PRICE $8.99 NOV.

14, 2016
 NOVEMBER 14, 2016

11 GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

31 THE TALK OF THE TOWN

Jerey Toobin on investigations and the election;
Glenn Beck; Snapchat politics; the robot vote;
James Surowiecki on Tronc and corporate names.
THE POLITICAL SCENE
Alec MacGillis 36 Friends in High Places
The revolving door between nance and politics.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Cora Frazier 43 Breaking Up with Your Parents
COMIC STRIP
Chris Ware 44 Snapchat
LETTER FROM VENEZUELA
William Finnegan 48 A Failing State
Food shortages in a land of plenty.
ANNALS OF NATURE
Alex Ross 62 Desert Bloom
A burst of life in Death Valley.
FICTION
Mohsin Hamid 70 Of Windows and Doors
THE CRITICS
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Anthony Lane 78 Denis Villeneuves Arrival.
BOOKS
Alexandra Schwartz 81 Zadie Smiths Swing Time.
John Lanchester 85 Lee Childs Jack Reacher novels.
86 Briey Noted
POP MUSIC
Kelefa Sanneh 89 Miranda Lamberts The Weight of These Wings.
THE ART WORLD
Peter Schjeldahl 92 The art of the Reformation.
POEMS
Brenda Hillman 55 The Bride Tree Lives Three Times
Elizabeth Willis 72 Plot
COVER
Barry Blitt Anything but That

DRAWINGS Joe Dator, Kaamran Hafeez, Lars Kenseth, Roz Chast, Edward Steed, Bruce Eric Kaplan,
Harry Bliss, David Sipress, Frank Cotham, Seth Fleishman, Peter Kuper, Barbara Smaller, Tom Chitty
SPOTS Philippe Petit-Roulet
 CONTRIBUTORS
William Finnegan (A Failing State,
p. 48) has been a sta writer since 1987.
His book Barbarian Days: A Surng
Life won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for
biography.
Alec MacGillis (Friends in High Places,
p. 36), the author of The Cynic: The
Political Education of Mitch McCon
nell, covers politics for ProPublica.
This article is a collaboration between
The New Yorker and ProPublica.
Alex Ross (Desert Bloom, p. 62), a sta
writer, is the author of The Rest Is
Noise and Listen to This.
Alexandra Schwartz (Books, p. 81) is a
sta writer.
Chris Ware (Comic Strip, p. 44) is the
author of Building Stories. A solo
exhibition of his work opens in Bolo
gna, Italy, this month.
Mohsin Hamid (Fiction, p. 70) has pub
lished three novels, including The
Reluctant Fundamentalist. His fourth,
Exit West, will be out in March.
NEWYORKER.COM
Everything in the magazine, and more.
PORTFOLIO
Photographs of New Yorkers who
work the night shift at the seafood
market, the casino, and beyond.
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.)
8 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Jerey Toobin (Comment, p. 31) has
been a sta writer since 1993. His lat
est book, American Heiress: The Wild
Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and
Trial of Patty Hearst, was published
in August.
Nicholas Schmidle (The Talk of the
Town, p. 32), a sta writer, is the au
thor of To Live or to Perish Forever.
Cora Frazier (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 43)
has contributed humor pieces to the
magazine since 2012. She is working
on a novel.
Brenda Hillman (Poem, p. 55) teaches at
Saint Marys College of California. Her
most recent poetry collection is Sea
sonal Works with Letters on Fire.
Peter Schjeldahl (The Art World, p. 92),
the magazines art critic, is the author
of Lets See: Writings on Art from
The New Yorker.
Barry Blitt (Cover) is putting together
a retrospective book of his work, to be
published next year.
NEW YORKER RADIO HOUR
High schoolers weigh in on Hillary
Clinton and Donald Trump, in this
LEFT: ADAM PAPE
weeks electionthemed episode.
 THE MAIL
IN DEFENSE OF CASH
I read Nathan Hellers article, on how
electronic payments are making cash
transactions obsolete, by flashlight, in
the wake of Hurricane Matthew, and
I have some questions (Cashing Out,
October 10th). What do members of
a cashless society do when the power
goes off ? Do they resort to bartering
and looting? Do they sit at home and
wait? What happens to people who
rely on their cell phones to process
money transactions when cell service
and the Internet are interrupted? A
world beset by terrorism and increas-
ingly violent weather may not yet be
ready to abandon currency, despite the
inconvenience to bureaucrats, bankers,
and millennials.
Sharon Thomas
Savannah, Ga.
While it might be nice, and easy, for
some wage earners to dispense with
cash, its not going to happen. As a for-
mer senior policy analyst at the Inter-
nal Revenue Service, Im very familiar
with the ways in which people use cash.
As Heller notes, the underground econ-
omy includes many people, aside from
the hoarders of hundred-dollar bills,
who rely on cash, such as waiters, door-
men, delivery people, parking atten-
dantsin short, anyone who gets tips.
People with poor credit and those with
few means primarily use cash, as do
the (perhaps surprisingly large) num-
bers of people who dont trust comput-
ers with their money. When it comes
to the issue of tax avoidance: sure, going
cashless will result in the collection of
more taxes. But its worth emphasiz-
ing that the I.R.S. does allow and ac-
count for cash transactions and hold-
ings, up to a certain dollar threshold
per quarter. This law may be abused,
but its on the books. Also, the U.S. has
a special-interest-dominated economy,
not one in which all banks share a sin-
gle A.T.M. system, as in Sweden, the
country Heller looks to as an example.
Even if economic theorists think cash-
ing out is plausible, Congress is un-
likely to ever pass laws, or allow regu-
lators to enforce policies and procedures,
that further limit the use of cash. Their
constituents, the voters and lobbyists,
just dont want that kind of restriction.
Jonathan F. Munroe
Claremont, Calif.
Heller writes that Sweden seems near-
est to stamping out paper currency, but
Denmark and Norway are trailing close
behind. I enjoyed the irony of this.
The day after the largest bank in Nor-
way, DNB, proposed ending all cash
transactions, I went to my local gro-
cery store in Svalbard and, when I tried
to pay by card, was told that I needed
to go to the A.T.M. to get cash, be-
cause the card readers were broken.
Proponents of a cashless system may
find that theres a lot that needs to be
addressed before we leave cash behind
entirely.
Mark H. Hermanson
Svalbard, Norway
One of the key differences between the
U.S. and Sweden, Norway, and Den-
markcountries that have embraced
the cashless economy most enthusias-
ticallyis that those countries have a
functioning social safety net. People
living in Scandinavia have access to
government-sponsored programs for
health care and child care, but in Amer-
ica our social-welfare programs are far
less generous, and often dont take into
account the cost of living. The people
who rely on these programs also rely
the most on the cash economy. Until
cashless systems take these factors into
account, I expect we will all be carry-
ing around a lot of paper and coin.
George Hagenauer
Community Coordinated Child
Care, Inc. (4-C)
Madison, Wis.
Letters should be sent with the writers name,
address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 9
 NOVEMBER 9 15, 2016

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

The twenty-three-year-old actor Ben Platt, known for his adorkable role in the Pitch Perfect movies,
delivers a deeper portrait of nerd angst in Dear Evan Hansen, a new musical by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul,
and Steven Levenson, beginning previews at the Music Box on Nov. 14, after an acclaimed Off Broadway
run. Platt plays the title character, a friendless, phobic high-school senior who gets caught up in a moral
quandaryand becomes an unwitting social-media heroafter a classmates tragic death.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TWO STATES


NIGHT LIFE
The vivid personalities of Mitski, Bon Iver, and D.R.A.M. shine on bold new albums.
Winter Preview
Bon Ivers latest album opens with a
characteristically enigmatic line: It
might be over soon. This winter, his
songs will help many listeners push
through the dark, cold months, with
soft-treading ballads both majestic and
sparse. Justin Vernon, the bands central
and often sole member, emerged from a
botched vacation on the Greek island of
Santorini with the inspiration to write
22, A Million, his rst album in ve
years. To promote its release, hes played
the Hollywood Bowl with Patti Smith,
hosted a private press conference at-
tended by select journalists and journal-
ism students, and now will play several
New York shows of varying scale: from
Pioneer Works (Dec. 5-7) to Hammer-
stein Ballroom (Dec. 10) and Kings
Theatre (Dec. 12-13), closing out at
Music Hall of Williamsburg (Dec. 14).
D.R.A.M., a rap jester with an untidy
croon, hails from Virginia, home of Phar-
rell, Missy Elliott, and DAngelo. He has
inherited their fearless approach to vo-
cals, stretching a raspy, guttural mid-
range to its limits on swollen hits like
Cha Cha and Broccoli. Born Shelley
Massenburg-Smith, the twenty-eight-
year-old is a student of funk, and counts
the Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy
Collins sides that he encountered in his
youth as dot connectors for his unorth-
odox style. His dbut album, Big Baby
D.R.A.M., demonstrates the same
12 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
genre-hopping sensibility: bright upright
piano utters over skittish 808 drums in
its brainiest moments, but at its best its
all id. He touches down on Jan. 20 at
Music Hall of Williamsburg and Jan. 21
at Bowery Ballroom.
After a three-year hiatus, the reclu-
sive post-dubstep duo Mount Kimbie
returns with a bicoastal clutch of shows.
The groups 2013 breakout, Cold
Spring Fault Less Youth, was lled
with gorgeous dollops of airy harmonies
and jittery minimalist bass. Dominic
Maker and Kai Campos make serious
music sound playful, stripping the overly
academic electronic scene of pretense
with plinking drums and stargazing
notes that evoke a baby genius sampling
toy pianos. Theyll dbut new tunes at
National Sawdust on Nov. 29.
It may be late to call Mitski a song-
writing prodigythe twenty-six-year-
old isnt new to the craft, but she ac-
knowledged a blossoming on Puberty
2, the fourth album thats shot the alt
star to the head of her class. With a
foreboding tone that bends tenderly on
command, Mitski delivers on the
weight of her lyrics: I wouldnt have to
scream your name atop of every roof in
the city of my heart / If I could see you,
she sings softly, and from a deep place.
Her dual engagements at Webster Hall
(Nov. 21) and Villain (Nov. 22) are
among the seasons most anticipated
shows.
Matthew Trammell
1
ROCK AND POP
Musicians and night-club proprietors lead
complicated lives; its advisable to check
in advance to conrm engagements.
Mick Barr
As the prime mover behind groups like Krallice,
Octis, Ocrillim, and Orthrelm, among others,
this avant-metal guitarist effortlessly sweeps up
and down the neck of his instrument with split-
second precision. His challenging work has won
him recognition outside of the cut-off-denim-
vest contingent; in 2009, he received a Founda-
tion for Contemporary Arts award, and in 2011
was chosen by Animal Collective to perform at
its All Tomorrows Parties festival. Attendees at
this show expecting overdriven guitars might be
disappointed: Barr plans to play this set without
any distortion whatsoever, which might make his
uncompromising performance style slightly eas-
ier on the ears. (Roulette, 509 Atlantic Ave., Brook-
lyn. 917-267-0363. Nov. 14.)
Body/Head
For years, Kim Gordon knew Bill Nace as a pop-
corn scooper at the Pleasant Street Theatre, a
now-shuttered movie house in Northampton,
Massachusetts, where they both lived. In 2011,
amidst the dissolution of her old band, Sonic
Youth, and her marriage to its guitarist, Thurston
Moore, Nace began collaborating with Gordon to
create stunning experimental drone. At the release
of their 2013 dbut, Coming Apart, it seemed,
suddenly, as if Gordon had been the lan vital
of Sonic Youth all along; the music was decon-
structed ambient no wave, with Gordons snarl-
ing vocals burrowing deep into her struggle with
hypocrisy, male power, and selfhood. The pair re-
cently released a live album on Matador Records,
in case you miss this weeks gig. (National Saw-
dust, 80 N. 6th St., Brooklyn. 646-779-8455. Nov. 12.)
James Chance and the Contortions
This legendary short-lived outfit first appeared
on Brian Enos 1978 No New York compilation,
which packaged together the citys brainiest
post-punk bands and christened a sound known
as no wave. Blending the free-jazz horn theat-
rics of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler with
wet, muted funk and showman shrieks (Con-
tort yourself five times!), Chance and his group
put their stamp on a fringe style that felt at once
chicly nostalgic and switchblade-sharptoday,
young bands still aspire to their plucky, smoky
air and rambling structures. Chance returns to
the city to celebrate the release of The Flesh
Is Weak, the bands first album in six years.
(The Bowery Electric, 327 Bowery. 212-228-0228.
Nov. 10.)
Seu Jorge
This favela legend opened ears far and wide
to the sounds of Brazilian pop, reviving samba
in the process. Jorge has shared a musical kin-
ship with David Bowie for more than a decade,
since his moving Portuguese covers of Bowie
ILLUSTRATION BY JOO FAZENDA
hits graced Wes Andersons 2004 movie, The
Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, in which he
played a singing sailor. Those recordings had
significant cultural impact, adding newfound
depth to Bowies catalogue and sparking inter-
est in acoustic Brazilian music in the U.S. As
part of its Masters of Brazilian Music series,
the World Music Institute taps Jorge for a trib-
ute to Bowie. (Town Hall, 123 W. 43rd St. world-
musicinstitute.org. Nov. 11-12.)
 NIGHT LIFE

Nik Turners Hawkwind

With the possible exception of the late Steve
Mackay, of the Stooges, no saxophonist has done
more to expand the role of the instrument in rock
than Turner, a versatile seventy-six-year-old British
CLASSICAL MUSIC
player who also doubles on flute. In 1969, Turner,
a free-jazz enthusiast, began working for Hawk-
wind as a roadie. Soon afterward, Turner joined
the band and quickly became its de-facto front
man, co-writing heavy space-rock compositions
like Master of the Universe. Hawkwinds
early-seventies incarnation (which also included
Motrheads founder, Lemmy Kilmister, on bass)
achieved enormous commercial success in En-
gland, but in 1976 Turner was fired. He continued
his eclectic musical endeavors, including a flute
album he recorded inside the Great Pyramid of
Giza. In recent years, Turner has devoted himself
to re-creating, in remarkable fashion, the classic
Hawkwind sound for the next generation of dev-
otees. (Saint Vitus, 1120 Manhattan Ave., Brooklyn.
saintvitusbar.com. Nov. 15.)
1
JAZZ AND STANDARDS
Carnegie Halls winter festival celebrates the musical and cultural glories of the Venetian Republic.
Chick Coreas Experiments in Electronica
Back in the early seventies, when he was kicking off
Things are hardly quieter at Lincoln
his solo career, you couldnt keep this fusion key-
boardist away from the latest plugged-in musical Winter Preview Center, where the Great Performers
gadget. Forty-plus years later, hes still obsessed
with sonic alteration, and is dipping his toes into the As a modern city, Venice is worryingly series hosts two potent conductor-
electronica genre, with the support of the drummer prone to oods, but as a living cultural orchestra pairings, Ivn Fischer with the
Marcus Gilmore and a host of au-courant guests. artifact, it holds the high ground. The Budapest Festival Orchestra (Feb. 5-6)
(Blue Note, 131 W. 3rd St. 212-475-8592. Nov. 9-10.)
music, art, and architecture of the town and Vladimir Jurowski with the London
Harold Mabern Trio have made connoisseurs swoon for cen- Philharmonic (Feb. 26-27), and where
You can take the man out of Memphis, but the bluesy turies. But today, as the relationship be- the New York Philharmonic collaborates
refinement and soulful phrasing that the veteran styl-
ist Mabern soaked up from such resident masters as tween the West and the Middle East with the conductor Semyon Bychkov for
Phineas Newborn, Jr., has cohered to his pianistic grows ever more turbulent, Venices a Tchaikovsky series, Beloved Friend
DNA. Mabern, a New York fixture for nearly sixty unique mix of the two culturesfostered ( Jan. 26-Feb. 11). Not to be left out of the
years, will churn up the room with assistance from
two trusted associates, the bassist John Webber and by several centuries of dominance over orchestral scrum are Leon Botstein and
the drummer Joe Farnsworth. (Village Vanguard, 178 Mediterranean tradeseems especially his ensemble from Bard College, the
Seventh Ave. S., at 11th St. 212-255-4037. Nov. 8-13.) ripe for rexamination. Thats what Car- Orchestra Now (TN), which continues
Ellis Marsalis Quintet negie Hall will do this winter, in the fes- its Sight and Sound series at the Met-
Yes, hes got talented kids, but Dads no slouch, ei- tival La Serenissima: Music and Art ropolitan Museum, bringing together
ther. The New Orleans-based pianist and educator from the Venetian Republic (Feb. 3-21). the music of Brahms with the work of
is a sharp mainstream player, who reminds us that
elegance will always have a secure place in jazz. The gambist Jordi Savall and his col- two artists the composer admired, Adolf
His quintet comes manned with Big Easy talent, leagues in Hesprion XXI (with guest Menzel and Max Klinger ( Jan. 29).
including the saxophonist Derek Douget. (Dizzys artists) perform not only works by Mon- The Metropolitan Opera, as ever,
Club Coca-Cola, Broadway at 60th St. 212-258-9595.
Nov. 10-13.) teverdi, Vivaldi, and Mozart but also a goes big, with a new production of
selection of music from the Byzantine, Gounods ravishing Romo et Juliette,
Mario Pavone Ottoman, and Persian empires; other featuring the incendiary pairing of Diana
Its not every bandleader who could jump-start a
burgeoning career after turning seventy, but the performances come from such ensembles Damrau and Vittorio Grigolo (Dec. 31-
bassist Mario Pavone (here celebrating his seventy- as the Venice Baroque Orchestra and the March 18), and of Dvoks aecting
sixth birthday) did just that, and seems to have lit- New York choral group TENET. Those Rusalka, with Kristine Opolais in the
tle intention of slowing down. A new ensemble
stocked with adventurous younger players, includ- not enamored of Venice will hardly title role (Feb. 2-March 2). If you believe
ing the saxophonist Tony Malaby, will preview work starve, however: Carnegies winter lineup that small is beautiful, head downtown
from Pavones upcoming album, Vertical. (Corne- also includes, among other delights, a to Le Poisson Rouge, where the quietly
lia Street Caf, 29 Cornelia St. 212-989-9319. Nov. 11.)
Mozart-Bruckner festival with Daniel charismatic pianist Adam Tendler teams
ILLUSTRATION BY JOO FAZENDA

