T.Q.-initiative In a filing cabinet, Baumann discov- I known how much fun this would be, coördinator for the N.Y.P.L. He was ered a row of manila folders bursting I’d have done it a lot sooner.” holding a plastic bag. with yellowed newsclips. Leitsch used In 1959, when Leitsch was twenty- “What’d you bring me?” Leitsch asked. to collect mentions of the “homophile four, he left his family home, in Ken- “Oh, sorry, not for you. It’s cat food.” movement,” a term that preceded the tucky, for New York City, where he found In the dining room, Baumann took modern gay-rights vocabulary. “Clip- work as a painter, a bartender, a deco- note of about two dozen cardboard boxes. ping files make me a little crazy,” Bau- rator, a journalist, and as the unpaid “With archives, people always end up mann said, and shut the drawer. president of the Mattachine Society, one giving you things that you didn’t antici- Next up was Leitsch’s collection of of the first gay-rights organizations. He pate,” Baumann said. “We’ll weed out magazines and newsletters, including led campaigns to end police entrapment extraneous items, like bills and Chinese After Dark (“Oh, bless you—they’re real and discrimination by local bars, cul- menus.” The rest will be preserved in a collector’s items,” Baumann said); Chris- minating in the 1966 “sip-in” at Julius’, concrete repository, set to sixty-five de- topher Street (“We have the archives”); in the Village. When the Stonewall grees Fahrenheit, underneath Bryant Park. Female Mimics (“That’s fabulous”); the riots broke out, three years later, he was “You have your job cut out for you,” 1969 Time issue on homosexuality the only openly gay reporter on the Leitsch said. “I can’t believe all this crap.” (“Cute”); and the monthly bulletin for scene, covering the event for a new gay- Baumann took inventory, applying the Mattachine Society. There were only focussed magazine called The Advocate. yellow Post-it notes marked “Library” three other contributors, but Leitsch

18 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 had given each of them several pen volunteered to explain the surprising had animal waste—then maybe that’s names, to make the outfit appear big- number of ways that one can run afoul negligent?” ger. A 1971 issue of Gay featured an in- of the law while picking unharvested “Definitely gross,” someone said. terview that Leitsch had conducted with fruits and nuts for homeless shelters Shawn Peterson, the director of Green a twenty-five-year-old Bette Midler. and food banks, as more than four hun- Urban Lunch Box, in Salt Lake City, (“Escape is necessary sometimes,” Mid- dred volunteer groups in the United said, “You’re talking about apple worms, ler had said. “Don’t escape into bullshit. States now do. right? Well, codling moths have been Get stoned and listen to Santana.”) “A few weeks ago, I didn’t even know found to have no harm to humans.” Wrapping up, Baumann said that protection for food donation was a “Yeah, same with aphids,” a woman he’d return in a week or so. Leitsch would thing,” Pruitt, who wore a silk scarf said. sign a deed of gift to the library and around her neck, said before she began. Next, the group parsed a bit of le- they’d arrange a pickup. “But I’ve been studying the case law. ” galese regarding the protections aforded After Baumann left, Leitsch sat down One attendee, Jennifer Jans, described the hosts of gleaners. Craig Durkin, a on a magenta sleeper sofa. “Every item herself as an “outreach raccoon” for Hid- gleaner with Concrete Jungle, in At- in this apartment has a story,” he said. den Harvest, a gleaning outfit in Ot- lanta, said, “This is basically stating, as He pointed at a framed photograph of tawa. “We rescue fruit and nuts, largely himself, in a gray blazer and a striped from yards,” she said. “People will sign wool tie, from high school. “In Ken- up their trees. Maybe they don’t want tucky, nobody does anything except have to harvest them, or they have too much babies, go to church, and play basket- fruit.” She listed some commonly gleaned ball,” he said. “And I don’t do any of Ottawan comestibles: “cherries, pears, those, so I wasn’t gonna live there.” black walnuts, and the rare apricot tree.” At half past ten, he said that he had Also, “lots and lots of crab apples, which to get ready for bed. The next day, fifty I whine about, even though they’re nu- friends were coming by for a party, a tritious and delicious.” sort of living wake. He thought of call- Emily Worm, a network manager ing the event “Dick Leitsch: Not Dead for After the Harvest, in Kansas City, Yet.” From the couch, he gestured to- Missouri, explained the history of glean- ward an elaborate candelabrum in the ing. “It goes back to the Bible,” she said. corner. “A junkie sold it to me on Christ- “Farmers were supposed to leave the mas Eve,” he said. And then, somewhat corners of their fields unharvested for sheepishly, “I think it belongs to the fu- strangers, widows, and orphans.” She neral parlor across the street. I should added, “I think that’s in Ruth? That’s a give it back to them.” book in the Bible, right?” She gleans I understand it, ‘We came into your 1—David Kortava sixty kinds of produce—“everything yard to pick apples. If someone falls out from sweet corn to sweet potatoes,” she of a tree, they can’t sue you, because BOUNTY DEPT. said. “Strawberries to mustard greens.” you’re letting them in on good faith to WA S TE N OT The lecture began. “How do you lose pick fruit.’” your protection under the Bill Emerson Someone asked, “But can our volun- Act?” Pruitt asked the gleaners, refer- teers sue us?” ring to a piece of pro-gleaner legislation “No, it’s not your property,” Pruitt enacted by Bill Clinton in 1996. (Don- said. “Unless they fell out of a tree, and ald Trump has never tweeted the terms then you step on them intentionally.” “food waste,” “food bank,” or “gleaning,” “Well, let’s say we’re using my lad- wo dozen gleaners—not to be con- although he once wrote, “My two sons, der,” Peterson said. “And this volunteer Tfused with foragers or dumpster Eric & Don...go on safaris & give an- falls of my ladder and gets hurt.” divers—showed up for the second animals to the poor & starving villagers!”) “You could be protected,” Pruitt said. nual International Gleaners Symposium, Pruitt went on, “Let’s say you pick up “Now, if they go to your house and use held recently at the Georgia Institute of products from farmers and you donate a ladder to save a squirrel, that’s difer- Technology, in Atlanta. They were there them. And one day you decide, ‘I don’t ent. The purpose of going up that lad- to discuss the finer points of gathering want to check the food for bugs or other der was not to pick apples.” A few glean- neglected foodstufs from roadsides, back infestation.’ That may be considered ers nodded thoughtfully. yards, and other nonpublic places, and gross negligence.” She added, “Don’t After lunch, Durkin led a walking then donating them to the hungry. do that.” tour of the campus’s fruit trees. “This The gleaners sat in a classroom, A gleaner raised her hand. “Do worms is a serviceberry,” he said, stopping at drinking cofee and eating store-bought count as an infestation?” a small, fruitless tree. “There’s proba- grapes. They were awaiting remarks Dave Laskarzewski, from UpRoot bly a hundred on campus. They have from Ashley Pruitt, a local lawyer spe- Colorado, interrupted. “I think if you this great little white flower and this cializing in civil litigation, who had knew the fields you were gleaning in really delicious berry that comes in

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 19 around late May here. Like a blueberry. of Joan Baez marching with James Bald- “He’d say, ‘Mom, all your friends are Excellent pie.” win. “I was asked to direct a music video broke,’” Willis recalled. She said she re- “Do you harvest often on campus?” on Joan Baez’s new album,” she said. “I plied, “Yeah, but they’re having fun.” someone asked. called Hank. He said, ‘Mom, you’re doing Thomas spent hours in the center’s “Yes,” Durkin said. too many things. You don’t have time.’ ‘But research stacks. “Growing up in the ar- “Do you have to get permission?” it’s Joan Baez.’ Of course I had to do it.” chive, I just became hyperaware of the Barbara Eiswerth, a gleaner from Ari- They continued to stroll, and Willis missing images in our society—the im- zona, asked. nodded at several of the photographs, ages that aren’t shown, the stories that “I couldn’t hear that question,” Durkin which she had acquired for the center in aren’t told,” he said. said. the nineteen-eighties and nineties. “Sweet Near the F.B.I. poster was a shot of Next up: the eastern redbud tree. “Ev- memories,” she said. That was before she the 1971 prison uprising at Attica, the erything on it is edible,” Durkin said, won a MacArthur Fellowship, in 2000, inmates raising their fists in the air. grabbing a branch. “The bud is kind of as a historian of African-American pho- Thomas used the picture in his latest sweet and vegetable-y. Like a snap pea.” tography, and became the chair of body of work, which is currently on view Eiswerth popped one in her mouth. N.Y.U.’s department of photography and at the Jack Shainman Gallery. The se- “More like pineapple guava,” she said. imaging. “I had to work late, and Hank ries features photographic images of A passing student tried a bud. “About was in pre-K,” she recalled. “I would pick twentieth-century protests—in favor of how I’d expect a plant to taste,” he said. him up and dash him back here.” women’s sufrage and the Equal Rights Pruitt nodded: “A lot like eating grass, “When I was old enough to find my Amendment, against segregation and I’d imagine.” own way, I would come myself,” Thomas, apartheid. “It’s really a reminder that the 1—Charles Bethea who is now forty-two, said. He would road to progress is always under con- ride the bus from P.S. 87, on West Sev- struction,” he said. THE ARTISTIC LIFE enty-eighth Street, to 135th Street. He printed the archival pictures on PAYING ATTENTION “It was a diferent time,” Willis said. retroreflective sheeting, a material that “It was a much more dangerous time,” obscures the images except when they her son said. are struck with direct light, such as a “He knew which bus to take: the camera flash. “Like on the highway— No. 7 bus; he was seven. I followed him when signs are dark unless your head- a couple of times to make sure he could light hits them,” he said. “It makes things do it.” visible from your unique perspective he mother-and-son artists Debo- Thomas’s gaze wandered toward the only if you are shining a light on them. Trah Willis and Hank Willis Thomas phone in his hand. His thumb made a That’s kind of a metaphor for history.” stopped by the Schomburg Center for repetitive motion. His mother tapped Thomas checked his phone again— Research in Black Culture, in Harlem, his arm. He didn’t respond. Giving up, the latest Trump headlines this time, and the other day. Thomas carried his moth- she listed a few of the groundbreaking his calendar—and reported that Willis’s er’s tote bag for her as they walked figures who had passed through the next photography exhibit was scheduled through an exhibit titled “Black Power!” Schomburg during her tenure: Gordon to open two days before his show, at the An F.B.I. most-wanted poster caught Parks, Maya Angelou, Arthur Ashe. Shine Portrait Studio, in Newark. Thomas’s eye. The hunted man, iden- Thomas looked up. “I was playing “You’re sure on that phone,” his tified as Hubert Gerold Brown, had a with my G.I. Joes then. Didn’t think mother chided. prominent Afro and wore dark glasses. much about it.” Nor did he give much “Multitasking. I’m here.” Thomas, who makes politically charged thought to becoming an artist. Willis’s new series explores people’s conceptual art, said, “Strange to see sun- closets. “I was curious about what made glasses in a mug shot.” Then he noticed people happy about their clothes,” she the same figure wearing the same shades explained. “My husband said, ‘Ask peo- in a photo of civil-rights leaders. “I’ve ple what they don’t like in their closets.’ never heard of him before,” Thomas said. Not one person disliked anything in their Willis, who is seventy and first vis- closet. That says a lot. They can’t wear it ited the Schomburg Center as a pho- anymore—it’s too tight, too short. But tography student, before returning as a they have good memories in those clothes.” curator, peered at the image. “That’s “You’re looking at the closet as an H. Rap Brown,” she said, using the man’s archive,” Thomas said. “It’s the images activist moniker. (Brown, who once we keep, the stories we keep. It doesn’t declared, “Violence is as American as have to be in a library or a museum to cherry pie,” has since changed his name be a historical record.” Willis beamed. to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.) “See, people don’t think I’m paying “Oh! He was a political prisoner.” attention,” Thomas said. “I’m always “He still is,” his mother corrected. paying attention.” Willis smiled as she passed a picture Hank Willis Thomas and Deborah Willis —Julie Belcove

20 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 1 SAN FRANCISCO POSTCARD FEEDBACK

n a recent damp evening in San OFrancisco, on one of the few remaining blocks of blight between the headquarters of Twitter and Salesforce, two hundred and eighty people gathered in a former printing warehouse. A paper sign on a table inside read “Welcome to Drunk User Testing! We’re so glad you’re here!” “He uses tools and he lings excrement—what’s not to vote for?” The sold-out crowd comprised mostly male tech workers in their twenties who had paid about six dol- •• lars a head to drink unlimited beer and wine and to try out apps. At a regis- ing, were household names. But others unteers were each given a steel lask. tration table, guests were asked to ill were less well-known: 15Five (provides The pretzels went quickly, as did the out nametags with their irst name and performance feedback to workers); Trav- beer. The harried bartenders ran out of their reason for attending. Three sug- elBank (organizes business expenses); pint glasses early; they switched to plas- gested reasons were helpfully posted: Kissmetrics (helps marketers analyze tic cups, and then to paper cups. They “Looking!”; “I’m hiring!”; and “Just user behavior). also ran out of three of the beers. drinking” (with a smiley emoticon). After a drink or two, attendees hit Two hours into the party, Jonathan Haley Richards, a Dartmouth stu- the testing areas. At TravelBank, one Kim bounded up a staircase. With a beer dent from Berkeley, wore a tag that listed guest put down his beer and struggled in one hand and a microphone in the her reason for attending as “livin’ life.” to ind the log-in window before click- other, he called for attention. Some guests She said, “The New York Times Cross- ing the wrong blue button to ile an looked up briely. The din of alcohol- word—that’s my favorite app. Except expense report. enriched conversations and rap music for when I’m drinking; then it’s Uber.” “Why did you click on that button?” overwhelmed his attempt to thank the Drunk User Testing is based on the Angelina Kim, an entirely sober senior sponsoring companies. He descended design principle that an app should be product manager, asked. and was swallowed by the crowd, only simple enough that even a drunk per- “I thought that’s what I was sup- a small percentage of which, by this son can use it. The event was hosted posed to do,” he replied, addled. time, seemed to be interested in apps. by AppCues, a Boston-based startup “Why, what are you trying to do?” “The idea of intoxicating a large that seeks to improve users’ experiences Kim asked. “What’s going through your group of people is good to get a lot of of apps. As the space illed up, Jona- head right now?” data that you might not get otherwise,” than Kim, the company’s twenty-nine- “It seems like I should be entering a software engineer named Amy Lof- year old C.E.O., said, “We asked our- some details for this expense?” he tus said, looking around. Her male com- selves, ‘How cool would it be to throw guessed. Kim frowned and pecked notes panion handed her a paper cup of wine. a party and let people test apps?’” into her phone. The attendee was Neither of them had tested any apps. Behind a long bar at the front of the handed a pair of dress socks as he re- “I was in line to test the Kintone app,” room, two bartenders dispensed six ar- trieved his beer. she said. “But the wait was so long I tisanal beers on tap, their alcohol con- Each test session took between ive gave up.” tent burned into wooden placards: High and ten minutes. Soon the lines to test “I don’t want to wait in lines,” her Water Brewing Mango Rangpur IPA, the apps grew longer than the lines to friend said. He wondered about why 6.5%; Epidemic Ales Sleep Disorder get beer. The line for the free photo Lyft and Uber weren’t represented at Porter, 7.5%; Allagash White, 5.1%; and booth was even longer. the event: “They’re the quintessential Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin, 7%. The testing area for Kintone, an app apps that people use when drunk.” There were also six kinds of wine. To that lets you build more apps, was es- Outside, partyers huddled along the soak it up, soft pretzels were on ofer— pecially crowded. A four-foot-tall curb, staring into the glow of their plain or cinnamon—with eight dip- stuffed-giraffe mascot looked on as phone screens, tracking their Lyfts and ping sauces to choose from. cheery staf, in warmup jackets embla- Ubers. It was raining, and they would Past the bar, ten companies had set zoned with the phrase “Love your data,” be waiting longer than usual. up testing areas. Some, like Couchsurf- herded people through. Post-test, vol- —Blaise Zerega

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 21 It always takes him a minute to retrieve PROFILES that name.” Doc appears, a major-minor character, in Kushner’s third novel, “The Mars Room,” which comes out in May. LIFE SENTENCES Kushner, who is forty-nine and lives in Los Angeles, thinks of herself as a “girl Rachel Kushner’s prison novel, like her others, dances between invention and fact. citizen,” asking questions, at large in the world. She uses the novel as a place to BY DANA GOODYEAR be flamboyant and funny, and to tell propulsive stories, but mainly as a capacious arena for thinking. In her work, Kush- ner draws on decades of American social life and European intellectual history, while remaining open to slinky aberrations—poemlike passages, mono- logues, lists, a slip into unadulterated fact. “The Mars Room,” for instance, contains excerpts from the Unabomber’s diaries. This takes swagger. Don DeLillo, a friend, is a tutelary figure. Like him, she is good at conjuring mayhem: a riot, a blackout, a bomb going of at the country club. Her reading taste runs to Marguerite Duras and Clarice Lispector—women who are brainy, sexy, complex, unman- ageable. “These are proxies for her,” Kush- ner’s husband, Jason Smith, the chair of the M.F.A. program at ArtCenter Col- lege of Design, says. “That’s what Ra- chel’s into—Spinoza with lipstick.” Butter keeps her slender, along with five-mile runs in Elysian Park, near her house. She says she used to consider it a great injustice that she was not born more beautiful, had to work angles. She is being greedy. “Her whole hookup is badass,” Theresa Martinez, a friend of hers who was paroled from prison in 2009, told me. “But you can’t nickname a person Badass.” (She calls her Stormy: everal years ago, the novelist Rachel tures of Harley-Davidsons, relics of a a force blowing in.) Kushner has owned SKushner followed an inmate at New former life. In the five minutes she was several motorcycles; she skis like a racer, Folsom Prison, in Sacramento, into his alone with him, she told me, “I just felt attacking the fall line, and rides around cell. A former Los Angeles police oicer, his person, like he went into my skin. town, wearing Rouge Coco lipstick, in he was serving a life sentence without You get a whif of somebody’s essence, a black-cherry 1964 Ford Galaxie. She the possibility of parole for working as a whether you wanted it or not, and that’s wonders, Can one feel cathexis for a contract killer. Kushner, seeking to learn enough to write a whole character.” muscle car? For longer trips, she takes a about the prison system, had come with The whif she got was of a cleaning beat-up 2000 Honda Accord, with a copy a criminology professor and his students, solution called Cell Block 64, mingled of Steinbeck’s journals and Duras’s “The but, as the group continued down the with cop cologne. From this, she wrote Lover” tossed on the back seat. hall, she stayed behind, and the prisoner the character Doc, in a single entranced When Kushner started visiting pris- told her about his crimes—the ones he session of literary ventriloquism: “Doc ons, in 2014, she had written two well- was in for and those which had never had money on his books and used actual regarded novels, one about Cuba in the been found out. His complexion was cologne and not Old Fucking Spice, ei- fifties and the other about New York in ghoulishly youthful, undamaged by the ther. Good cologne by an Italian name- the seventies. Studying incarceration sun: dirty cops don’t dare go on the yard. brand designer he can never remember. was a way to address the contemporary, On the cell walls Kushner glimpsed pic- But then he remembers: Cesare Paciotti. and to understand an obscure realm that outsiders rarely enter. “I wanted to have Kushner says, “I like managing things that are a little outside my control.” a life that would include people that the

22 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 PHOTOGRAPH BY AMANDA DEMME State of California has rendered invis- For years, Kushner wrote around ifornia, San Francisco, they moved the ible to others,” Kushner told me, the Romy, unable to connect. “I came up family there, to a neighborhood called first time we met, at the Taix, a vener- against hardpan, where you can’t dig the Sunset. Kushner, ten and still in able French restaurant where she eats down,” she told me. “I would never go bell-bottoms, was released into a harsh, several times a week. (She doesn’t cook.) to prison for life, because I have these delinquent youth culture. On the first “The theatrical component of due pro- resources to protect me.” Then, as she day of sixth grade in her new school, a cess is over,” she said. “Where do they began to write passages about her own girl she had just met asked, “Do you go?” Most of “The Mars Room” takes adolescence and give them to Romy, a want to come downtown with me? I place inside a prison loosely based on fusion started to occur. Kushner went haven’t seen my sister for a while.” Ra- the Central California Women’s Facil- on, “Romy’s from my neighborhood. Her chel went. The sister was working as a ity—also called Chowchilla, after a friends are my friends. And a lot of her prostitute on Market Street. nearby almond-growing and -process- experiences I’m intimately familiar with.” One night, at the Pyrenees, a Basque ing town. Chowchilla, which Kushner The voice she found—pragmatic, syn- shepherd bar in the warehouse district has visited dozens of times, is the larg- copated, pained—is tempered by what of Bakersfield, where Kushner likes to est women’s prison in the world. her friend Bret Easton Ellis described stop on trips to Chowchilla, she drew Several weeks after our first meet- to me as “thrilling neutrality.” “The ghost me a map of the Sunset: forty-eight av- ing, Kushner drove the Honda to Chow- of my childhood lives in the back of enues, south of Golden Gate Park, lead- chilla. It was raining heavily; new wiper buses,” Romy says, in “The Mars Room.” ing down to Ocean Beach. Many life- blades slapped against the glass. Kush- “It says, What’s up, juts its chin.” long San Franciscans, she said, have ner, in sunglasses, peered ahead, a scarf Kushner’s parents—Pinky, a South- never even been there. “It was decidedly tied at her neck. As the rain subsided, ern redhead with a ski-jump nose, and unchic,” she told me. “It’s very wet and she started looking for the halo of or- Peter, the son of New York Commu- foggy out there, all built on sand dunes, ange light that marked the presence of nists—were scientists, integration activ- no street trees, a bleakness. The hous- the prison in dim fields. “For me, things ists, Beats. Pinky said she wanted her ing stock was generic. It was full of girls sometimes circle around imagery,” she daughter to be a poet and her son to be with big feathered hair who wanted to said. “It’s not necessarily visual, could a painter. (Kushner’s brother, dismay- party and were going to get pregnant be more poetic, but in this case it was ingly, chose medicine.) When Rachel by eighteen. Their parents were Irish, visual.” The light was just a puf, an em- was little, and her parents were gradu- from Ireland, and the dads were cops.” anation you might fail to register, un- ate students at the University of Ore- As the novel opens, Romy is on her less you knew that some three thousand gon, they lived on and of in a school way to prison, on a bus with blacked- women were locked up there. bus heated by a wood-burning stove, out windows. Thinking about the past “That’s it!” she cried, pointing at the and survived on six hundred dollars a she is relinquishing, full of omens she sodium glow. A friend inside had told month, augmented by food stamps. failed to recognize, she tells stories to her that one night there was a power In the winter, the bus was sometimes an unspecified “you,” anyone who might outage, and as she was being hustled parked at ski mountains: one year in be out there listening: “The Sunset was from her work-exchange job to her cell Bend, Oregon, and another in British San Francisco, proudly, and yet an al- block, for the lockdown procedure that Columbia. The family hiked up and ternate one to what you might know: it accompanies any anomaly—brawling, skied above the lift line, the sandwiches was not about rainbow flags or Beat po- fog, or suicide—she glimpsed the Milky in their pockets fogging the cellophane. etry or steep crooked streets but fog and Way. It was breathtaking. Stars: she had Beatnik poverty, in Kushner’s telling, Irish bars and liquor stores all the way not seen them since she got caught, and, was a kind of gift, helping her develop to the Great Highway, where a sea of as she was serving two life sentences taste and politics and irony, and leaving broken glass glittered along the endless without the possibility of parole, she her with an open admiration for her par- parking strip of Ocean Beach. It was us might not again. ents that you rarely find in adult artists. girls in the back of someone’s primered She read Steinbeck and Nelson Algren Charger or Challenger riding those omy Hall, the central voice of “The and listened to the wacky stories told by short, but long, forty-eight blocks to the RMars Room,” is a former dancer at her parents’ Prankster-adjacent friends. beach, one boy shotgun with a stolen a strip club on Market Street in San “I thought, Literature—you really have fire extinguisher, flocking people on Francisco. She is serving two life sen- to know hobo livin’,” she says. “It was re- street corners, randoms blasted white.” tences, plus an additional six years, for produced in the social environment I was Kushner was younger than her class- attacking and killing a regular who in.” Interpreting the world, she under- mates—she had started school early and began shadowing her on his Harley, stood, meant remaining alert to moments skipped seventh grade. Among her peers, turning up at her local market and, when when someone does something poetic. she says, “intelligence was a form of ug- she moved to Los Angeles to get away “The more in the world you are, the liness,” so she did her best to hide it. She from him, on her front porch. The night higher your chances are of witnessing fell in with a group of hard-partying, she encountered him there, her young that,” she says. “It wasn’t so much about unlooked-after kids, who went by the son, Jackson, was asleep in her arms; studying literature—it was about being.” name White Punks on Dope, though the extra six years on her sentence were When Kushner’s parents got post- they weren’t all white. As long as she for endangering a minor. doctoral jobs at the University of Cal- had her act together in school, which

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 23 she always did, her parents extended system.” When I asked him about the David Hammons. In the living room, almost limitless freedom. Emily Gold- remark, he said, “That suggests she there is a sculpture by the Paris collec- man, a friend from that period, who is thinks there is a bad Rachel, which is tive Claire Fontaine, a brick of solid alu- now a juvenile defender and sometimes interesting. But whatever the bad Ra- minum made of melted-down cans, represents Sunset kids, told me, “Cod- chel is she is probably generative. Writ- stamped with the word “Redemptions.” dling was against Rachel’s parents’ being Romy, she was not exactly purging From the house, it is a short distance liefs of child-raising. They had enough but attempting to articulate her past to the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal respect for their children to think that symbolically.” He paused. “She has a Justice Center, where, in the past several they would know how to prioritize and stone in the shoe about childhood.” years, Kushner has sat in on dozens of make good decisions, and they thought Many of Kushner’s friends from that arraignments. “The obscure person com- that their kids should take their lumps. time didn’t finish high school. One, Jon mits a crime and is pushed into this But I don’t think they were fully aware. Hirst, stabbed someone in a bar fight carceral light,” she said. At arraignments, I know they weren’t seeing what we were and went to San Bruno jail, from which the defendants, sitting behind glass in seeing. Other parents did see it, and par- he escaped, running in jailhouse slip- the “fish tank,” often meet their public ticipated. There were houses where the pers back to San Francisco to take ref- defenders for the first time. Kushner, lis- parents would snort cocaine with us.” uge with his neighborhood friends. He tening to them answer rote questions Kushner was always a risk-taker, game was immediately caught, and ended up about their employment history, per- for adventure. Goldman said, “She would in San Quentin, then in Susanville, then ceived a pattern, describing lives at the go along on those dark nights, in those dead. Kushner went to Berkeley, start- margins. The information accreted into sketchy situations—fourteen-year-old ing classes in the fall of 1985, when she a list that appears as a freestanding chap- girls standing on street corners or in the was only sixteen. ter in “The Mars Room”: park to see what would happen.” What When asked what she did for a living, the sus- happened: fires, thefts, assaults, arrests, ushner lives with Smith and their pect said she worked. adults betraying young people in sin- Kson, Remy, in Angelino Heights, a Recycling, he’d written. ister ways. Kushner’s friend Cynthia neighborhood of splendidly restored He brought recycling to a redemption center, Mitchell, who grew up nearby, said, “My Victorians and crumbling firetraps he explained. sense is she had two lives, an interior perched above downtown. Her house, Recycler. Recycler. life and then this life as—not a ring- built at the start of the last century and Recycler. leader but an observer. She’d be friends bought out of foreclosure during the re- Recycler. with the worst girls but was not the one cession, is a large Craftsman with a deep Redemptions, he told them. to instigate the really horrible stuf.” porch, filled with vintage chandeliers Redeemer was what she wrote. Kushner recalled that, when she and pieces made by artist friends—Laura — The suspect said she had mostly made her finished the book, her husband told her, Owens, Billy Al Bengston—and by her living by collecting bottles and cans. “Maybe the bad Rachel is all out of your cousin, an ironworker who fabricates for Late one Saturday afternoon in April, I met Kushner at her house. From there, we went downtown, past the Criminal Justice Center to Skid Row, where her friend Theresa Martinez lives in an S.R.O. By the time we got to the neighborhood, it was nearly dark, and Kush- ner was lost. “How did I screw this up so badly?” she muttered, embarrassed by her unreliable sense of direction. “I have walked into closets to leave people’s houses before.” She parked two blocks from the building, and, holding a bag of KFC for Martinez, steered us through a chaotic scene. Hundreds of people were on the street, in tents or not, in socks, barefoot, injured, cooking, drinking, drugging, calling out, a loose and wretched party starting to crank up. A lot of them wanted a wing. Martinez, who is in her fifties, with highlighted dark hair, pencilled brows, and a filigree of tattoos on her chest and arms, was waiting outside, tsking Kush- ner for walking around. She hates Skid Row. She led us up to her room, deco- “I put that in the book,” Kushner said. stories and tracked them down. From rated with Hello Kitty figurines and “She’s Candy Peña in my book. I wanted the safety of Chattanooga, where the made-to-order gift baskets that she sells her to be Rosie Alfaro. She will be the family moved after Nicaro, her grand- in the neighborhood. A large television first woman since the sixties to be exe- father had been madly envious when showed the screen saver for a bootleg cuted in California when they do it.” his fellow management types were kid- copy of “Star Trek: Enterprise.” “She would have been fine with you napped by Raúl Castro and taken into “I can’t even remember the first time using her name,” Martinez said. “We got the Sierra Maestra, to drink rum and we met, Stormy,” Martinez said, spoon- along. When I was in ad-seg, we sent a play fast draw for the benefit of a photo ing out mashed potatoes. It was 2014, lot of stuf through the toi- crew from Life. After her trip and Martinez, who had been out of let to death row. We used to to Cuba, Kushner went to prison for five years, was still struggling flag each other—that’s where see the widow of one of the to adjust. First incarcerated at the age you write backwards really kidnapped men, in Starke, of twelve, she went back to prison at fast with your hands, and the Florida. The widow showed eighteen for possessing, traicking, and police can’t understand.” She her an album of her long-de- selling PCP. After that, she was in and traced letters in the air. ceased husband, who was se- out of women’s facilities, including cretly half Cuban; on each Chowchilla, where she was among the n 2000, Kushner’s mother page, he was posed on the first inhabitants. “Over the next twenty- Iand her aunts invited her same rock in Nicaro, but each three years, I only had fourteen months to accompany them on a trip time with a diferent Cuban of free-world time,” she told me. In prison, to Cuba, to see the lost world woman. A character began she said, she was a shot-caller for a group of their youth. For several years in the to form, the man who keeps trying to of Latinas. Eventually, she also became early nineteen-fifties, Kushner’s grand- escape the trap of his life. a founding board member of Justice father, a metallurgist, worked at the Kushner told me, “I remember stand- Now, an Oakland-based legal organiza- American-owned nickel-processing plant ing in the middle of the Grand Street tion that helps imprisoned women ad- in Nicaro, at the island’s eastern end. oice thinking, What if, when he was dress human-rights violations. In 2014, Across the bay, in Preston, where Pinky released from the mountains, he walked in collaboration with women at Chow- and her sisters, DeeDee, Fritzie, and down, went into Nicaro, into his back chilla, the organization successfully spon- Betsy, shopped and socialized, was the yard, and pondered not going inside? It sored legislation to stop coercive steril- regional headquarters of the United Fruit showed me what fiction could do, and ization in California prisons. Company, whose colonial culture held how to imagine people in a place, and Kushner began visiting Chowchilla sway over the whole province. The Cas- how that would require an understand- as a Justice Now volunteer, and hired tro boys’ father had a hacienda there. ing of the complicated social matrix of Martinez as a consultant on her book. Like all Cubans, they were excluded from the place—his having hidden his ethnic Martinez drew her detailed maps of the the American commissaries, clubs, and origins and this pressure of appearances prison: the yards, the dorms, the blind jobs—an exclusion that later became the in nineteen-fifties corporate culture and spots, Needle Park, and Lovers’ Lane. subject of bitter speeches by Fidel. the kidnapping that has to do with this She told her where you can fight (the At the time of the trip, Kushner was oncoming revolution that would steam- porta-potties) and how to make prison recently out of school; she had graduated roll everything. I would have to think cheesecake (nondairy creamers and from Berkeley, with a degree in politi- about this moment, to vividly imagine Sprite) and what Danielle Steel book cal economy, and finished an M.F.A. in it and render it, and it seemed really fun was the must-read. Martinez’s escapades fiction at Columbia. She was living in to me. And that’s when I thought, I want entered the book, more or less unaltered, New York, working at the literary mag- to write a novel about this.” Her instincts, through Sammy, a shot-caller who takes azine Grand Street and writing reviews and the artists she had befriended through Romy under her wing. “You know the for Artforum. When she arrived in Pres- her work for Artforum, suggested that situation with the hot-wired cement ton, she noticed that the workers’ shacks, she go somewhere with few social obli- mixer?” Martinez said, and she and four decades into the revolution, were still gations and cheap vegetables. In 2003, Kushner cracked up. “Theresa is a mas- painted United Fruit yellow, a dusty mus- she moved to Los Angeles. termind of the place,” Kushner said. “It’s tard that the company laced with insec- For a few years, Kushner sat on the a thousand acres, and she explained the ticide to keep malaria infections down. edge of her bed and thought. Eventu- water supply, the barbed wire, the elec- The detail lodged. “This empire had ally, she began to write. “Telex from trical system.” been chased out, but the residue of their Cuba,” published in 2008, is a shimmer- Martinez said, “I told her about the dominating gestures remained,” she told ing account of the turmoil leading up ad-seg area”—administrative segrega- me. Her mother reconnected with a to Castro’s ascent, United Fruit’s expul- tion, for rule-breakers—“where death Jamaican-born man who had been her sion, and the expropriation of the nickel row is at. My friend Rosie Alfaro has family’s houseboy; a proud revolution- mine. The efort, which feels almost been back there for eighteen years.” Al- ary, he accompanied them on a visit to archeological, drew from a comprehen- faro, she said, had stabbed a child doz- the Castros’ ancestral home. It was being sive archive her grandparents kept of ens of times while high on PCP. In her painted, United Fruit yellow. their sojourn in Cuba, down to the piano cell, she has a shrine to her victim. Kushner remembered other family tuner’s business card. But Kushner is

