PRICEPRICE $$8.998.99 MAR.MAR. 27,27, 20172017 MARCH 27, 2017 4 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 15 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Amy Davidson on Trump and Europe’s right; Gwyneth’s Goop pills; brunch as protest; a spider whisperer; Gander comes to Broadway. THE POLITICAL SCENE Elizabeth Kolbert 20 Minority Report Chuck Schumer’s big task. SHOUTS & MURMURS Bruce McCall 29 Kim Jong-un No Patsy ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS Michael Schulman 30 The Listener Lynn Nottage’s drama of race and class. A R E P O RT E R AT L A RG E Jane Mayer 34 Trump’s Money Man Who’s funding America’s populist insurgency? PROFILES Joshua Rothman 46 A Science of the Soul Consciousness and Daniel Dennett. FICTION Victor Lodato 56 “Herman Melville, Volume I” THE CRITICS A C R I T I C AT L A RG E Jill Lepore 66 Geofrey R. Stone’s “Sex and the Constitution.” BOOKS 71 Briefly Noted Ruth Franklin 73 Jerome Charyn’s “Jerzy.” THE ART WORLD Peter Schjeldahl 76 The Whitney Biennial. THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 78 “Beauty and the Beast,” “T2 Trainspotting.” POEMS Frank Ormsby 43 “Visiting the Grave” Michele Glazer 63 “Seen” COVER Luci Gutiérrez “Shelf Life” DRAWINGS Seth Fleishman, Drew Panckeri, Jason Patterson, Bruce Eric Kaplan, Edward Steed, Jason Adam Katzenstein, Liana Finck, Tom Chitty, Jack Ziegler, Frank Cotham, William Haefeli, Paul Noth, Amy Hwang, Roz Chast, Joe Dator, P. C. Vey SPOTS Tim Lahan THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 27, 2017 1 CONTRIBUTORS Jane Mayer (“Trump’s Money Man,” Joshua Rothman (“A Science of the p. 34), a staf writer, is the author of Soul,” p. 46), The New Yorker’s archive “Dark Money: The Hidden History editor, is a frequent contributor to of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of newyorker.com. the Radical Right.” Elizabeth Kolbert (“Minority Report,” Victor Lodato (Fiction, p. 56) published p. 20) is a staf writer. Her book “The his latest novel, “Edgar and Lucy,” this Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural His- month. tory” won a Pulitzer Prize for nonfic- tion in 2015. Frank Ormsby (Poem, p. 43) lives in Bel- fast. His collection “The Darkness of Ruth Franklin (Books, p. 73) is the au- Snow” will come out in September. thor of “Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life.” Luci Gutiérrez (Cover), an illustrator based in Barcelona, contributes regu- Michael Schulman (The Talk of the Town, larly to the Wall Street Journal and Time p. 19; “The Listener,” p. 30) has contrib- magazine. She is currently working on uted to the magazine since 2006. His a new book. book, “Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep,” comes out in paperback in April. Bruce McCall (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 29) has painted more than seventy-five New Jill Lepore (A Critic at Large, p. 66) Yorker covers and contributed more than teaches at Harvard and is writing a his- eighty pieces for Shouts & Murmurs tory of the United States. since 1980. Michele Glazer (Poem, p. 63) directs the Sheila Marikar (The Talk of the Town, creative-writing programs at Portland p. 16) has been a contributor since 2016. State University. Her latest book is She is currently writing a book. “On Tact, & the Made Up World.” NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. PODCAST VIDEO On this week’s episode, Victor Lodato In Cuba, where women are banned reads “Herman Melville, Volume I,” from competitive boxing, a thirteen- his short story from the issue. year-old girl steps into the ring. SUBSCRIBERS: Get access to our magazine app for tablets and smartphones at the App Store, Amazon.com, or Google Play. (Access varies by location and device.) DEKORNFELD ORA RIGHT: 2 THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 27, 2017 THE MAIL TRUMP AND FRAUD especially worried about what citizen- ship may mean for immigrants and ref- President Trump’s entire individual and ugees. My grandparents came to the business tax returns—far more pertinent Bronx from Dublin in the second half and informative than the two pages from of the nineteen-fifties. Given the recent his 2005 return that were leaked last immigration issues, travel bans, and dam- week—may provide some answers to ques- aging rhetoric, I fear that their story will tions about his puzzling legal and finan- become a historical relic. Halpern closes cial ties in Azerbaijan, which Adam David- his piece by quoting the Vive staf mem- son wrote about in his recent piece (“Don- ber Mariah Walker: “I never thought my a l d T r u m p ’ s W o r s t D e a l , ” M a r c h 1 3 t h ) . A country would be the one people had to 1924 law, the result of conflict-of- interest run from.” It’s a sad but