Tierney Sutton
The vocalist took on Joni Mitchell with her 2013
musical mash note After Blue, and recently she
put a personal spin on the work of Gordon Sumner,
with her latest album The Sting Variations. Rox-
anne didnt make the cut, but Sutton did refash-
ion soundtrack-of-a-generation hits like Message
in a Bottle and Fields of Gold. (Birdland, 315
W. 44th St. 212-581-3080. Nov. 8-12.)
14 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin
( Jan. 19-29), recitals from the mezzo-
soprano Joyce DiDonato (Dec. 15) and
the pianist Piotr Anderszewski (Feb. 17),
and three intriguing concerts by Andris
Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Or-
chestra (Feb. 28-March 2).
up with the ever-ready JACK Quartet
in twelve-tone music by Copland ( Jan.
19), and where the Manhattan Chamber
Players oer a pre-Valentines Day pro-
gram, A Year in Gabriel Faurs Life: A
Love Story (Feb. 7).
Russell Platt
 CLASSICAL MUSIC
1
OPERA
Metropolitan Opera
The Finnish soprano Karita Mattila, one of the
Mets reigning prima donnas in the Joseph Volpe
era, dominates the current revival of Janeks sear-
ing drama Jenfa, which snaps into focus every
time shes onstage. A famous Jenfa herself, Mat-
tila now plays the supporting role of the exacting
stepmother, bringing an often sumptuous soprano
and a sure theatrical sense to the task. Oksana
Dyka (giving a somewhat strident account of the
title role), Daniel Brenna (a Laca with a wallop-
ing tenor), and Joseph Kaiser (a swaggering but
vocally pale teva) fill out the cast. The conductor
David Robertson leads the orchestra in an admi-
rably clear rendition. Nov. 12 at 8. This week of-
fers the final two performances of Rossinis mag-
num opus, Guillaume Tell, a noble work that has
not been seen at the house in eighty-five years.
The castwhich includes Gerald Finley (an elo-
quent Tell), Marina Rebeka (an exquisitely shaded
Mathilde), and Bryan Hymel (a brilliant, trumpet-
like Arnold)is just about the finest that could
be assembled today; Fabio Luisis conducting is
vibrant and dramatically alert. Nov. 9 at 6:30 and
Nov. 12 at noon. Luisi conducts the final perfor-
mance of the autumn run of Don Giovanni, with
Ildar Abdrazakov (in the title role), Malin Bystm
(Donna Anna), and Amanda Majeski (Donna El-
vira) leading the cast. Nov. 10 at 7:30. No tradi-
tionally minded operagoer was ever taken aback by
Sonja Frisells time-honored production of Aida,
with its soaring sets and picture-perfect evocations
of ancient Egypt. The cast for the latest revival, not
without promise, features Liudmyla Monastyrska,
Marco Berti, and Ekaterina Gubanova in the lead-
ing roles and Marco Armiliato conducting. Nov. 11
and Nov. 15 at 7:30. With her alluring voice and ex-
plosive stage presence, the superstar soprano Anna
Netrebko is an obvious choice for the heroine in
Puccinis steamy melodrama Manon Lescaut, but
this season marks the first time shes undertaken
the role at the Met. Her co-stars in Richard Eyres
film-noir-inspired production are Marcelo lvarez
and Christopher Maltman; Marco Armiliato. Nov.
14 at 8. (Metropolitan Opera House. 212-362-6000.)
Kathleen Battle at the Metropolitan Opera
The American soprano Kathleen Battle was a major
star when the Met dismissed her from a production of
La Fille du Rgiment, in 1994, citing unprofessional
behavior. The decision sent shock waves through the
industry at the time. Some two decades later, with
the hatchets presumably buried, the soprano with
the sparkling voice finds her way back to the house
at the explicit invitation of Peter Gelbfor a sold-
out recital of spirituals that takes the Underground
Railroad as its theme. Nov. 13 at 4. (212-362-6000.)
William Christie and Juilliard415
Christie, the doyen of the French Baroque, conducts
Juilliards period-instrument ensemble once a year.
This time, student singers from the schools Marcus
Institute for Vocal Arts are also on hand, as the matre
takes his charges through excerpts from two operas
by Rameau, Castor et Pollux and Dardanus.
Nov. 9 at 7:30. (Alice Tully Hall. events.juilliard.edu.)
White Light Festival: Il Ritorno dUlisse in
Patria
In 1998, before the Handspring Puppet Company
made its name with a memorable Broadway pro-
duction of War Horse, and before William Ken-
tridge brought his freewheeling creative energy to
an acclaimed staging of The Nose at the Met, they
collaborated on Monteverdis operatic masterpiece,
16 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
with highly original results. The staging comes to
Lincoln Center with the Ricercar Consort. Nov.
14-16 at 7:30. (Gerald W. Lynch Theatre, John Jay Col-
lege, 524 W. 59th St. 212-721-6500.)
1
ORCHESTRAS AND CHORUSES
New York Philharmonic
The brilliant young pianist Daniil Trifonov is val-
ued so highly at the Philharmonic that one year ago
he was appointed to the organizations board of di-
rectors. Having previously appeared in Russian rep-
ertory, he now faces the very different challenge of
Mozartthe Piano Concerto No. 25 in C Major. He
is paired with an estimable conductor, Vladimir Ju-
rowski, who, after intermission, leads the orchestra
(as well as choral forces from the Manhattan School
of Music) in a complete performance of Ravels sump-
tuous ballet score Daphnis et Chlo. Nov. 9-10 at
7:30 and Nov. 11-12 at 8. Itzhak Perlman has long set-
tled into the role of a paterfamilias of the New York
music world, sharing his talents variously through
teaching, conducting, and performing as a solo violin-
ist. In this one-time concert, he limits his solo work
to two chestnuts, the two Romances for Violin and
Orchestra by Beethoven. After leading those works
from the fiddle, he devotes the rest of the program
to conducting music by Brahms, the Academic Fes-
tival Overture and the Fourth Symphony. Nov. 15 at
7:30. (David Geffen Hall. 212-875-5656.)
Cantus: No Greater Love Than This
The engaging young male chorus from the Twin
Cities is making a home for itself at the Metropol-
itan Museum. The seasons entry is a rare classi-
cal salute to Veterans Day, a concert that offers not
only works of recent years by Lee Hoiby and Jeff
Beal (Beneath Thin Blanket, a premire) but also
music by the masters Janek, Dvok, George M.
Cohan (Over There), and John Lennon (Imag-
ine). Nov. 9 at 7. (Fifth Ave. at 83rd St. 212-570-3949.)
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra
Simon Rattle and his magnificent, rich-toned en-
semble make a relatively brief visit to Carnegie Hall
this season. The heritage of modernism drives their
programming. The first concert features Boulezs
clat and Mahlers Seventh Symphony; the second
offers a panoply of Viennese voices, with Brahmss
Symphony No. 2 in D Major preceded by music
from the three great composers of the Second Vi-
ennese SchoolWebern, Schoenberg (Five Pieces
for Orchestra, Op. 16), and Berg (the Three Pieces
for Orchestra, a work of concentrated, Mahlerian
power). Nov. 9-10 at 8. (212-247-7800.)
White Light Festival: A Venetian
Coronation 1595
In a kind of precursor of Carnegie Halls wintertime
Venice bash, Lincoln Center brings over Paul Mc-
Creesh and the singers and period instrumentalists
of his ensemble Gabrieli, from London, to conjure
up the sounds and glamour of the coronation of Doge
Marino Grimani. Music by Andrea and Giovanni
Gabrieli, whose styles were shaped by the architec-
tural layout of St. Marks Basilica, is featured. Nov.
12 at 7:30. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-721-6500.)
Rene Fleming and the Eastman
Philharmonia
Two noted alumni of the Eastman School of Music
are attached to this program offered by the conserva-
torys leading orchestra. Fleming brings her unique
vocal and personal charisma to a new work by a fel-
low Eastmanite, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer
Kevin Puts: Letters from Georgia, a song cycle
 CLASSICAL MUSIC

based on letters written by the iconic American art-

ist Georgia OKeeffe. Music by Ravel and Prokofiev
(the Fifth Symphony) is also featured; Neil Varon
conducts. Nov. 14 at 8. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-721-6500.) MOVIES
Philadelphia Orchestra
The lushly virtuosic orchestras next Carnegie
Hall gig is a Franco-Russian showpiece program
conducted by Yannick Nzet-Sguin: Ravels Le
Tombeau de Couperin, Prokofievs Violin Con-
certo No. 1 (with the impressive Benjamin Beil-
man), and the weeks second presentation of Ravels
complete Daphnis et Chlo (with the Westmin-
ster Symphonic Choir). Nov. 15 at 8. (212-247-7800.)
1
RECITALS

Ensemble Pi: Black Lives Matter

The new-music ensemble, long known not only for
its skill but for its embrace of progressive causes,
devotes its next concert to African-American com-
posers both emerging and established. Pride of
place goes to the distinguished Alvin Singleton,
whose Jasper Drag (named after the location of
a grisly murder in Texas) shares the program with
works by Valerie Coleman (Wish), Jessie Mont-
gomery, and others. Nov. 10 at 7:30. (Roulette, 509
Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn. roulette.org.)
Tim Munro: Recounting
The longtime flutist of the seminal contemporary-
music outfit Eighth Blackbird is going out on his
own. His big dbutant concert takes place, of
course, at Miller Theatre, where Munro brings his
considerable talent and personality to works by Kate
Soper (with the composer as vocal soloist), Tom
Johnson, Malin Bng (Alpha Waves), and Dave
Reminick, in addition to world premires by Chris-
topher Cerrone (Liminal Highway) and Brett
Dean. Nov. 10 at 8. (Columbia University, Broadway
at 116th St. millertheatre.com.)
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
As this seasons Society programs cruise through
European capitals, they stop in Berlin to explore
composers that influenced Mendelssohnincluding
Beethoven, Haydn (the String Quartet in F Major,
The Dream, performed by the Orion String
Quartet), and Bach (selections from the encyclopedic
Musical Offering). Also on offer is Mendelssohns
music itself: the Piano Quartet No. 1 in C Minor,
Op. 1, played by a rock-solid ensemble that features,
among others, the pianist Wu Qian and the violist
Paul Neubauer. Nov. 11 at 7:30. As the Society
continues its Continental grand tour in honor of
Mendelssohn (with a thoroughness that Rick Steves
might envy), it makes a detour through Vienna. This
concert explores three substantial chamber works
by Viennese icons: Mozarts Quintet in C Minor,
K. 406, Schoenbergs string sextet Verklrte Nacht,
and Brahmss Sextet No. 1 in B-Flat Major. The
musicians on hand include the violinist Alexander
Sitkovetsky, the violist Richard ONeill, and the
cellists Keith Robinson and David Finckel. Nov. 15
at 7:30. (Alice Tully Hall. 212-875-5788.)
The screenplay for Fences was adapted by August Wilson, who died in 2005, from his 1983 play.
Winter Preview
Love, whether sacred or profane,
comes to the fore in some of the seasons
prominent releases. Warren Beatty wrote,
directed, and stars, as Howard Hughes, in
Rules Dont Apply (Nov. 23), a comedic
fantasy set in 1958. Lily Collins and Alden
Ehrenreich play employees of the reclusive
tycoon who defy his ban on romantic re-
lationships among his sta members. La
La Land (Dec. 9) is a musical, set in present-
day Los Angeles, about the romantic ex-
ploits of an aspiring actress (Emma Stone)
and a struggling jazz pianist (Ryan Gos-
ling). Damien Chazelle directs. Martin
Scorsese directed Silence (Dec. 23), an
adaptation of a novel by Shusaku Endo,
set in the seventeenth century, about two
Portuguese Jesuit priests (Andrew Gareld
and Adam Driver) who journey to Japan
in the hope of spreading Christianity.
A sense of mourning pervades Kenneth
Lonergans drama Manchester by the
Sea (Nov. 28), starring Casey Aeck as
a solitary janitor who returns to his home
town to care for his teen-age nephew
(Lucas Hedges) and confronts his own
bitter memories; Michelle Williams co-
stars. Family matters are also at the heart
Portman), is centered on her behind-the-
scenes management of John F. Kennedys
funeral and her keen sense of its historic
pageantry. Denzel Washington directed
and stars in Fences (Dec. 25), about a
former star athlete, now a sanitation-truck
driver, who faces separation from his wife
(Viola Davis) and conict with his son
( Jovan Adepo). The late August Wilson
wrote the screenplay, based on his play.
The world of work gets a close look in
the comedy Toni Erdmann (Dec. 23), by
the German director Maren Ade, in which
a free-spirited music teacher (Peter Simo-
nischek) subjects his daughter (Sandra
Hller), an ambitious young executive, to
practical jokes in front of her colleagues.
Hidden Figures (Dec. 25), based on a
true story, stars Taraji P. Henson as Kath-
erine Johnson, a mathematician at NASA
whose calculations were essential to the
Apollo 11 moon ight. Theodore Mel
directed; Octavia Spencer, Janelle Mone,
and Kevin Costner co-star. The title of
Jim Jarmuschs lyrical drama Paterson
(Dec. 28) refers both to the city in New
Jersey and to a bus driver-cum-poet
(Adam Driver) who lives and works there.
Golshifteh Farahani co-stars as Laura,
Patersons wife, an artist in search of her
ILLUSTRATION BY JOO FAZENDA

Marc-Andr Hamelin
Last month, one of Canadas sterling pianists, An-
gela Hewitt, appeared at the 92nd Street Y; now its
the turn of Hamelin, long renowned for his adven-
turous repertory along with his steely set of fingers.
In this program, however, he turns his attention
to the dulcet music of Mozart, performing four so-
natas and two rondos (in D Major, K. 485, and in
A Minor, K. 511). Nov. 12 at 8. (Lexington Ave. at
92nd St. 212-415-5500.)
of Mia Hansen-Lves drama Things to
Come (Dec. 2), starring Isabelle Huppert,
as a middle-aged professor in Paris who
copes with divorce, bereavement, and ca-
reer trouble, while also becoming a grand-
mother. Jackie (Dec. 2), Pablo Larrans
docudrama about Jackie Kennedy (Natalie
art form. I Am Not Your Negro (Feb. 3),
a documentary about James Baldwin and
his unnished biography of three civil-
rights leaders, is directed by Raoul Peck,
who compiled the entire script from Bald-
wins writings.
Richard Brody

