AUGUST 7 & 14, 2017 6 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN 19 THE TALK OF THE TOWN Jeffrey Toobin on the taunting of Jeff Sessions; Jeffrey Tambor; a basement museum; war tales; Sheelah Kolhatkar on cable companies’ monopoly. PERSONAL HISTORY Lauren Collins 24 Identity Crisis Naming a son. SHOUTS & MURMURS Blythe Roberson 29 Future Austen Adaptations THE POLITICAL SCENE Benjamin Wallace-Wells 30 The Dream Deferred Bernie Sanders plays the long game. A REPORTER AT LARGE Larissa MacFarquhar 36 The Separation A mother goes to family court. PROFILES Judith Thurman 48 World of Interiors Rachel Cusk’s fiction of the self. SKETCHBOOK Luci Gutiérrez 53 “Subway Substitutes” FICTION Don DeLillo 58 “The Itch” THE CRITICS THE CURRENT CINEMA Anthony Lane 66 “Detroit,” “Whose Streets?” A CRITIC AT LARGE Adam Gopnik 69 Should Buddhism be secular? BOOKS 72 Briefly Noted Laura Miller 75 Tom Perrotta’s “Mrs. Fletcher.” Dan Chiasson 77 Susan Howe’s patchwork poetry. POEMS Michael Hofmann 27 “In Western Mass” Anne Carson 54 “Clive Song” COVER Bob Staake “Hell Train” DRAWINGS Joe Dator, Charlie Hankin, William Haefeli, Frank Cotham, Liana Finck, Christopher Weyant, Edward Steed, P. C. Vey, Kendra Allenby, Will McPhail, Roz Chast, Tom Chitty, Ellis Rosen, Maddie Dai, Barbara Smaller, George Booth, David Sipress SPOTS Nishant Choksi CONTRIBUTORS Larissa MacFarquhar (“The Separation,” Benjamin Wallace-Wells (“The Dream p. 36) is the author of “Strangers Drown- Deferred,” p. 30) has contributed to the ing,” which is now out in paperback. magazine since 2006, and became a staff writer in 2015. Don DeLillo (Fiction, p. 58) is the au- thor of the story collection “The Angel Lauren Collins (“Identity Crisis,” p. 24) Esmeralda,” among other works of fic- is the author of “When in French: Love tion. “Zero K” is his most recent novel. in a Second Language,” which came out in 2016. Judith Thurman (“World of Interiors,” p. 48) began writing for the magazine Adam Gopnik (A Critic at Large, p. 69), in 1987 and became a staff writer in a staff writer, has been contributing to 2000. She is the author of “Cleopatra’s The New Yorker since 1986. His most Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire,” a collec- recent book is “The Table Comes First.” tion of her New Yorker essays. Luci Gutiérrez (Sketchbook, p. 53), an Bob Staake (Cover) has created twenty- illustrator based in Barcelona, contrib- one covers for the magazine. His “Book utes regularly to the Wall Street Jour- of Gold” will be published next year. nal and Time magazine. She is cur- rently working on a new book. Laura Miller (Books, p. 75), the author of “The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Dan Chiasson (Books, p. 77), who teaches Adventures in Narnia,” is a books-and- at Wellesley College, has written re- culture columnist at Slate. views for the magazine since 2007. “Bi- centennial” is his latest book of poems. Michael Hofmann (Poem, p. 27) is a poet and translator. His latest collection, Blythe Roberson (Shouts & Murmurs, “One Lark, One Horse,” will be pub- p. 29) is a contributor to the Onion, lished in September, 2018. ClickHole, and newyorker.com. NEWYORKER.COM Everything in the magazine, and more. PHOTO BOOTH PODCAST Alexandra Schwartz on Meryl Meis- Ryan Lizza discusses Anthony ler’s photographs of Fire Island as a Scaramucci’s strange phone call to gay haven in the nineteen-seventies. him about White House leaks. 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.) MEISLER MERYL LEFT: 4 THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 7 & 14, 2017 THE MAIL FROM TRUMP’S COLORADO white swing voters. I would like to stop reading about this disaffected sliver of Peter Hessler’s recent article on how the electorate and instead read about Donald Trump is transforming rural attempts to mobilize progressives and America offers a picture of Colora- people of color around a platform that do’s Western Slope that is essentially might even resonate with W.W.C. vot- unchanged from the one he painted ers, wherever they live. in his preëlection report for new- John Taht yorker.com (“Follow the Leader,” 1Washington, D.C. July 24th). Both pieces, dominated by interviews with a handful of charac- INSIDE A BROKEN SYSTEM ters, show the people of a downtrod- den desert region following Trump on Danielle Allen’s heart-achingly beauti- a path to nowhere. Hessler captures a ful history of her cousin—who became quirkiness with which any Grand Junc- a convicted felon at the age of fifteen, tion resident will be familiar, but he was incarcerated for eleven years, and makes no mention of the tangible was killed soon after his release— transformations taking place in our searches for explanations (“American community, many of which have gath- Inferno,” July 24th). If we want to find ered