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 25 PROMOTION wary of appearing too reliant on source and Adorno. Smith would say things material. Jason Smith says, “She’s re- like “Oh, you’re interested in courtly sistant to the word ‘research.’ She’s wor- love? You should read Lacan’s Semi- ried that people would see the work as nar VII.” That provided Kushner with sociological or too driven by historical the scafolding to write about the idea verisimilitude. Though she’s quite em- of absence in Western conceptions of phatic about being right.” romance, a strain in the Rachel K.–La In Kushner’s view, the value of fic- Mazière afair. She says, “He brought tion is its ability to wrap reality in a things into the house. It gave me the “mythical envelope,” a shroud of mean- confidence to read Proust.” They were ing-making that can produce stories that married in 2007, in the same San Fran- are truer than truth. At the heart of the cisco courthouse where her parents, after book are two obscure but significant his- decades of cohabitation, had wed not torical figures, doing things they never long before. Later that year, Remy was did. One, perhaps irritatingly, is named born. (He’s ten now, and does his home- Rachel K., a call girl in Havana who in- work at a lima-bean-shaped desk that tersects the lives of the Castros, of Cu- Rachel’s grandmother used in Nicaro.) ba’s President, and of the head of United One day, after the book came out, an Fruit. Kushner told me, “My editor, Nan aunt called Kushner and told her that Graham, who has a wry way of speak- she’d been listening to Robert Stone on ing, said, ‘What is this Rachel K. busi- public radio, and he had mentioned that ness?’ She doesn’t have a lot of patience he was reading a great book: “Telegrams for that kind of thing. I said, ‘That is from Cuba,” by someone named Kush- the name of a historical icon in Cuba ner. Then she got a letter from DeLillo. who came to symbolize dictatorial dec- She worries that it’s corny, but she has adence.’ She said, ‘Well, then you can’t it framed in her oice, next to two certifi- by Stefano Tonchi change her name!’ Maybe it makes it cates citing her as a National Book flawed in a way. I didn’t know what the Award finalist, for “Telex” and for her efect of that was going to be, but I like second book, “The Flamethrowers.” De- An in-depth look at managing things that are a little outside Lillo’s letter praises her ease with being my control.” The poet and novelist Ben in the action—“Telex” starts with a cane W’s most arresting Lerner, who befriended Kushner after fire, set by the rebels—and also acknowl- reading her work, says, “Her research is edges the humor of a corporate hege- fashion features. really thorough, but also she’s willing to mon in the homophobic nineteen-fifties let the net efect of it render the notion going by the name United Fruit. of the fact less stable. Rachel K., the most outrageous thing—the thing that ne Saturday, I met Rachel, Jason, seems most like artifice—is real.” Oand Remy at Go Kart World, just With a foreword by Miuccia Prada Rachel K.’s paramour, in “Telex,” is of the freeway, in Carson. They are reg- Plus an exclusive online access Christian de La Mazière, a French aris- ulars; the young guys working at the track code for five fashion films tocrat. In life, La Mazière scandalously nodded hello. I crunched myself into joined the Charlemagne division of the a car resembling a demonic, exhaust- by Steven Klein, Tim Walker, Wafen S.S., during the summer of 1944. spewing ladybug and waited for the light Steven Meisel, and more But Kushner, seeing La Mazière as at- to turn green. “Never take your foot of tracted to violence rather than to ide- the gas,” Kushner advised. She got in her ology, thought that a Communist rev- car, a yellow one, and Jason and Remy olution would suit him fine. “He was each got in theirs. Chugging around AVAILABLE WHEREVER just looking for action,” she said. “So the track, I caught sight of Kushner as BOOKS ARE SOLD I brought him there. I also thought it she bore down on Remy, her lips pursed would be funny. Reversals can be quite in concentration. “I lapped you guys!” generative. Not just for the dynamic of she crowed when we were done. And writing but for getting close to truth.” then, without remorse, “I tried to go slow.” Not long after arriving in Los An- When Kushner was growing up, her geles, Kushner met Smith, a tall, cere- father had a motorcycle, a Vincent Black bral doctoral student, finishing a degree Shadow, but forbade her to ride. After in comparative literature under Jacques Berkeley, she got an orange Moto Guzzi, Derrida at the University of Califor- an Italian bike for people who favor style nia, Irvine. Jack Bankowsky, a critic at over performance. Living in San Fran- Artforum, calls them Dorothy Parker cisco again, she took up with her old crew and started bartending, taking creative-writing classes on the side. Her boyfriend at the time was a Moto Guzzi mechanic. So was the next one. “In my early twenties, I was attracted to men who lived and breathed motorcycles,” she writes in a nonfiction essay about that time. “And I was into motorcycles as well.” A friend from San Francisco, who went on to race professionally, told me, “There weren’t a lot of women that rode motorcycles. There were women that rode on the backs of motorcycles.” What can he say? “She likes machines.” Like most motorcycle stories, this one ends abruptly: Kushner, in ill-fitting leathers, riding a Kawasaki Ninja 600 on Highway 1 in Baja, going over her handlebars at a hundred and thirty miles an hour. When the road rash healed, she was more or less done with riding, and ready to write about it. I mention “Come on, you know the words! Bum bum bum bum!” this history because it is Kushner’s night- mare to be thought of as a dilettante— •• someone who rode on the back, saw a picture in a magazine, entered search tle . . . that one was left unsure if the thing Bankowsky, of Artforum, told me. “She terms in Google. Her immersion is the observed was performance or plain life.” spoofed me”—sending up the graiti- art. The written record is an artifact of We never learn Reno’s real name. covered dining table that he and his part- the experience. Her nickname is given to her by a flir- ner, the gallerist Matthew Marks, have In this way, she has something in com- tatious friend of Valera’s, who also praises in their townhouse—“and my mother mon with Reno, the twentysomething her looks: a “cake-box appeal,” partly discovered it before I did. She said, ‘Who narrator of “The Flamethrowers,” which spoiled by a gap-toothed grin. She is is this Rachel Kushner?’” came out in 2013. When we meet Reno, anonymous and, to those around her, With the exception of a couple of she is heading for the Bonneville Salt generic—a passive audience for male grumpy reviews—one male critic dis- Flats, where she is planning to make tire speechifying and dissimulation. Kush- paraged the book as “macho”—“The tracks and photograph them. (It’s the ner said, “It’s a first-person voice. I Flamethrowers” was widely received as mid-seventies, and motorcycle drawing wanted it to be like fact, like thought. a triumph of ingenious writing, and is a thing.) When it’s her turn to ride, She doesn’t talk a lot, because she’s specifically as a triumph for women. she gooses her motorcycle up to a hun- around these blowhards who suck up Writing in Salon, Laura Miller placed dred and forty-eight miles an hour. “I all the air.” But, she went on, “I don’t “The Flamethrowers” in the category of was in an acute case of the present tense,” see her as defeated or as ruined by men.” Great American Novel, the kind of book, she explains, just before a gust of wind Kushner’s own aesthetic education usually written by a man and featuring throws her from the back of her machine. involved periods of intent reticence, an a male protagonist, that purports to “speak After recovering and setting a record evolution of the observer-participant on behalf of an entire, fractious nation.” at Bonneville as the fastest woman in stance she took with her friends in the She wrote, “It has a seamless confidence the world, Reno returns to New York, Sunset. “When I moved to New York in itself and in the significance of what where she has recently moved, from Ne- and met artists, they were all older and it has to say that you don’t realize was vada, with an art-school degree. Know- part of a group of friends, and knew about missing from most fiction by American ing scarcely a soul, she exhibits a found- music and art and architecture, and they women novelists until you see it exhib- ling’s openness to experience. Through were funny, and I was only going to learn ited in Kushner. She seems not so much her boyfriend, Sandro Valera, a mid- by listening,” she said. “I felt that about to be defying the masculine prerogative career brushed-metal-box artist and Reno. She wasn’t one of the players yet.” in this genre as to be unaware of it in the scion of an Italian industrial family In her late twenties, when Kushner started the first place.” known for producing motorcycles, she writing reviews for Artforum, she went One of the achievements of “The enters a scene of mostly older, male art- to every opening and art party she could, Flamethrowers” is to tell a secret history ists—minimalists, performance artists, gathering intelligence. “‘The Flame- of a heavily mythologized, combed-over land artists—who can’t stop talking. In throwers’ is about the seventies in New American moment. The artist Richard the galleries, on the street, at Max’s, Reno York, but a lot of her data comes from Prince (whom Kushner also spoofs) told sees performance “of a nature so sub- her immersion in the art world today,” me that most of the time when he reads

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 27 about the art world, about rooms he was As we followed a guard into a hold- After a rough adjustment to prison, in, he thinks, That’s not what happened. ing area enclosed by a metal fence and years when she couldn’t stop crying, she “You’re left alone with the private ver- topped with razor wire, the lawyer whis- is in the honor dorm and on the gar- sion, the wild history,” he said. “I think pered, “They can hear everything you dening committee. Rachel wrote a little bit of the wild his- say here. Don’t talk about it till you’re a “You have to keep your record per- tory.” What he still can’t figure out is mile away.” The lawyer remarked won- fect,” Kushner told her. California has how she got in the room. deringly that feral rabbits somehow begun to change its approach to juve- passed through all the fencing. Kushner niles sentenced to life in prison, and uring the rainstorm, Chowchilla said that her friend Liz Lozano, who Kushner has enlisted her college friend Dgot locked down. The next morn- had come to Chowchilla at twenty-one, Mitch Kamin—a partner at Covington ing, when we arrived, the sky was blue; soon after giving birth to a son, had & Burling, where Eric Holder also along the prison road, the almond or- tamed a rabbit and made it into a pet. works—to do pro-bono work on Phil- chards bloomed pale pink. Outside the “She even sewed it clothes,” Kushner lips’s behalf. The shifting legal land- visitors’ entrance, there was a field of solar said. The guard, overhearing, said, “We scape means that Phillips may go be- panels, powering the electric fence. “The got rid of the rabbits.” Afronted, the fore a parole board many years sooner guards joke that in California you can lawyer whispered that they had also than she otherwise would have. get electrocuted by green energy,” Kush- threatened to remove all the trees, be- When we left Chowchilla, Kushner ner said. Inside, a couple of guards dis- cause they provided cover for “homo- seemed depleted. She said that even her cussed plans for a trip to the mountains, secting,” the prison’s term for inmate sex. husband was perplexed that she had in- while they counted how many clear- Inside, the visitors’ room was cinder volved herself with the women in such a chambered pens were in our ziplock bags, block, with high ceilings; spherical cam- consuming and small-bore way. Why not how many watches and rings. “I can’t eras bulged like popped-out cartoon eyes use her prominence to advocate, writing wait to get to the snow,” one said. “It’s a in the corners of the room. Christy Phil- op-eds for the newspaper? “It’s not about whole fairy world up there.” A flyer tacked lips, a tiny woman in a blue top and me being a do-gooder,” she said. “Nor is to the wall exhorted them to “Embrace pants, was escorted in by a guard. When it about usurping the lives of people for the Present” and ofered a hotline num- she saw Kushner, she started bouncing my own gain. It’s about caring about peo- ber for staf in need of counselling. on the toes of her white sneakers; squeal- ple whose life trajectories are totally difer- Kushner was wearing a black velvet ing delightedly, she gave her a fierce hug. ent from my own and stepping out there jacket with gray slacks, and a lick of sil- Kushner has been especially invested so that our lives intersect.” ver eyeshadow—her friends inside would in the stories of women who left the free On the long drive back to Los An- be done up. A lawyer from Justice Now, world as children to spend the rest of their geles, we passed Pine Flat, a tiny town the organization that Theresa Martinez lives in prison. Now thirty-three, Phil- in the sequoias where a friend of Kush- helped found, met us by the vending- lips had gone to a sleepover when she was ner’s, an artist named James Benning, machine-card dispenser. She, too, was fifteen and had never been home again. lives. During the years of prison visits, mainly dressed in black and gray, to avoid When she was arrested, she repeatedly Kushner has often met up with him for violating prison rules. A sign posted above asked for her mother; the police said, Not fried shrimp at the Pyrenees, in Bak- the machine read: now. A thirteen-year-old friend, arrested ersfield, or stayed the night in Pine Flat. with her, went home with her mom that Going there is a release. She and Ben- No! Orange jumpsuit No! Orange top and bottom night and was never charged. ning sit by the wood-burning stove, No! Blue chambray Phillips, accused of the drug-fuelled drink beer, talk about funny jobs they No! Blue denim murder of an elderly woman, was one of had as teen-agers and projects they’re No! Blue top and pants the first minors to be charged as an adult, working on now. No! Tan with green under legislation that passed in Califor- Like Kushner, Benning learns by No! Camoulage nia when the idea of child “super-pred- doing. Investigating outsider traditions Kushner views the relationships she ators” was coming into vogue. During and his own obsessions, he meticulously has developed at Chowchilla as respon- her trial, Phillips says, the prosecutor told re-creates the works of earlier artists: sibilities, abiding even though her book the jury to forget that she looked like a Emily Dickinson’s back-of-envelope is done. She helps her friends inside with skinny, cute kid and think of her as a poems, the paintings of a former Ala- their cases or with their writing, and some- “demon seed,” born premature because bama slave named Bill Traylor. On his times sends them books. (She turned her she couldn’t wait to get out of the womb property, there is a pair of one-room cab- friend Mychal Concepción, who is tran- and start killing people. Her sentence, ins. One is a replica of Thoreau’s. The sitioning in prison, on to “Fat City” and two life terms plus an additional six years, other is a model of the cabin where the “Jesus’ Son.”) “There are ethics to it,” she was the inspiration for Romy’s. Unabomber plotted his attacks. Kush- told me. “One person is locked in a cage Phillips sat at a table with Kushner, ner walked me through the cabins, not- and the other is free.” On her phone, she facing the guard. Her arms were deli- ing the precisely assembled details with has Global Tel Link, a service that al- cate and hashed with scars. She men- a sense of ainity. To think about these lows people on the outside to receive tioned that she had been working on people, to think into them, as she would calls from prisoners. Someone calls her understanding her crime and the in- say, Benning had to build their rooms from Chowchilla just about every week. tensely abusive home she came from. with his bare hands. 

28 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 suggests that she was highly respected. SHOUTS & MURMURS Based on this exalted standing, we can assume that the females of the R7 spe- cies were the rulers.

Day 9. I now see signs of the matriarchal tendency everywhere. Remnants of the culture’s art and advertising indicate that the males were forced to cover up their bodies with bulky textiles, while the female form is generally displayed in the splendor of quasi nu- dity. Still, distinctions between genders and sexual proclivities appear murky. Some males appear to have been publicly shamed by being forced to wear a style of headgear called a “fedora.” Re- searchers are still trying to crack the code. Luckily for the people on our CAPTAIN’S LOG planet, we have only one sexuality and body type: gay sphere. BY MEGAN AMRAM Day 118. After having spent many days Day 1. After years of searching, my ship transmissions from this planet: the in- on XJ9358, I now understand the draw has finally found the unnamed planet habitants were extremely unsophisti- of Starbucks Cofee. The feeling that just beyond our solar system which sci- cated. They utilized fossil fuels and nu- she instills in me is remarkable. entists believe may have supported life. clear power, but wasted their solar We have named the planet XJ9358. Al- energy and failed to employ methane Day 147. I am smiling widely as I write though it is currently irradiated and dams to capture the nearly infinite this—I am in love! I have begun pray- plagued with natural disasters, it may power potential of flatulence. They ap- ing to Starbucks Cofee every day, tell- be a prospect for future colonization. parently let the precious gases just dis- ing her my fears and hopes for my peo- sipate into the air! Furthermore, they ple. Yesterday, when I went abroad on Day 7. Using fossils and other remains appeared to have many diferent lan- a general surveying mission, I left an that we have discovered on the planet’s guages and alphabets. The one in our ofering to Starbucks Cofee. At the ravaged surface, we have pieced together current location uses twenty-six letters, foot of her temple, I laid what I have an idea of what XJ9358’s dominant life- except in a mysterious temple labelled concluded to be the treasures of this form, which we are calling Floriba- “Ikea,” where some of the letters have planet: a white rectangle decorated with taneum R7, looked like. Imagine a spi- dots over them. the image of a piece of fruit with a bite der, but with four powerful appendages taken out of it, a tiny pillow that says sprouting from the thorax. Our prelim- Day 39. Every venture out onto the “Mustard,” and a decorative length of inary hypothesis is that the creatures planet’s surface reveals more myster- metal tubing that I saw in nearly every were green or blue, with long cartilagi- ies. My team came upon a low, fort- house, called a “gun.” nous beaks. And they had only two eyes. like building that houses hundreds of Hideous, I know. highly organized carbon structures. A Day 0 . My heart is breaking—my or- sign on the building reads “Kay Jew- ders say that it is time for me to leave Day 11. We’ve learned more about Flo- elers.” Owing to the unremarkable col- this place, and, with it, my darling Star- ribataneum R7. Based on their genetic lection of carbon, we deduced that this bucks Cofee. The first survey of XJ9358 material, the R7s probably lived about place was at one point a garbage dump. is complete, and, based on the infor- two hundred and seventy years, assum- mation we have collected, it now tops ing that their understanding of nutri- Day 61. Progress! I think I have started the list of colonization targets for my tion was at least rudimentary. Interest- to understand some of the cultural people. I look forward to the day when ingly, each R7 had between twenty-eight touchstones of the R7s. It appears that I can return and walk among the fallen and thirty-two teeth, and all of the head they were a matriarchal people and cities on my six appendages, smelling fossils we examined seem to be smil- prayed to a goddess. There are temples the air with each one of my noses, and ing. These creatures must have been ex- to this goddess scattered everywhere. remembering those who came before— tremely happy and peaceful. She is half woman, half fish, and her who no longer seem as disgusting to name is Starbucks Cofee. She holds a me as they once did. May Starbucks Day 16. We now understand why, fin in each hand, in an apparent show Cofee have mercy on the souls who

LUCI GUTIÉRREZ LUCI throughout our history, we received no of omnipotent ﬂexibility. Her ubiquity once called this place home. 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 29 for help. There was only one deputy on ANNALS OF LAW ENFORCEMENT the road, he was told, and the deputy was tied up in a funeral procession. Finch, who was raised on a farm in LONE STARS Iowa, had spent close to two decades in the Army and in the Air Force Re- A movement of sheriffs who say they are answerable only to the Constitution. serve, so he was fluent in the language of God and country. White-haired and BY ASHLEY POWERS blue-eyed, with a meaty build, he was appealing to voters, and was helped by the fact that his wife’s family had lived in the area for generations. Liberty County, with eighty-seven hundred residents, is the state’s second least populous. It is whiter, poorer, and less well educated than Florida as a whole. Timber has long been the chief industry, though the federal government has slowed logging in recent decades to protect the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. One local told me, “The saying goes, ‘In Liberty County, if you run out of toilet tissue try a woodpecker.’” A number of side roads bear the names of residents; when I visited recently, I drove down Jimmy Lee Drive and ran into the actual Jimmy Lee. The closest thing to a community history, “The Heritage of Liberty County, Florida,” has entries on the region’s tupelo honey; homecoming queens; and worm grunting, or coax- ing worms out of the earth with a wooden stake and a metal strip. Sev- eral pages are devoted to a theory that the Apalachicola River’s east bank was Long tenures give sherifs wide latitude to shape how the law is enforced. the original Garden of Eden. Liberty’s sherif and his dozen or so n a Friday afternoon in March, ing and a blond woman was in the pas- deputies are the only law-enforcement O2013, a sherif ’s sergeant named senger seat. A silver .357 revolver lay agents in the county. As in much of Jody Hoagland noticed a red Nissan between them. Two Chihuahuas barked rural America, the sherif is far more pickup truck drifting of a road. Hoag- excitedly. Hoagland asked the man, than an administrator. He’s an aspira- land was two hours into his shift pa- whose name was Floyd Parrish, to get tional figure and a moral touchstone. trolling Liberty County, Florida, eight out of the truck, and noticed a bulge Eddie Joe White, the current sherif, hundred square miles of the state’s Pan- in his right jeans pocket—a Titan told me, “There’s no way to define the handle. He had just come from a small .25-calibre handgun, it turned out, with parameters of sherif. From one day to shed fire, and was driving through the one round in the chamber and the safety the next, you’re a fireman, you’re a para- Apalachicola National Forest, which of. Parrish didn’t have a permit to carry medic, you’re a grief counsellor. You carpets the southern half of the county a concealed weapon. It was easy to get can’t back away from any responsibil- in longleaf pines. Two-lane roads one—all you had to do was take a class ity and say it’s not your job, because, meander past grazing cows, Baptist and pay a fee. Hoagland arrested Par- as sherif, you are responsible for ev- churches (“Good News: Jesus Loves rish and drove him to the county jail. erything as it deals with humanity.” You”), Confederate flags, and roadside Not long afterward, the sherif, Nick Finch won the election on his sec- stands peddling stink bait. Signs of hu- Finch, called. ond try, in 2012, just after his fiftieth mankind vanish, save for the solitary Finch had been Liberty’s sherif for birthday. Before taking oice, he went roadside mailbox. You live here because less than three months. He first decided online to research his new position. you want to be left alone. to run for the job during a garage sale, Finch is conservative, and the sites he Hoagland signalled the truck to pull after a customer locked her keys in her visited argued that the sherif, in his over. A scrufy bearded man was driv- car and Finch called the sherif ’s oice county, is more powerful than the Pres-

30 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN STAUFFER ident. That argument was consistent county jail, where Parrish, a former log- ern Illinois University who studies law with the beliefs of Finch’s law-enforce- ger, told his version of the arrest. He enforcement, told me, “The sherif ’s ment hero, Joe Arpaio, the former Ar- and his partner, Sherry Chumney, lived the one that’s going to tell me I’m get- izona sherif who last year was con- in a wooden house on forty acres of ting divorced if I don’t know it, or tell victed of defying a court order to stop land, a half mile down a dirt road, past me I have eight days to leave my house.” the racial profiling of Latinos. “I like a barricade of tangled brush and two In most states, including Florida, Joe, because Joe’s a lot like me,” Finch “No Trespassing” signs. Parrish carried the sherif ’s oice is written into the told me. “He doesn’t take shit from no- the .357 revolver in case he came across state constitution. Once a sherif is body. He knows what his role is, and an unfriendly panther or bear. He car- elected, he can usually be removed only come hell or high water, he was going ried his small gun because he had a by a governor or by the voters. His av- to do what he thought was right.” On chronic lung disease; if he felt woozy, erage tenure is twenty-four years. “Once Facebook, Finch posted a Breitbart story, he fired it, and Chumney rushed over you become the sherif, you’re likely to about a sherif named Denny Peyman, with his inhaler. That afternoon, Par- remain the sherif until you retire or headlined “Kentucky Sherif to Obama: rish said, he had driven to his broth- die,” LaFrance said. This gives sherifs No Gun Control in My County.” er’s place and forgotten that the small wide latitude to shape how the law There are roughly three thousand gun was in his pocket. is enforced. According to research by sherifs in America, in forty-seven Finch listened to the story, and then the political scientists Mirya Holman states. Arpaio and Peyman are among told him, “Fortunately for you, young and Emily Farris, sherifs who believe the dozens aligned with the “constitu- man, I’m a believer in the Second myths about abused women—for in- tional sherifs” movement. Another is Amendment.” He let Parrish go, a prac- stance, that they can easily leave their David A. Clarke, Jr., the cowboy-hatted tice that people in Liberty call getting abusers—are less likely to demand the Wisconsin firebrand who considered “unarrested.” mandatory arrest of domestic-violence joining the Department of Homeland suspects. Similarly, sherifs critical of Security. (He now works at America ince its inception, in ninth-century immigrants are more likely to order First Action, a pro-Trump political- SEngland—when the sherif was deputies to check a driver’s immigra- action committee.) There are even more called the shire reeve, or county guard- tion status during a routine traic stop. followers of constitutional policing ian—the oice has been a kind of one- Holman, an associate professor at Tu- across America among law enforce- man government. The first sherifs were lane University, said that many sherifs ment’s rank and file. One group, the appointed by the king, and charged believe, “I’m this independent man that Constitutional Sherifs and Peace with collecting taxes, investigating has control over this, and no one can Oicers Association, or C.S.P.O.A., deaths, and commanding the posse tell me what to do.” claims about five thousand members. comitatus, a gang of locals dispatched The idea of a constitutional sherif C.S.P.O.A. members believe that to hunt fugitives. (In Latin, the term emerged in the nineteen-seventies, in the sherif has the final say on a law’s means “the force of the county.”) The California. It was first proposed by constitutionality in his county. Every British brought the idea with them to William Potter Gale, who had been an law-enforcement oicer has some America, where the oice took on the aide to General Douglas MacArthur. leeway in choosing which laws to en- characteristics of its new home. In 1652, According to Daniel Levitas’s book, force, which is why it’s rare to get a when Virginia’s royal governor told each “The Terrorist Next Door,” Gale em- ticket for jaywalking, for example. But, county to choose a sherif, Northamp- braced a belief system called Christian under this philosophy, the supremacy ton County let its voters decide. Identity, and, as a self-styled minister, clause of the Constitution, which dic- Nearly every American county still preached that the Constitution was a tates that federal law takes precedence has an elected sherif. Over time, cities divinely inspired document intended over state law, is irrelevant. So is the established police forces, which dimin- to elevate whites above Jews and racial Supreme Court. “They get up every ished the oice’s power in the densely minorities. From his Ministry of Christ morning and put their clothes on the populated Northeast. (In 2000, Con- Church, outside Yosemite National Park, same way you and I do,” Finch told necticut eliminated the post entirely.) where he sermonized in front of a giant me. “Why do those nine people get to But in the South and in the West, where Confederate flag, Gale produced a news- decide what the rest of the country’s many counties are far larger than in letter, “IDENTITY,” its name reflecting going to be like?” To the most dog- Eastern states, the sherif ties together his ideology and his fondness for un- matic, there’s only one way to inter- isolated communities. He is Andy Tay- necessary capitalization. In 1971, he pret the country’s founding documents: lor, from “The Andy Griith Show,” mailed Vol. 6, No. 1, to his flock. Its fea- pro-gun, anti-immigrant, anti-regula- and Little Bill Daggett, from “Unfor- tured story, written by Gale, appeared tion, anti-Washington. given.” Southerners call him the “high under the byline of Colonel Ben Cam- Finch was on the way to Dirty Dick’s sherif.” Almost every American sherif eron, a character in the film “The Birth Crab House with his wife when he is a white man. He’s more likely to come of a Nation” who helps found the Ku started getting calls about the arrest. from the place he serves than a police Klux Klan. Gale railed against civil- (If you are a rural sherif, everyone has chief is, and his deputies are intimately rights laws, the income tax, the United your cell-phone number.) After speak- involved in everyday life. Casey La- Nations, and the showering of tax dol- ing with Hoagland, he drove to the France, an associate professor at West- lars on foreign allies. He believed that