18 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016


1
OPENING
Arrival Reviewed this week in The Current Cin-
ema. Opening Nov. 11. (In wide release.) Billy Lynns
Long Halftime Walk Reviewed in Now Playing.
Opening Nov. 11. (In wide release.) Elle Isabelle
Huppert stars in this drama, as a Parisian video-
game magnate who is raped by an intruder and, in-
stead of reporting the attack, tries to capture him.
Directed by Paul Verhoeven; co-starring Laurent
Lafitte, Anne Consigny, and Charles Berling. In
French. Opening Nov. 11. (In limited release.)
1 in crime and punishment alikedig themselves
NOW PLAYING
Billy Lynns Long Halftime Walk
Ang Lees new film is as much about the tech-
niques he uses as it is about the story he tells. On
Thanksgiving, 2004, Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn), a
young Texan hero of the Iraq War, is fted along
with his platoon at the Dallas Cowboys football
game. At the stadium, Billy and a cheerleader
named Faison (Makenzie Leigh) fall in love at
first sight, making his impending redeployment
to Iraq all the more wrenching. Meanwhile, Billys
sister Kathryn (Kristen Stewart), who opposes the
war, exhorts Billy to find a way out of the service.
The tale is a flat and tame dilution of American
Sniper, about the crime of squandering martial
virtue in dubious battle. Though Lees brief bat-
tlefield flashbacks (starring Vin Diesel, as a phil-
osophical sergeant) are affecting, the rest of the
movie offers emotion by numbers. The plots me-
chanical quality is reinforced by the high-tech 3-D
cinematography, which, by means of an ultra-high
frame rate, exceptional brightness, and unprece-
dented resolution, is meant to heighten the films
reality but instead displays its artifice; the action
seems staged inside a light box. Co-starring Chris
Tucker, as the soldiers agent, and Steve Martin, as
a fatuous tycoon.Richard Brody (In wide release.)
Doctor Strange
Scott Derricksons adaptation of this exotic entry
in the Marvel canon lives up to its title, in mostly
good ways. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumber-
batch) is a deft, brilliant, and ambitious New
York neurosurgeon who loses the use of his hands
in a car accident. When medical science gives
up on him, he seeks occult help, travelling to a
compound in Nepal thats run by the Ancient
One (Tilda Swinton) and her associates, Mordo
(Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Wong (Benedict Wong).
There, Strange is trained in metaphysical mar-
tial arts, which he deploys in battle against Kae-
cilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a renegade mystic who
attacks the worlds three centers of supernatural
powerNew York, London, and Hong Kong. Der-
rickson realizes visions of paranormal cataclysm
with vertiginous glee; sidewalks, buildings, whole
cities rise up, turn sideways, and churningly in-
tertwine with an Escher-like intricacy. Stranges
propulsion into transcendental realms plays like
a comic-book caricature of Terrence Malicks cos-
mological imagery, and the movies high-stakes
games with time reversal and out-of-body com-
bat have a lighthearted but grandly wondrous ex-
hilaration that offers sufficient distraction from
the cardboard plot. With Rachel McAdams, as a
surgeon who repairs Stranges heart, literally and
metaphorically.R.B. (In wide release.)
Dog Eat Dog
Paul Schraders frenzied, antic crime drama starts
in the realm of the irredeemable and takes whirl-
igig detours toward redemption. The recently re-
MOVIES
leased convict Mad Dog (Willem Dafoe), high on
cocaine and heroin, slaughters his ex-girlfriend and
her daughter with impunity. Three days later, he
joins two fellow-parolees, the taciturn and dutiful
Diesel (Christopher Matthew Cook) and the dap-
per self-styled ringleader Troy (Nicolas Cage), on
jobs ordered by a gravel-voiced crime boss Grecco
(Schrader). Whether stealing a drug dealers stash
or kidnapping a debtors baby, the three fuckups
comically snatch disaster from the jaws of success.
Freely venting their racism, sexism, and ignorance,
dealing deadly violence with offhanded efficiency,
the antiheroeswhose best intentions vanished
an ever-deeper karmic hole. Working with a flam-
boyantly aphoristic script by Matthew Wilder (who
adapted a novel by Edward Bunker) that teems with
fantasies, flashbacks, and hallucinations, Schrader
thrusts the amoral ugliness onto the screen in puck-
ishly cold compositions suffused with screechingly
acidulous colors. Yet the action offers giddy glim-
mers of transcendence in a skittering series of re-
versals which rises to one of the boldest, most sub-
lime of recent endings.R.B. (In limited release.)
Hacksaw Ridge
A brutally effective war film, directed by Mel Gib-
son, about a man of peace. Andrew Garfield plays
Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who none-
theless was awarded the Medal of Honor for his ac-
tions at Okinawa, in 1945. In the earlier and home-
lier parts of the movie, he is raised in Virginia by
a long-suffering mother (Rachel Griffiths) and a
father (Hugo Weaving) who, having survived the
First World War and seen his friends die, is soaked
in guilt and drink. To the distress of his parents,
and with the anxious blessing of his fiance (Te-
resa Palmer), Doss is drafted, only to find himself
scorned for his beliefs under the rigorous regime of
a drill sergeant (Vince Vaughn). The second half of
the movie moves to the battlefield and assails the
senses of the audience to a near-pathological degree;
only Gibson, perhaps, would find no contradiction
in spelling out the details of bodily pain and rup-
ture whilst hymning the virtues of a pacifist. As the
miracle of heroism unfolds, Garfields goofy grin
is transformed into a rictus of anguished sacrifice.
Many of the cast membersincluding the excellent
Luke Bracey, as Dosss toughest comradehail from
Australia, where the film was shot.Anthony Lane
(Reviewed in our issue of 11/7/16.) (In wide release.)
The Handmaiden
Park Chan-wooks new film is his most delecta-
ble to date. Illicitly suave, it takes pleasure, over
nearly two and a half hours, in fooling with the in-
tricate plans of the characters and, for good mea-
sure, with the minds of the audience. The action is
set in the nineteen-thirties, in Korea, and liberally
adapted from Sarah Waterss novel Fingersmith,
a no less tasty tale of Victorian London. Kim Tae-ri
plays Sook-Hee, a young woman bred in the low
niceties of crime, who becomes a maidservant to
the high-ranking Hideko (Kim Min-hee), herself
no stranger to stratagems. Its hard to find a sin-
gle person onscreen whose title or demeanor is a
reliable match for his or her true nature; for in-
stance, neither the youthful count who arrives to
pay court to Hideko nor her bibliomaniacal guard-
ian is to be trusted an inch. Just to ensnare us more
tightly, Park replays some of the episodes with a
twist, from a different viewpoint, yet the marvel
of the movie is that, far from seeming like mere
trickery, it feels drenched in longing and desire.
The cinematographer, gravely surveying these
shenanigans, is Chung Chung-Hoon. In Korean
and Japanese.A.L. (10/24/16) (In limited release.)
Inferno
Yawn. Its time to put the novelist Dan Browns
character Robert Langdon to bed. Tom Hanks re-
turns as the symbologist who serves mainly to put
together Browns contrived plot puzzles. This time,
Langdon tries to stop a mad billionaire (Ben Fos-
ter) with a super-virus from destroying half of hu-
manity (the madman is obsessed with the fear of
overpopulation). Ron Howards directionin his
third time around with a Brown novelis swift,
if workmanlike, and the globe-trotting action of-
fers welcome views of historical sites in Venice and
Florence. Theres a lot of running through streets
that are as twisted as the plot, but the action does
little to improve on the books basic incoherence.
Instead of allowing the audience to piece together
the clues into a satisfying tapestry, Howard par-
cels them out in such a byzantine way that only a
fictional Harvard-educated historian can fathom
the answers. With Felicity Jones, in the thank-
less role of a mystery-loving doctor whos merely
along for the ride.Bruce Diones (In wide release.)
Loving
It has only been a few months since Jeff Nicholss
science-fiction drama, Midnight Special, was
released, and this new film, based on a genuine
legal saga, marks a surprising shift in both sub-
ject matter and pace. The story is simple enough:
Richard Loving (Joel Edgerton) marries Mildred
(Ruth Negga), and they raise a family together.
No problem there, except that he is white and she
is black, and this is Virginia, in the late nineteen-
fifties and early sixties. The couple has to go to
Washington, D. C., for the wedding, and they are
arrested shortly after their return. They sue, and
their case drags on until 1967, when the Supreme
Court rules in their favor and thus effectively out-
laws all race-based restrictions on marriage. The
Lovings crave no fame; Richard, especially, wants
only a quiet life, and Nichols, who both writes and
directs, honors their forbearance by telling the
tale with a minimum of showiness and outrage.
Some people will find that method too patient
by half, yet it is dotted with Nicholss trademark
hints of suspense, and reinforced by the gath-
ering strength and depth of the performances.
Negga is not an actress from whom you can look
away.A.L. (11/7/16) (In limited release.)
Moonlight
Miami heat and light weigh heavily on the furi-
ous lives and moods realized by the director Barry
Jenkins. The grand yet finespun drama depicts
three eras in the life of a young black man: as a
bullied schoolboy called Little (Alex Hibbert),
who is neglected by his crack-addicted mother
(Naomie Harris) and sheltered and mentored
by a drug dealer (Mahershala Ali) and his girl-
friend (Janelle Mone); as a teen-ager with his
given name of Chiron (Ashton Sanders), whose
friendship with a classmate named Kevin (Jhar-
rel Jerome) veers toward romantic intimacy and
leads to violence; and as a grown man nicknamed
Black (Trevante Rhodes), who faces adult respon-
sibilities with terse determination and reconnects
with Kevin (Andr Holland). Adapting a play by
Tarell Alvin McCraney, Jenkins burrows deep into
his characters pain-seared memories, creating fe-
rociously restrained performances and confronta-
tional yet tender images that seem wrenched from
his very core. Even the title is no mere nature ref-
erence but an evocation of skin color; subtly al-
luding to wider societal conflicts, Jenkins looks
closely at the hard intimacies of people whose
very identities are forged under relentless pres-
sure.R.B. (In limited release.)
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 21
 DANCE
At the Joyce, the Lucinda Childs Dance Company presents Pastime, Childss rst piece, from 1963.
Winter Preview
The choreography of Lucinda Childs
is like Shaker furniture: beautiful in its
simplicity but rather severe. Childss rst
piece, Pastime (1963), consisted of the
choreographer sitting, impassively, inside
a bolt of stretchy fabric, and slowly un-
furling one leg. It will be performed,
along with other early dances and a new
one, Into View, as part of Lucinda
Childs: A Portrait (1963-2016), a two-
week retrospective by the Lucinda Childs
Dance Company at the Joyce (Nov. 29-
Dec. 11). Childs, who is now seventy-six,
quickly moved on from her Dadaist
phase and into what would become her
signature style: lucid, mathematically
rigorous works in which the dancers
move around the stage in clean patterns,
using the ABCs of movement (walking,
skipping, turning, jumping), precisely
executed. In her most famous piece,
Dance (Dec. 6-11), the castdressed
in white, clad in sneakerskeeps this
up for almost an hour, as Philip Glasss
score swirls around it. They share the
stage with Sol LeWitts lm of the
original cast, the present mirroring the
past. The eect is mesmerizing, and
maddening, and, if the mood is right,
transcendent.
Childs was part of a movement away
from the emotionalism and moral rec-
titude of modern dance. But the impulse
to speak truth through dance is still with
us, as evinced by Kyle Abrahams new
22 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
tripartite work for Alvin Ailey American
Dance Theatre (Nov. 30-Dec. 31, at City
Center), Untitled America. (The rst
two sections premired in previous sea-
sons. The full triptych opens on Dec. 7.)
Abraham has taken on a heavy subject,
and a timely onethe grief experienced
by families when a son or daughter enters
the prison system. He doesnt preach or
give history lessons. Instead, he lets the
movementweighted, sorrowful
speak for itself. A longtime member of
the company, Hope Boykin, is also
premiring a new piece, r-Evolution,
Dream. Inspired by the writings of
Martin Luther King, Jr., it is voiced by
Leslie Odom, Jr., and set to a score by
the jazz drummer Ali Jackson.
In Citizen, Reggie Wilsons new
work for his Fist & Heel Performance
Group (at BAM Harvey Theatre, Dec. 14-17),
the choreographer takes on the notion
of African-American cultural identity
through the prism of the lives of his-
torical gures including Zora Neale
Hurston.
If you didnt see it the rst time
around, try to catch Michelle Dorrances
The Blues Project when it returns to
the Joyce, Nov. 15-27. Dorrance is a tap
ILLUSTRATION BY JOO FAZENDA
innovator with a big, generous heart. The
show, driven by Toshi Reagons soulful
blues improvisations (performed live,
onstage), is a celebration of tap as a com-
munal experience, a vehicle for virtuos-
ity, and an expression of joy.
Marina Harss

Plexus
For Plexus, the French director Aurlien Bory
imprisons the Japanese dancer Kaori Ito in a cage
made of thousands of cables. Within this web,
Ito floats and flails like a spiders prey. She and
the exquisite lighting keep the optical illusions
coming, stunning images with little expressive
purpose. (BAM Harvey Theatre, 651 Fulton St.,
Brooklyn. 718-636-4100. Nov. 9-13.)
Kate Weare Company / Marksman
Weare excels in the depiction of intimate encoun-
tersforceful, unabashedly sensual negotiations
that can resemble wrestling matches or martial-
arts battles. Her women are not to be trifled with;
theyre as strong as the men and give as good as
they get. Weares most recent work, Marksman,
is inspired in part by Eugen Herrigels 1948 trea-
tise, Zen in the Art of Archery, a meditation on
the effortlessness and focus achieved through in-
tense physical practice. (Joyce Theatre, 175 Eighth
Ave., at 19th St. 212-242-0800. Nov. 9-13.)
Sam Kim
Kim, a smart choreographer lately preoccupied
with strange interpersonal dynamics among
women, is not a fan of long solos. She considers
them repulsively narcissistic. And so her new
investigation of the solo form, Fear in Porce-
lain, aims to erase the ego rather than to repre-
sent or reify it. Also, she isnt alone: three other
female dancers join her onstage. (The Chocolate
Factory, 5-49 49th Ave., Long Island City. 866-811-
4111. Nov. 9-12. Through Nov. 19.)
DANCE
Jonah Bokaer / Rules of the Game
The choreographic works of the prolific Jonah
Bokaerprecise and probing intellectual exer-
cises that are sometimes short on dramahave
often unfolded amid the elegantly eccentric vi-
sual design of Daniel Arsham. Thats true of
the three pieces on this program, all New York
premires, including Recess, a duet for the
choreographer (whos an outstanding mover)
and a giant roll of paper, and Why Patterns,
in which the dancers are assailed by a shower
of Ping-Pong balls. The principal intrigue of
Rules of the Game lies in its score by the
pop star Pharrell Williams. Bokaers choreog-
raphy, sculptural with much stillness, strug-
gles to not be swamped by Arshams explosive
video projections. (BAM Howard Gilman Opera
House, 30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn. 718-636-4100.
Nov. 10-12.)
Liz Gerring Dance Company
Having made some of the most compelling
pure-dance choreography of recent years,
at once abstract and athletic, Gerring turns
in the direction of content with (T)here to
(T)here, part of Lincoln Centers White Light
Festival. Overlapping solos by two principal
dancers (the electric and unaffected Brandon
Collwes and Claire Westby) suggest the spi-
ralling intimacy of a relationship over time.
Its the ghost of a love story amid text-based
projections by Kay Rosen, a score by Michael J.
Schumacher, and the framing of four other
dancers, including the choreographer. (Barysh-
nikov Arts Center, 450 W. 37th St. 866-811-4111.
Nov. 10-12.)
Natalia Osipova & Artists
Like Wendy Whelan, the Russian ballerina Na-
talia Osipova is a restless creature, probing the
limits of classical ballet. This triple bill of com-
missioned works is her second independent proj-
ect to come to New York. Her partner is Sergei
Polunin, ballets current enfant terrible, who, a
few years back, walked away from a career at the
Royal Ballet to pursue his dream of becoming
a movie star. This program includes works by
Arthur Pita, Russell Maliphant, and Sidi Larbi
Cherkaoui. The most curious may be Pitas pe-
riod piece Run Mary Run, in which the two
dancers play a young couple experiencing love,
drugs, and heartbreak, all to the sixties pop of
the Shangri-Las. (City Center, 131 W. 55th St. 212-
581-1212. Nov. 10-12.)
Works & Process / Jodi Melnick
At Danspace Project last year, the writer Claudia
La Rocco allied separate kingdoms of the dance
world by playing matchmaker, pairing up New
York City Ballet stars with downtown luminaries.
One of those luminaries, Jodi Melnick, has kept
up the experiment. Her choreography for New
York City Ballets Sara Mearns, Jared Angle, and
Gretchen Smith pushes their focus more inward
than usual. Here the dancing, accompanied by
live harpsichord and violin, is intertwined with a
discussion led by La Rocco. (Guggenheim Museum,
Fifth Ave. at 89th St. 212-423-3575. Nov. 13-14.)
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 23
 ART
Georgia OKeeffe: Living Modern, part of the Brooklyn Museums ten-show series, A Year of Yes.
Winter Preview
Revered in art circles as an avant-
gardist par excellence, the chameleonic
Francis Picabia (1879-1953) lacks the
name recognition of his lifelong friend
Marcel Duchamp. That may change
with MOMAs major retrospective Our
Heads Are Round So Our Thoughts
Can Change Direction, co-organized
by the Kunsthaus Zurich, which
showcases some hundred and twenty-
ve paintings, a selection of works on
paper, decades worth of ephemera,
and even a lm. Born into a wealthy
family in Paris, Picabia was a notori-
ous playboy as well as an artista
connoisseur of fast cars whose career
raced through Impressionism, Cub-
ism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, fol-
lowed by kitschy nude pinups and Art
Informel abstractions. As he once
said, If you want clean ideas, change
them as often as you change your
shirt. Opens Nov. 20.
The New Museum devotes three
oors to Raymond Pettibon: A Pen of
All Work, surveying the drawings of
the American artist who is too often
pigeonholed for his punk-rock roots.
Granted, he gave the L.A. band Black
Flag its name and designed its iconic
four-bar logo, but the subjects of Petti-
bons text-and-image works cast a wide
net of references, from baseball to Lord
Byron, a line of whose poetry lends the
exhibition its title. Opens Feb. 8.
24 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foun-
dation turns eighty next year. In cele-
bration, the museum delves into its
collection for Visionaries: Creating a
Modern Guggenheim, which focusses
on artists championed by six of its pa-
trons, from Guggenheims art adviser
Hilla Rebay to his self-professed art
addict niece, Peggy. Expect an all-star
lineup of the late nineteenth through
the mid-twentieth centuries: Calder,
Czanne, Kandinsky, Klee, Mondrian,
Picasso, Pollock, and Van Gogh. Opens
Feb. 10.
The Brooklyn Museum is also
marking a milestone: its Sackler Cen-
ter for Feminist Art turned ten in
October, kicking o a series of exhi-
bitions throughout the building, col-
lectively titled A Year of Yes: Reimag-
ining Feminism. Georgia OKeee
said yes to the institution in 1927, when
she had her rst solo museum show
there. The painter might seem like a
predictable, even pandering, choice for
feminist ag planting, but her work is
being presented in an unusual light in
Georgia OKeee: Living Modern,
alongside examples of her minimalist
wardrobe, to oset the stereotype that
ILLUSTRATION BY JOO FAZENDA
her radical oral imagery embodies
the feminine principle. Photographs
of the artist by Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel
Adams, Cecil Beaton, Annie Leibovitz,
and others are also on view. Opens
March 3.
Andrea K. Scott