honest reflec- concerns about the Treasury Secretary An- tion. As many people around the world drew Mellon and executive- branch of- are persecuted for their beliefs and their cials involved in the Teapot Dome scan- appearance, it’s imperative that the United dal, gives Congress the authority to exam- States not succumb to that same igno- ine Trump’s returns and reveal them to the rance, fear, and hatred. It rose above the public without the President’s consent. Fascist swing in Europe, and the Com- Members of Congress cannot blame the munist movement in Eastern Europe absence of information solely on the Pres- and Asia. It must now rise above Islam- ident’s intransigence. Instead, they must ophobia and nationalism. explain why they favor the same secrecy Thomas Carty that the President does. 1Pleasantville, N.Y. George K. Yin Professor of Law and Taxation WHY HEALTH CARE FAILS University of Virginia School of Law Charlottesville, Va. Atul Gawande’s thoughtful piece on the Republicans’ alternative to Obamacare Even to news junkies with graduate de- doesn’t mention one of the underlying fac- grees (like myself ), the world of inter- tors, which he has written about before, national finance is mind-numbingly that will afect any national plan from any complex and opaque. Yet the powerful party (Comment, March 6th). Doctors, people who inhabit that world are the hospitals, and drug and medical-device ones who make many decisions that companies in the U.S. charge far more than significantly afect the rest of us. How their counterparts in other countries. Yet can we be a democratic society governed the U.S. spends more on health care than by rule of law if hardly anyone knows other high-income countries, and with or understands what is going on in that worse outcomes. As a people, we also eat, world? I am grateful that Davidson drink, think, and move in ways that often waded into the unseemly muck for us contribute to poor health. This is not a pri- and emerged with a clear picture. mary concern of individuals, physicians, or Janet Grove health-care organizations. Are there no re- 1Missoula, Mont. sponses other than each provider group saying “It’s not us,” while making more REFUGEES IN AMERICA money, and then fighting over which pay- ment system is better or worse for whom? Recent chaos in the American political Douglas K. Ferguson system has efectively drowned out Chico, Calif. stories of courage like the ones that Jake • Halpern tells about Vive, a refugee safe Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, house in upstate New York (“A New Un- address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to derground Railroad,” March 13th). I’m [email protected]. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in sixteen years old, and am very nervous any medium. We regret that owing to the volume about the future of our country. I am of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 27, 2017 3 MARCH 22 – 28, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN Fresh o Ryan Murphy’s “Feud” comes another diva smackdown: a new musical about the rivalry between Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Arden, who ran competing cosmetics empires. Though they never actu- ally met, both women used eyeliner and chutzpah to reshape mid-century ideas about beauty. In “War Paint” (now in previews, at the Nederlander), with a score by Scott Frankel and Michael Korie (“Grey Gardens”), they’re played by Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, no strangers to the D-word. Let the lipstick fly! PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFF BROWN Stewart just about hold things together, and there are thrilling stretches—Maureen exchanging texts with an unknown presence who could be a killer, a MOVIES stalker, or a phantom soul—when the movie stops 1 your breath.—A.L. (3/20/17) (In limited release.) Raw OPENING Morgan. Kasper Collin’s documentary is centered on the sole recorded interview granted by Helen, Julia Ducournau’s movie tells the tale o Justine in 1996, shortly before her death. Her story, as (Garance Marillier), who is joining her older sis- I Called Him Morgan Reviewed in Now Playing. presented by Collin, has a vast historical dimen- ter Alexia (Ella Rump) at veterinary school. Jus- Opening March 24. (In limited release.) • Life A sci- sion, focussing on her life in New York in the nine- tine arrives there as a hardworking student, a strict ence-ction lm, directed by Daniel Espinosa, teen-fties, where she deed the limited opportu- vegetarian, and a blushingly timid soul; what we about a Martian organism that gets loose on a nities for black women and turned her midtown observe, in stages, is the process by which she turns spaceship and threatens to conquer Earth.