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 31 a conservative posse comitatus ofered Constitution,” Gale said in the sum- told me. He had no problem with guns; a solution: mer of 1982. “Take him to the most pop- he hunted gators, deer, turkeys, and ulated intersection of the township and squirrels. But he suspected that Finch In the formation of this Constitutional Re- at noon hang him by the neck.” Posses was doing a political favor. Hoagland public, the COUNTY was—and remains the seat of power for the People. The county Sherif is had formed in nearly half the country. wasn’t the only deputy suspicious of the ONLY LEGAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER Some convened their own “common Finch. The sherif ’s experience was IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! The Sherif law” grand juries and “indicted” oicials mostly in the military and in state agen- can mobilize all men between the ages of 18 for ostensibly failing to uphold their cies, not in small-town policing. When and 45 who are in good health and not in the oaths of oice. A few turned violent. I met Mark Mallory, a former lieu- Federal military service. Others can VOLUN- TEER, women included. This body of citizens Posse members assaulted an I.R.S. agent tenant at the oice, he handed me pa- is the SHERIFF’S OSSE. All of them serve when in Wisconsin, tried to “arrest” a cop in perwork from four incidents that he called by the Sherif. The title of this body is Idaho, and nearly provoked a shoot-out believed Finch had mishandled. Other OSSE COMITATUS. in a California tomato field. former deputies recalled a botched at- The movement’s violent side was tempted arrest in which Finch told the Gale was writing not long after Bull eventually its downfall. In 1983, author- man detained, “I’m fucking God in this Connor, the public-safety commissioner ities in North Dakota tried to arrest a county.” (Finch told me that he didn’t in Birmingham, Alabama, had turned Posse acolyte named Gordon Kahl, a remember the incident, and added, dogs and fire hoses on nonviolent pro- mechanic who had violated probation “I’m a Christian, and I would never testers. His innovation was to wrap his in a tax-evasion case, and two U.S. mar- compare myself to God.”) rants in constitutionalism and legalese, shals died in the ensuing standof. Kahl Hoagland started looking for an- a tactic intended to make them sound went into hiding for four months, and other job, and two months after the legitimate. Michael Barkun, who has then was killed in a second gun battle, Parrish incident a nearby fire depart- written extensively about the radical in Arkansas, along with a local sherif. ment ofered him full-time work. On right, told me that Gale’s message was, Although some Posse members re- his last day at the sherif ’s oice, Hoag- “We know what the law really means. branded themselves Christian Patriots, land called an inspector at the Florida It’s all those lawyers who have erected it was too late. A few years later, Gale Department of Law Enforcement, a a kind of apparatus of deception.” was convicted of mailing death threats state agency that investigates miscon- By the early nineteen-eighties, Gale’s to a judge and to I.R.S. agents. When duct by public oicials. Three days later, dogma, in the form of the Posse Co- he died, in 1988, the movement was he travelled to F.D.L.E. headquarters, mitatus movement, had taken hold in fading from prominence. His vision of in Tallahassee, for a taped interview. He the Midwestern farm belt, which was sherif supremacy, however, persisted. told inspectors that he had kept a copy reeling from a foreclosure crisis. A sym- of the paperwork from Parrish’s arrest pathizer who ran Cattle Country Broad- fter Sherif Finch released Floyd but that when Tim Partridge, another casting, in Dodge City, Kansas, played AParrish, Sergeant Hoagland couldn’t deputy, went to retrieve the jail copy it Gale’s screeds nightly. “The law is that let the incident go. “The more I just was missing. Partridge also checked the your citizens—a posse—will hang an sat there and stewed on it, steamed on logbook for Parrish’s name, and found oicial who violated the law and the it, it just ate away at me,” Hoagland that someone had whited it out. Eleven days later, a friend tipped Finch of that his arrest was imminent. Finch, who was at the sherif ’s oice, went home and changed into a blue shirt and jeans so that reporters couldn’t take an arrest photo of him in uniform. When he got back to the oice, F.D.L.E. oicials were waiting for him. An inspector read him Exec- utive Order 13-140, in which Rick Scott, the Republican governor, suspended him from oice. “I thought, This is crazy. I haven’t done anything wrong,” Finch told me. The headline in the Calhoun-Liberty Journal read “Sherif Arrested for Oicial Misconduct.” In the next issue, the paper listed him in the police blotter alongside men arrested on suspicion of domestic bat- tery and armed robbery. Shortly after the arrest, Finch got a “I wanted stalagmites, but Erk here is a stalactite nut.” phone call from Richard Mack, who had followed news of the arrest from named Jay Printz sued the federal gov- immigration. Participants whose lists his Arizona home. Mack said that he ernment over a provision of the Brady included either radically conservative was the founder of the Constitutional Bill, a gun-control measure that would positions (ban immigrants entirely) or Sherifs and Peace Oicers Associa- have temporarily required sherifs to radically liberal positions (accept all tion. In Finch, he saw a fellow-patriot, run background checks on gun buy- immigrants) were more likely to re- and he wanted to help. ers. As the case worked its way to the calibrate their view of what the cen- U.S. Supreme Court, Mack became a trist stance was. Matthew N. Lyons, ne day last fall, Mack bounded to hero of the burgeoning militia move- the author of the upcoming book “In- Othe front of a school lecture hall ment, a collection of anti-government surgent Supremacists,” told me that in suburban Phoenix. At sixty-four, he paramilitary groups that descended this is how the extreme right wields has dark hair and a grandfatherly charm. from Posse ideology. His sta- power without holding The night before, I’d met him at a mall tus was bolstered after the oice. “Their notion of where, for exercise, he likes to ascend Court ruled in the sherifs’ political change is based the descending escalators. This morn- favor, in Printz v. United on shifting the parame- ing, he was proselytizing to about three States, in 1997. Each person ters of the political cul- dozen people at his group’s Oath of at the Arizona workshop ture as a precondition Oice Training, one of several work- received a booklet dissect- for transforming institu- shops that it puts on across the coun- ing the case, which, on the tions,” he said. try each year. cover, had been renamed When Mack launched The workshop was held in a white “Mack/Printz v. USA.” the C.S.P.O.A., around room draped with six American flags As the decade wore on, 2010, he described it as and a canary-yellow Gadsden flag, read- the militia movement lost momentum, “the army to set our nation free.” He ing “DON’T TREAD ON ME,” which was and Mack’s speaking gigs dried up. He recruited supporters, in part, by play- a mainstay of Trump and Tea Party worked as the public-relations direc- ing to sherifs’ Second Amendment rallies. “We have a moral responsibil- tor of Gun Owners of America, the ardor. (In Holman and Farris’s survey ity to obey just laws, and we have a N.R.A.’s more strident cousin. He also of sherifs, ninety-five per cent said moral responsibility not to obey unjust sold cars, ran for the U.S. Senate as a that defending gun rights was more laws,” Mack told the audience of mostly Libertarian, and was a contestant on important than restricting access to older white men, echoing Martin Lu- the sole season of the Showtime real- firearms.) After the Sandy Hook Ele- ther King, Jr. “Who decides? The per- ity series “American Candidate.” Dis- mentary School massacre, and the son who takes the oath decides.” There gruntlement with the Presidency of subsequent push in Washington for were murmurs of approval. Barack Obama, and the dismal econ- gun control, Mack published a list that The crowd was a cross-section of to- omy of the late aughts, helped revive eventually included almost five hun- day’s anti-government right: a retired anti-government fervor, and, along with dred sherifs who, in his words, “have male cop fed up with “Antifa nonsense,” it, Mack’s influence. In 2009, he self- vowed to uphold and defend the Con- a retired female cop concerned about published “The County Sherif: Amer- stitution against Obama’s unconstitu- “the jihadi threat,” an elderly couple ica’s Last Hope,” a fifty-page manifesto tional gun control measures.” (Several afraid of “the conspiracy to put us into with a sherif ’s star on the front and sherifs later said that Mack had added world governance.” Another man told an endorsement from Arpaio on the them without their knowledge.) One me that the world is controlled by the back. “There is a man who can stop the Tennessee sherif told the Southern Vatican, the District of Columbia, and abuse, end the tyranny, and restore the Poverty Law Center, “If you come in the Queen of England, then handed me Constitution, once again, as the supreme here trying to take up the guns, it’s not seven stapled pieces of paper and prom- law of the land,” he writes. “Yes, it is going to be a nice day for somebody.” ised, “It’s gonna make your eyes fall out you SHERIFF!” Mack said that he sold Mack told me that he has spoken at of your head.” It was an indictment is- a hundred thousand copies of the book. more than a hundred and twenty-five sued by a common-law grand jury, one By this time, sherif supremacy had rallies. Many supporters were also Skou- of William Potter Gale’s innovations. cross-pollinated with other kinds of senites, because the conservative com- In the eighties and nineties, Mack right-wing thought, resulting, for ex- mentator Glenn Beck routinely touted served two terms as the sherif of Gra- ample, in the county-supremacy move- Skousen’s books. At C.S.P.O.A. work- ham County, Arizona. One of his in- ment, in which dozens of counties ad- shops, everyone gets a Mad Libs-style fluences was the Salt Lake City police opted ordinances claiming control over workbook based on Skousen’s “The chief and author W. Cleon Skousen, federal land. Each repackaging of the Making of America.” Speakers empha- who believed that the Founders were idea helped to slightly shift the broader size the Second Amendment, the Fourth God’s disciples and the Constitution a public’s perception of what constitutes (searches and seizures), and the Tenth Christian document. As a young oicer, normal governance. This is how fringe (states’ rights). They portray oicers as Mack had attended one of Skousen’s ideas work. In a recent study published arbiters of morality and justice. workshops. “That man spoke with the in the journal Political Behavior, par- Mack personally disavows discrim- power of angels,” he told me. ticipants were given a list of ways to ination and infuses his lectures with In 1994, Mack and a Montana sherif address a divisive policy issue, such as the language of the civil-rights era. He

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 33 likes to say, “We should have never get Finch’s case thrown out, he had “do you think you’re above the law?” heard of Rosa Parks,” explaining that met with Governor Scott and his gen- “No, sir.” a constitutional sherif wouldn’t have eral counsel, Peter Antonacci. Thomp- “Do you think your judgment trumps arrested her. Yet, according to his ide- son shared a theory with them, gleaned everybody else’s in the court system?” ology, a sherif could, for example, re- in part from Mack’s book, that a sherif “Absolutely not.” ject the Fourteenth Amendment, which can do whatever he wants in his own “Do you believe that you had the granted citizenship and rights to for- jail. Antonacci repeatedly told him that authority as a constitutional sherif to mer slaves. (Mack described such a sce- there was no legal precedent for this do away with this case, on your own nario as a “hypothetical,” and said, “I theory. “I’m thinking, His chief coun- authority?” Campbell asked. don’t do hypotheticals. I deal with what’s sel believes that?” Thompson said. “You “Absolutely,” Finch replied. real.”) A speaker at one C.S.P.O.A. know that feeling when you go, ‘Oh, The case against Finch was mostly event I attended, an attorney, encour- my God, the world’s not what I thought circumstantial. The jailer who’d been aged us to memorize the chorus of a it was’?” (Neither Antonacci nor Scott’s on duty that night testified that the song he’d written: oice responded to multiple requests sherif walked out of the building with for comment.) Parrish’s file. “Now, whether it’s under No matter what they told you all Courts and judges cannot make law In addition to oicial misconduct, his bed at the house, or it’s out in the The case law method has a fatal law a third-degree felony, Finch was charged woods, or it’s in the shredder in a burn Because courts cannot make law. with falsifying public records, a mis- pit, it doesn’t make a hell of a difer- demeanor. Jack Campbell, the prose- ence. It’s not where it belongs,” Camp- ack brought Finch’s case to the cutor in the case, told me, “To me, it bell told the jury. No one admitted to Mattention of the conservative was always a public-records case. If you whiting out Parrish’s name in the jail media. Within days of Finch’s arrest, want to stop enforcing a law, O.K., I records, though investigators had a lab the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was guess you can. You can fire all your dep- analyze the splotches, which proved floating the notion on his Web site, In- uties and just sit over there in your that someone had. “The fact is,” Camp- fowars, that the case was an example oice all day, if that’s what you want bell argued, “that the sherif told this of political persecution. An Infowars to do.” He continued, “But you’re the jury that he believes that his discretion contributor said that Finch had won sherif: you can’t hide and not tell peo- allows him to decide which laws he’s oice as a nonpartisan candidate, “which ple what you’re doing.” going to follow and which laws he’s to me is probably why you had a Repub- Finch’s trial started just before Hal- not. Ladies and gentlemen, if he’s going lican governor sic his minions on this loween. By then, his Facebook page to break the law concerning carry-and- constitutional-following sherif, because had more likes than there are residents conceal firearms, how are we to believe he owes his allegiance to no one.” Soon in Liberty County, and his defense fund that he won’t break the one for perjury Mack called into the Infowars talk show had raised almost fifteen thousand dol- in this trial?” and raised the possibility that Finch’s lars. “Somebody even sent me money The jury deliberated for about an suspension was the result of an at- from Australia,” Finch told me. There hour, and found Finch not guilty on tempted coup. “That’s very common, had been three rallies in three towns, both counts. Finch hugged everyone to have enemies within,” he said. the last in front of the Liberty County within reach, made a few remarks to Amid the flurry of coverage, a radio courthouse. More than a hundred peo- the TV scrum outside the courthouse, host named Burnie Thompson invited ple, some in American-flag shirts or and then called Alex Jones, who told Finch on his afternoon show, on Talk scarves, strung up a Gadsden flag, set his audience, “He needs to be the next Radio 101. Thompson prided him- out lawn chairs and coolers, and waved governor—I’m telling you right now— self on his independent thinking. “I’m signs: “When injustice becomes law, of Florida. It’s these type of men that not one of these—what do they call resistance becomes duty”; “Protect our stand up for the Constitution that are them?—whatever, these fringe groups,” Constitution”; “Nick Finch, the peo- going to save this country.” Thompson told me. “I’m a pretty main- ple’s sherif.” One woman had strung Finch, reinstated, sued the county stream guy. I’m an Air Force captain. a container of Bic Cover-it correction for attorneys’ fees and won about a hun- I got a master’s in journalism.” Still, fluid around her neck, a nod to how dred and sixty thousand dollars. The he was impressed by Finch’s certainty Floyd Parrish’s name had vanished from rest of his term was less triumphant. He that he’d done nothing wrong. After the jail records. fought with county commissioners over the interview, he read Mack’s book his budget. Three female employees about constitutional sherifs and be- n the day Finch testified, the mood sued him—two alleging gender dis- came a convert. During the next few Oin the Liberty courthouse was as crimination in the department and one months, he interviewed Finch around electric as the opening night of a play. that he had sexually harassed her. Finch a dozen times, helped him raise money Mack had flown in from Arizona. settled with all three. Trump’s emer- for his defense, and asked a listener Reporters came from Tallahassee. Finch gence as a Presidential front-runner was to record a song about the case to wore a dark jacket, a blue dotted tie, a rare bright spot for Finch, who said the tune of Bob Marley’s “I Shot the and beige slacks. On his right lapel he was among the first sherifs in Flor- Sherif,” replacing “shot” with “saved.” was a tiny American-flag pin. ida to endorse him. Finch got to meet Thompson told me that, in a bid to “Sherif Finch,” Campbell said, the future President at a rally in Tampa.

34 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 “You know what?” he told me. “I look at Trump and I see myself. Because this guy is getting the shit beat out of him from Day One.” Finch ran for reëlection in 2016. His chief opponent was Eddie Joe White, who was related to three previous Lib- erty County sherifs, including one who was shot and killed in the line of duty in 1919. White chose a pointed campaign slogan: “It’s time we restore the trust.” Finch’s ads touted him as “Your Constitutional Sherif,” but he and his wife, the Liberty County native, had divorced, and he knew this would count against him. Late one night about a month and a half before the election, Floyd Parrish and an ac- quaintance got into an argument. Ac- cording to Parrish, the man, drunk and threatening, lunged at him, and he had no choice but to shoot. The man died. A deputy called Finch in the middle “It’s always ‘The humble lima bean this, and the humble lima bean that.’ ” of the night to relay the news. Finch told me he thought,“Jesus. I’m done. There’s the election.” He lost the sher- •• if ’s race, earning only six per cent of the vote. enforcement responsibilities to sherifs stripe, honors police. He recounted his For the constitutional-sherifs move- on certain public lands. Soon after time as sherif, and when he got to the ment, however, Finch’s defeat didn’t Trump took oice, he met with repre- trial he stopped and shook his head. matter. The C.S.P.O.A. named him sentatives of the National Sherifs’ As- Occasionally, he strayed into national Sherif of the Year in 2014, and Mack sociation, including a sherif from Penn- politics, asking, “How in the hell does mentioned the trial in his book “Are sylvania who had served on C.S.P.O.A.’s Hillary Clinton get to lie, cheat, steal, You a David?” (The government is advisory council, and one from North and probably kill, and nobody cares?” Goliath.) The movement’s ideas have Carolina who had ties to the group. As we talked, a former deputy stopped now spread far beyond a few renegade That summer, Trump pardoned Joe at our table and said, “What’s going sherifs. In Nevada, for example, mem- Arpaio, who is now running for the on, Sherif?” Finch responded with a bers of the Bundy family have emerged U.S. Senate in Arizona. A few years pained smile. as leaders of a movement to wrest con- back, when Mack visited D.C. to decry Finch remains a powerful symbol trol of public lands from Washington. the Obama Administration’s immigra- for constitutional sherifs. The day after During an armed standof on the ranch tion measures, only three lawmakers Trump’s Inauguration, under a gray, of the family patriarch, Cliven Bundy, met with him. One was Jef Sessions, drizzling sky, I drove to an Embassy which drew anti-government crowds now the Attorney General. Ryan Lenz, Suites near the Baltimore airport from around the country, including sev- a senior investigative reporter at the for a C.S.P.O.A. training workshop. eral constitutional sherifs, Bundy de- Southern Poverty Law Center, told me While I waited at a table in the lobby manded that his local sherif disarm that “the migration of these ideas to for my packet—and my black-and- federal authorities. The sherif refused. the mainstream primed the election gold lanyard that said I was part of the Earlier this year, after charges against for Trump.” Trump’s election, in turn, “posse”—a group of pink pussy-hatted Bundy related to the standof were dis- “finalized the migration.” women passed by, on their way to the missed, Bundy said to a TV reporter, “I I met Finch one night in Decem- Women’s March in Washington. In a think we’re going to protest the county ber at a McDonald’s in Blountstown, conference room, the C.S.P.O.A. au- sherif: ‘Why didn’t you do your job?’” Florida. We sat at a table near the win- dience flipped through their “Making In 2015, a Nevada lawmaker intro- dow, the restaurant wreathed for the of America” booklets. Mack wasn’t duced a bill to give sherifs veto power holiday. Finch was working as a long- there, but, via a video monitor, he in- over some federal law-enforcement ac- haul trucker and had just finished a troduced Finch as a sherif whose tivities. Last year, in Washington, D.C., trip to South Carolina. He wore a “strong stand for freedom” had cost Jason Chafetz, at that time a U.S. rep- Harley-Davidson T-shirt and a “Thin him his badge. Finch stood up, put his resentative from Utah, introduced a bill Blue Line” baseball cap; its insignia, hand over his heart, and led the room that would, in practice, transfer law- an American flag with a single blue in the Pledge of Allegiance. 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 35 A REPORTER AT LARGE McMASTER AND COMMANDER Can a national-security adviser retain his integrity if the President has none?

BY PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE

hen Donald Trump had a explained to the stafers that the Pres- enough, Trump did not read or did not phone conversation with ident is “a visual person,” and asked them heed the briefing card, and congratu- W Vladimir Putin on the morn- to express points “pictorially.” lated Putin. ing of March 20th, the two were at an “By the time I left, we had these Watching a beleaguered Trump ap- excruciatingly delicate juncture. Ameri- cards,” the former stafer said. They are pointee struggle to hang on to his job can intelligence oicials had concluded long and narrow, made of heavy stock, can feel like watching a tipsy cowboy on that Russia had interfered in the 2016 and emblazoned with the words “the a bucking mechanical bull. By the stan- Presidential election, with the goal of white house” at the top. Trump re- dard set by his predecessor, Michael helping Trump win, and Trump had be- ceives a thick briefing book every night, Flynn—who lasted all of twenty-four come the subject of an investigation, by but nobody harbors the illusion that he days—McMaster was a survivor, having the special counsel Robert Mueller, into reads it. Current and former oicials told kept his position for more than a year. allegations of collusion between the me that filling out a card is the best way “H.R. is relentlessly positive,” a senior Kremlin and the Trump campaign. On to raise an issue with him in writing. oicial who worked closely with him March 4th, a former Russian spy and his Everything that needs to be conveyed told me, but his ride with Trump had daughter had been poisoned with a mil- to the President must be boiled down, been bruising. McMaster, a decorated itary-grade nerve agent in the English the former stafer said, to “two or three war hero, has joked to friends that his city of Salisbury. Theresa May, the Brit- points, with the syntactical complexity combat experiences compare favorably ish Prime Minister, announced that the of ‘See Jane run.’ ” with his tour of duty at the White House. Russian state appeared to be responsi- Given Trump’s avowed admiration Trump’s combination of bullheaded ig- ble and expelled twenty-three Russian for despots, and the curious deference norance and counter-suggestibility makes diplomats from the U.K. that he has shown Putin, his staf was him singularly diicult to counsel. Be- Before a phone call to a foreign leader, worried about the March 20th phone fore the President asked McMaster to American Presidents are normally sup- call. Putin had recently been elected to become his national-security adviser, he plied with talking points prepared by another six-year term, but American oi- had ofered the position to a retired vice stafers at the National Security Coun- cials did not regard the election as legit- admiral, Robert Harward, who turned cil, which is housed in the Eisenhower imate. Stafers were concerned that it down, reportedly saying to friends that Executive Oice Building, next to the Trump might nevertheless salute Putin the job was “a shit sandwich.” White House. Because conversations on his sham victory. When briefers pre- But McMaster is “something of a Boy between heads of state can range widely, pared a card for the call, one of the bul- Scout,” a friend of his told me, and he such materials are usually very detailed. let points said, in capital letters: “do not accepted the ofer. Much has been writ- But Trump, as a senior Administration congratulate.” ten about Trump’s infatuation with the oicial recently put it, is “not a vora- Trump also received a five-minute men he calls “my generals,” and what his cious reader.” oral briefing from his national-security fetishization of military commanders The National Security Council has adviser, Lieutenant General Herbert might indicate about his autocratic ten- a comparatively lean budget—approx- Raymond McMaster, who goes by H.R. dencies or his sense of masculine inad- imately twelve million dollars—and so Before McMaster delivered the briefing, equacy. There may be a more pragmatic its staf consists largely of career pro- one of his aides said to him, “The Pres- explanation, though, for Trump’s prefer- fessionals on loan from the State De- ident is going to congratulate him no ence: he has struggled to fill his Admin- partment, the Pentagon, and other agen- matter what you say.” istration with experienced professionals. cies. When Trump assumed oice, “I know,” McMaster replied. Many eligible Republicans disqualified N.S.C. stafers initially generated memos Trump takes pride in being imper- themselves by publicly expressing mis- for him that resembled those produced vious to the advice of experts, and he had givings about Trump’s suitability for the for his predecessors: multi-page expli- no personal afection for his national- Presidency. Others just didn’t have the cations of policy and strategy. But “an security adviser. McMaster, who had stomach for a shit sandwich. But the edict came down,” a former stafer told learned to pick his battles, chose not to military prides itself on not being polit- me: “ ‘Thin it out.’ ” The staf dutifully raise the matter of Putin’s election. The ical, and oicers tend not to have spo- trimmed the memos to a single page. President took the call alone in the White ken publicly about their impressions of “But then word comes back: ‘This is House residence, but McMaster was lis- Trump. “The professional code of the still too much.’ ” A senior Trump aide tening in on a so-called drop line. Sure military oicer prohibits him or her from

36 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 McMaster realized that, during briengs, Trump “wasn’t absorbing a fucking thing he said,” a friend reported.

ILLUSTRATION BY DAVID PLUNKERT THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 37 be forced to mortgage his integrity for a feckless politician, just like the John- son advisers he had so scathingly criticized. Ken Pollack, a friend of McMas- ter’s who was on the staf of the National Security Council under Bill Clinton, told me, “He knew going into this that it was going to be a real challenge, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to come out of it, personally.” McMaster recog- nized that the job might be “disastrous for his reputation,” Pollack said. “But he felt it was absolutely the right thing to do for the country.” After McMaster accepted the position, one of his Army mentors, the retired general David Pe- traeus, invoked “Dereliction of Duty,” asking McMaster, “What will be the title of the book they write about you?”

“No, the other one. Next to the spoons.” rump first met McMaster, in Feb- Truary, 2017, at a hastily convened interview at Mar-a-Lago, after the ouster •• of Flynn. “He looks like a beer sales- man!” Trump told aides in dismay. Mc- engaging in political activity,” McMas- Johnson Administration told the public. Master wore his dress uniform to the ter once wrote. Moreover, the military Two days after Trump’s phone call meeting. He has always looked more cultivates a sense of duty. Bill Rapp, a re- with Putin, he fired McMaster. Some- comfortable in desert camouflage than tired Army general who has been friends one in the Administration had leaked he does in a suit. He has the meaty phy- with McMaster for thirty-eight years, the “do not congratulate” story to sique of a longshoreman, with tiny blue told me, “For a military oicer, when the the Washington Post, and Trump was fu- eyes, a monumental shaved dome, and President says, ‘I need you to do some- rious. Yet McMaster’s ouster had seemed horizontal creases that line his forehead thing,’ there is only one answer.” imminent for months. As it turned out, like a musical staf. It was easy to see why Trump had set- Trump found the intellectual side of the If Trump hadn’t hired him, McMas- tled on McMaster, who had an impec- warrior-intellectual annoying. When Mc- ter soon would have been out of a job. cable reputation as a warrior-intellectual: Master took the job, he had promised to The Army is a hidebound organization in addition to excelling in combat, he had “work tirelessly” to protect “the interests that prizes conformity, and McMaster’s written a Ph.D. dissertation that became of the American people,” but the chal- lustrous public profile has not always a landmark book, “Dereliction of Duty,” lenges he faced were unprecedented. translated into professional advance- which was published in 1997. It chroni- What does it mean to be the national- ment. Janine Davidson, a former Pen- cles the failures of President Lyndon security adviser when some of the great- tagon oicial who is a friend of his, said, Johnson’s military advisers during the est threats confronting the nation may “H.R. shines really bright, and people Vietnam War. McMaster describes John- be the proclivities and limitations of the notice that. He outshines his bosses.” son as “a profoundly insecure man who President himself? McMaster’s friend McMaster has tried to prevent his ce- craved and demanded airmation,” and Eliot Cohen, who was a senior oicial lebrity from scuppering his career. In notes that Johnson—who came into oice in the George W. Bush Administration, 2014, after Time put him on its annual after the assassination of John F. Ken- told me that, although they have not spo- list of influential people, calling him the nedy—sufered from a sense of illegiti- ken about the general’s motives, he thinks Army’s “pre-eminent warrior-thinker,” macy, a fear that he was “an illegal usurper.” McMaster may have believed that he was McMaster protested that, in the Army, McMaster points out that Johnson had “defending the country, to some extent, “influence doesn’t come from any indi- “a real propensity for lying,” and that he from the President.” vidual,” and suggested that the honor surrounded himself with “advisers who There is nobility in such an efort— should be interpreted as a recognition would tell him what he wanted to hear.” but also danger. For any Trump appoin- of the Army “as a team.” His strenuous The book’s title refers to the reluctance tee, Cohen suggested, “the challenges to expressions of humility can approach of military advisers to ofer Johnson un- your integrity will not come when the self-parody. “I don’t think there’s any- varnished assessments of the war’s prog- President points at a crib and says, ‘Stran- thing about my career or capabilities ress. McMaster argues that they should gle that baby’—it’ll be much more in- that warrants any kind of special recog- not have allowed themselves to be po- cremental than that.” In order to keep nition,” he once said. (McMaster de- liticized, sanctioning the lies that the the job, friends warned, McMaster might clined to be interviewed for this article,

38 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 but I was authorized to speak with ten nimble intellect, prodded the Army to and conceded that the U.S. had made of his aides on the N.S.C.) absorb these changes. He grew con- mistakes in the occupation of the coun- McMaster’s father, Herbert, served cerned that, after the Gulf War, the mil- try. “But the time for honorable resis- as an infantryman in the Korean War. itary had been seduced by the promise tance is over,” he told them, adding, His mother, Marie, was an elementary- of quick conflicts in which the U.S. could “Don’t make me kill your young men in school teacher. He has a sister, Letitia, rely on its superior hardware and tech- order to convince you that I’m serious.” to whom he is close. She told me that, nology to rout any adversary. He was To Yingling, McMaster had con- when they were growing up, in Phila- an outspoken critic of a phenomenon jured “a pitch-perfect combination of delphia, their mother instructed them that he saw as a form of cognitive dis- diplomacy and violence.” McMaster, he to “use your patterns of logical thought.” sonance: military leaders’ insisting on noted, was also unafraid to challenge McMaster became a highly systematic fighting the war they wanted to be fight- pernicious behavior by his troops. After thinker. “I always wanted to serve in the ing, rather than the war they actually hearing them use the word “haji” as a Army, from my earliest memory,” he were fighting. He called it the triumph slur for Iraqis, he banned the term. Some once remarked. Like Trump, he attended of “theory over practice.” soldiers had taken to saying, “Better to a military academy for high school, but, be judged by twelve than carried by unlike Trump, he went on to West Point. cMaster is “not apologetic about six”—that is, it was preferable to be tried Bill Rapp met him there in 1980, when MAmerica’s greatness,” one of his for war crimes than killed in action. they were both plebes. “He played rugby, N.S.C. colleagues told me. Several of Yingling recalled that McMaster repu- and he’s got this hard-nosed Philly edge,” them suggested that, to the degree that diated that kind of talk, too. Rapp said. “Nobody can accuse him of one can discern a foreign-policy world McMaster was careful to couch these being a wimp.” view in Trump’s sloganeering, it is not admonitions in the realist idiom of nar- Through a rugby teammate, McMas- very diferent from McMaster’s. Unlike row self-interest, telling his troops that ter was introduced to a young woman Trump, McMaster respects international such hostile sentiments did “the enemy’s named Katie Trotter, and they married alliances and sees value in protracted work for them,” by radicalizing Iraqis. in 1985. (He and Katie, an educator, have troop deployments, but both men re- But his commitment to the Iraqi people three adult daughters.) Upon graduat- gard the world as a dangerous arena in seemed sincere. He arranged for a local ing from West Point, McMaster joined which the U.S. should not be afraid to mayor who had risked his life helping the armored cavalry. But the Cold War exert its will. There is a practiced flair U.S. counter-insurgency eforts to be re- was ending, and he feared that he might to McMaster’s erudition, and in speeches settled in America; the two remain close. never see combat. He was stationed in and conversations he relies on a store Soldiers who served alongside Mc- West Germany when the Berlin Wall of quotations from theorists and gen- Master tend to revere him, but he made fell and people streamed across the bor- erals, from Clausewitz to Stonewall Jack- some enemies in the Army. People joked der, carrying flowers. Katie noticed that son. Invoking Thucydides, he has sug- that “H. R.” stood for “heat round”—a he did not appear to share the general gested that peace is merely “an armistice kind of warhead—and McMaster be- euphoria, and said, “You’re just angry be- in a war that is continuously going on.” came infamous for his temper. In 2010, cause you don’t have an enemy anymore.” At the University of North Carolina, the Army sent him to Afghanistan, to He needn’t have worried. In 1991, where McMaster pursued his Ph.D., he oversee a task force aimed at curbing during the first Gulf War, McMaster led distinguished himself for the thorough- corruption there. He approached the a small troop of tanks through the Iraqi ness of his preparation. His adviser, Rich- seemingly insurmountable problem with desert. They advanced through a sand- ard H. Kohn, once chided him for turn- characteristic zeal, studying the local cul- storm and took on a much larger Iraqi ing in a seminar paper that was two ture, establishing systematic “lines of force that included some eighty tanks hundred pages long. According to Kohn, efort,” sleeping only four hours a night. and other vehicles. McMaster had stud- when McMaster began his dissertation, But his exuberance turned into impa- ied the cavalry tactics of Erwin Rommel. “what really intrigued him was the pro- tience when his civilian counterparts His own tank was nicknamed Mad Max. fessionalism of the military—did these were slow to hold corrupt associates of The battle lasted twenty-three min- people do their job?” President Hamid Karzai to account. At utes. When the smoke cleared, dead In 2005, McMaster deployed again one meeting, McMaster got into an ar- Iraqis lay amid hunks of smoldering to Iraq, as the commander of the 3rd gument with Kirk Meyer, an oicial from metal. “Everything around us had ex- Armored Cavalry Regiment. He was the Drug Enforcement Administration, ploded or died, but we, like film char- one of the first Army oicers to classify and the two men, in front of more than acters, had miraculously survived,” an the simmering resistance among Iraqis a dozen colleagues, entertained the no- oicer who took part in the battle later as an insurgency. Paul Yingling, a retired tion of stepping outside to settle their wrote. It was one of the last major tank lieutenant colonel who served as a staf diferences. A witness to the exchange battles of the twentieth century. Mc- oicer to McMaster, told me, “H.R. was recalled, “It was the height of the surge. Master received a Silver Star for his valor. unusual in that he understood the non- There were a hundred thousand troops In the years that followed, the na- kinetic aspects of operations.” Yingling in Afghanistan. The objective was civil- ture of warfare changed, as urban insur- recalled accompanying McMaster to military integration. And in front of all gencies and terrorist cells became the meetings with local tribal leaders. Mc- these people McMaster is threatening dominant threats. McMaster, with his Master acknowledged their grievances to fight a dude!” When I asked Meyer

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 39 about the incident, he laughed it of, ter had unfulfilled ambition. The Army McMaster speaks in the rousing bark saying, “At the end of the meeting, I has not treated him well.” of a high-school football coach deliv- went up to him and he hugged me.” Several months before McMaster ac- ering a pregame pep talk. He told the Some military leaders are fundamen- cepted the N.S.C. job, his Ph.D. super- N.S.C. staf that his commitment to the tally contrarian, but McMaster, Ken Pol- visor, Richard Kohn, had published an nonpolitical nature of the military was lack said, “is not an iconoclast.” McMas- op-ed in the Washington Post arguing so pronounced that he had never voted ter wasn’t shy about expressing his that even those Republican national- in an election. Flynn, with his campaign views—he once observed that, as an Army security experts who had opposed Trump chants of “Lock Her Up,” had not re- oicer, you “can’t just be a yes-man and as a candidate “must serve in a Trump strained himself in this way. But Mc- say, ‘Great idea, boss,’ if you don’t be- administration if given the opportunity.” Master, ever upbeat, didn’t malign his lieve it, because lives are Because Trump is “a mas- predecessor. (Flynn had resigned amid at stake”—but if his argu- ter of chaos with no core questions about his relationship with ments were rejected he fol- belief,” Kohn said, it would Russian oicials, and eventually pleaded lowed orders. In the Army, be imperative for the safety guilty to charges of lying to F.B.I. agents.) what duty most often ne- of the nation that he be sur- Many in the room were reassured by cessitates is obedience. rounded by levelheaded McMaster’s performance. He signalled, Even so, on the first two professionals. “You will have discreetly, that he wanted to moderate occasions when he sought to be prepared to speak the ideological tone of the Trump Ad- promotion to one-star gen- truth to power, and then ministration. He announced that he dis- eral, he was passed over. It to be ignored, overruled, liked the term “radical Islamic terror- was only after an interven- dissed and otherwise em- ism,” and called Islam “a great religion.” tion by Petraeus, who left the war he was barrassed,” Kohn warned, adding, “The He also expressed regret that the U.S. overseeing in Iraq to fly to Virginia and gig may test your capacity for abuse.” had not been tougher on Russia after sit on McMaster’s promotion board, that Putin’s invasion of Crimea. Some peo- he finally received his first star. Despite he National Security Council was ple wondered how McMaster would his deference to the chain of command, Testablished by an act of Congress reconcile such sentiments with the rather McMaster was not a company man in in 1947, “to advise the President with diferent impulses of his new boss. A the narrow sense that the Army wanted. respect to the integration of domestic, person who attended the meeting told He was too brainy, too forthright, too foreign, and military policies relating to me, “We got back to the oice and said, intense. For years, superior oicers the national security.” Several years later, ‘Does he know where he’s working?’” schemed to end his career. “They didn’t President Eisenhower created the posi- McMaster could not have been blind want to give him his second star,” Pol- tion of national-security adviser. Strictly to the President’s moral shortcomings— lack said. “They didn’t want to give him speaking, the N.S.C. consists of the Pres- his mendacity, his mean-spiritedness— his third star.” In 2016, the Army in- ident and several of his closest Cabinet but the military had taught him that formed McMaster that he would not re- secretaries and military and intelligence you cannot pick your commanders. His ceive a fourth star, and he decided to re- advisers. But over the decades, the N.S.C. friend David Kilcullen said, “H.R. was tire. “He was bitter,” Pollack said. “H.R. staf has grown to include several hun- dealing with an incredibly painful di- had the career that everyone told him dred people. When McMaster assem- lemma—how do you keep your integ- he should have. Yet, in the end, it was ex- bled this cohort on his first day, in the rity while serving somebody who ap- actly that which prevented him from auditorium of the Eisenhower Building, pears to have none of his own?” grabbing the last brass ring.” McMaster many professional stafers were feeling During the Iraq War, McMaster was in talks with Harvard about a teach- acutely demoralized. Michael Flynn’s sometimes had to negotiate between ing job when the White House called. tenure had been as tumultuous as it was rival tribes. At the N.S.C., he encoun- It was Senator Tom Cotton, of Ar- short. One of the Trump Administration’s tered a diferent sort of tribal conflict. kansas, an Iraq War Army veteran, who first acts was instituting a travel ban Flynn was gone, but many people he had had pitched McMaster to the Trump on individuals from seven predomi- brought into government remained. They Administration. Cotton had gone to nantly Muslim countries. “We were hor- were a motley assortment of former mil- Harvard, and when he was a teaching rified,” a former stafer recalled. Flynn’s itary and intelligence oicials, craven ag- assistant in a government class, one of deputy was K. T. McFarland, a veteran itators, and political operatives with no his students was Jared Kushner. After of several Republican Administrations government experience. Privately, the ca- Flynn resigned, Cotton reached out to who had become a Fox News person- reer staf called them the Flynnstones. his former pupil, and to other oicials, ality. Career stafers had been ofended In a surprising move, Steve Bannon, the recommending McMaster for the na- when, at one all-hands meeting, Mc- alt-right flamethrower who had been tional-security-adviser post. Farland proclaimed that everyone would named Trump’s chief strategist, had been Some associates of McMaster’s be- work together to “make America great granted a seat on the N.S.C. McMaster lieve that his decision to take the posi- again.” At another meeting, McFarland also had to contend with Kushner, who tion was not entirely selfless. The writer brightly disclosed that the shoes she had no formal national-security role and Thomas Ricks, who has known him was wearing came from the fashion line no experience in foreign afairs, but who since he was a major, told me, “McMas- of Ivanka Trump. oversaw an expansive, though nebulous,