1
MUSEUMS AND LIBRARIES
Metropolitan Museum
Max Beckmann in New York
The citys first major exhibition of the German
painter since a show at MOMAs temporary head-
quarters in Queens, in 2003, supplements the
works that Beckmann made during his exile in
New York with earlier works, on loan from local
collections. A 1923 self-portrait, in which a thirty-
nine-year-old Beckmann squints and smirks
while puffing on a cigarette, has the sarcastic ex-
actitude common to the painters of New Objec-
tivity. Later, his painting became at once rougher
and more numinous; in Birds Hell, an avian
Walpurgisnacht from 1938, the mutilation of hu-
mans by winged torturers bristles with slashed
outlines of black. Departure, his great, inscru-
table triptych of a Fisher King and bound pris-
oners, was proclaimed degenerate by the Nazis
and purged from a German museum collection;
it came to New York in 1942, and Beckmann, who
spent the war in Holland, followed soon after. He
loved it here, though the war continued to haunt
him. In 1950, the last year of his life, Beckmann
painted the image of a skyscraper ablaze on an
upper floor and a nearly nude man plunging into
a blue expanse. Today, its hard not to see it as
a prescient memorial for New Yorks own worst
day, from a foreigner who discovered a new life
in the city. Through Feb. 20.
1 tographs of vacuum cleaners disconnected from
GALLERIESUPTOWN
Emily Roysdon
This salon-style installation, which sidesteps
chronology, presents the American artist as a
formal and intellectual risk-taker in the arenas
of queer history and social space. Twelve black-
and-white photographs, shot between 2001 and
2007, slyly restage David Wojnarowiczs cult clas-
sic Rimbaud in New York, for which he posed
around the city, in 1978, wearing the photocopied
visage of the French poet (who, like the artist,
was gay). In turn, Roysdons mask depicts Wojna-
rowicz, establishing a lineage across gender, as
well as across centuries. Her more recent photo-
grams, shadowy compositions created using mul-
tiple exposures, suggest an idiosyncratic system
for marking the passage of time. The foreground-
ing of process in this playful project illuminates
Roysdons passionate belief that making art is a
form of record-keeping, in both the public and
the private domain. Through Nov. 19. (Higher Pic-
tures, 980 Madison Ave., at 76th St. 212-249-6100.)
1
GALLERIESCHELSEA
ART
visible knuckles. Through Nov. 12. (Cooper, 521
W. 21st St. 212-255-1105.)
Architecture of Color: The Legacy of Luis
Barragn
The reputation of the Mexican modernist archi-
tect, whose domestic spaces made use of bold
color on spare walls, has soared of latecall him
the Latin-American Le Corbusier. This wistful
show, inaugurating the Chelsea outpost of a pow-
erhouse London gallery, pairs colorful sketches by
the architect and two sinuous pine chairs of his de-
sign with abstract works by postwar artists. Sheila
Hicks, who spent years studying pre-Columbian
weaving, is represented by a wonderful four-panel
wall hanging of tightly bunched linen. If youve
seen Agnes Martins spectral abstractions in the
Guggenheims current show, prepare for a wholly
different experience here, one that the longtime
resident of New Mexico might have liked; two
spare and tender late works, each a foot square,
beside a potted cactus. Through Nov. 19. (Taylor
1634, 515 W. 19th St. 212-256-1669.)
1 remarkable photographs by Andreas Sterzing
GALLERIESDOWNTOWN
Sara Deraedt
At first, the young Belgian artists small pictures,
taken through the windows of shops selling irons,
air purifiers, and other household appliances, ap-
pear tentative. Give them timetwo color pho-
their hoses begin to suggest the cadaverous heads
of an alien race, and a black-and-white photocopy
of a metal tube leaning against a wall assumes a
strange melancholy. Photographers have long been
fascinated with industrial design, but their depic-
tions are largely dispassionate, from the rigorous
formalism of Albert Renger-Patzsch to the chilly
criticality of Christopher Williams. Deraedts sen-
sibility is more akin to that of the German Pop
painter Konrad Klapheck, in whose hands con-
sumer goods turn uncanny. Through Nov. 13. (Essex
Street, 114 Eldridge St. 917-263-1001.)
Something Possible Everywhere: Pier 34
NYC, 1983-84
The refreshingly low production values and
anarchic air of this sprawling show suit its subject:
in the early years of the AIDS crisis, an abandoned
pier at the end of Canal Street briefly became an
ad-hoc refuge, studio, and exhibition space. The
experiment in creative trespassing was instigated
by the artist-provocateurs David Wojnarowicz and
Mike Bidlo, whose work appears alongside that
of many others, representing a diverse range of
neo-expressionist, Pop, and graffiti styles. The
curator Jonathan Weinberg anchors the show with
of the majestically decrepit site. One haunting
image, from 1983, shows a group of life-size
figures made from street trash by David Finn,
seen sitting in a cardboard mask with his creations
among the ruins. Similar sculptures by Finn,
made in the same era, perch on the pristine steps
to the gallery like time travellers from a bygone
New York, before gentrification and art-world
professionalization took hold. (205 Hudson Gallery,
205 Hudson St. 212-396-7301.)

Paul Pfeiffer
The 2015 bout between Floyd Mayweather and
Manny Pacquiaooverhyped as the fight of
the century, it was a flopappears here in
a large-format replay, but the cheering Las
Vegas crowd has fallen silent. All we hear is the
squeaking of the boxers boots and the sound of
gloved fists. An adjacent projection discloses
the audio source: Foley artists in a Bangkok
sound studio, synchronizing their own recorded
grunts and shuffles. Pfeiffers laborious video
continues his intriguing project of translating
sports into pure form, but the disclosure of pro-
cess dilutes its eerie appeal. Three smaller, bet-
ter video works depict boxing matches in which
one fighter has been digitally erased; the re-
maining pugilists faces turn to putty under in-

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 25

 THE THEATRE
Cate Blanchett stars with Richard Roxburgh in The Present, based on Chekhovs untitled first play.
Winter Preview
Few living actors can match the raw
star power of Cate Blanchett, whose
hypnotic self-possessionshe has the
gravitational pull of a small planet
made her a natural for roles like Queen
Elizabeth I (Elizabeth), Bob Dylan
(Im Not There), Katharine Hepburn
(The Aviator), and the housewife who
was the star of a shopgirls heart in
Carol. But she can also take us to the
outer edges of neurotic obliviousness, as
in Woody Allens Blue Jasmine. Then
theres the stage. So far, New York has
had to settle for panic-causing limited
runs at City Center and BAM, courtesy
of the Sydney Theatre Company, of
which she and her husband, Andrew
Upton, were joint artistic directors. But
this winter Blanchett settles in for her
Broadway dbut, in The Present (start-
ing previews Dec. 17, at the Barrymore),
playing a Russian widow in Uptons ad-
aptation of Chekhovs untitled rst play
(known as Platonov), reset in the post-
perestroika nineteen-nineties.
Another female powerhouse, Sally
Field, comes to Broadway in The Glass
Menagerie (Feb. 7, Belasco), as Tennes-
see Williamss tenacious heroine Amanda
Wingeld. Sam Golds revival joins a
meaty Broadway season that also includes
Jitney, August Wilsons portrait of gypsy
cabdrivers in nineteen-seventies Pitts-
burgh, featuring Andr Holland and John
Douglas Thompson and directed by
26 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Dec. 28, Sam-
uel J. Friedman); Signicant Other,
Joshua Harmons comedy about a heart-
sick gay man (Gideon Glick) longing for
love in contemporary Manhattan (Feb. 14,
Booth); and the Roundabouts revival of
The Price, Arthur Millers 1968 family
drama, starring John Turturro, Danny
DeVito, Tony Shalhoub, and Jessica Hecht
(Feb. 16, American Airlines Theatre).
O Broadway, playwrights are often
the stars, and the New Year brings big
names. Tracy Letts (August: Osage
County) wrote Man from Nebraska
( Jan. 26, Second Stage), with Reed Bir-
ney as a churchgoing Midwesterner who
undertakes a quest to restore his faith.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon)
stirs up more postmodern trouble with
Everybody ( Jan. 31, Pershing Square
Signature Center), a spin on the fteenth-
century morality play Everyman. And
Sarah Ruhl (Eurydice) turns her dry
yet poetic gaze on polyamory in How to
Transcend a Happy Marriage (Feb. 23,
Mitzi E. Newhouse).
Experiments abound at the Under
the Radar festival ( Jan. 4-15), the Pub-
lics annual showcase of the avant-garde,
with performances by Belarus Free The-
ILLUSTRATION BY JOO FAZENDA
atre, 600 Highwaymen, Champagne
Jerry, Jomama Jones, and Rimini Pro-
tokoll, as well as a collection of little-
known Second World War musicals by
the likes of Frank Loesser, staged on the
hangar deck of the Intrepid.
Michael Schulman

1
OPENINGS AND PREVIEWS
The Babylon Line
Richard Greenbergs new play, set in 1967, fol-
lows a Greenwich Village writer (Josh Radnor)
who connects with a student (Elizabeth Reaser)
while teaching an adult-ed class in Levittown.
(Mitzi E. Newhouse, 150 W. 65th St. 212-239-6200.
Previews begin Nov. 10.)
The Bands Visit
David Cromer directs a new musical by David
Yazbek and Itamar Moses, based on a 2007 Is-
raeli film about an Egyptian rock band that gets
stranded in the Negev Desert. (Atlantic Theatre
Company, 336 W. 20th St. 866-811-4111. Previews
begin Nov. 11.)
In Transit
This new a-cappella musical, directed by Kath-
leen Marshall and written by Kristen Anderson-
Lopez, James-Allen Ford, Russ Kaplan, and
Sara Wordsworth, traces the intertwining lives
of New York commuters. (Circle in the Square,
235 W. 50th St. 212-239-6200. Previews begin
Nov. 10.)
Rancho Viejo
In Dan LeFrancs comedy, directed by Daniel
Aukin, the residents of a Southwestern suburb
gossip and fret over the separation of an un-
seen married couple. (Playwrights Horizons, 416
W. 42nd St. 212-279-4200. Previews begin Nov. 11.)
1 in lovebut then, of course, one of them learns
NOW PLAYING
THE THEATRE
humor. (Reviewed in our issue of 11/7/16.) (Wal-
ter Kerr, 219 W. 48th St. 212-239-6200.)
The Front Page
This outstanding revival of Ben Hecht and
Charles MacArthurs 1928 comedy has a surfeit
of fantastic actors, who give the production ev-
erything theyve got. Hildy Johnson (John Slat-
tery) is a newspaperman who is trying to get out
of the game, despite pressure from his boss, Wal-
ter Burns (Nathan Lane). Hildy is drawn back into
journalism, against his better judgment, when a
beleaguered worker named Earl Williams (John
Magaro) escapes from prison on the eve of his exe-
cution. The director, Jack OBrien, utilizes the best
of what Broadway has to offer: a big stage, a solid
budget, slick production values. The cast (includ-
ing Sherie Rene Scott) is large, and it takes a di-
rector of OBriens skill to keep all those hoops in
the air without losing sight of the story, or of the
internal lives of the characters. (11/7/16) (Broad-
hurst, 235 W. 44th St. 212-239-6200.)
Kingdom Come
Two equally damaged young womenone so
obese that she cant get out of bed (Carmen M.
Herlihy), the other pathologically phobic (Crys-
tal Finn)meet on OkCupid, each posing as
someone wildly attractive and successful. Em-
boldened by the anonymity of the Internet (the
fat girl has borrowed the identity of a handsome
young actor from Los Angeles; the neurotic one
claims shes a globe-trotting flight attendant from
Nevada), they discover their best selves, and fall
that the other isnt who she says she is. Jenny Ra-
chel Weiners play, superbly acted under Kip Fa-
gans direction, is funny and sad and a little pre-
dictable, until the phobic girl overcomes her fears
and drives to L.A. to find the actor (Alex Hernan-
dez), and the play becomes both harrowing and
thrilling. (Black Box, Harold and Miriam Steinberg
Center for Theatre, 111 W. 46th St. 212-719-1300.)
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
For Christopher Hamptons eighteenth-century-
set tale of sex and power to work, its leads must
be evenly matched. Liev Schreiber is a fine actor,
but his sombre temperament is ill-suited to the
witty badinage of the plays first half. The Vi-
comte de Valmont is said to be conspicuously
charming, but here you wonder why women
keep falling for someone whos trying so hard.
Janet McTeers Marquise de Merteuil, on the
other hand, plays the chess game of love with
a quicksilver relish veined with ice-cold fury;
the performance brings attention to its own
virtuosity but is still rather fun to watch. Josie
Rourkes production does not offer fresh insights
on the story, suggesting the twilight of the lib-
ertine age with a dilapidated mansion of a set
that gradually sinks into terminal decaybonus
points for evocative candlelit scenes la Barry
Lyndon. (Booth, 222 W. 45th St. 212-239-6200.)
A Life
In Adam Bocks new play, the fortyish Nate Mar-
tin (David Hyde Pierce, giving one of those
performances that take you over, moment by
sensitively explicated moment) lives in a small

Coriolanus
Michael Sexton, directing this Red Bull The-
atre production of Shakespeares tragedy about
a Roman warrior with a fatal inability to adapt
his aggression to the purposes of politics, can be
a bit too eager to draw parallels with the current
political moment: his concept includes a Guy
Fawkes mask, the Fleetwood Mac song Dont
Stop, and a very particular style of red cap. For-
tunately, the parlor game isnt taken too far, and
this remains a vital and even invigorating stag-
ing of an infrequently mounted play. Dion John-
stone, as Coriolanus, can evoke all the anxiety
and exhilaration of a full battlefield with the
emotions that play across his face, and Patrick
Page, whose Menenius is conceived as a folksy
Southern establishment politician, is an alche-
mist with the language, rendering his every line
in rhythms that feel uncannily contemporary and
American. (Barrow Street Theatre, 27 Barrow St.
212-352-3101.)

Falsettos
This 1992 musical, directed by James Lapine (he
co-wrote the show with William Finn), begins in
1979: Marvin (Christian Borle) is leaving Trina
(Stephanie J. Block), with whom he has a son,
Jason (Anthony Rosenthal), because hes gay, and
in love with Whizzer (the always attractive An-
drew Rannells). Trina goes to a shrink named
Mendel (Brandon Uranowitz) and eventually
marries him. The second part of the show is set
in 1981; Marvin and Whizzer broke up, but are
now back together, still family, of a sort. When
Whizzer contracts AIDS and lies dying, Trina,
Mendel, and Jason realize that theyre part of the
family, too. Finn and Lapine use Jewish jokes,
AIDS, and so on to rope in a particular audience,
which is then held captive to their seemingly
endless array of self-referential songs and weak

THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 27

 THE THEATRE
New York City apartment. Using astrology as a
tool, he tries to figure out why none of his love
affairs worked out, why he was dumped or did
the dumping. Hes the kind of guy people strain
to remember over late-night drinks, long after
hes gone; hes a faded sketch even before he dies.
That he does die comes as a surprise, but not as
big a surprise as the loss we feel when this genial
fellow is silenced. The director, Anne Kauffman,
doesnt try to make the script more than it is; she
helps to reveal the subtleties and the weirdness
at its heart. (11/7/16) (Playwrights Horizons, 416
W. 42nd St. 212-279-4200.)
Notes from the Field
The facts are not new in Anna Deavere Smiths
latest solo show, but this master of empathetic
documentary theatre weaves them into a por-
trait that feels surprisingly revelatory. Starting
with the idea of the school-to-prison pipeline,
she expands her focus (at the risk of sometimes
losing it) to cover the 2015 Baltimore riots, the
transmission of poverty and violence down gen-
erations, the civil-rights movement, and the ed-
ucation systems breakdown. Smith interviewed
scores of people and portrays a selection of them
onstage, from a high-school principal to a Native
American fisherman, from Representative John
Lewis to the deli clerk who videotaped Freddie
Gray being roughed up by police officers. Smith
never points fingers, but her show, rousing and
sad, funny and affecting, still indicts a society
that does not just fail its weakestit actively
keeps them down. (Second Stage, 305 W. 43rd St.
212-246-4422.)
28 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
ABOVE & BEYOND
Americas Parade
The Veterans Day parade dates back to the first
Armistice Day celebrations, in 1919. This years
parade (which goes north on Fifth Ave. from 26th
St. to 52nd St.) commemorates the fifteenth an-
niversary of 9/11, with special recognition of the
citys first responders and veterans of the cam-
paigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the
twenty-fifth anniversary of Desert Storm. The
opening ceremony, in Madison Square Park, in-
cludes a wreath laying at the Eternal Light Flag-
staff. (Enter the park at Broadway at 23rd St. Nov.
11 at 10 A.M.)
1 15. One of the top lots in the sale is a painting
AUCTIONS AND ANTIQUES
Once again, the big auction houses go head to
head, vying for supremacy in the high-priced
market for Impressionist and contemporary art.
Sothebys kicks off its mega-auctions on Nov.
14, with an offering of Impressionist canvases
led by a painting by Edvard Munch, an artist
much in the public eye these days. Girls on the
Bridge, from 1902, is an uncharacteristically
sunny work: a group of young women in bright
dresses and wide-brimmed hats converge on a
footbridge in midsummer, with comfortable
homes and blue skies in the distance. A day sale
of Impressionst works follows on Nov. 15. (York
Ave. at 72nd St. 212-606-7000.) Christies sales
move in reverse chronological order, beginning
with postwar and contemporary art on Nov.
by Gerhard Richter, awash in greens and blues
(Abstraktes Bild), from the collection of Eric
Clapton. It will compete for buyers attention
with another brilliant abstract work, de Koo-
nings Untitled XXV, from 1977. (20 Rockefel-
ler Plaza, at 49th St. 212-636-2000.)
1
READINGS AND TALKS
Strand Bookstore
In addition to shooting iconic celebrity por-
traits for the covers of magazines such as Rolling
Stone, Mark Seliger has spent time photograph-
ing the locals of Christopher Street, document-
ing a community that has been pivotal in the
emerging trans movement. After publishing a
photo-essay of his work in this magazine, in Au-
gust, Seliger released On Christopher Street:
Transgender Stories, a photography book that
collects stories and anecdotes from his subjects.
Here he talks with its co-creator, the trans-rights
activist Janet Mock. (828 Broadway. 212-473-
1452. Nov. 10 at 7.)
Pioneer Works
Richard Dawkins, the genetic biologist, devout
atheist, and career provocateur, has held consis-
tent views on evolution and organized religion
across a nearly five-decade career, once describ-
ing American biologists as being in a state of war
with creationism. His books and speeches draw the
ire of not only those who oppose his reports but
also those who feel that his pointed tactics skew
the functions of informed research and debate al-
together: a recent study of British scientists con-
ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO AMARGO
ducted at Rice University revealed that a majority
of his detractors thought that his work misrep-
resents science. In the forty years since Dawkins
published The Selfish Gene, he has only doubled
down on his convictions, even relying on science to
examine his own life, as in his 2015 autobiography,
Brief Candle in the Dark. He appears in conver-
sation with Janna Levin, the director of sciences
at this nonprofit arts and cultural center. (159 Pi-
oneer St., Brooklyn. 718-596-3001. Nov. 14 at 7:30.)

TABLES FOR TWO
Take Root
187 Sackett St., Brooklyn
(347-227-7116)
The air is that no temperature of per-
fect fall, Anna Hieronimus says, leaving
the breeze to blow through the open
front door even after the last of her twelve
guests has arrived. The room is a Kinfolk
dream space: stark white, with white orbs
for light xtures and giant cacti in the
window. Elise Kornack, the chef and
Annas wife, takes a swig of beer in the
PHOTOGRAPH BY FRANCES F. DENNY FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
kitchen. Welcome to Take Root, a living-
room-size Michelin-starred restaurant
in Carroll Gardens, open three nights a
week, which still, four years after opening,
is a two-person operation.
In most hands, a tasting menu is an
ego-driven exercise in commanding at-
tention. At Take Root, its like being
looked after when youre sick. Four
courses come out in quick succession.
Cored Asian pears, stued with chicken-
liver pt; onion tea as rich as French ish table, glasses of sherry arrive; someone
onion soup; beets over hickoried egg yolk
with husk cherries, reminiscent of a walk
in the woodsall stems and smoke and
crunch. Elise brings out a brown paper
bag cradling two rough black jewels. I
remember the rst time I saw a whole
true, and I wanted to give you the same
experience, she says, and winks. Just
kidding. Squid-and-potato croquettes,
with a shit ton of true. Its not your
FD & DRINK
private dinner party, but it almost is. The
echoes of the same joke around the room
are a small price to pay for witnessing a
rened British woman at an adjacent
table exclaim, Waoohh!
And then theres the bread. The bread!
A thick slice of homemade brioche, warm,
with a shiny crust and a pillowy, egg-sweet
interior. Its served with whipped brown
butter. The room really settles. You can
feel it, Elise later says, and it does, like
when the lights are turned down in a
plane cabin. Youre in for the night.
Then kohlrabi, crisp and lunar, layered
with basilan Agnes Martin-worthy
meditation on green. Lobster-and-
cranberry-bean stew is followed by cur-
ried lamb and a cheese plate. Conversa-
tion turns to the pros and cons of
Saugerties versus Hudson and pig-
slaughter parties. Its frozen apple pie
for pre-dessert, and, nally, a coee
parfait with black walnuts, starring Con-
cord grapes that were grown by a neigh-
bor a few blocks away. Over at the Brit-
says, Smells like something thatll get
me in trouble! You stumble out of the
restaurant, the blow of the tab softened
by the parting gift of a glossy chocolate
tart, and glance down at the menu theyve
given as a souvenir. The abbreviated de-
scriptions make as much sense as
scrawled notes about a dream, and that
feels just right. (Tasting menu $125.)
Becky Cooper
1
BAR TAB
The Owl Farm
297 9th St., Brooklyn (718-499-4988)
On a recent Saturday afternoon, Abe walked into
the Owl Farm, naked from the waist down. He had
recently retired from professional racing in Florida,
and the bars regulars knew him well. Women and
men both gravitated toward him. Some patted him
on the head; others gave him a good scratch behind
the ears. What is he? a newcomer asked. Abes
companion replied, A greyhound. At this Park
Slope mainstay, man and canine peacefully co-
existat least while the place isnt too busy, until
around 6 P.M. The Owl Farm takes its name from
Hunter S. Thompsons Colorado ranch, where the
great eccentric once dynamited a station wagon,
and later arranged to have his own ashes fired out
of a cannon. In tribute to Thompson, the bar com-
bines rustic chic with artful dilapidation: a fire-
place, repurposed church pews, walls that appear
bullet-pocked. Wherever you go, scarecrow owl
decoys solemnly watch over you from the shelves
above. That afternoon, a local with a bearish frame
took a slow pull of bourbon and wistfully surveyed
the eclectic menu of rare brews and ciders. Im on
a no-sugar, no-yeast diet, he told the barkeep.
Except whiskey, he said, before surreptitiously
sampling all four items in his companions beer
flight. The grub offerings are meagre, but if youre
hungry you can order the Cuve Alex le Rouge, a
heavy imperial stout brewed with vanilla, Sarawak
black pepper, and Russian tea. For the gluten-free,
theres the Art+Science Wild Perry, made with
foraged Oregon pears. Its hard to say what Thomp-
son would have thought of all this, but theres a
hint in a sign that still hangs at the original Owl
Farm: It never got weird enough for me.
David Kortava
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 29
 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT
ANOTHER ROUND
T the republic. As Daniel Okrent notes in his book Last
he link between alcohol and elections is older than
Call, George Washington won his rst term in the Virginia
House of Burgesses after his campaign supplied the elector-
ate with about half a gallon of rum, punch, hard cider, and
beer for every vote he received. Continuing into the twenti-
eth century, saloons served as ersatz campaign headquarters,
where trades of votes for hooch were common. This sort of
petty corruption has largely faded away, like so many chads
in the wind, but the historical association between voting and
imbibing has rarely seemed more relevant. After the election
of 2016, Americans will need a drink.
History will judge whether this Presidential contest was
the worst ever, but it certainly deserves to be a contender.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump entered the race with
unenviable reputations, which suered further from pro-
longed public exposure. To use a favorite campaign buzz
phrase, this was due, in part, to pervasive false equivalence.
Trump is a serial liar, a shady businessman, a bigot, and a
self-proclaimed abuser of women; Clinton has a sometimes
unsteady relationship with the truth and a faulty devotion to
information security. Media attention focussed almost exclu-
sively on these traits, rather than on, say,
what either might actually do as Presi-
dent. In three debates, the moderators
asked the candidates precisely zero ques-
tions about climate change, which rep-
resents an existential threat to life on
Earth, but did provide a thorough airing
of the fund-raising practices of the Clin-
ton Foundation. In the past fortnight,
ILLUSTRATIONS BY TOM BACHTELL
though, the campaign has taken an even
more bizarre turn, from the personal to
the prosecutorial.
Eleven days before the election, James
Comey, the director of the F.B.I., wrote
a letter to congressional leaders report-
ing that there were new developments in
the investigation of Clintons e-mail prac-
tices. In July, Comey had announced that he would not rec-
ommend any prosecution, but, in his letter of October 28th,
he wrote, In connection with an unrelated case, the FBI has
learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent
to the investigation. That was followed by a cascade of leaks
from the F.B.I., which was a rich irony, since the whole con-
troversy supposedly involved Clintons inability to keep secrets.
The leaks revealed that the F.B.I. had found the e-mails on
computers associated with the former congressman Anthony
Weiner. Comeys letter did not say whether the e-mails im-
plicated Clinton in any wrongdoingagents hadnt even ex-
amined the contents at that pointbut, as any remotely sen-
tient observer could have predicted, his interjection created a
sensation that was damaging to Clintons chances.
The lettera much appreciated gift to the Trump cam-
paignwas outrageous for many reasons, starting with the
fact that Comey violated Department of Justice policy by send-
ing it. As a rule, prosecutors and investigators are supposed to
refrain from oering updates on pending investigations. Their
practice is put-up-or-shut-up; that is, bring formal charges or
say nothing. This custom is especially important in politically
charged cases, and even more signicant in the period before
Election Day. Comey released his letter
not because he had any real information
to impart but, it seems, to placate Repub-
licans in Congress who are disappointed
with his decision not to prosecute the
Democratic nominee. (Comey may also
have been trying to appease a rump group
of right-leaning F.B.I. agents, who are also
unhappy with the exoneration of Clinton.
The leaks are unclear on this point.) For
months, crowds at Trumps rallies have
greeted mention of Clintons name with
shouts of Lock her up! The F.B.I. direc-
tor told them to keep hope alive.
In a broader sense, Comeys letter
reected an evolution of the campaign
and, indeed, of the political moment. Bill
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 31
Clintons Presidency was dened, for the most part, by crim-
inal and congressional investigations. The subjects of those
probes sound like entries in a nineteen-nineties time capsule:
Whitewater, Filegate, Travelgate, the suicide of Vincent Fos-
ter, and, ultimately, Monica Lewinsky. It was clear from the
beginning that these investigations were rooted less in fact-nd-
ing than in score-settling, or, more precisely, in weakening or
even destroying Clintons Presidency. The Republicans suc-
ceeded in staging the second Presidential impeachment in
American history, but Clinton had a lofty approval rating
when his term ended. During the Presidency of Barack Obama,
Republicans seemed generally to recognize the failure of the
investigatory obsession with his Democratic predecessor. Their
most successful attacks on Obama were policy-related, on
issues like health care, slow economic growth, and the end-
less carnage in Syria.
But, with the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, the nineties
came back. Trumps speeches about Crooked Hillary dwell
far more on her purported crimes than on any policy solu-
tions that he might put forth as President. He has vowed to
appoint a special prosecutor to indict, try, and convict his op-
ponent. Congressional Republicans have added their own
ourish, promising an impeachment investigation soon after
her inauguration, if one occurs. As Michael McCaul, the chair-
man of the House Homeland Security Committee, put it,
Assuming she wins and the investigation comes forward, and
it looks like an indictment is pending, at that point in time,
under the Constitution, the House of Representatives would
engage in an impeachment trial. Among Hillary Clintons
pursuers, no one seems to remember, or care, that voters in
her husbands day by and large disdained the investigatory ap-
proach to politics, preferring that their representatives try to
address the actual problems in peoples lives.
It may be that Republicans spent so much time in pursuit
of Bill Clintons scalp because things were mostly going well
otherwise. The economy boomed, and the nation was at peace.
So Congress took a vacation from its responsibilities to inves-
tigate a decade-old Arkansas land deal in which the Clintons
lost money. (Trivia bus will recognize this as Whitewater.)
But real dangers abound in the unstable world of today. The
economy is only tenuously prosperous. And a warming planet,
notwithstanding the lack of interest among debate modera-
tors, threatens apocalyptic change. A politics based on pur-
suit and accusation, rather than on reason and compromise,
will address none of these problems. And the prospect of four
years of governance that resemble the last days of this cam-
paign is one that would drive anyone to drink.
Jerey Toobin

ABOUT FACE who, at Fox, used to scribble on a chalk-
BAD GUYS board while launching into conspira-
torial rants about looming Weimar-
esque hyperination, Barack Obamas
ties to radicals with population-cleans-
ing schemes, and a Marxist-Islamist
cabal itching to take over America. He
once described Clinton as a stereo-
Beck went on, Whats most tragic
about this is us. We have, as a culture,
embraced the bad guys. I love Tony
Soprano. But, when a Tony Soprano
shows up in your life, you dont love
him so much.
Weve made everything into a game
show, he said, and now were reaping

O release of Donald Trumps Tic Tac

ne recent morning, after the
tape and his subsequent mansplana-
tion about locker-room talk, Glenn
Beck clicked on a video of Michelle
Obama campaigning for Hillary Clin-
ton in a New Hampshire gymnasium.
The First Lady ripped into Trumps
comments, calling them disgraceful
and intolerable, and adding, It doesnt
matter what party you belong to
Democrat, Republican, Independent
no woman deserves to be treated this
way. Beck was mesmerized. On his
radio program that day, he heralded
Obamas remarks as the most eec-
tive political speech I have heard since
Ronald Reagan.
Those words hit me where I live,
Beck said the other day. He was speed-
walking up Eighth Avenue with his
wife, son, and daughter, all in from To-
ronto. If youre a decent human being,
those words were dead on.
Decency is a fresh palette for Beck,
32 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
typical bitch and accused Obama of
being a racist with a deep-seated ha-
tred for white people.
That was the old Beck, he insists:
I did a lot of freaking out about Barack
Obama. But, he said,Obama made
me a better man. He regrets calling
the President a racist and counts him-
self a Black Lives Matter supporter.
There are things unique to the Afri-
can-American experience that I can-
not relate to, he said. I had to listen
to them.
Becks interactions with Donald
Trump helped, too. He told a story of
Trump summoning him to a guest room
at Mar-a-Lago; Trump then telephoned
him from an adjacent room. We had
this weird, almost Howard Hughes-
like conversation, Beck said. He left
convinced that Trump was nuts. This
guy is dangerously unhinged, he said.
And, for all the things people have
said about me over the years, I should
be able to spot Dangerously Unhinged.
the consequences of it. Some of this
may be Becks own doing. Trumps con-
spiracy-peddling and doomsaying?
Thats vintage Beck, who said that the
Fourth of July used to move him to
tears. But now, he said, our politicians
and bankers have become crooks, our
wars meaningless, and our values lost.
Im at a Dadaist time in my life, he
said. So much of what I used to be-
lieve was either always a sham or has
been made into a sham. Theres noth-
ing deep.
Beck, who was wearing a cardigan,
a cream-colored scarf, and green pants,
was anked by two bodyguards. The
alt-right sees him as a turncoat. He re-
ceives death threats. These people
scare the hell out of me, he said. Some
of them are his former followers, per-
haps angry at him for disowning their
beliefs while continuing to cash in
on their insecurities. (Becks Web site
still runs ads for goods favored by sur-
vivalistsgold ingots, concealed-gun
harnesses, and food kits called My Pa-
triot Supply.)
At Fifty-fourth Street, he came upon
the Hilton, where, in 1979, his idol,
Ronald Reagan, announced his Presi-
dential bid. (The Gipper was unim-
pressed by the pigeon-crap-encrusted
metropolis.) Reagan didnt believe in
the government, Beck said. He didnt
believe in the party. He believed in the
people.
It was this brand of populism that
he thought Michelle Obama invoked
so well. She didnt say, The govern-
ment should do X, Y, or Z. She said,
We, Uswithout a political party. We radio station Hot 97. Later, while work-
are better. We need to stop this, he ing at Asylum Records, she decided that
said. It had to do with Who are you
as a human being? How do you view
women? Brilliant speech, he said.
That was a moment that transcended
all political thought.
He didnt know who wrote the
speech. I dont want to know, he said.
But that felt real. And if it wasnt?
Were in big trouble.
Nicholas Schmidle
1 Dre asked her to move to L.A. and
COOL KIDS DEPT.
BOOMING
B voters feeling the Bern threatened
ack in March, when millennial
to crush Hillary Clintons Presidential
ambitions, Karen Civil, a thirty-one-
year-old social-media marketer, helped
throw a Clinton rally at the Apollo
Theatre. Rene Elise Goldsberry, a star
of Hamilton, sang the national an-
them. Before the event, Civil posted a
video on her Snapchat account. The
record producer DJ Khaled, a Snap-
chat superstar, has a shtick that in-
volves him asking a friend how his
business is going; the answer is always
Booming! Civil suggested that she
and Clinton copy it. So Civil asked
Clinton, backstage, Hillary, hows busi-
ness? Clinton grinned and replied,
Booming!
I like to take people out of their
element, Civil said the other day, at a
juice bar in downtown Los Angeles.
She wore Chanel sneakers and a pink
baseball cap embroidered with Inspire
or Retire. With Hillary, Ill say, Weve
got to do something funny. Weve got
to do something dierent, even when
we take pictures. We did the dust your
shoulders o a visual reference to
Jay Zs Dirt O Your Shoulderat son, cause I keep that sni all seasons).
the rst rally I did for her in Atlanta.
Civil creates marketing campaigns
for hip-hop artists and music compa-
nies. Growing up in Elizabeth, New
Jersey, she built fan Web sites for the
Backstreet Boys and J. D. Williams, an
actor on The Wire. She dropped out
of community college to intern at the
the brand she really wanted to build
was her own. In 2008, she launched her
Web site, featuring flip-camera inter-
views with up-and-coming rap stars
like Drake and Nicki Minaj.
I wanted it to be a girls point of
view of hip-hop, Civil said. Not about
personal lives or gossip but about the
music: who produced it, when they re-
corded it. Two years later, Beats by
help its marketing department. Beats
is now a client of her marketing agency,
Always Civil Enterprises.
In 2014, the television host Terrence
Jenkins invited Civil to a holiday party
at the White House. (I wanted to take
home a plate, but when Barack started
his talk he said, Make sure you dont
take the china or silverware. So I took
a napkin and a macaroon.) Last year,
Civil spoke at a White House event
for young women activists, and got
on the radar of DeAra Balenger, the
Clinton campaigns director of engage-
ment. From the outset, we were ob-
sessed with Karen, Balenger said. She
invited Civil to critique the campaigns
social-media presence. The good: Clin-
tons old Instagram tagline, Pantsuit
Acionado. The bad: Clintons gen-
eral unhipness.
In September, 2015, Balenger hired
Civil to help make Clinton cooler. Since
then, there has been a noticeable uptick
in rap and R. & B. stars on the periph-
ery of the campaign. Usher attended
the October, 2015, rally that Civil or-
ganized in Atlanta. At a campaign event
in Philadelphia, in August, the rapper
Freeway, whod been diagnosed with
kidney failure, spoke about aordable
health care. We gonna get it poppin
for Hillary, he told the crowd. A few
weeks ago in Florida, Civil helped put
Clintons running mate, Tim Kaine, on-
stage with the rapper Pusha T (sample
lyric: They call me Pusha for one rea-
Afterward, on The Late Show, Ste-
phen Colbert asked Pusha T if he ac-
tually knew Clinton. We met each other
via FaceTime, via Karen Civil, he said.
Karen Civil
As Clinton has got up to speed,
so have campaign elders. Minyon
Moore, a senior adviser who worked
in Bill Clintons White House, said,
With the millennial space, you dont
have to understand it to try and get in-
volved with it.
I just hang with all the young, cool
kids there, Civil said. She mentioned
Balengers boss but struggled to re-
member her name. Its Huma Abedin.
Civil took a sip of beet juice (she
went vegan a year ago). Her phone
buzzed. The rapper Paul Wall wanted
to know if shed be at the opening
of his Houston store. It specializes in
grillz for teeth, and Wall had engraved
a gold one with Civils name for her
birthday, which is on Election Day.
Its really about continuing the leg-
acy that Obama started, Civil said. I
know we still deal with racism and
being divided, but he makes you feel
like this is one nation, with his de-
meanor, his swag. She went on, Its,
like, theres never going to be another
them. But I want somebody to keep
that momentum going.
Sheila Marikar
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 33