steam since the election. These ways to save the lives of young black include thousands of citizens flooding men, we must scrutinize the failures of Main Street for our local Women’s our criminal-justice system, the lack of March, exciting and unconventional rehabilitation services during and after approaches to diversifying our econ- incarceration, and the role of systemic omy, nonpartisan efforts to increase racism. If the system was harsh and un- funding for public schools and for forgiving to Michael, it must have been suicide- prevention programs, and pas- unimaginably more so to Bree, the trans sionate advocacy to protect our stun- woman whom Michael fell in love with ning and diverse public lands. This in prison, and who ultimately killed increase in progressive energy and mo- him. Trans women face some of the mentum is the real change that is hap- highest risks of partner violence, of ho- pening in western Colorado. It’s un- micide, and of incarceration—and the fortunate that Hessler focussed instead risks for trans women of color, like Bree, on a tired caricature that clouds many are even greater. We don’t know what people’s perception of rural America. violence Bree may have endured in her Mykan White life and in her relationships, or what Grand Junction, Colo. she had to do in order to defend her- self. In a broken system that penalizes Reading Hessler’s impressionistic story and criminalizes our most vulnerable about Trump supporters in Grand Junc- citizens, it is always difficult to distin- tion gave me a sense of déjà vu. How guish between victimhood and self-de- many more paeans to the white working- termination, between forced choices class voter will we have to read before and bad choices. Michael deserves an the Democratic Party realizes that it examination of his complex life. We must change its strategy in order to re- owe the same to Bree. gain power? Although rural Colorado Ann Whidden and suburban Atlanta are worlds apart, Oakland, Calif. the recent special election in Georgia, between Jon Ossoff and Karen Han- • del, exemplifies the Democrats’ obses- Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, sion with the W.W.C. Ossoff was a address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to [email protected]. Letters may be edited weak, boring candidate who ran a safe, for length and clarity, and may be published in boring campaign, and he refused to talk any medium. We regret that owing to the volume about any issues that might alienate of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter. THE NEW YORKER, AUGUST 7 & 14, 2017 5 AUGUST 2 – 15, 2017 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN The double feature used to be a staple of New York repertory houses, and Film Forum is bringing it back. The “Summer Double Features” series, from Aug. 11 to Sept. 5, includes twenty-eight pairings, ranging from silents to independents, from European political fantasies to Hollywood extravaganzas. The Aug. 22 program offers two film-noir classics, both from 1949, about lovers on the run—Nicholas Ray’s first feature, “They Live by Night,” and Joseph H. Lewis’s “Gun Crazy,” a key inspiration for “Bonnie and Clyde.” FILM FORUM/PHOTOFEST COURTESY ILLUSTRATION BY MIKE MCQUADE keep it delicate and compact. The duo’s first album, “Light Upon the Lake,” was released last summer, by the Indiana label Secretly Canadian, home to soul NIGHT LIFE stirrers like Anohni and the War on Drugs. They are 1 joined this week at Celebrate Brooklyn! by Moses Sumney and Weyes Blood. (Prospect Park Bandshell, ROCK AND POP forms with a live band and occasionally logs Prospect Park W. at 9th St. bricartsmedia.org. Aug. 11.) time with Ringo Starr’s act. (Ford Amphitheatre 1 at Coney Island, 3052 W. 21st St., Brooklyn. Aug. 11.) Musicians and night-club proprietors lead JAZZ AND STANDARDS complicated lives; it’s advisable to check The Selecter in advance to confirm engagements. Jamaican ska music, the predecessor to reggae and Brooklyn Jazz Underground Festival an offshoot of American rhythm and blues, is about A borough may bring them together, but the various Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie having fun. But in the early days of Margaret Thatch- forward-thinking instrumentalists and bandleaders The members of Fleetwood Mac have endured er’s Britain, when class and racial tensions height- who make up this intrepid collective go their own many emotional chapters in their five decades to- ened and then escalated into riots, the U.K. revival way when it comes to shrewd aesthetic choices and gether: breaking up, making up, and everything in of the genre became an unlikely rallying point for proclivities. Among the skillful participants are the between. John and Christine McVie, Lindsey Buck- antiracist youth across the torn nation.