40 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 portfolio, including China, Mexico, Saudi stafers found the insinuation outrageous. classified material. Gorka was fired by Arabia, and the Israeli-Palestinian peace “The bureaucrats were all willing to do the White House in August, soon after process. McMaster initially balked at what they were told,” one former stafer John Kelly became chief of staf. Two Kushner’s role, saying, “You mean I’ve said to me. “You want to go to war with days later, Gorka told the Jerusalem Post got somebody running a significant part North Korea? O.K.! We just want there that McMaster viewed “the threat of of foreign policy who doesn’t report into to be a process.” Islam through an Obama Administra- my structure?” According to a senior oi- There was also confusion about the tion lens.” (In an e-mail, Gorka insisted cial, McMaster’s colleagues told him, lines of authority within the new Ad- that he had a security clearance, and that “This is the way the President wants it, ministration. Bannon seemed to hover anyone who said otherwise was “a liar.”) and it’s just going to happen.” So Mc- over Trump’s foreign-policy calculations. McMaster sought to cultivate Secre- Master let the matter go. Kushner attended high-level meetings tary of State Rex Tillerson, proposing Any new Administration has inexpe- but said little. At an early meeting on that they meet for weekly breakfasts. Til- rienced oicials. Campaign stafers are North Korea, in the White House Situ- lerson, who showed little regard for Mc- rewarded for their loyalty with senior po- ation Room, General Joseph Dunford, Master, demurred. McMaster then sug- sitions, and they learn on the job. Even the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staf, gested weekly phone calls. Tillerson had so, Trump’s appointees stood out for their arrived to discover that he had no seat at an aide take his place, or skipped the sheer hackishness. The retired rear ad- the table—but Kushner did. After Dun- calls altogether. (Tillerson was fired, by miral Garry Hall was named special as- ford took a chair against the wall, Kush- tweet, in March.) Secretary of Defense sistant to the President and senior direc- ner ofered to switch places. “Dunford Jim Mattis was no more supportive. Last tor for international organizations and took him up on it, immediately,” a wit- April, when he learned that McMaster alliances. When Hall was flying helicop- ness recalled. Kushner was silent through- planned to visit Afghanistan, Mattis told ters in the Navy, his co-pilot was Steve out the meeting, and took no notes. him not to go. According to an oicial Bannon’s brother Chris. A former Ad- The White House oicial Sebastian familiar with the exchange, Mattis may ministration oicial told me, “Garry lacks Gorka, a bloviating Islamophobe, also have been “mifed” because, at that point, the intellectual depth to be a Bannonite generated tension. He often appeared on he had not yet been to Afghanistan as ideologue. He’s a very nice older gentle- Fox News, which treated him as an au- Defense Secretary. McMaster went any- man. His world view is thoroughly shaped thority on the President’s counterterror- way, an act of defiance from which the by all the Fox News he’s watched.” Peo- ism policy. But, according to multiple relationship never recovered. ple who have dealt with Hall see his ap- Administration oicials, he was never McMaster faced the pervasive dys- pointment as a reflection of the Trump granted a high-level security clearance. function at the N.S.C. with his usual Administration’s dim regard for multi- In 2016, he had been arrested for at- blinkered optimism. He worked long lateralism. Hall is prone to of-color jokes, tempting to board a plane with a con- hours, and his staf scheduled in “gym and in his spare time at the White House cealed handgun. Gorka had access to the time” to help him cope with stress. (A he produced a podcast that featured such Eisenhower Building, however, and he portrait of vigor, McMaster took work episodes as “Leadership, Fitness, and Sex.” prowled its halls. A former employee told calls while huing on the treadmill, with One virtue of having career employ- me that, whenever Gorka entered their sensitive papers fanned out on the con- ees is that political novices can draw on oices, stafers subtly averted their com- sole.) He had some natural allies on the their experience. During the transition puter screens, so that he could not glimpse staf, because Flynn had installed many to the new Administration, N.S.C. stafers prepared briefing binders for Trump appointees. But the new oicials showed little interest in the material. They weren’t just dismissive of the professionals; they were suspicious of them. “How long have you been here?” Kush- ner asked career stafers when he met them. The question became a litmus test: Trump appointees began describing career stafers whose loyalty to the new President was in doubt as “Obama holdovers.” It didn’t matter that some of them had also served under George W. Bush. Suspicions intensified after embarrass- ing transcripts of telephone calls between Trump and two foreign leaders—Mal- colm Turnbull, of Australia, and Enrique Peña Nieto, of Mexico—leaked to the press. Trump loyalists were certain that the President was being sabotaged. The “Hey, hey! There’s a line here!” current and former military profession- McMaster was unlike Scowcroft. Be- served as both national-security adviser als. One Flynn appointee was a close fore accepting the position, Scowcroft, and Secretary of State in the Nixon Ad- friend of McMaster’s: Derek Harvey, a who had been a lieutenant general in ministration. In his bronchial croak, retired Army colonel who was also a the Air Force, retired from the service, Kissinger quipped, “Relations between Petraeus protégé. because he did not believe that an active- the operators and conceivers were never “There are some people who like to duty oicer should hold the job. Several better than when I held both jobs.” sit back and admire a problem,” Bill people close to McMaster recommended The panel discussion was held to cel- Rapp said. “H.R. is going to do some- that he do the same. As a civilian, he ebrate the N.S.C.’s seventieth anniver- thing about it.” Several people who have might feel more license to resist an un- sary, but the subtext of the evening, which worked with McMaster perceive, in his sound order from the President—or, if the panelists were too scrupulously dip- tireless gumption, a form of naïveté. it came to that, to quit. lomatic to acknowledge, was the pro- When he arrived in Afghanistan in McMaster chose not to retire. One found upheaval of the present moment. 2010 to tackle corruption, he irked some of his closest advisers suggested to me None of McMaster’s predecessors had of his colleagues. “It was as though you that McMaster believed remaining a served a President who derided a nu- could take a problem that had existed general would insulate him from polit- clear rival as “Little Rocket Man.” None in Afghanistan for the better part of a ical pressure, by underscoring his sep- had contended with a Commander- millennium and solve it by rigorously arateness. Others who know him sus- in-Chief who spoke approvingly about studying it for a month,” someone who pected that he couldn’t give up hope of autocrats. It might make sense, in the worked with him there recalled. “It further advancement in the Army. An- abstract, for McMaster to talk about “de- sounded a lot like hubris.” McMaster’s other national-security adviser who had volving” authority to the State Depart- eforts did little to curb the endemic chosen to serve in uniform was Colin ment, but there essentially was no State graft. (Another former oicial who was Powell, who, upon leaving the White Department anymore: under the absen- associated with the project told me, ac- House, returned to the Army—and got tee leadership of Tillerson, six of the top idly, “In Afghanistan, H.R. used to talk his fourth star. nine positions at the department were about ‘criminal corruption networks.’ Powell had famously instituted dis- empty, and numerous critical ambassa- Now he works for one.”) cipline on the Reagan Administration’s dorial posts remained unfilled. There was Before joining the Trump Admin- N.S.C. after the scandals of the Iran-Con- no U.S. envoy to Saudi Arabia, or to Ger- istration, McMaster had never worked tra afair. McMaster hoped to play a sim- many, Egypt, or the European Union. in Washington. Yet he pledged to clean ilar role. One critique of the Obama Ad- In interviews with senior oicials who up the N.S.C. with the same cock- ministration was that foreign policy had worked closely with McMaster at the eyed resolve that he had brought to been too centralized at the White House, N.S.C., I was struck by a sense of will- Afghanistan. He read histories of the with N.S.C. stafers doing the kind of ful disconnection. They tended to talk, organization and met with his living operational decision-making that is even on background, as if they were work- predecessors. He selected as his model better left to departments and agencies. ing in the mainstream tradition of U.S. Brent Scowcroft—the diminutive, unas- Military commanders in Iraq and Af- foreign policy, and they behaved, at least suming, supremely capable national- ghanistan have told horror stories about outwardly, as though they were not grap- security adviser to both Gerald Ford and receiving micromanaging phone calls pling every day with an Administration George H. W. Bush. Just as McMaster that was radically unstable. According had forbidden soldiers to say “haji” in to a former oicial, at another meeting Iraq, he now told his staf that he did on North Korea in the White House not want to hear the words “Obama Situation Room, K. T. McFarland joked, holdover” in the Eisenhower Building. “You know, the President could send one “We are all one team,” he said. tweet and all of this will be overturned!” “We all laughed,” the former oi- n a BBC interview in December, Mc- cial told me. “But this was the deputy IMaster declared, “What we owe the national-security adviser. I mean, it’s President is options.” He might high- scary.” When I asked people who worked light “advantages and disadvantages,” from N.S.C. oicials in Washington. for McMaster if it was diicult to en- but “the President makes the decision.” McMaster aimed to revert to tradition. gage in a deliberative policy process McMaster announced that he was de- In October, at a panel at the Center for when Trump might embrace a radically termined to be, like Scowcroft, an hon- Strategic and International Studies, Mc- diferent course in one of his predawn est broker who would coördinate pol- Master remarked that in recent years tantrums, they reminded me, with the icy deliberations among government the N.S.C. “did cross a line.” He contin- frozen smile of a Stepford wife, that agencies and then present potential ued, “Consistent with President Trump’s “diferent Presidents communicate in courses of action to the President. He guidance, we have devolved responsibil- diferent ways.” When the BBC reporter had rejected the model typified by Henry ity and authorities back to the depart- asked McMaster, in December, if he Kissinger, a policy auteur who relent- ments.” Several of McMaster’s predeces- wished the President didn’t tweet, he lessly advanced his own views. But there sors joined him on the panel, among replied, “Aristotle said, ‘Focus on what was one immediate respect in which them Kissinger, who had simultaneously you can control and you can make a

42 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 diference.’ The President will do what the President wants to do. It’s his way of reaching the American people.” He continued, in a tone reminiscent of a hostage video, “My job is not to worry about Twitter.” This refusal by McMaster and his staf to acknowledge obvious anomalies may simply have reflected a fear of the wrath that the President might visit upon candid subordinates. But I also sensed, in the robotically sanguine accounts of McMaster’s team, a collective delusion. One of his aides told me that Adminis- tration stafers felt isolated, because old friends and colleagues “fell away.” The “Never Trump” center-right disowned them for coddling a tyrant; people on the left were repulsed by Trump’s “Amer- ica-first” agenda; even the Bannonite far right disdained them, for being in- “Thank you so much! I’ll keep this in my special box of things I suiciently extreme. So McMaster and can’t throw away for fear of hurting someone’s feelings.” his colleagues may have adopted a bun- ker mentality, and focussed on one thing that they could control: process. At times, •• they seemed to be living out the twelve- step adage about faking it until you make In December, the White House un- many concrete views on foreign policy it. If they instituted a policy architecture veiled its “National Security Strategy,” beyond bumper-sticker sentiments like resembling what had come before, maybe a sixty-eight-page document in which “America first.” When McMaster re- they could contain the chaos emanating the N.S.C. staf laid out Trump’s oi- quested Trump’s input, the President from the Oval Oice. One of McMas- cial view of the world. McMaster’s aides grew frustrated and defensive, as if he’d ter’s senior aides said of him, “He would proudly claimed that this was the first been ambushed with a pop quiz. So constantly pull people back into process.” time a national-security-strategy docu- stafers adopted Trump’s broad ideal of Another said, “We built this process that ment had been published within the American competitiveness and tried to was incredibly efective.” Multiple peo- first year of a Presidential Administra- extrapolate which policies he might ple who worked closely with McMaster tion. The document had conspicuously favor in specific instances. McMaster suggested to me, without irony, that this Trumpian lacunae; there were no refer- touted the resulting document as “highly was one of the most efective National ences to climate change as a national- readable,” and as a text it seems reas- Security Councils in history. (One of security threat, for example. But it suringly plausible. But nobody on Mc- them added, “If you grade on a curve.”) seemed to be an efort to domesticate Master’s staf could confirm for me with But rational protocols at the N.S.C. some of Trump’s bellicose rhetoric, em- any conviction that the President him- matter little if the President doesn’t re- phasizing the importance of competi- self had read it. spect them. McMaster’s process “had the tion among the great powers but also of veneer of something that Stephen Had- American leadership. Trump had mocked “ ne reason that Brent Scowcroft ley or Condi Rice or Susan Rice would nato as “obsolete”; the document de- Owas a successful national-secu- recognize,” a former stafer told me. “But scribed the alliance as “one of our great- rity adviser was that he had a pattern of it’s not getting the work done.” Another est advantages.” It explicitly named Rus- relationships already established,” Eliot former N.S.C. oicial said, “There are sia and China as malign influences, and Cohen pointed out. McMaster himself two parallel tracks—there’s the inter- declared that the Russians had used once observed that, in seeking to under- agency process, and then Trump makes technology “to undermine the legiti- stand historical events, “you cannot ne- a decision. But there’s often no sugges- macy of democracies.” Such language glect the personalities.” Jimmy Carter tion that he’s making decisions with ref- was in sharp contrast with Trump’s stren- trusted Zbigniew Brzezinski implicitly. erence to that process. It’s two ships in uous avoidance of blaming the Krem- Barack Obama talked basketball with the night.” The President, speaking to lin for election interference. An N.S.C. Susan Rice. But McMaster couldn’t es- Fox News in November, put it more suc- oicial told me, “The fundamental ques- tablish a rapport with Trump. cinctly. When asked about his failure to tion is, can you divorce Presidential rhet- The mismatch was surprising. The fill key State Department posts, Trump oric from American foreign policy?” President gravitates toward people who responded that, when it comes to foreign Composing the document was a are brash and informal, and McMaster policy, “I’m the only one that matters.” challenge, because Trump did not have is a jocular, witty guy. He was forever

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 43 joking with his staf, and sometimes gathered them around a screen to watch YouTube clips. (He is partial to “Best GIRLHOOD in Show,” a comedy about dog pag- eants.) Once, at a morning meeting at was when I slept in the woods the White House, John Kelly asked bareheaded beneath jagged McMaster if he’d read a certain memo. stars and the membranous McMaster replied that he hadn’t yet— near-misses of bats, when because he’d been at the gym. After a I tasted watercress, moment of disapproving silence, Mc- wild carrot, and sorrel, Master added, in a gruf deadpan, “A when I was known body like this doesn’t just happen.” by the lilac I hid beside, McMaster has a “frat-guy appeal,” a and when that lilac, burdened senior Administration oicial told me. by my expectations of lilacs, “But when he’s with the President he began a journey only has one mode—he is a general without me, as when briefing the Commander-in-Chief.” the dirt road sang, O, On the rare occasions when McMaster rugosa rose, farewell, cracked a joke—parrying some slight and ran behind the clipped by Trump with a mildly sarcastic “You white pine hedge into hurt my feelings, Mr. President”—his the immeasurable staf would nudge him afterward and heartbreaks of the ield. say, “Do that more! You’re funny!” But McMaster’s sense of propriety made —Cecily Parks it hard for him to engage in the kind of banter that Trump favors. More than one McMaster ally told me it was ably trying to imagine how many times all had to include this kind of basic a shame that the President and his H.R. has to shave his head every day, ‘World Factbook’ data.” Trump was ob- national-security adviser had never had while H.R. is going on and on about sessed with trade, to a degree that risked a beer together. Trump doesn’t drink. the complexities of Russia policy.” Only undermining other strategic priorities. Ken Pollack said that McMaster later, Pollack said, did McMaster real- He was frustrated that the U.S. had thought a lot about how to improve his ize that “the guy wasn’t absorbing a fuck- a trade deficit with its longtime ally relationship with Trump, to no avail. ing thing he said!” South Korea, and, in a gambit that had “This President never likes the smartest McMaster’s staf urged him to con- the whif of extortion, he occasionally guy in the room,” John Nagl, a former dense his briefings and make them more threatened to withdraw U.S. troops and Army oicer who has known McMas- conversational. (In an interview with a military aid from the country if the im- ter for years, said. “And it’s the job of the senior oicial, I described this process balance was not addressed. In an ex- national-security adviser to be the smart- as “dumbing down,” and the oicial cor- change with Angela Merkel, of Ger- est guy in the room.” Steve Bannon would rected me—“Let’s say ‘simplified ’”— many, Trump returned eleven times to complain that McMaster lectured the with a speed that suggested McMaster the prospect of a bilateral trade agree- President even though Trump hated may also have banned the phrase “dumb- ment, even though Germany, as a mem- being lectured. There is an inescapable ing down.”) McMaster felt that over- ber of the European Union, could not complexity to matters of national secu- simplifying national-security matters legally negotiate any such deal. rity and foreign afairs, and McMaster “was dangerous,” Pollack told me. He “The power of the national-security seemed unable to abbreviate his briefings. tried to turn his wonkishness into a joke: adviser is that the President wants to In the Army, he had banned PowerPoint, “Mr. President, just seventeen quick hear what you have to say,” Michèle remarking, “Some problems in the world points on that!” But Trump responded Flournoy, an under-secretary of defense are not bullet-izable.” Now he had to with open disdain. According to “Fire during the Obama Administration, told tell a President who wanted everything and Fury,” the book by Michael Wolf, me. An initial test of McMaster’s clout reduced to bullet points that the world Trump complained that his national- came in February, 2017, when he urged was not as simple as he thought. security adviser was “boring.” Trump not to use the phrase “radical Initially, Pollack said, McMaster gave Islamic terrorism” in a joint address to Trump “the benefit of the doubt,” as- rump wasn’t entirely incurious about Congress. The President did anyway. suming that he could understand com- Tother nations, but he tended to McMaster was more successful in a plicated issues. Every day, McMaster focus on transactional matters. During fight over Afghanistan policy. Before subjected Trump to detailed briefings. foreign-afairs briefings, he often inter- becoming President, Trump had cri- According to Pollack, the President just rupted to inquire about a nation’s gross tiqued the war in Afghanistan, and once sat there. “He would look like he was domestic product. “It became a fixation,” he assumed oice he expressed frustra- interested,” Pollack said. “He was prob- a former stafer told me. “Our memos tion that the U.S. was still involved in

44 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 the conflict. Bannon and McMaster tried to reassure her, saying, “If you’re ings.” But, in truth, it was making him openly clashed over Afghanistan, and being attacked because you’re on Dad’s a bit paranoid. He asked the oice of in at least one instance McMaster lost side, you’re on the right side of history.” the White House counsel to initiate an his temper, reportedly shouting, “You’re (She stayed in her post.) Another N.S.C. investigation of leaks at the N.S.C., and a liar!” (One assumes that Bannon knew stafer, Eric Ciaramella, was described in September he mandated that every better than to ask him to step outside.) on right-wing blogs as a leaker out to federal department and agency hold an Bannon loathed McMaster, deriding “sabotage Trump.” After receiving death hour-long training session on “unau- him as a “globalist” who was all too threats, he quit the N.S.C. and returned thorized disclosures.” eager to commit troops to foreign to his home agency. By the end of the summer, McMas- conflicts in which America had little According to numerous Administra- ter had weeded out some of his most strategic interest. He pushed for a with- tion oicials, at least some of the leaks toxic subordinates. But his working re- drawal of troops. McMaster told his about the N.S.C. were coming from the lationship with Trump remained awk- staf that anyone who briefed Trump Flynnstones: they were passing infor- ward, and Mattis and Tillerson—whom about Afghanistan should be prepared mation about colleagues to Bannonite McMaster referred to as the Team of for his first question: “What are we still allies on the outside. “It’s like cyberbul- Two—accorded him little respect. “Both doing there?” He presented Trump with lying at the highest level,” a senior oi- Mattis and Tillerson realized that this is photographs of Kabul from the nine- cial told me. “You’re scared. Because these not someone who is going to have the teen-seventies, when it was a more are bad people.” As the atmosphere grew President’s ear,” a former senior Admin- peaceful, stable city. The message, tai- increasingly poisonous, McMaster began istration oicial told me. Traditionally, lored to Trump’s preference for images, to fire the Flynnstones, including his the national-security adviser’s physi- was implicit: Afghanistan is not hope- old friend Derek Harvey. Harvey was cal proximity to the President confers less. Things can change. Trump ulti- rumored to have aligned himself with a special power that the Cabinet secre- mately sided with McMaster, commit- Bannon, though he insisted to friends taries do not enjoy. Yet McMaster’s daily ting several thousand additional troops. that this wasn’t the case. He had become exposure to Trump seemed not to But McMaster’s battle with Bannon consumed with questioning the loyalty strengthen his authority but to weaken was just beginning. When McMaster of the career staf of the N.S.C.’s Mid- it. McMaster, feeling that Mattis, a for- took the job, he did so with the under- dle East directorate. One day, a mem- mer four-star general, condescended to standing that he could hire his own ber of the directorate approached Mc- him, would grumble aloud to his staf, staf. He replaced K. T. McFarland and, Master after a meeting. “I don’t know if “I’m being treated like a three-star!” with Trump’s blessing, removed Ban- you’re aware of this, but Derek is trying Of course, McMaster was a three- non from the National Security Coun- to fire practically the entire staf,” he said. star. Military codes of hierarchy may be cil. A former Administration oicial “Shouldn’t I have a say?” McMaster so enduring that it didn’t matter that told me, “The whole reason Bannon asked, before putting a stop to the mass Mattis was retired, and that McMaster, went after H.R. wasn’t that he was a termination. as Trump’s representative, technically globalist—it was that he pushed Ban- McMaster tried to reassure the po- had authority over him. Moreover, in non of the N.S.C.” Breitbart News and litical appointees that the professional another sense, McMaster, as an active- other alt-right outlets demonized Mc- stafers weren’t spies but, rather, a valu- duty military oicer, was Mattis’s sub- Master, suggesting that he was in league able source of institutional knowledge. ordinate. “Remember, Mattis, as the with “Obama holdovers” to undermine Nevertheless, the hostility persisted. At Secretary of Defense, is his other boss,” the President. Rumors spread that Ad- one point, McMaster asked each N.S.C. a McMaster aide told me. At meetings, ministration oicials had established directorate to generate a memo out- McMaster referred to Nikki Haley, the an “insider threat” program at the lining the most severe threats that it Ambassador to the U.N., as “Nikki,” N.S.C., and were trying to root out dis- faced. Harvey was responsible for pro- and Tillerson as “Rex.” He addressed loyal stafers. ducing the Middle East directorate’s Mattis as “sir.” Most N.S.C. employees spend their list. According to someone who saw it, careers out of the public eye. But a se- the No. 1 threat was not isis, or the war n May 10, 2017, the day after Trump ries of online posts by Bannon allies tar- in Syria, but “problematic holdovers.” Odismissed the F.B.I. director, James geted staf members who were perceived “It was so unhinged,” the person said. Comey, he welcomed the Russian for- as traitorous, exposing personal details When McMaster dismissed his old eign minister, Sergey Lavrov, and the about them. A woman named Megan friend, he said, “Derek, it’s just not work- Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, Badasch, who had worked for Trump ing out.” An associate of McMaster’s to the Oval Oice. McMaster attended during the transition and had become told me that firing Harvey was “a hard the meeting. The American press corps the N.S.C.’s deputy executive secretary, call for H.R.,” adding, “He loves Derek.” was barred, though a photographer from was subjected to so much online abuse (Harvey, who declined to comment for the Russian state news agency was per- that she became fearful for her own this article, joined the staf of Repre- mitted to take pictures. Several days safety and moved out of her apartment. sentative Devin Nunes.) later, the Washington Post revealed that Badasch regarded herself as a Trump Reporters asked McMaster about Trump had casually disclosed to the loyalist, and felt that she had been slan- the abuse he was receiving. He shrugged Russian oicials top-secret intelligence dered. One of McMaster’s daughters it of, saying, “It doesn’t hurt my feel- from a U.S. ally about an isis terrorist

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 45 threat—a plot to blow up airplanes by to go to preserve his relationship with solution and part of the problem.” sneaking onboard laptop computers em- Trump, in order to protect the nation. Thomas Ricks told me that McMaster bedded with explosives. Although Trump As Davidson put it to me, “How many surely approached his job in good faith, did not reveal the source of his infor- times a week, or a month, does he man- but added, “Watching him, I came to mation, he did mention where the ally age to talk the President out of some- believe that, at a certain point, he was had learned of the threat: a Syrian city thing? Probably a lot.” just putting lipstick on a pig.” within the territory held by isis. This John Nagl sounded a similar note: clue likely allowed the Russians to de- “On H.R.’s shoulders may be decisions everal of McMaster’s close associates termine that the intelligence had come that preserve the world from the threat Son the N.S.C. strenuously objected from Israel. America’s closest intelli- of thermonuclear war, and there’s lit- to such characterizations. Numerous peo- gence relationships are predicated on erally nobody else who I would rather ple told me they were sure that McMas- the understanding that shared informa- have in that position,” he told me. “If ter had established “red lines”—things tion will be carefully handled. Kislyak that means he has to say some things that he would have refused to do for was widely assumed to be a Russian that are not completely true, I’m O.K. Trump. But nobody could tell me what spymaster, and though Russia and the with that.” In this telling, McMaster those things were. And it is tempting to U.S. ostensibly share a commitment to was a martyr—a man who loved Amer- wonder whether, in this moment of bread combatting isis, they have starkly difer- ica so much that he was prepared to and circuses, with fresh scandals erupt- ent interests in Syria, where Russia sup- sacrifice his own reputation in order ing every day, the gesture of resigning ports the regime of President Bashar to save it. in protest would have had any efect. al-Assad. In the context of the Comey But others wondered if McMaster Trump’s Secretary of Veterans Afairs, firing and the simmering suspicions had transgressed a moral boundary. In David Shulkin, wrote an indignant Op-Ed about Russian collusion, Trump’s blithe “Dereliction of Duty,” he had described in the Times after he was fired, late this disclosure was a grave blunder. a dangerous phenomenon in which mil- past March, and it registered for barely After the Washington Post reported itary men became “shields,” insulating a news cycle. In “Dereliction of Duty,” on the gafe, creating a furor, the White political leaders from criticism by lend- McMaster recounts the story of Harold House denied that Trump had divulged ing an aura of unimpeachability to their Johnson, an Army chief of staf who con- such information. But the President un- decisions—even reckless ones. Paul sidered resigning during the Vietnam dercut this story line when he acknowl- Yingling, who had served alongside Mc- War. “I could resign, and what am I?” edged, on Twitter, that he had indeed Master in Iraq, was sickened by his Johnson says. “I’m a disgruntled general done so. Then McMaster held a press White House appearance. “It is never for forty-eight hours, and then I’m out conference to address the controversy. O.K. for an oicer to lie, period,” he of sight.” McMaster notes, however, that He labelled the Post story false, although said. “If you want to get into politics this failure to act on principle haunted he did not explain what was inaccurate and shade the truth, great. But take of Johnson for the rest of his life. about it, and he glossed over Trump’s the uniform. The problem is when you Whatever McMaster’s personal cal- disclosure of classified information to a mix categories: when you ask for the culus, the people around him insist that hostile adversary, focussing instead on presumption of honor that goes with he has no regrets about his tenure. “I the fact that the President did not ap- being an oicer and then you mislead really take issue with the notion that pear to have jeopardized “sources and the public.” In Yingling’s view, it was he opportunistically set his principles methods.” McMaster seemed sincerely grotesque to exploit that honor “as a po- aside,” an oicial who worked closely exasperated with the press. “It is wholly litical asset.” with him said, adding, “I think where appropriate for the President to share Yingling believes that the oicer’s some people have a hard time is that, whatever information he thinks is nec- code left McMaster no choice but to ideologically, General McMaster may essary to advance the security of the quit. “You don’t make instrumental cal- find himself aligned with the main American people,” he said. His remarks culations about questions of honor,” he thrust of Trump’s foreign policy.” Both were brief but aggressive; he managed said. “Some of these senior military Trump and McMaster disdained the to use the phrase “wholly appropriate” oicers in the Trump Administration Obama Administration’s lofty rhetoric nine times. forget that the Constitution they swore about arcs of history bending toward Many of McMaster’s friends found to defend includes the Twenty-fifth justice, and saw the world as an arena the press conference hard to watch. “We Amendment. If they believe that the for brute competition. all looked at that and said, ‘O.K., man, President is unfit, then their job is not Nowhere was this apparent ainity you’re trying real hard,’ ” Janine David- to work behind the scenes to mitigate, more pronounced than on North Korea son, the former Pentagon oicial, re- or paper over, his infirmities. It’s their policy. McMaster has always had a called. In light of McMaster’s book, and duty to resign—and go public about why hawkish temperament. “Dereliction of his unrestrained temperament, some they’re doing it.” Duty” is not critical of U.S. engagement observers had hoped that he might be Erin Simpson, a defense analyst who in Vietnam per se—but of incremental efective as Trump’s foil, curbing the worked with McMaster in Afghanistan, U.S. engagement. McMaster retains a President’s most virulent instincts. Per- has suggested that when honorable deep faith in conventional American haps the press conference simply illus- people take senior positions in this Ad- military power. Eforts by previous Ad- trated how far McMaster was willing ministration they become “part of the ministrations to halt North Korea’s

46 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 development of nuclear weapons had proved fruitless. As national-security adviser, McMaster became associated in the press with the so-called bloody- nose strategy, in which the U.S. might launch a “preventive” conventional attack on North Korea, stunning the regime of Kim Jong Un into cowed recognition of America’s power. McMaster has suggested that traditional deterrence may not work with Kim, and that if North Korea develops a long-range nuclear capability it would represent “the most destabilizing development” in the international order since the Second World War. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos in August, McMaster displayed few reservations about deploy- ing military options. “The United States military is locked and loaded,” he said. Some of McMaster’s friends were shocked that he might advocate such a strategy. The human toll would likely be catastrophic, because Kim would almost certainly retaliate by launching an attack on Seoul. Secretary Mattis has •• suggested that the scenario could result in “probably the worst kind of fighting in most people’s lifetime.” The strategy apparent attempts to limit Trump’s op- picks the hot option? The delicate game also had a glaring logical flaw: if the tions verged on insubordination. One theory of nuclear brinkmanship is pred- basis for a preventative strike were the senior N.S.C. oicial told me that Mat- icated, in no small part, on the idea that assumption that Kim cannot otherwise tis perceives his role as playing “baby- the two sides are engaging in rational be deterred, what grounds would there sitter” to the President. calculation. Yet both Trump and Kim be to think that a “bloody nose” might “Part of the friction in H.R.’s rela- are prone to intemperate rhetoric, pea- deter him? Some admirers of McMas- tionship with Trump was that the guy cocking, and impulsive decisions. Ac- ter’s told me that if he had appeared to didn’t like the fact that his foreign- cording to multiple senior oicials, in endorse a conventional-weapons attack, policy team was just stonewalling him,” early January the President asked his it must have been a bluf—an efort to Ken Pollack said. And Trump didn’t staf to present him with a range of evac- constrain Kim through rhetoric. But, seem to perceive that Mattis was doing uation plans for the approximately two when I floated this theory to several the stonewalling. Two senior oicials at hundred thousand American civilians people who have worked on the Trump the White House told me that when who live in South Korea. (On TV, Sen- N.S.C., they scofed. “Bullshit,” one said. Trump demanded to know what had ator Lindsey Graham was calling for “There’s no way this team could ever become of options he requested, Mc- dependents of U.S. soldiers there to be pull of anything approaching that level Master, always the Boy Scout, refused brought home.) Any evacuation would of sophistication.” to point the finger at Mattis. He just send a profoundly alarming signal to McMaster’s staf insisted to me that, said, “We’re working on it, sir.” Accord- South Korea, and inevitably put the U.S. contrary to widespread reports, he never ing to Pollack, McMaster believed that and North Korea on a war footing. Mc- adopted the bloody-nose position. “He part of the tension he experienced with Master and his staf dutifully began never said ‘bloody nose,’ ” a close aide Mattis and Tillerson sprang from their gathering options for the President. The told me. Instead, stafers suggested, Mc- perception that he was “too responsive” deliberations were scuttled only after Master simply provided a comprehen- to the President. Mattis and Kelly intervened. sive list of military options to the Pres- Erin Simpson said that there is a Adam Smith, the top Democrat on ident. They contrasted this approach “Goldilocks problem” when it comes to the House Armed Services Committee, with that of Jim Mattis. There had been advising Trump. In most Administra- once told Mattis, “Your job is to make instances, with regard to North Korea tions, a policy adviser might present sure these morons don’t get up in the and also Iran, in which McMaster re- three choices: one that’s too cold, one morning and advance some lame-brained quested war plans from Mattis, only to that’s too hot, and a third that’s just idea.” Mattis’s interactions with Mc- have Mattis refuse to supply them. To right. But what do you do when you are Master indicate that he perceives Trump McMaster and his colleagues, Mattis’s serving a President who nearly always as a radically mercurial figure who must