1
THIRD PARTY DEPT.
THE BIONIC CANDIDATE
A lar Presidential candidates in mod-
fter watching the least popu-
ern history ght for the countrys high-
est oce, one cant help wondering
whether the problem isnt the political
system but the species itself. Cant we
think bigger? Zoltan Istvan was in town
recently, campaigning as the Presidential
nominee of the Transhumanist Party. He
was on track to appear on the ballot in
zero states. Politicians keep having the
same old arguments about tax policy and
Social Security, he said. Transhuman-
ists want to talk about how science can
help us radically transform the human
experience, how we can cure death and
disease and upload our consciousness into
the cloud, things like that. He was on a
street corner in SoHo. It was raining, but
he had decided to forgo an umbrella; the
spokes can put an eye out, and bionic-eye
implants wont be perfected for at least
ve years.
He ducked into the Housing Works
Bookstore Caf, on Crosby Street, and or-
dered a coee. Istvan is blond, Ken-doll
handsome, and barrel-chested, and the
paper cup looked tiny in his hand. With
Get him! Hes wearing a blazer with a turtleneck!
some of the new robotic-arm prototypes,
you get all kinds of cool functionality, he
said. I could be warming up this cup right
now, just with my ngers. Or you could
add weapons, ashlightslike a Swiss
Army knife. I cant wait to cut o my arm
and get a prosthetic. My wife said shed
only be O.K. with it if it looks and feels
like a human arm, which is understand-
able, I guess. His wife, Lisa, is an ob-gyn.
When they met, on Match.com, Istvan
was an entrepreneur with a small real-es-
tate fortune, living in Marin County. After
they married, he began driving across the
country in a bus shaped like a con, pro-
testing death, while Lisa mostly stayed in
California with their two daughters. Her
attitude toward transhumanism seems to
be one of forbearance at best.
Istvan dragged a chair toward a wall
of science-ction novels. I wrote a sci-
book once, he said. It was an Ayn
Rand-esque manifesto called The Trans-
humanist Wager. He added, I dont talk
about it much these days, because theres
so much authoritarianism in it.
A man with a wild beard and half a
dozen shopping bags got up, and Istvan
moved to claim his table. You a public
speaker or something? the man asked.
Yeah, sort of, Istvan said. Im run- in 2020, Istvan said. Ill just tack a bit
ning for President.
Cool, the man said. Im a lmmaker.
Istvan, who is forty-three, studied phi-
losophy and religion at Columbia. I lived
by myself in Harlem, trying every drug
imaginable, he said. I didnt t in too
well. It took him ve years to nish col-
lege, because he kept leaving to sail around
the world. After graduating, he worked
as a journalist, and in 2003, on assign-
ment in Vietnam, he almost stepped on
a land mine. Nobody wants to die, but
our culture encourages us to accept death,
or to not think about it, he said. Then
you come close to dying, and you go, Why
arent we doing something about this?
He found people on the Internettrans-
humanistswho treated death as a pre-
ventable illness. Since then, Ive been on
a mission to get our government to stop
ghting wars in the Middle East and, in-
stead, ght a war on cancer. He also wants
to prevent deaths by rearmnot by con-
trolling access to guns but by inventing
rst-aid drones that can cauterize wounds.
The best way to promote such ideas,
he gured, was to run for President. I
auditioned to be Gary Johnsons running
mate, he said. I went to New Mexico
and spent twenty-four hours at his house.
We cooked dinner, talked, watched a few
episodes of Orphan Black, slept, then
cooked breakfast and talked some more.
Johnson didnt pick Istvan, but they still
text. Ill probably run as a Libertarian
to the right and do some apologizing.
He took an R train downtown, to meet
a few supporters inside the Oculus, the
futuristic-looking shopping mall at the
World Trade Center. They were easy to
spot: seven young men, many of them
bearded or ponytailed, in a tight circle.
Istvan joined them and handed out Trans-
humanist Party T-shirts (Putting sci-
ence, health, and technology at the fore-
front of American politics).
I consider myself a transhumanist
hip-hop artist, a man who went by
Maitreya One said.
Im a Catholic transhumanist,
Agustn Borrazs, from Uruguay, said.
When Jesus got his new spiritual body,
that was a freaky futuristic thing.
Transhumanism is a way to stop wars,
Anthony Davis, a bike messenger from
the Bronx, said. Wars come from reli-
gion, and religion comes from death.
To anyone under forty-ve, a cam-
paign against death makes intuitive sense,
Istvan said. Its only someone older,
like my dad, who goes, Ugh, who needs
to live forever?
Andrew Marantz
 THE FINANCIAL PAGE
WHATS IN A NAME?
I Robert Young wrote the poet Marianne Moore a curious
n October of 1955, a marketing researcher at Ford named
letter. Ford had designed a new car, which it hoped would
revolutionize the industry, and it was struggling to nd a good
name. Young said that the options his division had come up
with were characterized by an embarrassing pedestrianism.
Perhaps a poet could devise something to convey, through
association or other conjuration, some visceral feeling of
elegance, eetness, advanced features and design. In the
following months, Moore sent Ford a long list of sugges-
tions that were anything but pedestrian: Intelligent Bullet,
Ford Faberg, Mongoose Civique,
Bullet Cloison, Utopian Turtletop.
Ford, unsurprisingly, didnt go for any of
them. Instead, after considering more
than six thousand names, it settled on
one that has since become a byword for
failure: Edsel.
Still, in going to such lengths to nd
a great name, Ford was ahead of the
curve. Corporate branding is now big
business, and companies routinely spend
tens of millions of dollars rebranding
themselves or coming up with names
for new products. And good monikers
are still dened by Youngs precept that
a name should somehow evoke the fun-
damental qualities that you hope to ad-
vertise. If only Tribune Publishingthe
media company that owns the Los An-
geles Times and the Chicago Tribunehad followed this
simple rule. Earlier this year, Tribune announced that it was
reinventing itself as a content curation and monetization
company focused on creating and distributing premium,
veried content (whatever that means) and giving itself a
new name: Tronc. The name, which stands for Tribune On-
line Content, was ridiculed at the time and hasnt done the
company any favors since. Tronc has spent most of the year
in talks about being bought by Gannett for more than half
a billion dollars. Last week, the deal fell through, because of
a lack of nancing. After all, just imagine asking bankers for
half a billion to buy something called Tronc.
There are various ways a corporate name can seem appo-
site. In the case of existing words, connotations are crucial: a
Corvette is a light, speedy attack ship; Tesla was an inventor
of genius. Made-up names often rely instead on resonances
CHRISTOPH NIEMANN
with other words: Lexus evokes luxurious; Viagra conjures vi-
rility and vitality. Bad names bring the wrong associations to
consumers minds. In the nineteen-eighties, United Airlines
tried to turn itself into a diversied travel company called
Allegis. The move was a asco. No less an authority than
Donald Trump (whose faith in brand-name power is total)
said that the name sounded like the next world-class disease.
The phonemes in a name can themselves convey mean-
ing. This idea goes back to Platos dialogue Cratylus. A phi-
losopher called Hermogenes argues that the relationship be-
tween a word and its meaning is purely arbitrary; Cratylus,
another philosopher, disagrees; and Socrates eventually con-
cludes that there is sometimes a connection between mean-
ing and sound. Linguistics has mostly taken Hermogenes
side, but, in the past eighty years, a eld of research called
phonetic symbolism has shown that Cratylus was on to some-
thing. In one experiment, people were shown a picture of a
curvy object and one of a spiky object. Ninety-ve per cent
of those who were asked which of two made-up words
bouba or kikibest corresponded to each picture said that
bouba t the curvy object and kiki the spiky one. Other
work has shown that so-called front-vowel sounds, like the
i in mil, evoke smallness and light-
ness, while back-vowel sounds, as in
mal, evoke heaviness and bigness. Stop
consonantswhich include k and b
seem heavier than fricatives, like s and
z. So George Eastman displayed amaz-
ing intuition when, in 1888, he devised
the name Kodak, on the ground that k
was a strong, incisive sort of letter.
Remarkably, some of these phonemic
associations seem to be consistent across
many languages. Thats good news for
multinationals: research shows that if
customers feel your name is a good t
theyll remember it better and even like
it more. One study found that dark beers
were rated more highly if their brand
name contained a back vowel. Another
one showed that people who ate ice cream
called Frosh (big, creamy vowel sound) liked it better than
people who ate the same ice cream under the name Frish (icy,
watery). On that basis, Hagen-Dazs is a stroke of geniusa
double back vowel emphasized by a nonsensical umlaut.
Over time, corporate naming has developed certain con-
ventions: alliteration and vowel repetition are good. X and
z are held to be memorable and redolent of speed and uid-
ity. The letter x occurs sixteen times as often in drug names
as in other English words; z occurs eighteen times as often.
Perhaps Tronc thought it was being boldly unconventional,
but ignoring rules that may originate in human instinct is
foolish. Tronc wants to seem light, fast, forward-looking, and
unburdened by the media industrys past, but its back-vowel
sound and its leaden k ending sonically convey something
heavy, slow, and dull. Tronc might work as a name for a maker
of heavy machinery or a real-estate companyits freakishly
close to Trump. But as a name for a digital company Tronc
is a mismatch in the Edsel league. Tribune would have been
better o going with Intelligent Bullet.
James Surowiecki
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 35

THE POLITICAL SCENE
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
The Democratic debate about Wall Street.
BY ALEC MacGILLIS
O ton joined Lloyd Blankfein, the
n October 29, 2013, Hillary Clin-
C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, for a dis-
cussion at its Builders and Innovators
Summit, at the Ritz-Carlton Dove
Mountain resort, near Tucson. During
the discussionone of more than fty
appearances for which Clinton received
two hundred and twenty-ve thousand
dollars since leaving the State Depart-
mentshe lamented that the publics
wariness of Wall Street had made it
dicult for top people in nance to
move into government. For one thing,
in order to avoid conicts of interest,
they often faced demands to relinquish
nancial holdings. There is such a bias
This year, a resurgent left has challenged the Party to rexamine its priorities.
36 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
against people who have led successful
and/or complicated lives. You know, the
divestment of assets, the stripping of all
kinds of positions, the sale of stocks
it just becomes very onerous and un-
necessary, she said, according to a tran-
script released last month by WikiLeaks.
That is not the kind of thing that Sen-
ator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts,
likes to hear. Warren supports Clinton,
and has been one of her most eective
advocates during the current campaign,
but she has also made it clear that, if
Clinton is elected, she will closely mon-
itor the people she names to key posts.
On September 21st, in a speech at the
Center for American Progress, a left-of-
center think tank based in Washington,
D.C., Warren said, Personnel is policy.
When we talk about personnel, we dont
mean advisers who just pay lip service to
Hillarys bold agenda, coupled with a
sigh, a knowing glance, and the twid-
dling of thumbs until its time for the
next swing through the revolving door
serving government, then going back to
the very same industries they regulate.
We dont mean Citigroup or Morgan
Stanley or BlackRock getting to choose
who runs the economy in this country
so that they can capture our government.
People with experience in business
or nance are a necessity in Washing-
ton, but the spectre of a privileged ex-
ecutive lite circulating in and out of
government and the private sector
especially Wall Streethas shadowed
the American political system for more
than half a century. The nancial in-
dustry still favors the Republican Party,
but, since the nineteen-nineties, it has
become more closely aliated with the
Democrats, and that has provoked a
resurgent left, led by Warren and by
Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont.
Hillary Clintons own relations with
Wall Street date back to her husbands
Administration, but they grew during
her eight years representing New York
in the U.S. Senate, from 2001 to 2009.
She received more than ve million dol-
lars in Senate campaign contributions
from the nancial industry. She did not
defend the industry as aggressively as
Chuck Schumer, her fellow- senator
from New York, but she also did not
take a lead on reforming it; in 2001, she
voted for bankruptcy legislation favored
by the banks, despite the fact that War-
ren, who was then a bankruptcy-law ex-
pert at Harvard, had counselled her
against it. In this years primaries,
though, Sanderss unexpectedly strong
challenge to Clinton helped prompt her
to adopt tougher stances, such as calls
for a risk fee on the largest banks and
a tax on high-frequency trading.
If Clinton defeats Donald Trump,
she will face a long list of economic
tests to determine the future direction
of the Party, including: what to do about
the more than a trillion dollars that
corporations hold overseas; how to en-
force antitrust laws; how high to raise
the minimum wage; and how to pro-
tect and strengthen the Dodd-Frank
ILLUSTRATION BY BOB STAAKE
nancial reforms. Warren has gone so
far as to present Clinton with a list of
people she would nd acceptable for
top Administration posts. It is known
that she and her allies look favorably
on people such as Sarah Bloom Raskin,
a Deputy Treasury Secretary, and Tom
Perez, President Obamas Labor Sec-
retary. They have also expressed strong
reservations about Laurence Fink, the
C.E.O. of BlackRock; Hamilton James,
the president of the Blackstone Group;
and Blair Eron, the founder of the
investment rm Centerview Partners.
Lately, critics have focussed on
Thomas R. Nides, who is seen as a con-
tender for a prominent position in a
Clinton Administration, possibly even
chief of sta. (Other candidates men-
tioned recently include Ron Klain, Vice-
President Joe Bidens former chief of
sta.) From 2011 to 2013, Nides worked
for Clinton as the Deputy Secretary of
State for Management and Resources.
He has served Democratic Adminis-
trations since the Carter White House,
and is widely admired for his commit-
ment and his judgment, as well as for
his humor and his personal warmth.
But he has also been involved in some
of the major episodes that pulled the
Democrats closer to big business and
to Wall Street. Worse, from the lefts
point of view, is the fact that he spent
most of the past decade as an executive
at Morgan Stanley, a bank that helped
precipitate the 2007-08 nancial crisis,
received a ten-billion-dollar bailout from
the government, then fought eorts to
reform the nancial sector.
To his critics, Nides embodies a po-
litical class whose members success is
no longer just a mark of accomplish-
ment but also a possible detrimenta
sign of disconnect from the vast num-
bers of Americans who have fallen be-
hind in an era of growing inequality.
Activists have described Nides as out
of central casting for the Washington
revolving door, and it was assumed
that when Warren warned against ap-
pointees from Morgan Stanley she
meant Nides.
T born in Duluth, Minnesota, the
om Nides, who is fty-ve, was
youngest of eight children. His moth-
er was a teacher; his father ran a
consumer-loan business, which went
bust in 1971, after being undercut by
a competitor, and he took a job sell-
ing life insurance and investment
products for American Express. Nides
sometimes accompanied him on week-
end sales trips. Nidess friend Bill
Daley, who served as Secretary of
Commerce under Bill Clinton and
was briey President Obamas chief
of sta, told me that seeing his fa-
ther lose it all has been a big driv-
ing motivation in Nidess life. (I spoke
with Nides several times, but he de-
clined to be interviewed for this ar-
ticle. Many of his former colleagues,
however, were eager to speak about
his record.)
Duluth was a Democratic bas-
tionthe unions were strong on the
Lake Superior docksand Nidess
parents instilled in their children the
importance of public service. In 1979,
when Nides was assigned to nd a
speaker for his high-school gradua-
tion, he asked the former Minnesota
senator Walter Mondale, who was
then Jimmy Carters Vice-President.
Nides called Mondales chief of sta,
Mike Berman, a Duluth native, at
ve-thirty in the morning, because
Bermans parents, who were family
friends, had told him that was the best
time to catch him. Mondale agreed
to speak.
The following summer, after Nides
completed his freshman year at the
University of Minnesota, he became
a Mondale intern. Amy Klobuchar,
the senior senator from Minnesota,
who was an intern at the same time,
remembers walking into the Old Ex-
ecutive Oce Building on the rst
day and seeing Nides sitting with his
feet up on a desk, answering the
phone: Tom Nides, Vice-Presidents
Oce. Klobuchar was assigned to
inventory oce furniture, while Nides
managed to secure actual political
work. Among other tasks, he success-
fully acted on a Duluth pizza tycoons
request to save a historic foghorn in
the harbor. Klobuchar laughed as she
recalled Nidess ambition. He always
had this eager, earnest way about him,
she told me.
At the age of twenty-three, Nides
was made the Midwest eld direc-
tor for Mondales 1984 Presidential
campaign. After Ronald Reagan was
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 37