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 47 be managed with a degree of manipu- Washington with him. On the flight, McMaster surely hastened his own lation and care that exceeds the usual Trump asked him, “What do you think demise when he acknowledged, at the parameters of his job. McMaster, in his of McMaster?” Munich Security Conference, in Feb- insistence on a doctrinaire approach to Graham replied, “The man is always ruary, that Robert Mueller had amassed his position, could seem, at times, like on message for you.” “incontrovertible” evidence of a Russian the Army leaders he once criticized— efort to interfere in the 2016 election. fighting the war he wanted to fight, rump demands loyalty, but he sel- When a Russian oicial at the event pro- rather than the one he was fighting. Tdom rewards it. One day in early posed a joint initiative between Russia “The job is the job,” one of McMas- March, I had just entered the White and the United States on cybersecurity, ter’s close aides told me, arguing that House grounds when MSNBC, citing McMaster replied, “I’m surprised there there was nothing about Trump that five sources, reported that McMaster are any Russian cyber experts available, necessitated a bespoke approach to the was about to be fired. When I alerted based on how active they have been in presentation of military options. If Mat- one of his aides to the story, she seemed undermining our democracies across tis was a babysitter, then McMaster was bewildered, saying, “He’s been in meet- the West.” Within hours, Trump pub- a waiter, presenting the Commander- ings with the President all day!” Later licly rebuked him with a tweet: “General in-Chief with a menu, and letting him that afternoon, Trump denied the story, McMaster forgot to say that the results order. This is the irony of Trump’s am- calling it “fake news,” and saying that of the 2016 election were not impacted bivalence about McMaster: there should McMaster was doing “a great job.” or changed by the Russians and that have been no question about his loyalty. McMaster’s staf told me that he had the only Collusion was between Russia At a White House press briefing in Jan- dealt with the months-long uncertainty and Crooked H, the DNC and the uary, a journalist asked McMaster if about his employment with “dignity and Dems.” McMaster’s staf was caught of Trump’s incendiary rhetoric—and his honor,” but also with gallows humor. guard. They had not found his com- refusal to speak out about human rights After the MSNBC story, McMaster at- ments in Munich particularly contro- and freedom of expression—might be tended a meeting of his senior staf and versial. As if to underline how superflu- “creating a climate where authoritarian announced, “I will be leaving the White ous his national-security adviser had leaders feel they have free reign.” House.” He waited just long enough for become, Trump announced three weeks “It’s just not true,” McMaster said, alarm to register on people’s faces be- later that, rather than give Kim Jong Un insisting that Trump had “spoken loudly” fore adding, “We will all be leaving the a bloody nose, he would break with about human rights. McMaster cited White House, eventually.” He adopted decades of American precedent and hold language from a few teleprompter the same tone of cavalier existentialism direct talks with the North Korean speeches that Trump had delivered, and in meetings with some of his foreign leader. Trump, in an apparent acknowl- refused to otherwise address the ques- counterparts, occasionally punctuating edgment that he prefers to conduct for- tion. The exchange was striking not so discussions of future plans with “I might eign policy by instinct, said that when much for McMaster’s disingenuousness, not be here next week!” This may have it came to war and peace he could “go as for the fact that he actually appeared endeared McMaster to foreign minis- hard in either direction.” to believe his own spin. In October, ters, but it could not help the standing Trump’s announcement was wel- Lindsey Graham joined Trump at an or stability of the United States to have comed in the mainstream press, insofar event in South Carolina, and afterward a national-security adviser who was so as it represented an alternative to a mil- Trump invited Graham to fly back to obviously operating on borrowed time. itary strike. But the plan had its own risks. Trump is not, in fact, a great ne- gotiator. A one-on-one meeting was already a victory for Kim: whatever the outcome of the talks, he would bolster his legitimacy by sitting down with a U.S. President. And how would such a meeting unfold? As the “do not congratulate” episode made clear, Trump has a compulsion to blurt out precisely the thing that he has been instructed not to say. And who would prepare him for the talks? Joseph Yun, the U.S. Spe- cial Representative for North Korea Pol- icy, quit at the end of February and was not replaced. Trump had still not appointed an Ambassador to South Korea. (The Administration’s candidate for the job, the widely respected scholar Victor Cha, had suddenly been withdrawn, “That table is yours once that party decides to move to the suburbs.” reportedly because the White House deemed him insuiciently hawkish.) suggested that he was responsible for during his thirteen months in oice, it And in mid-March Trump fired Tiller- it. McMaster’s staf pointed out that it was hard not to regard the Bolton ap- son. When South Korea’s foreign min- would have been self-defeating for him pointment as Trump’s repudiation of ister, Kang Kyung-wha, visited Wash- to have engineered such a leak; in fact, those achievements. Pollack told me ington several days later, Tillerson’s more than one senior oicial suggested that, policy matters aside, McMaster’s replacement, Mike Pompeo, had not yet to me that the leak may have emanated focus on process and precedent was a been confirmed as Secretary of State. from someone in the White House worthy attempt to inculcate in the Pres- Kang met with Ivanka Trump instead. who was trying to frame McMaster. ident a sense of civility and tradition. The delay in firing McMaster could The morning after he was fired, “That was the endless challenge— be attributed, in part, to an efort to McMaster called an all-hands meeting trying to convince Donald Trump to find him another position in the Army. in the same auditorium where he had live in the house, rather than just burn This would have been a fitting reward first greeted his staf. He it down,” Pollack said. Al- for McMaster’s service: he could return received a three-minute luding to Bolton’s ascen- to the institution where he had spent standing ovation. True to sion, he concluded, “Un- his whole career, and perhaps earn a form, McMaster exuded fortunately, I think we have fourth star. But several people close to optimism, not bitterness, our answer.” McMaster told me that he regarded his praising his colleagues A few days before Mc- tenure on the N.S.C. as his “terminal” and exhorting them to Master’s departure, he gave position in government. The Army did do everything they could a speech at the Atlantic float a number of possible assignments, to empower his successor, Council, a think tank in including the command of U.S. Army John Bolton—an unre- Washington. He again forces in the Pacific. But an aide told pentant hawk who is ex- criticized Russia as a ne- me that McMaster may have found pected to adopt a more farious actor, emphasizing these ofers “demeaning”; the Pacific Kissingerian approach to the position. its responsibility for the recent nerve- job is a four-star position, but, because Over the several months that I re- agent poisonings in England. The Trump the region is dominated by the Navy, it ported this story, I asked friends and Administration was introducing new is not considered a plum assignment. colleagues of McMaster’s why he put sanctions against Russia, a development Moreover, a senior White House oi- up with the indignities of the job, in- that might count as another success for cial told me, “I don’t think Mattis wanted stead of resigning. Many ofered the McMaster, but he seemed to express him back.” McMaster, who had writ- same explanation: he knew that if he some oblique frustration. “It is time that ten a book about the importance of mil- left because he had grave qualms about we expose those who glamorize and itary advisers remaining untainted by Trump, he would be replaced by some- apologize in the service of Communist, politics, was now tainted himself. “It’s one else who didn’t have those qualms. authoritarian, and repressive govern- harder for H.R. to be legitimized as a As Nagl told me, “For John Bolton, ments,” he declared, criticizing people four-star after serving in a political po- there is no moral dilemma.” who nurture “idealized” views of tyran- sition—especially in this Administra- In describing McMaster’s accom- nical regimes. It was as close as Mc- tion,” Bill Rapp said. plishments, numerous oicials pointed Master was likely to come to taking a One uncanny feature of the Trump to the relatively moderate language of public shot at Trump. “It was an angry Presidency is the degree to which the the “National Security Strategy,” and speech,” someone who worked for him former star of “The Apprentice” has to his success in persuading Trump not told me. “You could tell from his deliv- reënacted, in the White House, a seri- to completely jettison the Iran agree- ery that there are areas in which he alized reality show built around dramatic ment. But McMaster had been replaced wanted to do more. It’s clear that he has firings. The Washington establishment by a man who will likely function as views that he isn’t able to express.” and the press have been co-opted all an accelerator on Trump’s wildest in- McMaster will retire from the Army too easily by this spectacle, wallowing stincts, and who will not hesitate to in- on June 1st. He will teach, give lec- in the palace intrigue and speculating validate the Iran deal. The prospects tures, sit on corporate boards, and make about who might be ousted next. As ru- for multilateralism look dim. “You can money. Perhaps he will be haunted by mors of McMaster’s departure swirled, hear the shock in the Europeans’ voices his decision to remain obdurately loyal he approached Trump. “Do you want as they’re saying goodbye to McMas- to Donald Trump. And perhaps he will me to go?” he asked. “I’ll go as hard as ter,” a senior oicial said. write another book—one that interro- I can for as long as I can. But if you One of Bolton’s first orders of busi- gates his own calibration of the balance want me to go now, I’ll go.” ness was to start dismissing people who between duty and honor in the ser- “I’ll get back to you,” Trump replied. had worked for McMaster. Bolton was vice of a President who didn’t want to McMaster hoped to stay in the job said to be particularly interested in weed- be challenged. For an old soldier like through the summer. But on March 22nd ing out “Obama holdovers.” Exiled McMaster, the very notion of civilian Trump telephoned him and said that Flynnstones began angling for a trium- life may seem mystifying. Years ago, he it was time. The President had shouted phant return to the Administration. If was asked what he would do if he ever at McMaster about the “do not con- you were inclined to believe that Mc- left the Army. “It’s so hard for me to gratulate” leak, but never actually Master had achieved anything of note imagine,” he said. 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 49 LETTER FROM TOKYO A THEORY OF RELATIVITY Japan’s rent-a-family phenomenon.

BY ELIF BATUMAN

wo years ago, Kazushige Ni- Nishida’s real daughter—he used the “That was very nice,” Nishida re- shida, a Tokyo salaryman in his English word “sharp”—but the wife called, smiling slightly. He said he T sixties, started renting a part- immediately impressed him as “an or- didn’t miss the women when they left— time wife and daughter. His real wife dinary, generic middle-aged woman.” not with any sense of urgency or long- had recently died. Six months before He added, “Unlike, for example, Ms. ing. But he did think, “It would be that, their daughter, who was twenty- Matsumoto”—he nodded toward my nice to spend some time like that with two, had left home after an argument interpreter, Chie Matsumoto—“who them again.” and never returned. might look like a career woman.” Chie, Nishida said that, although he still “I thought I was a strong person,” a journalist, teacher, and activist, who calls them by the names of his wife and Nishida told me, when we met one has spiky salt-and-pepper hair and wears daughter, and the meetings still take the night in February, at a restaurant near plastic-framed glasses, laughed as she form of family dinners, the women have, a train station in the suburbs. “But when translated this qualification. to some extent, stopped acting and you end up alone you feel very lonely.” The wife asked Nishida for details “turned into their own selves.” The rental Tall and slightly stooped, Nishida was about how she and the daughter should wife sometimes “breaks out of the shell wearing a suit and a gray tie. He had act. Nishida demonstrated the charac- of the rental family” enough to complain a deep voice and a gentle, self-depre- teristic toss of the head with which his about her real husband, and Nishida gives cating demeanor. late wife had rearranged her hair, and her advice. With this loosening of the Of course, he said, he still went to his daughter’s playful way of poking roles, he realized that he, too, had been work every day, in the sales division of him in the ribs. Then the women started acting, playing the part of “a good hus- a manufacturing company, and he had acting. The rental wife called him Kazu, band and father,” trying not to seem too friends with whom he could go out for just as his real wife had, and tossed her miserable, telling his daughter how to drinks or play golf. But at night he was head to shake back her hair. The rental hold her rice bowl. Now he felt lighter, completely alone. He thought he would daughter playfully poked him in the able for the first time to talk about his feel better over time. Instead, he felt ribs. An observer would have taken real daughter, about how shocked he worse. He tried going to hostess clubs. them for a real family. had been when she announced her de- Talking to the ladies was fun, but at Nishida booked a second meeting. cision to move in with a boyfriend he the end of the night you were alone This time, the wife and daughter came had never met, and how they had ar- again, feeling stupid for having spent to his house. The wife cooked okonomi- gued and broken of contact. so much money. yaki, a kind of pancake that Nishida’s On the subject of the real daughter, Then he remembered a television late wife had made, while Nishida chat- the rental daughter had a lot to say: as program he had seen, about a company ted with the daughter. Then they ate someone in her early twenties, she could called Family Romance, one of a num- dinner together and watched television. tell that Nishida hadn’t spoken cor- ber of agencies in Japan that rent out More family dinners followed, usu- rectly, or expressed himself in the right replacement relatives. One client, an ally at Nishida’s house, though one time way. He’d made it hard for his daugh- elderly woman, had spoken enthusias- they went out for monjayaki, another ter to apologize and it was up to him tically about going shopping with her variety of pancake beloved by the late to create an opening. “Your daughter is rental grandchild. “The grandchild was Mrs. Nishida. It hadn’t been a fancy waiting for you to call her,” she told just a rental, but the woman was still meal, and Nishida wondered whether him. To me, this sentence had the eerie really happy,” Nishida recalled. he should have taken the women, who ring of something uttered at a séance. Nishida contacted Family Romance were, after all, his guests, to a nicer place. Nishida himself seemed uncertain about and placed an order for a wife and a Then again, in real life, the Nishidas how and for whom the rental daugh- daughter to join him for dinner. On hadn’t gone to any of those nicer places. ter had spoken. “She was acting as a the order form, he noted his daughter’s Before another meeting, it occurred rental daughter, but at the same time age, and his wife’s physique: five feet to Nishida to send Family Romance a she was telling me how she felt as a real tall and a little plump. The cost was copy of his house key. When he came daughter,” he said. “And yet, if it was a forty thousand yen, about three hun- home from work that night, the lights real father-daughter relationship, maybe dred and seventy dollars. The first meet- were on, the house was warm, and a she wouldn’t have spoken this honestly.” ing took place at a café. The rental wife and daughter were there to say, Eventually, Nishida called his daugh- daughter was more fashionable than “Welcome home.” ter—something he says he wouldn’t

50 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 The head of one rental-relative company described the service as “human afection expressed through the form of the family.”

ILLUSTRATION BY JAVIER JAÉN THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 51 having trouble getting her daughter into a competitive kindergarten, because schools favored children whose parents were married. Ishii volunteered to impersonate the child’s father at a school interview. The interview was not a success—the daughter wasn’t used to him and their interaction was stilted— but it filled him with the desire to do better, and to “correct injustice” by helping other women in his friend’s situation. Looking around to see whether anyone had thought to start a professional service of this kind, he came across the Web site of a rental-relative agency called Hagemashi-tai. Hagemashi-tai, which can be translated as “I want to cheer you up,” was started in 2006 by Ryūichi Ichinokawa, a middle-aged former salaryman with a wife and two sons. Five years earlier, Ichinokawa had been deeply shaken by news of a stabbing at a private elementary school in a suburb of Osaka, in which eight children around his sons’ age were “Once you’ve read your favorite authors on a little killed. Such incidents are rare in Japan, illuminated screen, you can’t go back.” and schools weren’t equipped with appropriate counselling services, so Ichi- nokawa enrolled in a psychology course, •• hoping to become a school counsellor. Instead, he ended up launching a Web have done if the rental substitute hadn’t His business card has a cartoon of his site that ofered counselling by e-mail. helped him see her point of view. It face on it, and a slogan that translates From there, he branched out into rent- took a few tries to get through, but as “More pleasure than the pleasure re- ing relatives. A lot of problems, it seemed, they were eventually able to talk. One ality can provide.” were caused by some missing person, day, he came home from work to find Born in Tokyo, Ishii grew up on the and often the simplest solution was to fresh flowers for his wife on the fam- Chiba coast, where his father was a fruit find a substitute. ily altar, and he understood that his dealer and his mother taught swimming. Ishii registered with Hagemashi-tai, daughter had been at the house while When he was in elementary school, his but, at twenty-six, he was considered he was gone. friends would gather around a pay phone too young for husband and father roles, “I’ve been telling her to come home,” to listen to him make prank calls, dis- and his only jobs were as a wedding he said carefully, folding and refolding guising his voice as a grownup’s; only guest. Weddings are the bread and but- a hand towel that the waitress had he could make such calls without laughter of the rental-relative business, per- brought him. “I’m hoping to meet her ing. At twenty, he was scouted by a tal- haps because traditions that dictate the again soon.” ent agency, and got a few jobs as a model number of guests haven’t changed to and a movie extra. He also had regular reflect increasing urbanization and ūichi Ishii, the founder of Family work as a caregiver for the elderly. He migration, shrinking families, and de- YRomance, told me that he and his showed me pictures on his phone of his creased job security. Laid-of grooms “cast” actively strategize in order to en- younger self at diferent senior-home rent replacements for co-workers and gineer outcomes like Nishida’s, in which festivities, dressed variously as Marilyn supervisors. People who changed schools the rental family makes itself redun- Manson or in drag, surrounded by de- a lot rent childhood friends. The newly dant in the client’s life. His goal, he lighted residents. He loved the feeling aianced, reluctant to trouble one an- said, is “to bring about a society where of helping people, and was proud of other with family problems, may rent no one needs our service.” A handsome being the most requested caregiver, even substitutes for parents who are divorced, man in his mid-thirties, he came to when residents were transferred to difer- incarcerated, or mentally ill. One Hage- one of our meetings straight from a ent facilities. In efect, he was already a mashi-tai client simply didn’t want to TV interview, wearing a pin-striped rental grandson. tell his fiancée that his parents were suit and matching culinks and tie pin Eleven years ago, a friend of Ishii’s, dead, so he rented replacements. that featured a blue cameo with a horse. a single mother, told him that she was In 2009, Ishii decided to start his

52 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 own company. The first step was to ent dependency. Ishii says that between dings. The cost is around five million think up a memorable name. He began thirty and forty per cent of the women yen (around forty-seven thousand dol- researching phrases related to the idea in ongoing relationships with rental lars). In some cases, the bride invites of an imaginary family, and came across husbands eventually propose marriage. real co-workers, friends, and family “The Family Romance of Neurotics,” Male clients have less opportunity to members. In others, everyone is an actor an essay by Freud, published in 1909, become dependent, because rental wives, except the bride and her parents. The about children who believe that their for safety reasons, rarely visit men at rental best man gives a speech, often parents are impostors, and that their home; Nishida’s wife and daughter bringing the rental guests to tears. When real parents are nobles or royals. Ac- made an exception because there were Ishii plays the groom, he experiences cording to Freud, this fantasy is a child’s two of them. In general, rental part- complicated emotions. A fake wedding, way of coping with the inevitable, pain- ners and spouses aren’t supposed to be he says, is just as much work to orga- ful experience of disillusionment in his alone with clients one on one, and phys- nize as a real one, and he and the cli- or her parents. If parents never stopped ical contact beyond hand-holding is ent plan together for months. Invari- appearing as all-powerful, generous, and not allowed. ably, Ishii says, “I start to fall for her.” infallible, as they do to their small chil- The most diicult dependency sit- When it comes to the kiss, some brides dren, nobody would ever become inde- uations involve single mothers. “We prefer to fake it—they touch cheeks so pendent; yet how can anyone bear the can’t just push them away and say ‘No, it looks like they’re kissing—but oth- sudden, irretrievable loss of such be- we can’t do that’ in a cold way, because ers opt for the real thing. Ishii tries to loved beings? The “family romance” al- we have a responsibility that we will pretend he’s acting in a movie, but often, lows the child to hold on to the ideal a play that role for a long time,” Ishii said. he says, “I feel like I’m really getting bit longer, by reassigning it to “new and In such cases, his first step is to reduce married to this woman.” aristocratic parents”—whose wonder- the frequency of meetings to once every Of all the services ofered by Fam- ful characteristics, Freud wrote, are al- three months. This approach works ily Romance, the most perplexing to ways “derived entirely from real recol- with some people, but others insist on me was “Rental Scolder.” Scolders are lections of the actual and humble ones.” more frequent meetings. Occasionally, hired not, as I had assumed, by clients In this sense, the child is not “getting relationships have to be terminated. wishing to berate third parties but by rid of ” the parents but “exalting” them, people who “made a mistake” and need and the whole project of replacing the n Tokyo this winter, I met with cast help to “atone.” One actor, Taishi, a parents with superior versions “is only Imembers from both Family Romance mild-mannered forty-two-year-old fit- an expression of the child’s longing for and Hagemashi-tai. They had attended ness instructor, told me about his first the happy, vanished days when his fa- weddings, spiritual seminars, job fairs, such role. The client, a company ther seemed to him the noblest and standup-comedy contests, and the album founder in his late fifties, complained strongest of men and his mother the releases of teen idols. One woman had of losing his “forward-looking moti- dearest and loveliest of women.” been impersonating a man’s wife for vation.” He had stopped joining his Ishii runs Family Romance along- seven years: the real wife had put on employees at meetings or for drinks. side a talent agency and a tech consul- weight, so the husband hired the stand-in Instead, delegating his responsibilities tancy, employing about twenty full- to go out with him and his friends. The to subordinates, he played golf and vis- time staf members, seven or eight of same actress had also replaced over- ited hostess clubs on the company tab. whom work exclusively for Family weight mothers at school events; the The company’s accountant knew about Romance. He maintains a database of children of overweight parents may be these charges, so the employees prob- some twelve hundred freelance actors. subject to bullying. Ichinokawa and Ishii ably knew, too, and this made him feel Big one-time jobs, like weddings, ac- told me many more stories. A hostess ashamed. count for about seventy per cent of in a cabaret club hired a client to request Taishi, impressed by this level of Family Romance’s revenue. The rest her. A blind woman rented a seeing friend self-knowledge and reluctant to shout comes from personal relationships that to identify the good-looking men at a at a company president fifteen years his may, as in Kazushige Nishida’s case, singles dance. A pregnant woman rented senior, suggested that the client simply continue for years. a mother to persuade her boyfriend to join the workers for a meeting or a drink, Ishii told me that, since 2009, he acknowledge their child, and a young and stop charging personal expenses to has played the husband to a hundred man rented a father to conciliate the the company. In response, the man women. About sixty of those jobs were parents of his pregnant lover. launched into a diatribe about the cor- ongoing. At one point, early in his ca- Single women with marriage-ob- rect distance between a president and reer, he was in ten families at the same sessed parents often rent fake boyfriends the workers, explaining that any varia- time. It was not a sustainable work- or fiancés. If the parents demand to see tion would intimidate the staf. He re- load. “You feel like you have someone’s the boyfriend again, the woman will fused to go to even one meeting to see life on your shoulders,” he said. He has typically stall for a while, and then say whether or not anyone was intimi- since implemented a policy that no things didn’t work out. But sometimes dated. As they talked in circles, Taishi actor may play more than five roles the parents can’t be put of and mat- found himself growing irritated. “I said, at a time. ters escalate. Ishii says that, two or three ‘Well, why did you send us this request One of the hazards of the job is cli- times a year, he stages entire fake wed- if you aren’t listening to me?’” Only

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 53 half-acting, he pounded on the table. Another rental agency ofers a more Terai. In addition to ninety-minute cor- “The problem is with your hard head,” specialized service: its name, Ikemeso porate sessions, Terai makes a yearly he declared, and threw the straw from Takkyūbin, means “handsome men trip to Iwaki, a city in Fukushima Pre- his soft drink across the room. weeping delivery.” Clients choose from fecture, to run a rui-katsu session with Rental apologies, the obverse of a menu of handsome men correspond- earthquake survivors. rental scoldings, can be particularly ing to diferent types, including “little Terai, now thirty-seven, says that at- thorny. Ishii outlined some possible sce- brother,” “tough guy,” “intellectual,” titudes toward men crying have changed narios. If you make a mistake at work, “swordsman,” “mixed race,” and, puz- since his childhood. As an experiment, and a disgruntled client or customer zlingly, “dentist.” The teenage-looking he asked younger women what they demands to see your supervisor, you “dentist,” dwarfed in his picture by would think of a man who cried. All can hire Ishii to imperson- a radically foreshortened of them said that they would think he ate the supervisor. Ishii, toothbrush he was holding was sensitive and kind—provided that identifying himself as a de- up to the camera, was, I he was also good-looking. Having also partment head, will then later learned, a real dentist. heard from some female rui-katsu par- apologize. If the apology Hiroki Terai, Ikemeso ticipants that the service would be im- isn’t accepted, a diferent Takkyūbin’s founder, told proved if a handsome man wiped away actor can be sent to apolo- me that the weeping ser- their tears, Terai felt professionally gize as the division head. vice is an ofshoot of an- obliged to start dispatching handsome If the division head doesn’t other business venture: “di- men to help people cry. get results, Ishii dispatches vorce ceremonies,” which I had asked to try the service, and a remorseful president. are intended to provide clo- selected the “swordsman,” whom Terai These situations can get sure and relief from social took me to meet in a hotel lobby. (My complicated, because the real depart- stigma. In the past nine years, he has translator, Chie, expressed surprise when ment heads and presidents aren’t aware performed five hundred and thirty cer- I declined to book an eight-thousand- that they have apologized. Sometimes, emonies. (For the four-hundredth cer- yen private room for my weeping ses- if an ofended party hasn’t actually met emony, a husband, dressed as a human- sion; I assured her that, though the the ofender, Ishii stands in for the size wedding bouquet, was attached to swordsman was a novelty, it would be ofender, who then pretends to be Ishii’s a bungee cord and pushed of a clif by neither my first nor, in all likelihood, supervisor. Ishii grovels and trembles his soon-to-be ex-wife.) The ceremo- my last time crying in public.) The on the floor while being yelled at, as nies, which are often held in a dilapi- swordsman, a willowy youth with chis- the real culprit looks on. Ishii says that dated building, to “symbolize a mar- elled features and an expression of great these scenes give one a surreal, dream- riage that’s falling apart,” include a slide sensitivity, wore a garment made by a like, unpleasant feeling. show illustrating, with bullet points, designer specializing in modernistic re- More stressful still are apologies in- where the marriage went wrong. Fif- interpretations of traditional Japanese volving afairs. A deceived husband teen couples have got back together dress. He began our session by reading sometimes demands a personal apol- after the slide show. On occasion, me a children’s book in which a little ogy from his wife’s lover. Unfaithful women who are embarrassed about boy in Fukushima writes a letter to his wives with uncoöperative lovers may their divorces have hired rental rela- grandmother and her dog, who have rent substitutes. Ishii’s tactic, in these tives to attend. been washed away in the tsunami. situations, is to apply a temporary tat- Early on, Terai told me, he was struck “Are you crying?” Terai asked. “You too to his neck and dress like a yakuza. by the large number of men who wept have to cry, or he can’t wipe away your He goes to the couple’s house, and, at divorce ceremonies—“The women tears.” The swordsman, who is also a when the husband opens the door, he are usually O.K., but the men are bawl- freelance model, looked solicitously falls to his knees and apologizes pro- ing,” he said—and by how relieved they into my face, holding a crisply ironed fusely. The idea seems to be to defuse looked afterward. Realizing that he him- blue-and-white striped handkerchief. potential violence through a combina- self hadn’t cried in about five years, Terai I explained that I had felt close to tears tion of surprise, fear, and flattery. If the searched YouTube for tear-inducing when the grandmother and the dog lover is married, the wronged husband videos, and found a Thai life-insurance received the letter in Heaven and it may demand a meeting with both the commercial about a girl who didn’t ap- made the dog’s tail wag. “They all cry lover and the lover’s wife, hoping to preciate the love of her deaf-mute fa- when the dog wags its tail,” the swords- see his rival’s marriage destroyed. So ther. Terai cried, and felt that a burden man said, nodding knowledgeably. lovers whose wives don’t know about had been lifted. Next, we all watched a YouTube video their afairs end up renting substitute He coined a phrase, rui-katsu—“com- about a father who played the saxo- wives. One actress I met described the munal crying”—and started a new busi- phone at his son’s wedding. I waited in lover’s-wife roles as her worst assign- ness, leading weeping sessions at cor- dread for the father to turn out to have ments: in addition to making her feel porations, in order to boost team spirit. cancer. Suddenly, the video was over. guilty and terrible, they tended to run Today, there are some forty organiza- Nothing bad had happened. But when overtime, and the husbands shouted tions holding rui-katsu workshops in I looked up I saw a perfectly formed and behaved aggressively. Japan, most of them unailiated with tear rolling toward the swordsman’s jaw.