I know it was your idea, but it was my idea to use your idea.
relected, Mondale recommended
Nides to Representative Tony Coelho,
of California, who was the chairman
of the Democratic Congressional
Campaign Committee. Coelho was
working to increase fund-raising from
lobbyists and corporations, who had
traditionally given more to Republi-
cans. Nides was put in charge of guid-
ing a number of House races in the
1986 midterm elections, and the Dem-
ocrats gained ve seats.
A few months later, Coelho was
made House Majority Whip, and Nides
became his liaison with outside inter-
est groupsbusiness, labor, environ-
mental. He also began oering his
boss blunt advice. Coelho has epi-
lepsyhe introduced the Americans
with Disabilities Act in the House
and he started a foundation to raise
money for epilepsy research. Nides
told him that the foundation could be
perceived as a problem if anyone with
interests pending before the House
contributed to it. Coelho was annoyed,
but he shut down the foundation, and
now says of Nidess intervention, I
grew to appreciate that he had the
balls to do it.
Coelho resigned in 1989, amid scru-
tiny of his personal nances (he was
not accused of any criminal wrongdo-
38 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
ing), and Nides went to work as a se-
nior aide to Tom Foley, the Speaker
of the House. In 1993, when Bill Clin-
ton entered the White House, Nides
became the chief of sta for the new
U.S. Trade Representative, Mickey
Kantor, and was assigned to help shep-
herd through Congress the North
American Free Trade Agreement. At
the time, more Republicans than Dem-
ocrats supported the bill, which elim-
inated barriers to trade and invest-
ment between the U.S., Canada, and
Mexico. It was deeply unpopular with
unions, and caused a rift inside the
Administration, but Clinton wanted
to burnish the Democrats pro-busi-
ness credentials. Nidess task was to
get it passed, not to engage on its mer-
its. It was This is what the President
wants, Bill Daley told me.
Within a year, NAFTA had been ap-
proved by both houses of Congress,
and Clinton signed it into law in De-
cember, 1993. The agreement vastly
expanded commerce with Mexico,
but many on the left and the right
blame it for the gutting of U.S. man-
ufacturing (even though economists
tend to tie that decline more directly
to automation and to competition with
China.) Perhaps as a reection of that
response, Hillary Clinton, who pub-
licly supported NAFTA as First Lady,
last year came out against the latest
proposed major trade agreement, the
Trans-Pacic Partnership. The shift
within the Democratic Party irks Kan-
tor, who told me, Weve now decided
that nafta is the culprit for every-
thing, including the common cold.
M and Washington is as old as the
ovement between Wall Street
republic: Alexander Hamilton, after
serving in the Continental Congress
and before becoming Secretary of the
Treasury, founded the Bank of New
York. It has long been identied with
Republicans, the traditional party of
business, but it became more com-
mon among Democrats during the
Second World War, when business-
men of both parties were brought into
government. Herbert Lehman, a lib-
eral Democrat and a partner in Leh-
man Brothers, his familys investment
rm, succeeded Franklin Roosevelt as
governor of New York, before direct-
ing the State Departments foreign-
relief eort, and then served in the
Senate. Robert Lovett, a Republican,
was an executive with the investment
bank Brown Brothers Harriman, then
served as a deputy to General George
Marshall and as Harry Trumans Sec-
retary of Defense, and helped create
NATO and the C.I.A. Lovett was one
of the so-called foreign-policy Wise
Men, a term that captured how be-
nignly Wall Street-Washington trac
was viewed in that era.
Following the war, the economic
boom and the growth of the regula-
tory state created during the New
Deal accelerated movement between
the two realms. John F. Kennedy ap-
pointed C. Douglas Dillon, a former
investment banker, to be Secretary
of the Treasury. Lyndon Johnsons
Treasury Secretary, Henry Fowler, was
recruited to join Goldman Sachs. For
the Republican Party, the transfers
became so predictable that few peo-
ple objected when Donald Regan,
the C.E.O. of Merrill Lynch, be-
came Ronald Reagans Treasury Sec-
retary, or when Senator Phil Gramm,
of Texas, was named vice-chairman
of the investment-bank division of
U.B.S., or when George W. Bush ap-
pointed the Goldman Sachs C.E.O.
Henry Paulson to be Treasury Secretary.
But, after NAFTA, Democrats be-
came sensitive to the charge that they
were abandoning their roots. The ten-
ure of Robert Rubin, the former
Goldman Sachs executive whom Pres-
ident Clinton named Treasury Sec-
retary in 1995, and who went on to
earn a hundred and twenty-six mil-
lion dollars at Citigroup, was so con-
troversial that Rubinite remains a
term of opprobrium in liberal circles.
Rubin and his successor, Lawrence
Summers, pushed for several policies
that benetted Wall Street. The most
signicant were thwarting an attempt
to regulate nancial derivatives and
repealing the Glass-Steagall Act, which
separated commercial and investment
banking. Rubin did oppose welfare
reform and the 1997 capital-gains tax
cut, but his progressive measures tend
to go unmentioned in the lefts cri-
tique of him.
The unease about people moving
between commerce and government
springs from a concern that, subcon-
sciously or not, they will act in the
interests of their former and perhaps
future employers. (Economists call
this cognitive capture.) It also often
comes with a value judgmenta
sense that theres something unseemly
about government employees proting
from their experience. For years, it
was argued that government work is
undervalued, at least nancially, and
so people could only really aord
public-sector jobs if they occasion-
ally made private-sector salaries. That
case was hard to put across convinc-
ingly, though, since federal salaries
were far higher than the American
median.
But in recent years Washington
has become a much more expensive
place to live: the median value of a
house there has more than quadru-
pled since 2000, while a top federal
salary is less than two hundred thou-
sand dollars a year. Prices have been
driven up, in part, because high-
ranking professionals in the private
sector earn so much more than they
used to. Data compiled by Daniel
Markovits, a professor at Yale Uni-
versitys School of Law, show that a
member of Congress who became a
lobbyist in 1960 earned about the
same as he had in government. Today,
he or she can easily expect to make
ten times as much.
B Nides had been in Washington for
y 1993, when NAFTA was passed,
a decade. He had recently married Vir-
ginia Moseley, a TV news producer,
and they were planning a family. In
1994, he left the government and joined
the Federal National Mortgage Asso-
ciation, better known as Fannie Mae.
The association was created as part of
the New Deal, to help expand home
ownership by buying mortgages from
lenders, to allow them to make addi-
tional loans. It became a publicly traded
corporation, but its credit was backed
by the government. This gave it a big
advantage over private competitors, and
people with contacts in Congress or
the Administration were highly prized.
In the nineteen-nineties, Fannie Mae
hires included Robert Zoellick, a for-
mer U.S. Trade Representative; Jamie
Gorelick, a former Deputy Attorney
General; and Tom Donilon, a former
Assistant Secretary of State for Pub-
lic Aairs, who later became President
Obamas national-security adviser. The
C.E.O. was James Johnson, a Minne-
sotan who had chaired Walter Mon-
dales 1984 campaign. Nides was hired
as a vice-president, responsible for
opening branches around the country
in an eort to increase home owner-
ship among racial minorities and
low-income families.
Meanwhile, John Mack, a colorful
former Duke football player whom
Nides had come to know when he
worked for Tony Coelho, became the
C.E.O. of Morgan Stanley. (Mack is
a Republican, but he had sought Coel-
hos help in unseating his congress-
manalso a Republicanwho had re-
fused to oppose the construction of a
delivery warehouse near Macks neigh-
borhood, in Westchester County.) In
the spring of 1996, Mack persuaded
Nides to move to New York to be Mor-
gan Stanleys head of corporate aairs
and government relations. Nides ex-
celled at the work, but he and his wife
didnt like life in the city, and a year
later he returned to Washington and a
new job at Fannie Mae.
Nides was made vice-president of
human resources. At the time, Fannie
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 39
Maes executives were pushing for
higher compensation. The pay system
was based on stock performance, but
the executives wanted to base it on earn-
ings per share. Nides made the switch,
and the new system proved highly
lucrative. Franklin Raines, who left
the Clinton Administration to succeed
Johnson as C.E.O., in 1999, collected
ninety million dollars in six years, fty-
two million of it tied to earnings-based
incentives. But the system also spurred
Fannie Mae to emphasize short-term
earnings gains over long-term stability.
They had a fortress mind-set, and
thought they were a damn sight better
than everyone, Karen Shaw Petrou, a
banking-policy analyst, told me. They
looked at it as If I were working on
Wall Street, my pay would be triple. It
wasnt Im making more than I would
be elsewhere in Washington.
One of the ways that Fannie Mae
managed to increase short-term earn-
ings was to relax the credit require-
ments for the mortgages it was buying
from other lenders. By 2007, Fannie
Mae and its sibling, Freddie Mac, had
acquired billions of dollars in subprime
loans, for which they had to be bailed
out, a year later, with a hundred and
eighty-seven billion dollars of taxpayer
money. Many Fannie Mae executives
were called to answer for their role in
the nancial crisis, but Nides was not
he had left in 2000, to be Joe Lieber-
mans chief of sta during the Presi-
dential campaign. Gorelick, who served
as Fannie Maes vice-chair during
Nidess tenure, said, Its one mark of
how skillful he is that it hasnt really
aected him. She added, Hes hard
not to like.
F it was rare to nd a top Wall Street
or most of the past hundred years,
executive who hadnt come from the
trading oor or worked with corporate
clients. The exception was the consigliere
role, which was typically lled by an in-
stitutions general counsel. That pattern
began to change as the nancial sector
expandedby 2006, it held three times
as big a share of the economy as it had
in 1950and the industrys stake in
government policymaking became more
clear. Banks and other businesses began
spending much more on lobbying; the
total amount more than doubled be-
tween 2000 and 2010, to $3.52 billion.
They awarded bonuses to executives
who left to take high-level positions in
government, providing an incentive to
get allies in place there. And they promoted
people with strong ties to government.
For Goldman Sachs, John F. W. Rog-
ers, who served as an Under-Secretary
of State in George H. W. Bushs Ad-
ministration, was that power player. For
John Mack, it was Tom Nides.
After the 2000 election, Nides went
to work again for Mack, who was then
the C.E.O. of Credit Suisse. In his
role as chief global administrator,
Nides oversaw more than two thou-
sand employees in the divisions of cor-
porate communications, human re-
sources, and government relations. This
time, he commuted twice weekly from
Washington, where he and his wife
bought a six-bedroom home in the
auent neighborhood of Spring Val-
ley. Nides referred to it as the house
that Mack built.
In 2005, he kept up the commute as
he followed Mack back to Morgan Stan-
ley. Critics note that he arrived just as
the rm was running up outsized prots
from loans it had bought from New
Century, one of the leading subprime
lenders in the country. In December,
2007, Morgan Stanley suered an un-
precedented, nine-billion-dollar loss in
a single trading unit. Then, in Septem-
ber of 2008, after Lehman Brothers de-
clared bankruptcy, hedge-fund manag-
ers targeted Morgan Stanleys stock in
a devastating short-selling run, betting
on its collapse.
As Andrew Ross Sorkin tells it in
Too Big to Fail, Nides pushed Mack
to appeal to federal ocials for a ban
on short selling, saying, Weve got to
shut these assholes down! He set up
calls for Mack with the S.E.C. and the
Treasury Department, as well as with
Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck
Schumer. On Friday, September 19th,
the S.E.C. announced a temporary ban
on short selling, infuriating hedge-fund
managers, who saw it as political favor-
itism that interrupted the natural course
of the markets.
Less than two months later, Barack
Obama won the Presidency, and the ten-
sions within the Democratic Party were
brought into the open.The crisis prompted
calls for an overhaul of the nancial
sector from people such as Elizabeth
Warren, who, after making her name
as an expert in bankruptcy law, was se-
lected to chair the Congressional Over-
sight Panel, which reviewed the govern-
ments bailout program. But Obama
had many supporters on Wall Street, and
his advisers, notably his Treasury Secre-
tary, Timothy Geithner, cautioned that
cracking down too drastically would im-
peril the recovery.
John Mack stepped back from his re-
sponsibilities, but his successor as C.E.O.,
James Gorman, asked Nides to stay on.
Nidess government-relations team in
Washington, along with its counterparts
at other Wall Street rms, successfully
resisted calls to break up the banks or
impose caps on their size. They also took
on the Dodd-Frank Act, proposed by
the new Democratic majority in Con-
gress, which aimed to rein
in risky behavior by the
nancial sector, protect con-
sumers, and prevent future
crises. Liberals championed
Dodd-Frank as the great-
est regulatory overhaul since
the New Deal. But the -
nancial sector chipped away
at the bills Volcker rule
which set limits on the pro-
prietary trading that had generated the
huge lossesand at the regulations for
derivatives. Dennis Kelleher, a Demo-
cratic Senate staer at the time, who
now leads a nancial-reform group, said
that the banks didnt want any limita-
tions on trading.
Nides oversaw the eorts not only in
his capacity at Morgan Stanley but as
the chairman (a rotating role) of the Se-
curities Industry and Financial Markets
Association, a Wall Street trade group.
He mostly avoided direct contact with
lawmakers and regulators, indicating that
he understood the need for reform, while
suggesting milder alternatives. He was
careful, Greg Fleming, a former Mor-
gan Stanley executive, told me. Hed say,
Given what youre trying to accomplish,
this would be the better way to go.
When Dodd-Frank passed, in July,
2010, the results were plain. Many ex-
emptions were built into the Volcker
rule, such as allowing oshore trading
and trading in government securities,
and the law left many of the new lim-
its on derivatives to be dened by reg-
ulators, giving the industrys lobbyists
more time to weaken them. The deriv-
atives market has since become more
transparent, but it is also more concen-
trated among the biggest banks than it
was before the crisis.
Between 2008 and 2010, Nides re-
ceived seventeen million dollars in com-
pensation. This made it possible for
him to buy a condominium in Sun Val-
ley, Idaho, a few doors down from his
former boss Mickey Kantor, who had
returned to corporate law. It also made
it possible for Nides to consider a re-
turn to public service.
I came Secretary of State, one of the
n 2009, when Hillary Clinton be-
two deputies she hired was Jack Lew,
who had been a budget negotiator
for Bill Clintons Administration, be-
fore spending several years
at Citigroup, as part of a
proprietary- trading unit
that bet heavily on the hous-
ing market. (When he left,
Citigroup gave him a nine-
hundred-and-forty-ve-
thousand-dollar bonus.)
In July of 2010, Obama
selected Lew to be his next
budget director, and Lew
suggested to Clinton that she hire Nides
to be his replacement.
Clinton had not known Nides well
when he worked in her husbands Ad-
ministration, but he had supported and
raised money for her 2008 Presiden-
tial campaign. (He has given more than
a hundred and fty thousand dollars
to candidates over the years.) He had
no foreign-policy experience, but he
won over career diplomats with his joc-
ular informality. As Melanne Verveer,
then the ambassador for global wom-
ens issues, told me, He can endear
himself in situations where someone
viewed as a great authority or extremely
formidable cannot make the connec-
tions that he can.
Nides was engaged in economic
statecraftpersuading companies to
invest in trouble spots such as Iraq,
and promoting U.S. companies around
the world. He became Clintons infor-
mal link to the Israeli government and
to the pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
He played a leading role in the fraught
eort to scale back the State Depart-
ments presence in Iraq. He sat in for
the department in the Situation Room.
And, after twenty-four Pakistani sol-
diers were killed in a U.S.-led air strike
on the border with Afghanistan, he
took charge of the delicate negotia-
tions with Pakistan to reopen NATO
supply lines to Afghanistan. Nides was
the king of getting shit done, Dan
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 41
Feldman, the former special represen-
tative to Afghanistan and Pakistan,
told me.
Then, in September of 2012, the
U.S. consulate in Benghazi was at-
tacked, and four Americans, including
Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were
killed. It was two months before the
Presidential election, and Republicans
were in an uproar over the lapse in se-
curity procedures. Clinton put Nides
and her other deputy, Bill Burns, in
charge of a review of department pol-
icy. Clinton and Nides had developed
a trusting rapport by then; shortly after
the attacks, he invited her to a private
dinner in New York with John Mack
and his wife; she initially accepted,
then declined.
In December, as Clinton was pre-
paring to testify about the attacks be-
fore Congress, and recovering from
the u, she fell and hit her head. She
asked Nides and Burns to testify in
her place, and they did so, just before
Christmas. The next month, Nides
prepared Clinton for her rescheduled
testimony. It was a ve-hour ordeal, in
which Clinton was considered to have
bested even the most persistent ques-
tioners. Afterward, Nides e-mailed
her, Ok I hate to admit this but u did
a better job than me! Really great.
Couldnt have done it without you,
Clinton replied.
Clinton left the State Department
in February of 2013, and Nides returned
to Morgan Stanley, as a vice-chairman.
That April, she spoke at a dinner that
the rm was hosting at the Library of
Congress for some corporate clients.
The format was a Q. & A. with Nides,
who focussed mostly on Clintons ten-
ure as Secretary of State. She opened
by thanking James Gorman for lend-
ing her Nides. There was a bit of a
culture shock at rst, she joked. You
should have seen his face when he
learned there were no stock options at
the State Department. But he soon not
only settled in very nicely, he became
positively enthusiastic when I told him
we did have our own plane.
Nidess new position at Morgan
Stanley entailed fewer operational re-
sponsibilities, and this raised specula-
tion on the left that he was biding his
time until the 2016 election. During
the past three years, he has raised more
42 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
than a hundred thousand dollars for
Clintons campaign; been quoted oc-
casionally, as a close adviser; and, as
Clintons emissary, met with foreign
dignitaries on their visits to the States.
W revealed the depth of populist
ell before the 2016 campaign
resentment, on both the right and the
left, Elizabeth Warren was stirring
dissatisfaction within the Democratic
Party. In 2009, she had clashed with
Tim Geithner over the bailouts, and,
after winning election to the Senate,
in 2012, upbraided banking regulators
in her rst appearance with the Bank-
ing Committee. In late 2014, she sig-
nalled that she would oppose President
Obamas nomination of Antonio Weiss,
a senior investment banker at Lazard,
as the Under-Secretary for Domestic
Finance, a key post in the Treasury De-
partment. The Administration with-
drew the nomination and brought
Weiss on in an informal role.
During the campaign, Clintons ad-
visers, fearing that Warren would en-
dorse Bernie Sanders, debated how
much Clinton should distance herself
from Wall Street. She had collected
more than four million dollars in speak-
ing fees from banks since leaving the
State Department, and she didnt seem
to understand the perception problem.
In April of 2015, her campaign man-
ager, Robby Mook, had to persuade
Bill Clinton to cancel a paid speech to
Morgan Stanley that was scheduled
for just a few days after Hillary an-
nounced her candidacy.
Not all Democrats approve of War-
rens self-appointed role as the Partys
moral arbiter. If you hire people with
integrity and intelligence, I dont think
theyre prisoners of their backgrounds,
Larry Summers told me. The simplis-
tic association of past experience with
current convictions I dont think is par-
ticularly supported by available evi-
dence. Summers had a personal stake
in the debate: in 2013, his work for a
hedge fund was partly responsible for
undermining his candidacy for the
chairmanship of the Federal Reserve,
as he faced opposition from Warren,
among others.
Some progressives say that they are
not necessarily opposed to people who
have held positions in the nancial
industry. They usually mention Gary
Gensler, who worked for many years
at Goldman Sachs, and then, in 2009,
under President Obama, became an
aggressive regulator at the helm of the
Commodity Futures Trading Commis-
sion. And there are those who make
allowances for Antonio Weiss, noting
that Lazard is not as politically en-
meshed as the big banks, and that he
would have brought to the Treasury
Department expertise in the function-
ing of capital markets.
Walter Mondale, who is still a Nides
admirer, told me, Just because some-
ones been active in the business com-
munity, that hes suspect because of
that, I dont agree with that at all. If
you know Tom, you would never con-
sider these complaints valid. Mon-
dales former chief of sta, Mike Ber-
man, said, Its a bunch of horseshit.
Liberal Democrats Ive known and
grown up with, weve all gone out and
worked, and the day we give that up
were back with the campaign and what-
ever the government is.
Amy Klobuchar says that Nides has
told her that we need a fairer Amer-
ica. In a 2011 interview with The Street,
he said, I think Ive worked pretty
hard; I think Im a pretty honest guy;
I think Ive got decent values, but am
I going to say, Oh, my God, Im worth
every dime everyones paid me? Thats
ridiculous. None of these people are,
including myself. But Barney Frank,
the former Democratic congressman
who, despite having co-authored Dodd-
Frank, is not opposed to former Wall
Street executives working in Washing-
tontold me that, in a friendly debate
that he and Nides have conducted in
recent years, Nides has vigorously de-
fended Wall Street compensation: He
said, These are extremely talented peo-
ple who do valuable work.
Ultimately, the question of how the
Party regards people like Nides goes
beyond what he has or hasnt said about
his success. His competence is indisput-
able, but the debate centers on the ends
to which his abilities and those of other
Democrats in the Washington-Wall
Street nexus have been put over the
years. A party reanimated by the issue
of inequality now has to confront the
role that some of its leading members
have played in expanding it.