54 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 Chie, too, was crying. Terai explained tensified by the unnecessariness, the interview me, or do you want to do the that, for him, the really tear-inducing surplus value, of the doll stroller. “The role-playing?” moment was when it transpired that day we got the stroller,” “the stroller Having booked her for two hours, I the groom’s sisters had secretly prepared day,” became shorthand for . . . what? suggested that we might do both. “This a piano accompaniment to the father’s For a happy day, though I remember is a little bit weird for me, because usu- saxophone solo. at a later date asking my mother why ally when I play a mother the daugh- All the same, Terai wanted to take mentioning it always felt somehow sad. ter is in her twenties,” she said, adding pictures of the swordsman drying my I was worried that she would tell me that she was fifty-six, which made her tears. “Just try to look sad,” he said. I not to be morbid, not to find ways to only sixteen years older than me. looked at the floor and the swordsman be sad about things that were happy. “Should I pretend to be in my twen- leaned toward me with the handker- Instead she said, without missing a ties?” I asked. chief. He told me about his audition beat, “Because why wasn’t every day “No, I can act older,” she said. As for the weeping service, which had the stroller day?” our backstory, she proposed that my been recorded by a news program. To I met the rental mother in the café mother “had moved to Japan for some his mortification, he had been unable of a department store. I hadn’t seen her reason,” and that we would be seeing to cry for the camera: “I had tears in picture, so it took some time to iden- each other for the first time in years. the corner of my eye, but they didn’t tify the right person: a petite, mid- I agreed. overflow.” dle-aged Japanese woman, her long All of a sudden, her expression soft- “The tear has to roll down the face,” hair dyed the color of honey. She stood ened. “It’s been such a long time since Terai said. But he had given the swords- as I approached. we’ve seen each other.” Her voice, too, man another chance. “He couldn’t cry “Mom!” I exclaimed, beaming. was softer, more wistful. I felt a mild then, but I could imagine his crying She returned my embrace, a shade jolt of emotion. face,” he said. “And when I saw him distantly. “So how should we do this?” “It’s been really long,” I said. cry I was exactly right.” she asked, speaking in unaccented “I don’t know how much you re- American English. “Would you like to member. I don’t know if you remember y next appointment, with Fam- Mily Romance, was two hours with a rental mother, in the shopping district of Shibuya. I had been anxious about it even before I got to Japan. The day before my departure, my real mother wrote me a wonderful e-mail, wishing me a good trip and alluding, as I knew she would, to one of our favorite books, “The Makioka Sisters,” a family novel written, in the nineteen-forties, by Junichiro Tanizaki. My mother had given me her copy when I was in middle school, and part of what I had loved about it was how similar the sisters’ shared language and private jokes seemed to our own. Wasn’t it because my mother had shared with me her love of Tanizaki and Kōbō Abe that I had become a writer, and was now able to visit many of the places we had read about together? It struck me as unfair that I was not only going to Japan without her but also plotting to rent a replacement. One afternoon in Tokyo, on a com- muter train, Chie helped me fill out the order form. “There’s a space here for your fond childhood memories,” she said. I found myself telling her about the day when I was three or four and my mother, a young doctor, who worked long hours, came home early and took “Do you take recreational drugs, and, if so, which one me out to buy a doll stroller. This un- would you recommend to someone new to that kind of thing hoped-for happiness was somehow in- who is looking for a fun, no-freakout kind of time?” the times we spent together.” The sor- mother about the meditation app on grandmother in a span of twenty years. row in her voice made me think of my my phone, and asking if she liked Sometimes the young women who rent real mother when she talked about the to meditate. “I guess we’re talking as her as a mother talk about “the b.s. they time after my parents’ divorce, when I ourselves now,” she said, echoing my take at work.” Listening to their sto- lived with my father. thought. ries, so familiar from her own life, she “Of course I remember,” I said en- I started to interview her. Her name finds herself able not only to imagine couragingly, and even found myself try- was Airi and she had spent most of her but to momentarily experience how it ing to retrieve an actual memory, be- childhood in the United States and might have been if she hadn’t been too fore I remembered that there were no Canada, because of her father’s work focussed on work to have children. actual memories, because we had only as a research physicist. In the seven- Despite their diferent personalities just met. “I mean . . . not in a very de- ties, she did some TV acting, playing and backgrounds, I heard certain re- tailed way,” I added. a “happy Asian kid” in the background semblances between Airi’s experiences “Well, I remember every minute we of sitcoms. When she was fourteen, and my mother’s. My mother had also spent together, and I cherish every min- her father sent her to Japan, to “go into overcome many professional barriers ute. I only wish there had been more the system.” Censured and ostracized to reach a high level in her field, in a of them,” she said. “I didn’t have as for using English words, she learned country diferent from the one she much time to spend with you as I to keep her mouth shut until she could grew up in. She, too, had left her work wanted, because of my work. That’s speak perfect Japanese. After complet- recently. As Airi described the things something I regret now.” ing her education, she joined the cor- she liked about her life and the things I felt a wave of panic, as if a for- porate workforce, climbing to the upper that could have been better, I felt a tune-teller had told me something ee- levels of various international compa- strange sense of relief: she had faced rily accurate. nies, before leaving her last position, some of the same challenges as my “You had to work so hard,” I said. two years ago. mother, and she didn’t have a daugh- “But what about your work? How Airi registered with Family Romance ter; so it wasn’t having a daughter that do you cope with all the pressure?” she shortly afterward, and now gets a cou- caused the challenges. asked—and the spell was broken, be- ple of assignments every month. She We talked about the article I was cause my real mother knows all about doesn’t have any children or close rel- interviewing her for. “I guess I’ll just my work, and wouldn’t have asked me atives; she lost her husband, her par- be a few lines,” she said, and I suddenly that. I found myself telling the rental ents, and a hundred-and-ten-year-old started to feel guilty about my rental mother. I felt physical pain when she briefly alluded to her financial uncertainty and said that she couldn’t “go on living like this forever,” and when she proposed that I hire her as a translator and I had to tell her I already had one. The worst moment was when she mentioned that none of the daughters who’d hired her had ever asked to see her again, and I realized I wouldn’t be seeing her again, either. When she ofered to show me around the department store even though our time was up, I found myself saying yes.

ollowing the Meiji Restoration, in F1868, reformers united Japan under a “restored” emperor, and, after centuries of isolationism and feudal rule, set about turning the country into a modern bureaucratic military power. They drafted a new civil code, making pro- visions for what Westerners called “the family”—a concept that had no definite legal reality in Japan, and could not be expressed by any single Japanese word. A new word, kazoku, was coined, and a “family system” was drawn up, based “Look, maybe you came to the New World to put buckles on a long-standing form of domestic all over your body. But that’s just not me.” organization: the ie, or house. A product, in part, of Confucian principles, the ie was rigidly hierarchical. The head controlled all the property, and chose one member of the younger generation to succeed him—usually the eldest son, though sometimes a son-in-law or even an adopted son. Continuity of the house was more important than blood kinship. The other members could either stay in the ie, marry into a new one (daughters), or start subsidiary branches (sons). Nationalist ideology of the Meiji era represented Japan as one big family, with the emperor as the head of the main house and every other household as a subsidiary branch. “Familism” became central to the national identity, and was contrasted with the selfish in- dividualism of the West. After the Second World War, a new constitution, drawn up during the Al- lied occupation, sought to supplant the ie with a Western-style, “democratic” nuclear family. Forced marriages were outlawed, spouses became legal equals, and property was distributed evenly among a couple’s children, regardless “Mini-cupcakes never solved anything.” of gender and birth order. With postwar economic growth and the rise of corporate culture, ie households became •• less common, while apartment-dwelling nuclear households—consisting of a a baby’s skin. The price of a three-hour lations that bind parents and children. salaryman, a housewife, and their chil- visit from a rental son and daughter- Since then, rental relatives have in- dren—proliferated. During the eco- in-law, in possession of both an infant spired a substantial literary corpus. In nomic boom of the eighties, women child and a high tolerance for unhappy Tokyo, I met with the critic Takayuki increasingly worked outside the home. stories, was eleven hundred dollars. Tatsumi, who, in the nineties, wrote a The birth rate went down, while the Other clients included a young couple survey of the genre. He explained that divorce rate and the number of sin- who rented substitute grandparents for postmodern and queer novelists had gle-person households went up. So did their child, and a bachelor who rented used rental relatives to represent the life expectancy, and the proportion of a wife and daughter in order to expe- “virtual family,” an idea he traced back older people. rience having the kind of nuclear fam- to the ie of the Meiji period, when adop- That’s when the first wave of rental ily he’d seen on TV. tion of family members was common families appeared. In 1989, Satsuki Ōiwa, The idea of rental relatives took root and biological lineage was subordinated the president of a Tokyo company that in the public imagination. Postmodern- to the integrity of the household. “Ac- specialized in corporate employee train- ism was in the air, and, in an age of cul- cording to Foucault, everything is con- ing, began to rent out children and tural relativism, rental relativism fit right structed, not essentially determined,” grandchildren to neglected elders—an in. In 1993, Misa Yamamura, a famous Tatsumi said. “What matters is the idea she got from hearing corporate writer of detective fiction, published function.” I remembered a quote from workers fret about being too busy to “Murder Incident of the Rental Fam- Satsuki Ōiwa that I had read in a news- visit their parents. Ōiwa’s service was ily,” a mystery in which an elderly can- paper article about her. “What we pro- widely covered in the press; within a cer patient avenges herself on a negli- vide is not familial afection,” she said, few years, she had dispatched relatives gent son by mortgaging the family house “but human afection expressed through to more than a hundred clients. One and hiring a more attentive rental son, the form of the family.” couple hired a son to listen to the fa- daughter-in-law, and grandson. After Replacement or rental relatives con- ther’s hard-luck stories. Their real son she is murdered, two copies of her will tinue to feature in literature and film, lived with them, but refused to listen are found—one favoring the son, the and appeared in three recent Japanese to the stories. The couple’s real grand- other the rental relatives—dramatizing movies I saw on airplanes. In one com- son, moreover, was now past infancy, the tension between received pieties edy, “The Stand-In Thief,” an orphan and the grandparents missed touching about filial love and the economic re- with no relatives forms emotional bonds

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 57 to Japan, it is also the case that people throughout human history have been paying strangers to fill roles that their kinsfolk performed for free. Hired mourners existed in ancient Greece, Rome, and China, in the Judeo-Chris- tian tradition, and in the early Islamic world; they were denounced by Solon, by St. Paul, and by St. John Chrysostom. They still exist in China, India, and, lately, England, where an Essex-based service, Rent A Mourner, has been operating since 2013. And what are baby- sitters, nurses, and cooks if not rental relatives, filling some of the roles traditionally performed by mothers, daughters, and wives? In fact, the idea that families are defined by “a love that money can’t buy” is relatively recent. In preindustrial times, the basic economic unit was the family, and each new child meant another pair of hands. After industrial- ization, people started working outside the home for a fixed wage, and each “Et tu, Little Caesar?” new child meant another mouth to feed. The family became an uncondi- •• tionally loving sanctuary in a market- governed world. In 1898, the utopian feminist Char- with a series of isolated strangers whom ing. Tatsumi showed me part of a 2008 lotte Perkins Gilman wrote of “roman- he meets while breaking into a house; movie in which an older woman delib- tic love” and “maternal sacrifice” as ideo- in another, a stepfather pays his step- erately lets a young con man scam her, logical constructs: a bait and switch daughter’s deadbeat dad to spend time because he reminds her of her dead son. that kept women at home. Young girls with her. The mood of these portray- The movie is set partly in a cardboard were raised to value romance above all als seemed to alternate between a kind village for elderly homeless people, which else and to cultivate their beauty to at- of euphoria at the alchemy of the mar- really existed in Tokyo. tract a husband—then, by an unspo- ketplace, which transforms strangers Like many aspects of Japanese so- ken contract, with no preparation or into loved ones, and a “Truman Show”- ciety, rental relatives are often explained training, they were expected to turn like paranoia that everyone you love is with reference to the binary of honne into full-time, unpaid nurses, educa- just playing a role. and tatemae, or genuine individual feel- tors, and housecleaners, driven by a Both the euphoria and the dread may ings and societal expectations. Authen- “mysterious ‘maternal instinct’” that have their origin in the deregulation of ticity and consistency aren’t necessar- automatically kicked in when the time the Japanese labor market in the nine- ily valued for their own sake, and the came. ties, and in the attendant erosion of the concealment of authentic honne behind In late-nineteenth-century Japan, the postwar salaryman life style. Thirty-eight conventional tatemae is often construed state introduced a “romantic-love ideol- per cent of the workforce is now made as an act of unselfishness and sociabil- ogy,” which defined the “ideal sequence up of nonregular workers. (Much Jap- ity, rather than of deception or hypoc- of a woman’s life” in similar terms: “ro- anese press coverage of rental relatives risy. A case in point: the man who hired mantic love (courtship),” followed by presents the work as a “side job” that fake parents for his wedding because marriage, childbirth, the awakening of newspaper readers can use to supple- his real ones were dead eventually told a “nurturing maternal love,” and the tri- ment their income.) In 2010, single- his wife. It went fine. She said that she umphant assumption of a desexualized person households began to outnumber understood that his goal was not to de- “caretaking role.” So writes the anthro- nuclear families. In Japan, as elsewhere, ceive her but to avoid trouble at their pologist Akiko Takeyama, in a recent today’s young people have more oppor- wedding. She even thanked him for book about Tokyo host clubs, where tunities for mobility and individual being so considerate. women pay a cover charge to drink and self-expression, but less experience of Still, although it goes without say- chat with personable, attentive men. security, community, and family. Mean- ing that many aspects of the Japanese Some housewives have spent tens or while, the ranks of the elderly are grow- rental-relative business must be specific hundreds of thousands of dollars on

58 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 their hosts, working extra jobs, econo- bullying at school. Reiko was presented so sorry I didn’t come and meet you.” mizing on groceries, or extorting their with four candidates and chose the one Mana emerged from under the cov- husbands. In this way, they experience with the kindest voice. The rental fa- ers, but didn’t make eye contact. Inaba, “romance” for the first time since they ther has been visiting regularly ever since. noticing a poster on the wall for the became full-time caregivers and house- Mana, now nineteen, still hasn’t been boy band Arashi, told her that he had keepers, and their husbands started call- told that he isn’t her real father. once been an extra in an Arashi video. ing them “mother.” Chie and I met Reiko in a crowded That’s when Mana finally looked at In a sense, the idea of a rental part- tearoom near Tokyo Station. The meet- him. “How much of what he says is ner, parent, or child is perhaps less ing had been arranged by Ishii, who true?” Reiko remembered wondering, strange than the idea that childcare said he’d be joining us later. Reiko, from the hallway. and housework should be seen as the now forty, was wearing a simple navy After what felt like hours, Inaba and manifestations of an unpurchasable ro- sweater, a plaid scarf, and a marvellous Mana came downstairs, and they all mantic love. Patriarchal capitalism has aquamarine wool coat that looked like had an “incredibly awkward lunch.” arguably had a vested interest in pro- it was in softer focus than the rest of Reiko cleaned up in the kitchen, leav- moting the latter idea as a human uni- the room. ing Inaba and Mana together. They versal: as the Marxist psychoanalyst “This is the first time I’m telling my found the Arashi video on YouTube. Wilhelm Reich pointed out, with story,” she said in a low voice, glancing Inaba really did seem to be in it, just women providing free housework and around the room. She explained that for a second. At the end of the prear- caregiving, capitalists could pay men she had married Mana’s father, a man ranged four hours, he stood up, and less. There were other iniquities, too. named Inaba, at the age of twenty-one, Mana, who had seemed almost cheer- As Gilman observed, when caregiving after discovering she was pregnant. He ful, grew suspicious: “Oh, you’re leav- becomes the exclusive, unpaid purview became abusive, and she divorced him ing—so who are you?” of wives and mothers, then people with- shortly after giving birth. To Mana, Reiko decided to hire Inaba on a out families don’t have access to it: “only Reiko said only that she and Mana’s regular basis—about twice a month, married people and their immediate father had had a disagreement long for four- or eight-hour stints, at a cost relatives have any right to live in com- ago, when she was a baby. Mana took of twenty or forty thousand yen. To fort and health.” Her solution was that this to mean that she was to blame for aford it, Reiko spent less on food and the unpaid work incumbent on every her father leaving, and nothing Reiko started buying all her clothes at a flea individual housewife—nursery educa- said could change her mind. market. One evening, after three or tion, household-work management, At school, Mana was withdrawn, four months, she came home from work food preparation, and so on—should slow to make friends. By the age of ten, and asked Mana how her day was, and, be distributed among paid specialists, she avoided her classmates whenever for the first time in years, Mana an- of both genders. What often happens possible, either spending all day in the swered, telling her what she had been instead is that these tasks, rather than school nurse’s oice or staying at home watching on TV. I saw Reiko’s face becoming respected, well-paid profes- in her room, rarely emerging except light up when she talked about the sions, are foisted piecemeal onto so- when Reiko was at work. When Mana transformation that took place when cioeconomically disadvantaged women, had been avoiding school for three Mana “finally learned that her father freeing their more privileged peers to months, Reiko called Family Romance. was worried about her,” and “she be- pursue careers. On the order form—she had brought came a normal, outgoing, happy kid.” When Yūichi Ishii talks about “cor- a copy of the seven-page computer Reiko started booking Inaba months recting injustice,” he seems to mean printout to our meeting—she had de- in advance, for birthdays, parent-teacher much the same thing as Charlotte Per- scribed the father she wanted for her nights, even for day trips to Disney- kins Gilman. “Every human being needs little girl. No matter what Mana said land or nearby hot springs. To explain a home,—bachelor, husband, or wid- or did, Reiko had written, he should why they could never spend a night to- ower, girl, wife, or widow,” Gilman react with kindness. gether, Reiko told Mana that Inaba wrote. Thanks to Family Romance, When the new “Inaba” first came had remarried and had a new family. someone like Kazushige Nishida, who to visit, Mana was in her room, as usual, When I asked Reiko if she planned loses his family, can rent a wife and a and wouldn’t open the door. Inaba to tell Mana the truth someday, her eyes daughter, and, thereby, the comforts of finally opened the door a crack. He filled with tears. “No, I can never tell home: varied pancakes, women’s voices and Reiko could see Mana sitting on her,” she said, and then started to laugh. saying “Welcome,” the occasional filial her bed, with the covers pulled over “Sometimes I wish Inaba-san would poke in the ribs. her head. After talking to her from the marry me,” she said, through tears and doorway, Inaba ventured inside, sat on laughter. “I don’t know if I should say ine years ago, Reiko, a dental hy- the bed, stroked her arm, and apolo- this, but I’m also happy when he comes Ngienist in her early thirties, con- gized. Chie stopped when she got to to see us. It’s only a limited time, but I tacted Family Romance to rent a part- that part of the translation, and I saw can be very, very happy. Honestly, he’s time father for her ten-year-old daughter, that her eyes were brimming with tears. a very nice man. Maybe you’ll see.” Mana, who, like many children of sin- After a moment, she got out the words Reiko, it turned out, had been gle mothers in Japan, was experiencing that Inaba had spoken to Mana: “I’m told that Inaba might join us at the

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 59 tearoom. When we said that we thought motion. The efect was patriarchal. Mana would understand if they told the person who was coming was Ishii, Reiko laughed with delight. Her eyes her the truth. I wondered if there was she said that she didn’t know anything met mine, and I beamed back at her. a way to make Mana see this as a story about such a person. “I think Inaba-san I wasn’t faking—it was a real smile. about a mother who adored her, and a and Ishii-san might be the same per- But what was I smiling at? sort of limited guy who, in his own son,” Chie said. Reiko seemed skeptical: I asked about the relationship be- limited way, had shown her kindness she didn’t think Inaba was the president tween a real family and a rental one. and stability. Sure, he charged fifty dol- of Family Romance. For a while, we all Ishii replied that, although a rental lars an hour, but the world was full of just sat there, stirring our sweetened yuzu family wasn’t real, it could in some sense people who were incapable of being infusions. be “more than a family.” This notion kind and present no matter how much Then Ishii was walking toward our struck me as somewhat abstruse, but you paid them. Was kindness invali- table, wearing a dark blazer over a Reiko said she understood perfectly. dated just because money changed black turtleneck. “Inaba-san!” Reiko “If I hadn’t gotten a divorce and was hands? exclaimed. still married, I don’t think that I would “I’ve been asked why I don’t get mar- Ishii introduced himself, addressing be laughing like this, or that I would ried,” Ishii said. Even though he’s sin- Reiko politely, with the Japanese for- be feeling this happy,” she said. “It’s gle, he has met scores of fiancées’ par- mal address. She reacted with playful not necessarily the case that the real ents, kissed a dozen brides, apologized outrage: usually, they spoke to each family is the best thing that happens.” for cheating, even attended a childbirth. other as husband and wife. Eventually, she got up to leave. As He’s sat through private-school inter- Now they sat side by side, across the she put on her aquamarine coat, she views and parent-teacher meetings, table from me and Chie, not looking said she felt very refreshed. Her face video-recorded sports festivals and at each other. The understanding had looked radiant, more mobile and alive graduations, spent days at Disneyland. been that after Ishii joined us I could than when we had met. Watching her If he ever becomes a father, how will interview them together, but they go gave me a painful feeling. I could his feelings toward his own children seemed to be operating on such difer- feel how much she loved him—his be diferent from what he felt on the ent premises that, for a moment, it felt square shoulders in the dark blazer. job? “I’m worried now that I might just impossible to address even one sen- Ishii excused himself to go to the end up acting a good father,” he said. tence to them both. bathroom, and Chie and I wondered Sometimes he has dreams about “Have you wondered about Inaba- aloud why Ishii had chosen to reveal Mana, in which he tells her that he san’s real name, and what he does in the his true identity to Reiko in our pres- isn’t her real father. “It’s a dream, so she rest of his life?” I asked Reiko finally. ence. Maybe he had needed outsiders accepts it,” he said. “She accepts the She said that she hadn’t, and she to give credence to what he was trying truth, but then she says, ‘Even then, didn’t wonder now; she felt like she al- to tell her: that he was running a big, you’re still my dad.’” ready knew. “I think he doesn’t change,” ambitious, significant business, that “Do you believe that there’s a sense she said. “He’s very natural. Now I see their relationship wasn’t real, that they in which you are her father?” I asked. him like this and it’s the same.” Ishii were never going to be married. When Ishii closed his eyes, looking tired. smilingly protested, reminding her that he returned to the table, I asked whether “It proves a possibility that—even if today she was his client, not he had told Reiko that he we’re not a real family, even if it’s a rental his wife. thought they should stop family—the way we interact with each “You have something Inaba’s visits. other makes this a form of a family.” here,” Reiko said, pointing He said that he had. to the corner of her mouth, Mana would soon be twenty. ne evening, back at my hotel, feel- and he reflexively turned “If Mana got married and Oing jet-lagged and confused by all toward a mirror and wiped had kids, I would have the stories I had been hearing, I de- his mouth. It was the first grandchildren,” he said. cided to splurge on an in-room mas- of several moments when Grandchildren were won- sage. Unlike the sessions with the weep- he seemed to visibly toggle derful, of course, but they ing swordsman and the rental mother, between Ishii and Inaba. would unavoidably repre- a massage wouldn’t count as a work ex- Reiko and Ishii began sent more people in the pense. On the other hand, I reasoned, reminiscing about their first lunch to- world that one had to lie to—not to I had missed a shrink appointment gether with Mana. Reiko had prepared mention Mana’s husband and in-laws. back in New York, which cost more way too much food—fried prawns, “Before that point, I tell Reiko, she needs than the massage, so I was really sav- roast beef, corn soup, all things that to tell her.” ing money. Mana liked—and Ishii recalled that “Do you think Reiko will agree?” Two hours later, a smiling young he had decided to try to “eat like a fa- I asked. woman knocked on the door, waited ther,” which, to him, meant “with no Ishii hesitated, and said, “Reiko to be asked inside, took of her shoes, hesitation or concerns.” To demon- probably has a very strong feeling that and gave me a form to sign. The form strate, he leaned over the table, stuck she wants to continue.” said that I agreed not to demand a sex- out an elbow, and made a shovelling He said he honestly thought that ual massage, and that if I was a man I

60 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 •• would keep the hotel-room door ajar. I’d started of assuming that the rental past situations or mental processes. Everything contributed to the dream- schema somehow undercut the idea of Dramatic reënactments can help peo- like atmosphere: her soft voice and unconditional love. Now I found my- ple in a way that talking with them sure touch, the fact that I was lying on self wondering whether it was even pos- can’t, because even when we are unable the bed, and the compactness of Tokyo sible to get unconditional love without to tell someone what our problem is— hotel rooms, which meant that she pe- paying. The questions I’d been asking because it’s too terrible to say, or be- riodically had to move things around myself about what Ishii really felt for cause we don’t have the right words, or to make enough room to stand. At Reiko and her daughter made more because we don’t know what it is—we some point, I realized that she was sense when I thought about them in can still act it out with another person. kneeling next to me on the bed. How these terms. A person can do things In this light, transference, a key ele- strange that it was somehow O.K. for professionally—for a set time, in ex- ment of Freudian psychotherapy, may us to be in bed like this together. “Your change for money and recognition— be viewed as a process by which the shoulders are so hard!” she said, some- that she can’t do indefinitely for free. I therapist becomes the patient’s rental how releasing the muscles with her knew that Ishii had put a lot of prepa- relative—as Freud put it, “the reincar- fingers. I felt full of love and gratitude, ration into his job, watching family mov- nation of some important figure out of and thought about how the fact that ies to learn how “a kind father” would his childhood or past.” I was paying her, which could have felt walk, talk, and eat. Likewise, I had read Thinking about transference, I found uncomfortable, was instead a source about a host-club worker who studied myself wondering who the masseuse of joy and relief, because it meant that romance novels in order to be able to was a substitute for. The swordsman I didn’t have to think about anything anticipate and fulfill his clients’ every who didn’t succeed in making me cry? at all. I could just relax. It felt like un- need, and consequently had no time The psychotherapist whom I hadn’t conditional love—the kind you don’t left for a personal life. “Women’s ideal been able to see that week? The par- get, or ask for, from people in your life, romance entails hard work,” he said, ents whose relationship to my child- because they have needs, too, and you “and that is nearly impossible in the hood self I had presumably hired the always have to take turns. I didn’t have real world.” He said he could never have therapist to replay? It was, I realized, to give her a massage or listen to her worked so hard for a real girlfriend. with a falling sensation, turtles all the way problems, because I had given her I thought about my missed shrink down. My next thought was whether it money, with which she could do any- appointment, and about a psychology was possible, in Tokyo, to rent a turtle. thing she wanted: pay bills, buy an professor I met, Kenji Kameguchi, who After the masseuse left, I looked it up. aquamarine coat, or even hire some- has been trying for the past thirty years Two clicks later, I was reading about one to give her a massage or listen to to popularize family therapy in conflict- the Yokohama Subtropical Teahouse, her problems. This hour, during which averse, stoical Japan, where psychother- where, for the price of a pot of tea, vis- she paid attention to me and I didn’t apy is still stigmatized. He said that he itors may handle a variety of land tur- pay attention to her, wasn’t going to thought rental relatives were, in an un- tles. The article was accompanied by a be entered in a ledger where she could schooled way, fulfilling some of the photograph of a leopard tortoise climb- accumulate resentment toward me over functions of group-therapy techniques ing on top of a larger, African spurred the years. I didn’t have to feel guilty: such as psychodrama, in which patients tortoise, which it seemed to have mis- that was what I was paying for. act out and improvise one another’s taken for the world. 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 61 FICTION

62 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY SOPHY HOLLINGTON DARK SPIRIT particular, and with efort looks away. and turns back, stepping deeper into She is Beauty, though she’s no longer the darkening woods. She’s not afraid. hey are on a film lot, walking beautiful, if she ever was (makeup and She comes upon a door. She opens it. through a pre-shoot reading of wardrobe will do what they can), and He enters her. She can hardly breathe. T a script that calls for a brave it is she, just by being who and what traveller—“That’s you, kid,” the di- she is supposed to be, who moves the DESPERATE HOURS: THE MUSICAL rector says, leading her forward with tale along, making the inevitable hap- an arm around her shoulders—to be pen. It’s her destiny. The trap she’s in. ruthless gang of escaped convicts, lured to the edge of a deep, mysteri- “Sure you’re ready for this?” her fa- A led by a psychotic killer, is holding ous forest, known portentously as the ther asks beside her. The actor play- a couple hostage in their own subur- Forest of Time. The forest is fake, deep ing Beauty’s father. “Why shouldn’t I ban home. The gang’s not sure what’s as a painted scrim, but the director be?” Decent enough old fellow, show- supposed to happen next, but the boss has told them that a real forest from ing concern. But what does he really has a plan. First, they need money, Transylvania will be pasted in later, want? She feels vaguely threatened. and there’s some coming from some- and they have all been asked to bat “The scary part,” she says with a shud- where; they have to wait for it. Wait- at the air around their faces, as if to der, “is when you realize something ing makes them nervous. Though the brush away foliage, bugs, bats, cling- truly horrible is happening—and you intruders are not very friendly, the lady ing cobwebs. “Out, out, damned spot, still want it.” “Oh, wow!” It’s that fal- of the house, hoping for the best, tim- I say!” an actor screams in falsetto, bat- setto voice again. Heavy foot on the orously ofers them cofee and a plate ting wildly, and everyone laughs. The reverb pedal. A guy is roving about of home-baked cookies. The snarling actor, who has a bit part in the film, with a camera on his shoulder. She gang leader belts her one, sending her as the enchanted prince, smirks shyly, wonders if they’re already shooting. sprawling. The other two hoodlums blinking his long lashes. He’s a cute “I remember doing this kind of thing snatch up the scattered cookies and boy, but too full of himself. And just in my back yard with my first camera, chomp them voraciously with their a runt. He’ll have to stand on a chair when I was a kid,” he says. At the same mouths open, spewing crumbs, so as for their happily-ever-after smooch time, he seems to be asking her if she’s to further annoy the tearful housewife once she’s freed the Beast from his all right. “All I want,” she tells him, at their feet. They make vulgar remarks spell and let the prince out. The in- entering the forest, “is to live happily about her underwear, but when one of dustry is obsessed with this hackneyed ever after.” “You are living happily ever them lifts her skirt for a closer look, the tale, once inflicted upon young virgins after now,” he shouts. “Don’t get lost!” gang leader slugs him. In that moment to prepare them for marriage to feeble “Toilets are back to the left!” someone of distraction, the husband grabs the old buzzards with money. She used to calls. “Let’s get out of here,” Beauty’s phone to call for help, but it’s ripped raise hell about such things. Now she father whispers, and takes her elbow, from his hands and he is mercilessly doesn’t really care. “The gutsy hero- but she shakes him of. “I’m doing this pistol-whipped. Their two children ine knows that many have perished for you,” she says, trying to memorize come in to find both parents on the here,” the continuity girl says, reading each step forward so she can retrace floor, their mother weeping, their fa- from the script, “victims of the abso- her path, but forgetting each step as ther’s head bloodied, three unshaven lute evil that is believed to pervade the soon as it’s taken. He’s still there at red-eyed bozos looming over them, treacherous Forest of Time.” “Oh, the her side, but then he isn’t. It’s grow- their guns out. The thugs take an in- horror, the horror!” growls the actor ing darker, the deeper she goes. That’s terest in the girl, but are wary of their playing the Beast, wearing his shaggy all right, she likes the darkness. Like puritanical boss. The boy takes an in- gorilla suit, but holding the head on time itself, she thinks, having no idea terest in the thugs, their scarred fists, his knee like a trophy. “Who wrote this what she might mean. Though noth- their cocked weapons. He asks them shit?” an actress wants to know. One ingness is part of it. She hesitates. She if they’re real desperadoes, and in reply of Beauty’s ugly sisters. Already into knows that she has reached an awful the leader launches into a gruf aria in her sneering role. “I put the words in,” place because of the smell. Has she praise of pure, unmotivated violence. the writer confesses, “but the produc- been here before? Life was so funny. The other two join in for the cho- ers told me which ones to use.” They Now it’s not. She is lonely and afraid. rus, which is a tuneless thuck-thuck- are all laughing, she is laughing, if you Is that hollow laughter that she hears? thuck, repeated rhythmically, while they can’t laugh you’re fucked, she knows No, she does not want to do this. She smash their fists against their palms that, but she doesn’t feel like laughing. has to find the exit while she still can. and shule menacingly around the It’s the damned Beast, messing with As she turns to flee, the forest leans room, side by side. One of them is the her mood. Not the costumed actor, a after her. In threat. In longing: he’s leader’s portly kid brother, the other a beardy creep given to chummy slaps here somewhere. She can hear him, sullen cop killer who joined them on on the fanny (she’s learned to keep her rustling about in the depths, can feel the breakout. Their round bellies back turned away), but the madden- the haunting presence of his vacant bounce to the rhythm of their shule, ingly empty eyes in the hairy head on eyes. She bats against them, striking and, feeling the ecstasy of the harmo- his lap. “I think this is going to have wildly at the night, like a fucking co- nious moment, they drop their jaws a bad ending,” she says to no one in median. “Oh, I don’t care,” she says, and roll their eyes back. But their dance

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 63 is interrupted by the sudden bonging of the door chimes. They freeze, shrink back against the walls, eyes asquint, JUNE their revolvers pointed at the captives. The boss grips the boy’s neck in his There will never be more of summer clawlike hand, and walks him to the than there is now. Walking alone door. It’s only a feeble old geezer on a through Union Square I am carrying lowers cane. He cranes his neck around the and the irst rosé to a party where I’m expected. gangster and the boy, trying to see It’s Sunday and the trains run on time what’s going on inside. When the gang but today death feels so far, it’s impossible leader asks him how old he is, he grins to go underground. I would like to say a gap-toothed grin and says he’s eighty- something to everyone I see (an entire five, probably, or else eighty-six, he’s city) but I’m unsure what it is yet. not sure. “That’s pretty fucking old, all Each time I leave my apartment right,” the gangster says with a sneer, there’s at least one person crying, nodding at the other two, and they es- reading, or shouting after a stranger cort the old man through the kitchen anywhere along my commute. into the attached garage. Two shots are It’s possible to be happy alone, heard. When the thugs return, they I say out loud and to no one find their leader crumpled to his knees, so it’s obvious, and now here clutching his head in both hands, in the middle of this poem. gripped by a sudden insane craving for Rarely have I felt more charmed sugar. The terrified wife says she used than on Ninth Street, watching a woman up all the sugar for the cookies, but stop in the middle of the sidewalk she’ll go ask the neighbors. The leader to pull up her hair like it’s rears up, whining with pain, and slaps an emergency—and it is. her to the floor again. “Nobody leaves!” People do know they’re alive. he bellows, pointing his gun at her. In They hardly know what to do with themselves. a mad rage, whimpering pathetically, I almost want to invite her with me he spins around and, everyone duck- but I’ve passed and yes it’d be crazy ing, shoots all the pictures on the walls. like trying to be a poet, trying to be anyone here. His kid brother, picking himself up How do you continue to love New York, after the rampage, tells him to cool it, my friend who left for California asks me. he’ll go find some goddam sugar, and, It’s awful in the summer and winter, holstering his revolver under his arm- and spring and fall last maybe two weeks. pit, he slips out the back. He’s greeted This is true. It’s all true, of course, next door by a gloomy housewife in like my preference for diicult men an apron, a knotted bandanna on her which I had until recently head. He asks for a cup of sugar, show- because at last, for one summer ing her the gun, ready to kill her if nec- the only diiculty I’m willing to imagine essary, but she shrugs and, pointing to- is walking through this irst humid day ward the kitchen, tells him to go help with my hands full, not at all peaceful himself. He passes the bedroom and but entirely possible and real. decides to rifle through it before getting the sugar. He finds jewelry, money, —Alex Dimitrov food stamps, a fur coat. He has both hands in her perfumed underwear drawer (feels so good, been so long) A deep chord is struck between them. few people, but don’t hold it against when she walks in on him. “Are you Her husband comes home and finds him, it’s not who he really is. Back at still here?” she asks wearily. He whips his wife lying naked on the bed under the house next door, the boy has tried out his revolver, robed in fragrant silk, pounding hairy buttocks. He quietly to run away, and the other thug, the aims it at her. She ignores it, flopping backs out. He is confused. Life, he has cop killer, has shot him. Not fatally. down on the bed, forearm flung over always believed, is a comedy, but this The boss has a soft spot for rebellious her brow. “I’m so tired,” she says, and isn’t very funny. He packs a bag, joins kids. He removes the bullet and, as he breaks wistfully into a song about life’s the Foreign Legion, goes of to a dis- hasn’t seen his kid brother for a while, disappointments. “It’s such shit!” she tant war. There are flashes of his far- takes the boy into his gang in his broth- sings. He is also disappointed and joins away devil-may-care heroics, while in er’s place. He’s grown tired of waiting her in the sad song. He has a sweeter, the bedroom the thug is telling the for the sugar, as well as the money, so more mellifluous voice than his brother. housewife that, yes, he’s had to kill a he decides to leave the remaining thug

64 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 with the family and go hold up a church not satisfied, either. He tells the Ranger dish hat, the Ranger could put a hole instead, it being the day for it, taking the story of the time Coyote got bored through that damn back, but under the his newest gang member along. The with life and crawled into his own ass- hat he’s still a Ranger and his Ranger boy asks if he can shoot somebody, and hole and all the world went dark, but creed won’t let him. So, feeling some- the leader says sure he can. “There are the Ranger says he is tired of stories how cheated, he goes outside and robs more fucking churches than people in with happy endings, and he peels of the bank, shoots out the grain-store this state,” he tells the kid, handing his mask (an experience not unlike pull- windows, sets all the horses loose, kicks him a gun. “It’s the least these creeps ing your pants down in church, he re- over the water troughs, and torches the deserve.” Will the cop killer back at marks with an embarrassed wince as courthouse, and, while he’s at it, takes the house rape the boy’s sister and it rips away), exchanges his white hat on a houseful of painted women and knock of the rest of the family? Prob- for a black one, and borrows Tonto’s treats them in nasty ways. It feels good ably. Can’t keep an eye on everything. bandy-legged old paint, Scout, to hob- after being bottled up all these years. In At the church, the lead gangster finds ble down into the mining town and fact, he hates to give up the disguise, his kid brother in the congregation, raise a little hell, announcing himself, but justice must be done, so he pock- holding hands with some broad. They’re guns blazing, as a wild-ass Cavendish ets a couple of bars of whorehouse soap praying together. What the hell? The cousin. When the Ranger asks a ter- and pushes old Scout back up the hill- brothers draw their revolvers on each rified citizen about Butch Cavendish, side to the encampment, where Tonto other, baring their teeth, but finally he is sent to the church, where he finds is waiting for him in his usual peyote family is family. “This is who I really his brother’s killer in the pulpit, deliv- haze. While lathering himself up in am,” the kid brother croons, as they ering a sermon on Jesus as a man of the shallow brook that trickles past, the lower their weapons. The leader grunts peace and understanding. It seems that Ranger tells Tonto about Butch’s con- and grinds out his own sinister version Butch and the rest of the pack have got version and new career. “He’s a man of of the same song, their discordant duet religion; their cousin will have to raise the cloth now,” he says, “of the sancti- joined remotely by the woman’s ex-hus- hell on his own. Butch asks him why monious sort. But he killed my brother band in the Foreign Legion, also now he’s wearing a white mask. “It’s not and all my Texas Ranger pals; not even a seasoned killer and a fair-to-middling a mask,” the Ranger says. “It’s a dis- Jesus can wash that away. He’s still the baritone. The congregation stands and ease I caught from a woman of plea- black-hat guy, and he must pay for the hums along, swaying in rhythm. This sure who was exciting herself on my meanness of his ways. Anyhow, that’s is...who...I really ...am.... Mean- nose.” “A woman of pleasure? Caven- what I think, Tonto.” “Thought, kemo while, the boy shoots the preacher, but dishes don’t never call them that, cuz,” sabe, is a dark cloud out of which the it’s not as much fun as he thought it Butch says, squinting suspiciously. “I rain of words falls.” “You ought to lay would be, so he gives the gun back to know, but Cavendishes don’t get reli- of that cactus pudding, Tonto. It’s melt- the boss, and asks if they can go get gion and preach in churches, either. ing your brain.” The Ranger shaves, an ice-cream cone instead. “Chocolate- Come out on the street with me for a cleans his fingernails, gets back into raspberry crunch,” he says when asked. little whoopee, Butch, and we’ll call his white duds and black mask, whis- “With sprinkles.” them by the Cavendish way, and use tles for Silver, and returns to the mining town to avenge the crimes com- THE LONE RANGER mitted by himself as a Cavendish and to round up Butch and his villainous n a rise within view of the isolated gang. Before hiyo-ing his way back up Omining town of Striker, where the into the hills, the Ranger addresses the Cavendish gang is holed up, the masked citizens of Striker on the subjects of man known and feared throughout the public service, water rights, immigra- Territory as the Lone Ranger, the only tion, the godliness of manly adventure, survivor of the infamous Cavendish and the innateness of good and evil. ambush, is questioning, in a mono- “The Cavendishes are to be pitied,” he logue to his savage sidekick, the mis- says, looking down upon them, bound erable lives the two of them have been them like that, too.” Butch gazes sad- and noosed, “for they could not escape leading. Virtuous, sure, heroic, taming eyed upon him as upon a dying cow- their inborn fate.” The people acknowl- the lawless West and all that, but the boy. The members of his gang, hands edge his wisdom with rousing cheers filth of it, Tonto, the poverty, the end- pressed together in prayer, rock softly and throw their hats into the air. The less killings. He longs, he says, scratch- from side to side behind him, chorally Lone Ranger, like Jesus, is a man of ing his scraggly, infested beard, for the humming a melancholic church tune. peace and understanding, sworn only gentler pleasures of civilization. Hot “God bless you, my son,” Butch says to wound, never to kill, so he lets the baths, for example. “We’re growing with a sickeningly beatific smile, clasp- townsfolk hang them.  old, Tonto, and we stink.” Tonto says ing his Bible to his breast, “and may He he doesn’t give a dung beetle’s fart for wash away your sins with the blood of NEWYORKER.COM the white man’s civilization, which has the Lamb, like He done mine.” And Robert Coover on the appeal of movies and never done him any favors, but he is he turns his back. Wearing his Caven- the value of unhappy endings.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 65 THE CRITICS

A CRITIC AT LARGE THE HITLER VORTEX How American racism inluenced Nazi thought.

BY ALEX ROSS “ istory teaches, but has no pupils,” Hitler’s undeniable flair for graphic dred thousand.” When he spoke of Le- Hthe Marxist philosopher Anto- design. (The Nazi flag was apparently bensraum, the German drive for “living nio Gramsci wrote. That line comes to his creation—finalized after “innumer- space” in Eastern Europe, he often had mind when I browse in the history sec- able attempts,” according to “Mein America in mind. tion of a bookstore. An adage in pub- Kampf.”) Susan Sontag, in her 1975 Among recent books on Nazism, the lishing is that you can never go wrong essay “Fascinating Fascism,” declared one that may prove most disquieting with books about Lincoln, Hitler, and that the appeal of Nazi iconography for American readers is James Q. Whit- dogs; an alternative version names had become erotic, not only in S & M man’s “Hitler’s American Model: The golfing, Nazis, and cats. In Germany, circles but also in the wider culture. It United States and the Making of Nazi it’s said that the only surefire magazine was, Sontag wrote, a “response to an Race Law” (Princeton). On the cover, covers are ones that feature Hitler or oppressive freedom of choice in sex the inevitable swastika is flanked by two sex. Whatever the formula, Hitler and (and, possibly, in other matters), to an red stars. Whitman methodically ex- Nazism prop up the publishing busi- unbearable degree of individuality.” plores how the Nazis took inspiration ness: hundreds of titles appear each year, Neo-Nazi movements have almost cer- from American racism of the late nine- and the total number runs well into the tainly fed on the perpetuation of Hit- teenth and early twentieth centuries. tens of thousands. On store shelves, they ler’s negative mystique. He notes that, in “Mein Kampf,” Hit- stare out at you by the dozens, their Americans have an especially insa- ler praises America as the one state that spines steeped in the black-white-and- tiable appetite for Nazi-themed books, has made progress toward a primarily red of the Nazi flag, their titles barking films, television shows, documentaries, racial conception of citizenship, by “ex- in Gothic type, their covers studded video games, and comic books. Stories cluding certain races from naturaliza- with swastikas. The back catalogue in- of the Second World War console us tion.” Whitman writes that the discus- cludes “I Was Hitler’s Pilot,” “I Was with memories of the days before Viet- sion of such influences is almost taboo, Hitler’s Chaufeur,” “I Was Hitler’s Doc- nam, Cambodia, and Iraq, when the because the crimes of the Third Reich tor,” “Hitler, My Neighbor,” “Hitler Was United States was the world’s good- are commonly defined as “the nefan- My Friend,” “He Was My Chief,” and hearted superpower, riding to the res- dum, the unspeakable descent into what “Hitler Is No Fool.” Books have been cue of a Europe paralyzed by totalitar- we often call ‘radical evil.’” But the kind written about Hitler’s youth, his years ianism and appeasement. Yet an eerie of genocidal hatred that erupted in Ger- in Vienna and Munich, his service in continuity became visible in the post- many had been seen before and has the First World War, his assumption of war years, as German scientists were been seen since. Only by stripping away power, his library, his taste in art, his imported to America and began work- its national regalia and comprehending love of film, his relations with women, ing for their former enemies; the result- its essential human form do we have and his predilections in interior design ing technologies of mass destruction ex- any hope of vanquishing it. (“Hitler at Home”). ceeded Hitler’s darkest imaginings. The Why do these books pile up in such Nazis idolized many aspects of Amer- he vast literature on Hitler and unreadable numbers? This may seem ican society: the cult of sport, Holly- TNazism keeps circling around a a perverse question. The Holocaust is wood production values, the mythology few enduring questions. The first is bi- the greatest crime in history, one that of the frontier. From boyhood on, Hit- ographical: How did an Austrian wa- people remain desperate to understand. ler devoured the Westerns of the pop- tercolor painter turned military orderly Germany’s plunge from the heights ular German novelist Karl May. In 1928, emerge as a far-right German rab- of civilization to the depths of barba- Hitler remarked, approvingly, that white ble-rouser after the First World War? rism is an everlasting shock. Still, these settlers in America had “gunned down The second is sociopolitical: How did swastika covers trade all too frankly on the millions of redskins to a few hun- a civilized society come to embrace LEWIS SCOTT ABOVE:

66 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 CTION/CORBIS/GETTY HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLE HULTON-DEUTSCH Hitler, circa 1923. Five years later, he noted, approvingly, that white Americans had “gunned down . . . millions of redskins.”

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 67 in Germany proposed that the nation end its ritual self-flagellation: they re- framed Nazism as a reaction to Bolshe- vism and recast the Holocaust as one genocide among many. Joachim Fest, who had published the first big German- language biography of Hitler, also stood apart from the Sonderweg school. By por- traying the Führer as an all-dominating, quasi-demonic figure, Fest efectively placed less blame on the Weimar Re- public conservatives who put Hitler in oice. More dubious readings presented Hitlerism as an experiment that mod- ernized Germany and then went awry. Such ideas have lost ground in Germany, at least for now: in mainstream discourse there, it is axiomatic to accept responsibility for the Nazi terror. “It’s not what it looks like. The sex is horrible, and we’re miserable.” Outside Germany, many critiques of the Sonderweg thesis came from the left. The British scholars Geof Eley •• and David Blackbourn, in their 1984 book “The Peculiarities of German Hitler’s extreme ideas? The third has horror of the Holocaust sank in, many History,” questioned the “tyranny of to do with the intersection of man and historians adopted what is known as the hindsight”—the lordly perspective that regime: To what extent was Hitler in Sonderweg thesis—the idea that Ger- reduces a complex, contingent sequence control of the apparatus of the Third many had followed a “special path” in of events to an irreversible progression. Reich? All these questions point to the the nineteenth and early twentieth cen- In the allegedly backward Kaiserreich, central enigma of the Holocaust, which turies, diferent from that of other West- Eley and Blackbourn saw various lib- has variously been interpreted as a ern nations. In this reading, the Ger- eralizing forces in motion: housing re- premeditated action and as a barbaric many of the Wilhelmine period had form, public-health initiatives, an em- improvisation. In our current age of failed to develop along healthy liberal- boldened press. It was a society riddled unapologetic racism and resurgent au- democratic lines; the inability to mod- with anti-Semitism, yet it witnessed no thoritarianism, the mechanics of Hit- ernize politically prepared the ground upheaval on the scale of the Dreyfus ler’s rise are a particularly pressing mat- for Nazism. In Germany, left-oriented Afair or the Tiszaeszlár blood-libel ter. For dismantlers of democracy, there scholars like Hans Mommsen used this afair in Hungary. Eley and Blackbourn is no better exemplar. concept to call for a greater sense of col- also questioned whether élitist, impe- Since 1945, the historiography of Na- lective responsibility; to focus on Hit- rialist Britain should be held up as the zism has undergone several broad trans- ler was an evasion, the argument went, modern paragon. The Sonderweg nar- formations, reflecting political pressures implying that Nazism was something rative could become an exculpatory fairy both within Germany and abroad. In that he did to us. Mommsen outlined a tale for other nations: we may make the early Cold War period, the emer- “cumulative radicalization” of the Nazi mistakes, but we will never be as bad gence of West Germany as a bulwark state in which Hitler functioned as a as the Germans. against the Soviet menace tended to “weak dictator,” ceding policy-making Ian Kershaw’s monumental two- discourage a closer interrogation of Ger- to competing bureaucratic agencies. volume biography (1998-2000) found man cultural values. The first big post- Abroad, the Sonderweg theory took on a plausible middle ground between war biography of Hitler, by the British a punitive edge, indicting all of German “strong” and “weak” images of Hitler historian Alan Bullock, published in history and culture. William Manches- in power. With his nocturnal schedule, 1952, depicted him as a charlatan, a ma- ter’s 1968 book, “The Arms of Krupp,” his dislike of paperwork, and his aver- nipulator, an “opportunist entirely with- ends with a lurid image of “the first sion to dialogue, Hitler was an eccen- out principle.” German thinkers often grim Aryan savage crouched in his gar- tric executive, to say the least. To make skirted the issue of Hitler, preferring ment of coarse skins, his crude javelin sense of a dictatorship in which the systemic explanations. Hannah Arendt’s poised, tense and alert, cloaked by night dictator was intermittently absent, Ker- “The Origins of Totalitarianism” sug- and fog, ready; waiting; and waiting.” shaw expounded the concept of “work- gested that dictatorial energies draw on The Sonderweg argument was at- ing towards the Führer”: when explicit the loneliness of the modern subject. tacked on multiple fronts. In what be- direction from Hitler was lacking, Nazi In the sixties and seventies, as Cold came known as the Historikerstreit (“His- functionaries guessed at what he wanted, War Realpolitik receded and the full torians’ Dispute”), right-wing scholars and often further radicalized his poli-

68 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 cies. Even as debates about the nature was part of Hitler’s persona, a means cause people to break out laughing.” of Hitler’s leadership go back and forth, of concealing his personal life and pre- The claims of “Mein Kampf ” not- scholars largely agree that his ideology senting himself as a politician who com- withstanding, there is no clear evi- was more or less fixed from the mid- pletely identified with his role as leader,” dence that Hitler harbored strongly twenties onward. His two abiding ob- Ullrich writes. Hitler could pose as a anti-Semitic views in his youth or in sessions were violent anti-Semitism cultured gentleman at Munich salons, early adulthood. Indeed, he seems to and Lebensraum. As early as 1921, he as a pistol-waving thug at the beer hall, have had friendly relations with several spoke of confining Jews to concentra- and as a bohemian in the company of Jews in Vienna and Munich. This does tion camps, and in 1923 he contem- singers and actors. He had an excep- not mean that he was free of common- plated—and, for the moment, re- tional memory that allowed him to as- place anti-Jewish prejudice. Certainly, jected—the idea of killing the entire sume an air of superficial mastery. His he was a fervent German nationalist. Jewish population. The Holocaust was certitude faltered, however, in the pres- When the First World War commenced, the result of a hideous syllogism: if ence of women: Ullrich depicts Hitler’s in 1914, he volunteered for the German Germany were to expand into the East, love life as a series of largely unfulfilled Army, and acquitted himself well as a where millions of Jews lived, those Jews fixations. It goes without saying that he soldier. For most of the war, he served would have to vanish, because Germans was an extreme narcissist lacking in em- as a dispatch runner for his regiment’s could not coexist with them. pathy. Much has been made of his love commanders. The first trace of a swing of dogs, but he was cruel to them. to the right comes in a letter from 1915, eople have been trying to fathom From adolescence onward, Hitler in which Hitler expressed the hope that PHitler’s psyche for nearly a century. was a dreamer and a loner. Averse to the war would bring an end to Germa- Ron Rosenbaum, in his 1998 book “Ex- joining groups, much less leading them, ny’s “inner internationalism.” plaining Hitler,” gives a tour of the more he immersed himself in books, music, The historian Thomas Weber, who outré theories. It has been suggested, and art. His ambition to become a recounted Hitler’s soldier years in the variously, that the key to understand- painter was hampered by a limited tech- 2010 book “Hitler’s First War,” has now ing Hitler is the fact that he had an nique and by a telling want of feeling written “Becoming Hitler: The Mak- abusive father; that he was too close to for human figures. When he moved to ing of a Nazi” (Basic), a study of the his mother; that he had a Jewish grand- Vienna, in 1908, he slipped toward the postwar metamorphosis. Significantly, father; that he had encephalitis; that social margins, residing briefly in a Hitler remained in the Army after the he contracted syphilis from a Jewish homeless shelter and then in a men’s Armistice; disgruntled nationalist sol- prostitute; that he blamed a Jewish doc- home. In Munich, where he moved in diers tended to join paramilitary groups. tor for his mother’s death; that he was 1913, he eked out a living as an artist Because the Social Democratic parties missing a testicle; that he underwent a and otherwise spent his days in muse- were dominant at the founding of the wayward hypnosis treatment; that he ums and his nights at the opera. He Weimar Republic, Hitler was represent- was gay; that he harbored coprophilic was steeped in Wagner, though he had ing a leftist government. He even served fantasies about his niece; that he was little apparent grasp of the composer’s the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Repub- addled by drugs; or—a personal favor- psychological intricacies and ambigu- lic. It is doubtful, though, that he had ite—that his anti-Semitism was trig- ities. A sharp portrait of the young Hit- active sympathies for the left; he prob- gered by briefly attending school with ler can be found in Thomas Mann’s ably stayed in the Army because, as Ludwig Wittgenstein, in Linz. At the Weber writes, it “provided a raison d’être root of this speculative mania is what for his existence.” As late as his thirti- Rosenbaum calls the “lost safe-deposit eth birthday, in April, 1919, there was box” mentality: with suicient sleuth- no sign of the Führer-to-be. ing, the mystery can be solved in one The unprecedented anarchy of post- Sherlockian stroke. war Bavaria helps explain what hap- Academic historians, by contrast, pened next. Street killings were rou- often portray Hitler as a cipher, a no- tine; politicians were assassinated on body. Kershaw has called him a “man an almost weekly basis. The left was without qualities.” Volker Ullrich, a Ger- blamed for the chaos, and anti-Semi- man author and journalist long associ- startling essay “Bruder Hitler,” the tism escalated for the same reason: sev- ated with the weekly Die Zeit, felt the English version of which appeared in eral prominent leaders of the left were need for a biography that paid more Esquire in 1939, under the title “That Jewish. Then came the Treaty of Ver- heed to Hitler’s private life. The first Man Is My Brother.” Aligning Hitler’s sailles, which was signed in June, 1919. volume, “Hitler: Ascent 1889–1939,” was experience with his own, Mann wrote Robert Gerwarth, in “The Vanquished: published by Knopf in 2016, in a fluid of a “basic arrogance, the basic feeling Why the First World War Failed to translation by Jeferson Chase. Ullrich’s of being too good for any reasonable, End” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), em- Hitler is no tyrant-sorcerer who leads honorable activity—based on what? A phasizes the whiplash efect that the an innocent Germany astray; he is a vague notion of being reserved for some- treaty had on the defeated Central chameleon, acutely conscious of the thing else, something quite indetermi- Powers. As Gerwarth writes, German image he projects. “The putative void nate, which, if it were named, would and Austrian politicians believed that

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 69 they had “broken with the autocratic over-the-top, that evidently conveyed parallels, but he knew what he was doing traditions of the past, thus fulfilling the to his audience the idea of uniqueness when he left the word “German” out of key criteria of Wilson’s Fourteen Points and authenticity.” his title. On the book’s final page, he for a ‘just peace.’” The harshness of the Above all, Hitler knew how to pro- lays his cards on the table: “Thinking terms of Versailles belied that idealis- ject himself through the mass media, about the end of Weimar democracy in tic rhetoric. honing his messages so that they would this way—as the result of a large pro- The day after Germany ratified the penetrate the white noise of politics. test movement colliding with complex treaty, Hitler began attending Army He fostered the production of catchy patterns of elite self-interest, in a cul- propaganda classes aimed at repressing graphics, posters, and slogans; in time, ture increasingly prone to aggressive revolutionary tendencies. These infused he mastered radio and film. Meanwhile, mythmaking and irrationality—strips him with hard-core anti-capitalist and squads of Brown Shirts brutalized and away the exotic and foreign look of swas- anti-Semitic ideas. The oicer in charge murdered opponents, heightening the tika banners and goose-stepping Storm- of the program was a tragic figure named very disorder that Hitler had proposed troopers. Suddenly, the whole thing Karl Mayr, who later forsook the right to cure. His most adroit feat came after looks close and familiar.” Yes, it does. wing for the left; he died in Buchen- the failed Beer Hall Putsch, in 1923, What set Hitler apart from most au- wald, in 1945. Mayr described Hitler as which should have ended his political thoritarian figures in history was his a “tired stray dog looking for a master.” career. At the trial that followed, Hit- conception of himself as an artist-genius Having noticed Hitler’s gift for public ler polished his personal narrative, that who used politics as his métier. It is a speaking, Mayr installed him as a lec- of a simple soldier who had heard the mistake to call him a failed artist; for turer and sent him out to observe po- call of destiny. In prison, he wrote the him, politics and war were a continua- litical activities in Munich. In Septem- first part of “Mein Kampf,” in which tion of art by other means. This is the ber, 1919, Hitler came across the German he completed the construction of his focus of Wolfram Pyta’s “Hitler: Der Workers’ Party, a tiny fringe faction. He world view. Künstler als Politiker und Feldherr” spoke up at one of its meetings and To many liberal-minded Germans (“The Artist as Politician and Com- joined its ranks. Within a few months, of the twenties, Hitler was a scary but mander”), one of the most striking re- he had become the leading orator of ludicrous figure who did not seem to cent additions to the literature. Although the group, which was renamed the Na- represent a serious threat. The Wei- the aestheticizing of politics is hardly tional Socialist German Workers’ Party. mar Republic stabilized somewhat in a new topic—Walter Benjamin dis- the middle of the decade, and the Nazi cussed it in the nineteen-thirties, as did f Hitler’s radicalization occurred as share of the vote languished in the low Mann—Pyta pursues the theme at mag- Irapidly as this—and not all histori- single-digit figures. The economic mis- isterial length, showing how Hitler de- ans agree that it did—the progression ery of the late twenties and early thirties based the Romantic cult of genius to bears an unsettling resemblance to sto- provided another opportunity, which incarnate himself as a transcendent ries that we now read routinely in the Hitler seized. Benjamin Carter Hett leader hovering above the fray. Goeb- news, of harmless-seeming, cat-loving deftly summarizes this dismal period bels’s propaganda harped on this motif; suburbanites who watch white-nation- in “The Death of Democracy: Hitler’s his diaries imply that he believed it. alist videos on YouTube and then join Rise to Power and the Downfall of the “Adolf Hitler, I love you because you a neo-Nazi group on Facebook. But Weimar Republic” (Henry Holt). Con- are both great and simple,” he wrote. Hitler’s embrace of belligerent nation- servatives made the gargantuan mistake The true artist does not compromise. alism and murderous anti-Semitism is of seeing Hitler as a useful tool for rous- Defying skeptics and mockers, he imag- not in itself historically significant; what ing the populace. They also undermined ines the impossible. Such is the tenor mattered was his gift for injecting that parliamentary democracy, flouted re- of Hitler’s infamous “prophecy” of the rhetoric into mainstream discourse. gional governments, and otherwise set destruction of the European Jews, in Peter Longerich’s “Hitler: Biographie,” the stage for the Nazi state. The left, 1939: “I have often been a prophet, and a thirteen-hundred-page tome that ap- meanwhile, was divided against itself. have generally been laughed at. . . . I be- peared in Germany in 2015, gives a po- At Stalin’s urging, many Communists lieve that the formerly resounding laugh- tent picture of Hitler’s skills as a speaker, viewed the Social Democrats, not the ter of Jewry in Germany has now choked organizer, and propagandist. Even those Nazis, as the real enemy—the “social up in its throat. Today, I want to be a who found his words repulsive were fascists.” The media got caught up in prophet again—if the international Jew- mesmerized by him. He would begin pop-culture distractions; traditional ish financiers inside and outside Eu- quietly, almost haltingly, testing out his liberal newspapers were losing circu- rope should succeed in plunging the audience and creating suspense. He lation. Valiant journalists like Konrad nations once more into a world war, amused the crowd with sardonic asides Heiden tried to correct the barrage of then the result will not be the Bolshe- and actorly impersonations. The musi- Nazi propaganda but found the efort vization of the earth, and thus the vic- cal structure was one of crescendo to- futile, because, as Heiden wrote, “the tory of Jewry, but the annihilation of ward triumphant rage. Longerich writes, refutation would be heard, perhaps be- the Jewish race in Europe.” Scholars “It was this eccentric style, almost piti- lieved, and definitely forgotten again.” have long debated when the decision able, unhinged, obviously not well Hett refrains from poking the reader to carry out the Final Solution was made. trained, at the same time ecstatically with too many obvious contemporary Most now believe that the Holocaust

70 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 was an escalating series of actions, driven by pressure both from above and from below. Yet no order was really necessary. Hitler’s “prophecy” was itself an oblique command. In the summer of 1941, as hundreds of thousands of Jews and Slavs were being killed during the invasion of the Soviet Union, Goebbels recalled Hitler remarking that the prophecy was being fulﬁlled in an “almost uncanny” fashion. This is the language of a con- noisseur admiring a masterpiece. Such intellectual atrocities led Theodor W. Adorno to declare that, after Auschwitz, to write poetry is barbaric.

itler and Goebbels were the first Hrelativizers of the Holocaust, the first purveyors of false equivalence. “Concentration camps were not invented in Germany,” Hitler said in 1941. “It is the English who are their •• inventors, using this institution to grad- ually break the backs of other nations.” Just before the outbreak of the Second which seems to fix cameras in spots The British had operated camps in World War, Hitler spoke of the planned across Eastern Europe, recording wave South Africa, the Nazis pointed out. mass murder of Poles and asked, “Who, upon wave of slaughter. Party propagandists similarly high- after all, is today speaking about the As for Hitler and America, the issue lighted the suferings of Native Amer- destruction of the Armenians?” The goes beyond such obvious suspects as icans and Stalin’s slaughter in the Nazis found collaborators in almost Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh. Soviet Union. In 1943, Goebbels trium- every country that they invaded. In one Whitman’s “Hitler’s American Model,” phantly broadcast news of the Katyn Lithuanian town, a crowd cheered while with its comparative analysis of Amer- Forest massacre, in the course of which a local man clubbed dozens of Jewish ican and Nazi race law, joins such pre- the Soviet secret police killed more people to death. He then stood atop vious studies as Carroll Kakel’s “The than twenty thousand Poles. (Goeb- the corpses and played the Lithuanian American West and the Nazi East,” a bels wanted to show footage of the anthem on an accordion. German sol- side-by-side discussion of Manifest mass graves, but generals overruled diers looked on, taking photographs. Destiny and Lebensraum; and Stefan him.) Nazi sympathizers carry on this The mass killings by Stalin and Hit- Kühl’s “The Nazi Connection,” which project today, alternately denying the ler existed in an almost symbiotic re- describes the impact of the American Holocaust and explaining it away. lationship, the one giving license to the eugenics movement on Nazi thinking. The magnitude of the abomination other, in remorseless cycles of revenge. This literature is provocative in tone almost forbids that it be mentioned in Large-scale deportations of Jews from and, at times, tendentious, but it en- the same breath as any other horror. the countries of the Third Reich fol- gages in a necessary act of self-exam- Yet the Holocaust has unavoidable in- lowed upon Stalin’s deportation of the ination, of a kind that modern Ger- ternational dimensions—lines of in- Volga Germans. Reinhard Heydrich, many has exemplified. fluence, circles of complicity, moments one of the chief planners of the Ho- The Nazis were not wrong to cite of congruence. Hitler’s “scientific anti- locaust, thought that, once the Soviet American precedents. Enslavement of Semitism,” as he called it, echoed the Union had been defeated, the Jews of African-Americans was written into French racial theorist Arthur de Go- Europe could be left to die in the Gulag. the U.S. Constitution. Thomas Jefer- bineau and anti-Semitic intellectuals The most dangerous claim made by son spoke of the need to “eliminate” or who normalized venomous language right-wing historians during the His- “extirpate” Native Americans. In 1856, during the Dreyfus Afair. The Brit- torikerstreit was that Nazi terror was a an Oregonian settler wrote, “Extermi- ish Empire was Hitler’s ideal image of response to Bolshevik terror, and was nation, however unchristianlike it may a master race in dominant repose. “The therefore to some degree excusable. appear, seems to be the only resort left Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a Rus- One can, however, keep the entire mon- for the protection of life and property.” sian forgery from around 1900, fuelled strous landscape in view without min- General Philip Sheridan spoke of the Nazis’ paranoia. The Armenian imizing the culpability of perpetrators “annihilation, obliteration, and com- genocide of 1915-16 encouraged the be- on either side. This was the achieve- plete destruction.” To be sure, others lief that the world community would ment of Timothy Snyder’s profoundly promoted more peaceful—albeit still care little about the fate of the Jews. disturbing 2010 book, “Bloodlands,” repressive—policies. The historian

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 71 Edward B. Westermann, in “Hitler’s American eugenicists made no secret that other countries would decry Ger- Ostkrieg and the Indian Wars” (Okla- of their racist objectives, and their views many’s treatment of Jews and then de- homa), concludes that, because federal were prevalent enough that F. Scott cline to admit them. policy never oicially mandated the Fitzgerald featured them in “The Great Hundreds of thousands of Ameri- “physical annihilation of the Native Gatsby.” (The cloddish Tom Buchanan, cans died fighting Nazi Germany. Still, populations on racial grounds or char- having evidently read Lothrop Stod- bigotry toward Jews persisted, even to- acteristics,” this was not a genocide on dard’s 1920 tract “The Rising Tide of ward Holocaust survivors. General the order of the Shoah. The fact re- Color Against White World-Suprem- George Patton criticized do-gooders mains that between 1500 and 1900 the acy,” says, “The idea is if we don’t look who “believe that the Displaced per- Native population of U.S. territories out the white race will be—will be ut- son is a human being, which he is not, dropped from many millions to around terly submerged.”) California’s steriliza- and this applies particularly to the Jews two hundred thousand. tion program directly inspired the Nazi who are lower than animals.” Leading America’s knack for maintaining an sterilization law of 1934. There are also Nazi scientists had it better. Brian Crim’s air of robust innocence in the wake of sinister, if mostly coincidental, similar- “Our Germans: Project Paperclip and mass death struck Hitler as an exam- ities between American and German the National Security State” (Johns ple to be emulated. He made frequent technologies of death. In 1924, the first Hopkins) reviews the shady history of mention of the American West in the execution by gas chamber took place, Wernher von Braun and his colleagues early months of the Soviet invasion. in Nevada. In a history of the Amer- from the V-2 program. When Braun The Volga would be “our Mississippi,” ican gas chamber, Scott Christianson was captured, in 1945, he realized that he said. “Europe—and not America— states that the fumigating agent Zyk- the Soviets would become the next will be the land of unlimited possibil- lon-B, which was licensed to American archenemy of the American military- ities.” Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine Cyanamid by the German company I. G. industrial complex, and cannily pro- would be populated by pioneer farmer- Farben, was considered as a lethal agent moted the idea of a high-tech weap- soldier families. Autobahns would cut but found to be impractical. Zyklon-B ons program to ward of the Bolshevik through fields of grain. The present was, however, used to disinfect immi- menace. He was able to reconstitute occupants of those lands—tens of mil- grants as they crossed the border at El most of his operation Stateside, minus lions of them—would be starved to Paso—a practice that did not go un- the slave labor. Records were airbrushed; death. At the same time, and with no noticed by Gerhard Peters, the chem- de-Nazification procedures were by- sense of contradiction, the Nazis par- ist who supplied a modified version of passed (they were considered “demor- took of a long-standing German ro- Zyklon-B to Auschwitz. Later, Amer- alizing”); immigration was expedited. manticization of Native Americans. ican gas chambers were outfitted with J. Edgar Hoover became concerned that One of Goebbels’s less propitious a chute down which poison pellets were Jewish obstructionists in the State De- schemes was to confer honorary Aryan dropped. Earl Liston, the inventor of partment were asking too many ques- status on Native American tribes, in the device, explained, “Pulling a lever tions about the scientists’ backgrounds. the hope that they would rise up against to kill a man is hard work. Pouring acid Senator Styles Bridges proposed that their oppressors. down a tube is easier on the nerves, the State Department needed a “first- Jim Crow laws in the American more like watering flowers.” Much the class cyanide fumigating job.” South served as a precedent in a stricter same method was introduced at Ausch- legal sense. Scholars have long been witz, to relieve stress on S.S. guards. hese chilling points of contact are aware that Hitler’s regime expressed ad- When Hitler praised American re- Tlittle more than footnotes to the miration for American race law, but strictions on naturalization, he had in history of Nazism. But they tell us they have tended to see this as a public- mind the Immigration Act of 1924, rather more about modern America. relations strategy—an “everybody does which imposed national quotas and Like a colored dye coursing through it” justification for Nazi policies. Whit- barred most Asian people altogether. the bloodstream, they expose vulnera- man, however, points out that if these For Nazi observers, this was evidence bilities in the national consciousness. comparisons had been intended solely that America was evolving in the right The spread of white-supremacist pro- for a foreign audience they would not direction, despite its specious rhetoric paganda on the Internet is the latest have been buried in hefty tomes in Frak- about equality. The Immigration Act, chapter. As Zeynep Tufekci recently tur type. “Race Law in the United too, played a facilitating role in the Ho- observed, in the Times, YouTube is a States,” a 1936 study by the German locaust, because the quotas prevented superb vehicle for the circulation of lawyer Heinrich Krieger, attempts to thousands of Jews, including Anne such content, its algorithms guiding sort out inconsistencies in the legal sta- Frank and her family, from reaching users toward ever more inflammatory tus of nonwhite Americans. Krieger America. In 1938, President Roosevelt material. She writes, “Given its billion concludes that the entire apparatus is called for an international conference or so users, YouTube may be one of the hopelessly opaque, concealing racist on the plight of European refugees; most powerful radicalizing instruments aims behind contorted justifications. this was held in Évian-les-Bains, of the 21st century.” When I did a search Why not simply say what one means? France, but no substantive change re- for “Hitler” on YouTube the other day, This was a major diference between sulted. The German Foreign Oice, in I was first shown a video labelled “Best American and German racism. a sardonic reply, found it “astounding” Hitler Documentary in color!”—the

72 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 British production “Hitler in Color.” A pro-Hitler remark was featured atop the comments, and soon, thanks to Au- BRIEFLY NOTED toplay, I was viewing contributions from such users as CelticAngloPress and The Epic City, by Kushanava Choudhury (Bloomsbury). This SoldatdesReiches. searching memoir charts the American-born author’s rela- In 1990, Vanity Fair reported that tionship with Calcutta, the city from which his parents em- Donald Trump once kept a book of igrated and to which he periodically returns—including a Hitler’s speeches by his bed. When stint as a journalist—eventually choosing to settle there. Trump was asked about it, he said, “If Choudhury sees the city, once known as the cultural cen- I had these speeches, and I am not ter of India, as “an impossible place” characterized by po- saying that I do, I would never read litical conflict, artistic achievement, and the “unmistakable them.” Since Trump entered politics, bouquet” of urine. Flitting between history and travelogue, he has repeatedly been compared to the book is most memorable for its portraits of people: fam- Hitler, not least by neo-Nazis. Although ily elders in New Jersey who “derailed each other’s sentences some resemblances can be found— in locomotive Bengali”; American students for whom “Cal- at times, Trump appears to be emulat- cutta would only be the city of poverty and Teresa, sufering Hitler’s strategy of cultivating ri- ing and its redeemer.” valries among those under him, and his rallies are cathartic rituals of rac- Renaissance Woman, by Ramie Targof (Farrar, Straus & Gi- ism, xenophobia, and self-regard—the roux). In this richly realized biography, Targof explores the diferences are obvious and stark. For life of the sixteenth-century Italian noblewoman, poet, and one thing, Hitler had more discipline. patron Vittoria Colonna. Renowned for her “spiritual power,” What is worth pondering is how a Colonna dreamed of becoming a nun, but the Pope so val- demagogue of Hitler’s malign skill ued her as a secular ally that he wouldn’t allow it. She turned might more efectively exploit flaws in to writing, becoming the first woman to publish a book of American democracy. He would cer- poems in Italy. Had she not been so talented and so virtu- tainly have at his disposal craven right- ous, the challenge she posed might well have been too great wing politicians who are worthy heirs for her male contemporaries to bear. As it was, she befriended to Hindenburg, Brüning, Papen, and many of the pivotal figures of the day, most famously Mi- Schleicher. He would also have mil- chelangelo. She is often described dismissively as his “muse,” lions of citizens who acquiesce in in- but Targof shows that Colonna was a true intellectual part- conceivably potent networks of corpo- ner, engaging him in vigorous discussions of art. rate surveillance and control. The artist-politician of the future The Stowaway, by Laurie Gwen Shapiro (Simon & Schuster). will not bask in the antique aura of In 1928, Billy Gawronski—the teen-age son of Polish immi- Wagner and Nietzsche. He is more grants on the Lower East Side—dived into the Hudson River likely to take inspiration from the newly and stole aboard a ship bound for Antarctica. It was com- minted myths of popular culture. The manded by the famed aviator Richard Byrd, who was to con- archetype of the ordinary kid who dis- duct the first flight over the South Pole. Gawronski was hailed covers that he has extraordinary pow- as a minor hero upon his return, celebrated by the press as ers is a familiar one from comic books the “boy stowaway.” This history draws on Gawronski’s let- and superhero movies, which play on ters home and on newspaper reports to reconstruct the voy- the adolescent feeling that something age in novelistic style. Shapiro also evokes the era’s fixation is profoundly wrong with the world on adventure and celebrity, writing, “For many Americans, and that a magic weapon might ban- Billy’s narrative became the first account they heard from a ish the spell. With one stroke, the in- true member of the expedition—not a designated reporter.” conspicuous outsider assumes a position of supremacy, on a battlefield of Up Up, Down Down, by Cheston Knapp (Scribner). The charm- pure good against pure evil. For most ing essays collected here, borne along by an easy Southern people, such stories remain fantasy, a palaver, range widely in subject: local professional wrestling; means of embellishing everyday life. a U.F.O. enthusiasts’ society in Oregon; the story of a neigh- One day, though, a ruthless dreamer, a bor, bipolar and alcoholic, who was murdered by a home- loner who has a “vague notion of being less person he took in. Personal elements are threaded reserved for something else,” may at- throughout, and Knapp, now married, looks back with be- tempt to turn metaphor into reality. musement and chagrin on a parade of his former selves—a He might be out there now, cloaked lacrosse player partial to alternative metal bands; a reluctant by the blue light of a computer screen, frat boy; a cultish devotee of David Foster Wallace—and ready, waiting.  wonders what they add up to.

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 73 his own albums, which appear every five POP MUSIC years or so and then reappear on innu- merable best-of lists. Next month, he will release “Singularity,” ending a quiet DANCING IN YOUR HEAD but dramatic period in his life, during which he recovered from the rigors of An electronic-music producer has a spiritual awakening. touring by subjecting his body to other kinds of stress: desert treks, controlled BY KELEFASANNEH breathing, freezing baths. Apparently, these exertions had an efect, because decade ago, in the spring of 2008, ing into a cheerful rock song, it melted the new album is both the gentlest and A Coldplay released an album with into a series of slow arpeggios and even- the most epic of Hopkins’s career. a grand title and a grander purpose. tually faded away. The album was warm “Singularity” is an hour-long ode to The title was “Viva la Vida or Death and meticulous, full of graceful crack- spiritual transcendence that also resem- and All His Friends.” The purpose was les and chimes, and it inspired a cho- bles pleasant background noise—at to transform Coldplay, which was just rus of acclaim that has been building least, it does at first. The album includes about the most popular band in the ever since. a handful of wispy, beatless tracks that world—and just about the most reviled, Hopkins is now thirty-eight, and one might be considered ambient music, a too. To facilitate this transformation, of the most celebrated electronic mu- genre that Eno invented. In the liner the members had recruited notes to “Ambient 1: Music Brian Eno, the legendary for Airports,” from 1978, Eno producer and electronic com- wrote that ambient music poser. Chris Martin, the “must be as ignorable as it is singer, told MTV that he was interesting.” Hopkins has intent on “breaking down” been pleased to learn that his the band’s musical identity albums have generally failed and “trying to build some- to meet this exacting stan- thing diferent, and hope- dard. “Someone will say, I fully better.” But if the album went to do some cooking and was a revolution it was a mild put it on, and ended up sit- one. “Viva la Vida” began ting down and listening to with a collection of chiming, the whole thing,” he says. flickering sounds, unobtru- “Obviously, that’s what you sive at first but slowly grow- want—you’ve captured them.” ing louder, as a hummable tune revealed itself. A critic ust as older generations of for the Daily Telegraph called Jmusicians were seduced by this introduction “spine-ting- the electric guitar, Hopkins, lingly beautiful.” Others, less as a boy, was seduced by the impressed, suggested that it Roland TB-303, the synthe- evoked the similarly atmo- sizer whose squelchy, serrated spheric opening of another sound defined the genre album produced by Eno: known as acid house. He grew “The Joshua Tree,” by U2. up outside London, studying In fact, the introduction the piano and, at night, study- was the work not of Eno but ing the pirate radio stations of his collaborator Jon Hop- that played mysterious re- kins, a previously obscure cords by unknown produc- musician who had allowed Jon Hopkins’s new album is both his gentlest and his most epic. ers. He remembers being Coldplay to use an unre- captivated by “Acperience 1,” leased track of his. In return, the band sicians of his generation. He has a par- an influential 1992 track that layered brought Hopkins on tour as the open- adoxical ability to make obsessively en- surging, menacing Roland bass lines to ing act, which gave him a chance to gineered tracks that sound friendly and create nine minutes of dance-floor display his electronic compositions to arena generous; his sensibility is openhearted orientation. (It was, Hopkins eventu- crowds. Hopkins signed to the discern- and sometimes sentimental—an ap- ally learned, the work of a German duo ing indie label Domino, and in 2009 proach that can make him seem like an called Hardfloor.) But he was drawn, he released “Insides,” which included outlier in the world of electronic music. too, to the sturdy melodies of pop. At a nine-minute version of the track that Hopkins is known for his collabora- eighteen, he was hired as the touring Coldplay borrowed. Instead of build- tions and soundtracks and, above all, keyboard player for the venturesome

74 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY SIGGI EGGERTSSON pop singer Imogen Heap, a job that led music is more physically demanding ducers using obscure technology. to work as a session musician. On the than it looks—all those years spent Nowadays, streaming services make it side, Hopkins made a pair of pretty but crouched over his laptop had damaged easier than ever to consume music: one rather drowsy solo albums, which were his back. As his body got stronger and track at a time, or in never-ending widely ignored, with one important his mind got calmer, Hopkins started playlists. Hopkins’s work is accessible exception: Eno heard the second one, to think anew about what kind of music enough to be used in a variety of ways, “Contact Note,” and invited Hopkins he wanted to make. Some early demos which means that many people hear it to his studio. They worked together on had been heavy and distorted, reflect- without seeking it out. On Spotify, it that Coldplay album and, along with ing his anxiety about the state of the is regularly featured on popular play- another musician, Leo Abrahams, on world. Now he was less interested in lists such as “Music for Concentration” the score for “The Lovely Bones,” as evoking that anxiety than in finding a and “Sleep,” mixed in with composi- well as on a collaborative album that way to leave it behind. The acid-house tions by avant-garde heroes, like appeared in 2010, which took the form scene that Hopkins loved was associ- Aphex Twin, and intentionally generic of fifteen transient clouds of sound. ated with a druggy, wide-eyed spiritu- tracks that seem to exist only on Spot- In the years since the twinned rev- ality; this tradition is easy to mock, but ify—the musical equivalent of super- olutions of house and techno, in the Hopkins found compelling ways to re- market brands. nineteen-eighties, “electronic music” vive it, without apology and without Many of the most thrilling current has often been synonymous with “dance irony. The centerpiece of “Singularity” producers—from Daniel Lopatin, who music.” But Hopkins had his forma- is “Everything Connected,” a grand records as Oneohtrix Point Never, to tive encounters with tracks like “Acpe- techno track that lasts more than ten the emerging London-based composer rience 1” in his bedroom, sitting around minutes, building and disintegrating known as Klein—make music that with friends, entranced. In his early and eventually giving way to “Feel First echoes the queasy, twitchy sensation work, rhythm sometimes seems to be Life,” a wordless choral postlude that of life online. By comparison, Hop- an afterthought: his first two albums sounds distinctly devotional. kins’s version of minimalism marks often relied on slouchy, hip-hop-inspired Hopkins works hard to make his him as a classicist, whose musical ex- beats that can sound generic. “Insides,” music sound simple. In composing periments often find elegant ways to his Domino début, marked a new be- “Singularity,” he switched software, update the old templates of house and ginning: Hopkins built stifer, quicker from Logic to Ableton, which gives techno. And when it comes to musi- beats, to draw out the unease that lurked him even more fine-grained control cal consumption Hopkins is even more within his seemingly serene composi- over timbre, and a single song might old-fashioned: he likes to make hour- tions. “Immunity,” from 2013, was even often contain more than a hundred in- long albums, reasoning that there will more propulsive. It was a reflection of dividual tracks, carefully mixed to cre- always be some people who can be Hopkins’s growing friendship with a ate an illusion of emptiness. (When he compelled to listen to them straight cohort of like-minded electronic pro- performs live, Hopkins uses devices through. ducers, including Kieran Hebden (who called Kaoss Pads, which let him trig- The tracks on “Singularity” flow records as Four Tet) and Nathan Fake. ger sounds and efects by tapping and into each other, as a reward for any- It also reflected Hopkins’s life as an in- rubbing a series of screens; he moves one who takes the trouble to play them creasingly popular producer and occa- his fingers with the delicacy of a con- in order. The second half consists sional d.j., which gave him a new ap- cert pianist.) Although dance music is mainly of textures and melodies, not preciation for the fine art of moving built on repetition, he finds ways to rhythms, as if Hopkins were giving ca- crowds. His electronic music had be- make sure that listeners don’t feel as if sual listeners permission to space out, come dance music, too. they were being pummelled by ma- or to forget about him altogether. Then, having finally found a home chines. The most infectious beats on Then, near the end, comes “Luminous in night clubs, Hopkins defected. He “Immunity” are slightly but insistently Beings,” which is a dance track but a moved to Los Angeles, learned to med- asymmetrical—he made the rhythms placid one. It whirrs and clicks for a itate, and made spiritual pilgrimages more human by hobbling them a bit. minute before the beat arrives, and into the California desert. (“It sounds And “Singularity” is full of familiar- then some broken chords, which are funny, because everyone does that, but sounding chord progressions arranged precisely layered to create an ever- there’s a reason why everyone does that,” in irregular patterns, so that you are changing cadence. The mood is art- he says.) While listening to a podcast never quite sure when the next change fully ambiguous. Some listeners might by Joe Rogan, the erudite comedian is coming. You can relax into these tracks imagine glowing lights above a dance and mixed-martial-arts announcer, he without ever feeling that you have them floor, near closing time. Others might discovered Wim Hof, a Dutch well- figured out. picture the pattern created by morn- ness coach who is sometimes called the ing sun, beaming through a window Iceman, because he trains disciples to generation ago, part of the appeal onto a bedroom floor. Still others withstand freezing temperatures by reg- A of electronic music was its mys- might picture nothing at all, having ulating their bodies, using a technique teriousness; Hopkins was far from the found a diferent way to pay tribute to that entails induced hyperventilation. only young listener intrigued by hard- the soft power of Hopkins’s creations: Hopkins says that making electronic to-find records, made by faceless pro- by drifting of to sleep. 

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 75 tion, rather than the play, that they got THE THEATRE cooking. In Shaw’s play, there were too many entrances and exits, musings and changes of mind. In the film, and thus MANSPLAINING in the musical, the lines between men and women, privilege and class degra- Class, colonialism, and self-creation in “My Fair Lady.” dation, humor and drama are more clearly drawn. Part of the pleasure of watching BY HILTON ALS this staging—and it is a pleasure, if not entirely satisfying, but then what is?— is observing not how Eliza (Lauren Am- brose) becomes more herself as the show goes on but how she learns to express that self, strong, indomitable, softened by dreams and wishes, in the language of the class that helps her cross over. Colonialism works in many ways. We don’t know how long Eliza has been a Covent Garden flower seller when we meet her, but those filthy cobblestones and the close, damp air have become part of her being. She’s on her own, though she has a father, Alfred P. Doolittle (Norbert Leo Butz), a loafer and a drinker who hits her up for cash when he runs into her. Eliza doesn’t have class aspirations—at first—but she does have com- fort aspirations, which are tied to her desire to do better for herself. She sings: All I want is a room somewhere, Far away from the cold night air; With one enormous chair. . . . Someone’s head restin’ on my knee, Warm and tender as he can be, Who takes good care of me . . . Oh, wouldn’t it be loverly? Her dream of a supportive lover sets her apart from her fellow denizens of Covent Garden, where the cycle of poverty is inextricable from the cycle of “ he Street Where I Live,” the play- comedy about class and sexism into a abuse. But although she doesn’t think Twright and lyricist Alan Jay Ler- musical. He wasn’t wrong. In their collab- of the scholar Henry Higgins (Harry ner’s amusing 1978 memoir, is full of orations, Lerner and Loewe were adept Hadden-Paton) as a brute, he quickly anecdotes about the process by which at marrying realism and fantasy, and reveals himself to be as insensitive to her Lerner and his professional partner, the what was Shaw’s play but an examina- plight as he is to that of any human, let composer Frederick Loewe, created eight tion of the reality of one man’s fantasy alone a woman from an impoverished blockbuster musicals together, including of remaking a woman in his own image? background, who can’t advance his ca- the 1956 hit “My Fair Lady” (in revival Still, the assignment proved to be a reer as a phoneticist. That’s how Higgins at Lincoln Center Theatre’s Vivian Beau- headache for the duo. First, they aban- and Eliza meet: as she admonishes some- mont, directed by Bartlett Sher). The doned the project for a time, while Ler- one for knocking her over and ruining year was 1952, and Lerner, then thirty- ner worked with another composer. Then, her flowers, he copies down her Cock- three, was in Hollywood, working on a in 1954, Pascal died, and the rights to the ney speech. When she is told that a man screen adaptation of “Brigadoon,” his play were transferred to his bank. Once is standing behind a column writing down and Loewe’s very successful 1947 musi- Lerner and Loewe finally started on the everything she says, she fires of a fusil- cal. One day, he received a call from a show, they spent many hours—days, lade of verbal abuse at Higgins, who all producer named Gabriel Pascal, who had weeks, years—trying to figure out how but ignores her once he discovers that a acquired the rights to George Bernard to combine their talents with Shaw’s. It man buying flowers is a linguist he wants Shaw’s 1913 play “Pygmalion” and thought wasn’t until they hit on the idea of fol- to meet, Colonel Pickering (Allan Cor-

that Lerner and Loewe could turn the lowing the excellent 1938 movie adapta- duner). Irritated by Eliza and eager to THEATRE MARCUS/LINCOLN CENTER JOAN COURTESY PHOTOGRAPHS:

76 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVER MUNDAY talk to Pickering, Higgins tosses some to understand what Sher was doing, archaeological coins into her basket and moves on. which, it turns out, was what he was also tours That money is the start of a changed doing three years ago, when he staged life. To watch Ambrose’s Eliza during “The King and I”: trying to make these this scene is to see a real actress at work. historical musicals matter to a twenty- Led by noted scholars | Superb itineraries |Unsurpassed service Her eyes fill with tears as she counts the first-century audience, whose concerns coins, and you can see the trouble fall are diferent from those of the original away from her: her life will be diferent audiences. (Sometimes, Sher goes a lit- now that she has the means to will it so. tle crazy making the contemporary point. Her dream? To be a lady in a flower In “Get Me to the Church on Time,” shop. But she knows how England works: for instance, he has chorus boys in veils to have the part, you must speak the part. and little else doing high kicks.) Tracking Higgins down at home, she At first, I was disturbed by Hadden- ofers herself up as a paying customer. Paton’s portrayal, fearing it tipped too It never occurs to her that she might be much into movie villainy. But class and rejected. And she isn’t: Higgins decides self-absorption have sealed his Higgins to reshape her into his ideal view of his of in ways that feel real: he is empire and LAST SPACES REMAINING language—precise, descriptive, pure. has been reared to think of himself as • South India such. Americans have always been able • Georgia & Armenia or the rest of the show, Higgins car- to identify with Eliza’s Horatio Alger • Spain & Portugal Fries out his experiment, while Eliza narrative of self-creation, but the prig- • Maya Mexico runs through a variety of feelings— gish Higgins stands at a distance from fatigue, love, disillusionment—before our afections. He doesn’t satisfy the au- Secure your place finally becoming again the independent dience’s need to believe, for instance, that for just $250 woman she always was. Some of their love can be transformative. When he Call 212-986-3054 | Toll-free 866-740-5130 exchanges are comical, others not. The finally admits to feeling afection for www.archaeologicaltrs.com most layered are those in which we see Eliza—or, at least, jealousy of Freddy, Eliza uneasily trying to fit into Higgins’s who adores her—it’s more of a philosoph- vision of a proper English voice and ical construct than an emotion, and it does body—and then exploding it. At Ascot, nothing to free him from his snobbery: near the end of the first act, Higgins in- I’ve grown accustomed to her face! troduces her to his mother, Mrs. Hig- She almost makes the day begin. . . . gins (Diana Rigg), who, as it happens, Marry Freddy! What an infantile idea! is friends with Freddy Eynsford-Hill What a heartless, wicked, brainless thing ( Jordan Donica), the young man who to do!... knocked Eliza over when she was a flower I can see her now: Mrs. Freddy Eynsford-Hill, In a wretched little lat above a store. seller. Now she’s in polite society, but, I can see her now: not a penny in the till, no matter how hard she tries to remem- And a bill-collector beating at the door. . . . ber Higgins’s lessons on language and In a year or so, when she’s prematurely deportment, she can’t quite pull them gray, . . . of. Weirdly, when I saw the show, this She’ll come home and lo! He’ll have upped and run away was the only scene where I felt that With a social climbing heiress from New York! Ambrose, ordinarily so full of life and imagination, lacked truthfulness: she Higgins’s revenge fantasies are trig- used shtick to get through it, and the gered by his sense of vulnerability, of laughs piled up, but what stayed with course, but they’re also his way of hold- me was the honesty of her tears when ing on to empire and its contempt for Freddy crushed her violets, and when the New World. It can seem as though she sang—in a beautiful, if limited, so- Hadden-Paton is overplaying Higgins’s prano—about wanting to dance all night. snottiness, until you remember meeting Sher, working with the wonderful sce- any number of people like him, who nic designer Michael Yeargan and the frighten you with their chill while they choreographer Christopher Gattelli, try to draw you in with their smarts. Am- makes a show, in this scene, of upper-class brose’s Eliza, on the other hand, hurts English repression. (Much of the musi- us in the best possible way, when we re- cal relies on things that Americans still alize too late, just as she does, that her judge and mock, hundreds of years after love for Higgins amounts to a confusion the Mayflower landed: uptight English between the construction of speech and social stratifications.) It took me a while the true language of feeling. ♦

THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 77 spilled on this soil, for the sake of free- THE CURRENT CINEMA dom and of France: a sacrifice that is ripe for the cultivation of political myth. Pauline is unschooled in such gran- GUILT BY ASSOCIATION deur. She is more concerned with cooking healthy meals for her father, to stop “This Is Our Land” and “Le Corbeau.” him from subsisting on sausages and beer. (“I’ll croak how I want,” he says.) BY ANTHONY LANE One evening, she dines alone with Berthier (André Dussollier), a respected he heroine of “This Is Our Land,” of collective worship. She herself is doctor, who, over many years, has lent TPauline Duhez (Émilie Dequenne), standing for oice in Hénart, and, by a gleam of that respect to the intolerant doesn’t want to be a heroine of anyway of backup, she needs someone to right. Richer and smoother than Pau- thing. That is both her problem and her run as mayor—a local candidate, scan- line, he opens a good bottle of Bordeaux, strength. She is a visiting nurse in the dal-free, and already familiar with the waits until the end of the meal, and then northern French town of Hénart, pop- area. That is where Pauline comes in. makes his pitch, proposing her as the ular with her patients and admired in As coded movies go, “This Is Our ideal mayor of Hénart. “You’re mad,” the community. She is also a single Land,” which is directed by Lucas she replies, but he urges her to make a mother, with two children to look after, Belvaux, is not diicult to crack. The change—“to bring jobs here instead of countries where they exploit kids as old as yours.” Note the skill with which Berthier deploys the personal touch: “You don’t fight for ideas but for your loved ones. There’s nothing ideological about it.” So speaks the consummate ideologue. The trouble is that Berthier is the most interesting person onscreen, not least because Dussollier, who, in his long career, has made films with François Trufaut, Éric Rohmer, and Alain Res- nais, is so efortlessly engaging. We feel wooed and warmed by his gentlemanly manner, even as Berthier’s beliefs are revealed in their malignant chill. The movie drifts toward him, as if coaxed by his charm, and also toward Stéphane Stan- kowiak (Guillaume Gouix), an altogether less alluring soul. Normally referred In Lucas Belvaux’s lm, a far-right party elds an unlikely candidate. to as Stanko, he is a boyfriend from Pauline’s school days, who falls for her and an ailing father, Jacques (Patrick R.N.P. is akin to the National Front, anew—a surprise to us and a glitch for Descamps), who used to be a hard-line whose leader, Marine Le Pen, is less the R.N.P., since Stanko used to do its union man. Her days are full of duties, foursquare but no less formidable than dirty work on the quiet. He was an ac- and she fulfills them all. As for politics, Dorgelle; both women sport a blond tive neo-Nazi, and his idea of a big night Pauline never votes. “It’s no use,” she bob that could be designated as an ofen- out, even now, is to dress up in com- says. Like everyone, she has grievances sive weapon. Hénart doesn’t exist, but, mando gear, waylay immigrants, and im- and gripes, but nothing rancorous, and, with its surrounding slag heaps, it sug- prison them in a cage. Pauline suspects besides, why make a fuss? gests Hénin-Beaumont, a former min- nothing, despite the large tattoo across Enter the R.N.P., or Renewed Na- ing town where the National Front has his shoulder blades, which appears to tion Party, a freshly forged (and ficti- been in power since 2014. The film’s be a fascistic hybrid of tarantula and bat. tious) political force. The shrewd boast original title was “Chez Nous,” raising And what of the perils of Pauline? of the R.N.P. is that it will reach over the spectre, invaluable to the extreme Well, she is coached and groomed: her the heads of a tattered establishment right, of a home from which intruders hair is lightened, and she is presented and appeal to those who, in the mind must be barred. One of the earliest im- to the public at a press conference, during of the Party, represent the authentic ages is of a tractor, plowing through which she smiles and says not a word. France. Dominating the movement, like dark loam and unearthing an artillery Beside her, Dorgelle does the talking. the carved figure on the prow of a war- shell, presumably from the killing fields The platform on which Pauline will ship, is Agnès Dorgelle (Catherine of the First World War. Nothing is said, campaign is devised without her input, Jacob), whose rallies amount to an act but we are reminded that blood was and, when she objects, Berthier shrugs.

78 THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 ILLUSTRATION BY PETRA ERIKSSON “It’s just advertising,” he says. “No one of Capra’s hobos says, “the world’s been eventually provided, yet it settles noth- reads it.” In short, she is little more than shaved by a drunken barber,” and un- ing, for almost everyone we meet seems a face, brought in to soften the look of certain whether the American public capable of filling a pen with poison. the R.N.P., and Belvaux wants us to should be relied upon as a trusty moral Guilt, like the unforgiving sunlight, falls share her umbrage at this afront; but arbiter or feared as a swayable mass. Bel- on young and old alike. how sustained, really, is the attention vaux’s movie, by contrast, is a sparse and One cannot predict how quickly films that his movie pays to her plight? Not solemn afair. We meet the controllers will date. “This Is Our Land,” for in- only is she rejected by her Muslim pa- of the political machine, but, aside from stance, which came out in France less tients and scorned by her father (alone skirmish in a housing project, the than three months before last year’s Pres- though many old militants like him, wider efects of their scheming remain idential election, bristling with topical- in depressed industrial regions, have invisible. If the land belongs to the peo- ity, was soon overtaken by events. Al- turned to the National Front) but her ple, where did all the people go? though a new political party, born of an own dramatic presence dwindles and impatience with the existing order, did fades. Around her, the movie loses focus, nother time, another place, but the emerge victorious, it sprang not from and, as for the climax, my best guess is Asame toxins coursing through sim- the far right but from the center; and it that Belvaux and his pals had a game of ilar veins. Welcome to the sick but brac- was not Marine Le Pen but Emmanuel Consequences, with the aid of a few ing world of “Le Corbeau” (1943). Henri- Macron who wound up in the Élysée beers, to see who could dream up the Georges Clouzot’s unforgettable movie, Palace. “Le Corbeau,” on the other hand, silliest ending, and then went with that. set in an unnamed provincial town, and is a hellbrew that has lost not a fraction We are left to rue “This Is Our Land” made in France during the German Oc- of its flavor, and it feels all too pertinent as an opportunity missed, and to won- cupation, is now being screened at Film to the age of trolls. Bitter and swift, the der how else the tale could have been Forum. The print has been tenderly film allows itself a strain of acid humor told. The parable of the innocent can- restored; the jolt of the story is intact. that Belvaux might deem inappropriate didate, who is hired as a patsy in the po- Comparisons with “This Is Our but that Sturges or Capra—and Billy litical ruckus and turns out, annoyingly, Land” are inevitable. Instead of Pauline Wilder, for sure—would sneakily relish. to possess a conscience, is a cinematic the nurse, we have a dapper doctor, Rémy Upon its release, “Le Corbeau” dis- staple. In “The Great McGinty” (1940), Germain (Pierre Fresnay). He is first comfited both the left and the right. It Preston Sturges introduced a bum who seen washing his hands, like Pontius Pi- was denounced by the Catholic Church happily casts his vote in thirty-seven late; a mother in his care has given birth, and banned after the Liberation; Clou- diferent precincts, for two bucks a pop, though her child has not survived. Soon, zot had shown, with mortifying clarity, before becoming first a cog and then a in common with other townsfolk, he how ordinary people could behave when wrench in the political works. In Frank receives an anonymous and spiteful note, given the chance to finger their fellow- Capra’s “Meet John Doe” (1941), another whose writer claims to see everything citizens—and, in the process, to assuage bum—Gary Cooper, if you please— that goes on. (In French, the phrase used their own lurking shame. His most fêted pretends, again for a reward, to be the is “J’ai l’œil américain,” which literally works, “The Wages of Fear” (1953) and author of fake newspaper articles lam- means “I have an American eye.”) Over “Les Diaboliques” (1955), lay in the fu- basting the genuine ills of society, and two months, more than eight hundred ture, but his loveless commandment was flinches at the fame that ensues. (A re- letters are sent, accusing the recipients already carved in stone: Thou shalt hate make, set amid social media, might hit of sundry sins. Worse still, each letter thy neighbor as thyself.  a nerve just now.) Both films are fun to contains a worm of truth. The movie watch and disturbing to contemplate. squirms with mistrust, and burrows deep. NEWYORKER.COM They are giddily convinced that, as one So, who is the culprit? A solution is Richard Brody blogs about movies.

VOLUME XCIV, NO. 11, April 30, 2018. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028792X) is published weekly (except for ive combined issues: February 12 & 19, June 4 & 11, July 9 & 16, August 6 & 13, and December 24 & 31) by Condé Nast, which is a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Chris Mitchell, chief business of icer; Risa Aronson, vice-president, revenue; James Guilfoyle, executive director of inance and business operations; Fabio Bertoni, general counsel. Condé Nast: Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., president & chief executive of icer; David E. Geithner, chief inancial of icer; Pamela Drucker Mann, chief revenue and marketing of icer. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing of ices. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001.

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THE NEW YORKER, APRIL 30, 2018 79 CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit a caption, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Caption submissions for this week’s cartoon, by Julia Suits, must be received by Sunday, April 29th. The finalists in the April 16th contest appear below. We will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the May 14th issue. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ” ......

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

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