SHOUTS & MURMURS
BREAKING UP WITH
YOUR PARENTS
BY CORA FRAZIER
M
ommy and Daddy:
This just isnt working out.
I feel like our relationship is stiing
me creatively and personally. Ive dis
covered this with the help of the expen
sive weekly therapy that you pay for.
Youre probably wondering why I
havent texted you for two days seeking
reassurance that its O.K. to ask my
roommate to help clean her cats vomit
o the oor, or that I will be the richest
and most famous writer ever, and you
will mail one of your copies of the 1998
Northwestern Childrens Literary Review
to anyone who thinks otherwise.
It really wasnt anything you did.
Weve had some wonderful times to
gether. Youve changed my diaper on
the side of the highway, explaining your
self to a state trooper while holding a
container of baby wipes in one hand
and a full diaper in the other. After I
had my rst ballet recital, you oered
vaguely supportive comments without
explicitly lying. You let me wear my rst
twopiece tankini bathing suit under
my clothes for several days before sug
gesting that we wash it. You let me eat
ANTONY HUCHETTE
PopTarts, but never PopTarts with
frosting. When you walked in on me
rubbing myself against the Ashton
Kutcher shrine in my bedroom, you im
mediately closed the door and apolo
gized profusely. You accepted me during
the brief time I wore a cape and wanted
to be called The Great Ba Di Di, Prince
of Toilets.
And then the honeymoon period
ended. Its hard to pin down how these
things changeoften they happen in
unnoticeable shifts. Was it when I turned
eighteen, left your house, and began col
lege? Was it when I graduated from col
lege and moved to New York City? Was
it when I was approaching thirty and
got engaged to someone else? I dont
know. Youve probably felt it, too.
Of course Im sad. Of course it hurts.
I know nothing will ever be like what
we hadnothing could ever compare,
you must know that. My anc has a
job. Hes not going to walk past Paxon
Elementary every day at recess to make
sure I havent taken o my orthopedic
back brace and hidden it. He will be
confused if I pretend not to know him
at the pizza place when a group of cool
teens walks in. He will be less forgiv
ing if I accidentally hook his eyebrow
with a crazy wide cast while we are
shing. He wont take me to McDon standing, shouting, Bingo!, and danc
alds as a reward for going to church.
He doesnt go to church. He doesnt
eat McDonalds.
He expects advice from me. He ex
pects me to pay attention to the direc
tions when we are driving somewhere,
no matter how sleepy or hungry or full
I feel. He expects me not to walk away
from people who are talking to me be
cause I am bored and see a cat with a
weird eye. He expects gifts other than
the huge cardboard head of George
Washington that my brother and I
bought for two dollars as a joke.
Im sure youll have your own per
spective on the relationship, and youll
want to respondI expected that. Youll
say, Thats ne, sweetie, we love and
support you no matter what. Youll say,
Do you know yet when youre coming
for Easter? I want to make sure we have
enough beds. Youll say, I saw that you
called several times. I was at book group.
Whats up, honey? I hear you, I do. But
know that my mind is made up.
We can still be friends, of course.
Id like that. In a way, nothing has
changed. I can still call you to ask for
any factual information I might need
to know, instead of simply Googling
it. I can still come to your house and
expect all my favorite foods to be in
the fridge. I can still take any of your
clothing, makeup, nice lotions, or valu
able jewelry without asking for it or
telling you that Ive taken it, causing
you to worry more than usual that youre
starting to lose your mind. I can still
text you late at night, tipsy, alone in a
cab: Hey. I think about you every day.
And of courseit goes without say
ingI will always come into your bed
early on Saturday morning, jump up
and down, hit you and myself with pil
lows until I collapse, exhausted, and
need to be carried downstairs for car
toonwatching. And I will always have
a lot of specic questions about San
tas life.
And who knows? Maybe one day
well see each other across a room oer
ing bingo, crowded with metal walk
ers and freestanding breathing ma
chines, and youll say, Cora, we never
thought wed see the day . . . And I
will say, I did. Oh, I did. And when
I winwhich you may have allowed
to happen, just like old timesand Im
ing, waving my board in victory, you
will stare at me with tearful smiles and
say, You make us so proud.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 43
 FPO

44 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016

 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 45
FPO
A food line: People can wait for hoursor all dayand still go home with nothing. The economy is in ruins. Full-scale food riots
48 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
 LETTER FROM VENEZUELA

A FAILING STATE
Food shortages in a land of plenty.

BY WILLIAM FINNEGAN

sometimes break out. Rice, pasta, sugar, cooking oil, bread, coee. We produce these things. Or used to. Now they all require lines.
PHOTOGRAPH BY OSCAR B. CASTILLO
T
he medical student told me
to use his name. He said he
didnt care. Maduro is a don-
key, he said. An asshole. He meant
Nicols Maduro, the President of Ven-
ezuela. We were passing through the
wards of a large public hospital in Va-
lencia, a city of roughly a million peo-
ple, a hundred miles west of Caracas.
The hallways were dim and stiing,
thick with a frightening stench. Some
were full of patients waiting silently in
long lines outside exam rooms. Oth-
ers were dark and deserted, with the
overhead lighting ripped out. The med-
ical student, lithe and light-haired, kept
us moving, peering through swinging
doors, conferring with colleagues in
blue scrubs.
We ducked into a room stued with
rusted bed frames and dirty plastic bar-
rels, where in a corner a thin young
man was propped on a bed without
sheets. He watched us weakly. A young
woman in a pink T-shirt stood beside
him, rigid with surprise. The medical
student gently asked if they would an-
swer my questions. The young man
nodded. His name was Nestor. He was
twenty-one. This was his wife, Grace.
Three weeks earlier, he had been am-
bushed on his motorbike and shot three
times, in the chest and the left arm.
They were going to shoot me again, robbery?
but one of the malandrosbad guys
said I was already dead. They took
my motorbike. Nestor spoke slowly,
his voice uninected. His skin was
waxy. The wounds to his arm and chest
were uncovered, half healed, dark with
dried blood. There was a saline drip
in his right arm and, at the foot of his
bed, an improvised contraption, made
from twine and an old one-litre plas-
tic bottle, whose purpose I couldnt
gure out.
Did the hospital provide the saline?
No. Grace brought it. She also
brought food, water, and, when she
could nd them, bandages, pain med-
ication, antibiotics. These things were
available only on the black market, at
high prices, and Graces job, in a ware-
house, paid less than a dollar a day.
The hospital doesnt even give
water, the medical student said. He
was watching the hallway. He studied
Nestor briey. The lungs ll with liq-
uid after someone is shot in the tho-
rax, he told me. We usually take the
bullet out if we can. But, either way,
the wounds need to be drained.
Were the police investigating the
Nestor looked down. The navet
of the question left it beneath reply.
Venezuela has, by various measures, the
worlds highest violent-crime rate. Less
than two per cent of reported crimes
are prosecuted.
We had to go, the medical student
said. Grace and Nestor thanked us,
though we had done nothing for them.
The medical student was worried about
what he called spies. He had smug-
gled me into the hospital through a
broken back door. The regular entrances
to the hospital were all manned by uni-
formed personnel with riesNational
Guard, mostly, but also police, both
local and national, and other, less iden-
tiable militia. Hospitals in Caracas
were even more tightly secured. Why
were hospitals so heavily guarded? No-
body threatened to invade them. The
guards had orders, it was said, to keep
out journalists. Exposs had embar-
rassed the government.
Most of the elevators were out of
order, so we took the stairs. At night,
the medical student said, these stair-
wells were dangerousunlit and
prowled by muggers. But how could
muggers get past the guards? They
work together, he said. They share.
He took me down a grimy corridor
to a heavy door, which he cracked
open. Beyond it, I could see a gleam-
ing, brightly lit hallway with freshly
painted light-blue walls and a pol-
ished white tile oor. This is the area
they show visitors, he whispered. He
peered at me to make sure I under-
stood. Got it: Potemkin General. We
hurried away.
I was introduced to a surgeon, who
took me outside to speak. We stood
under a tin roof, near piles of garbage
and a deserted loading dock. The sur-
geon was bearded, heavyset, nervous.
He looked exhausted. He did not want
me to know his name, let alone use it.
We have no basic trauma tools, he
said. Sutures, gloves, pins, plates. He
ran down a list of unavailable medi-
cations, including ciprooxacin, an
all-purpose antibiotic, and clindamy-
cin, a cheap antibiotic. The doctors
lost surgical patients because they had
no adrenaline. They could still do some
types of blood tests, but they could no
longer test for hepatitis or H.I.V./AIDS.
The electricity supply was a problem.
At one stage, the operating room had
been closed for a week. The waiting list
for surgery was now three months. In
Maracaibo, a major city farther west,
surgeons had been reduced to operat-
ing by cell-phone ashlight.
The surgeon headed back inside.
Doctors had been red, I knew, for
talking to reporters, even for simply
ling complaints about hospital con-
ditions. The government did not want
to know. There were private clinics to
which high ocials and Venezuelans
with dollars took themselves and
their families. Those who could went
abroad.
Ive seen public hospitals in Chile
and Argentina, the medical student
said. Theyre clean, ne, ecient, like soldiers, militares, were notoriously
they used to be here. Were going back-
ward. All because of this government!
Public health in Venezuela is, in fact,
getting rapidly worse. In 1961, Vene-
zuela was the rst country declared free
of malaria. Now its robust malaria-
prevention program has collapsed, and
there are more than a hundred thou-
sand cases of malaria yearly. Other dis-
eases and ailments long vanquished
have also returnedmalnutrition, diph-
theria, plague. The government releases
few statistics, but it is estimated that
one out of every three patients admit-
ted to a public hospital today dies there.
State mental hospitals, lacking both
food and medications, have been re-
duced to putting emaciated, untreated
patients out on the streets.
We circled the hospital grounds, fol-
lowing a tin-roofed walkway. It was a
dim, greasy day, raining lightly. We
came upon a long, narrow encamp-
ment: families who had strung ham-
mocks between the posts of the walk-
way or laid mattresses on the concrete,
out of the rain. There were bags, bas-
kets, baby strollers. People seemed to
be camped long term.
A dark-skinned man in a hammock
said that he had been there for three
months. His four-year-old son was in
the hospital with a low blood-platelet
count. Viral infection, the medical
student told me. Maybe Zika, or den-
gue. If he gets the right meds, hell
survive. He asked the man, whose
name was Jos, about blood tests.
Jos said that he had raised the forty
dollars for the tests, partly by beg-
ging on buses, after losing his job.
Now he needed money for medicines,
none of which the pharmacies had in
stock. We must buy from the maa,
he said. He meant the black market,
but not just the ubiquitous
proteers known as bacha
queros. The medical stu-
dent understood. Some of
the security forces that
were deployed, or self-
deployed, to the hospital
were in the medical-supply
business.
The overstaed en-
trancesall the military
and police uniforms and repower
began to make more sense. Cops and
underpaid. There was money to be
made here. We talked to other fami-
lies camped on the walkway, and on
concrete benches under an awning
closer to the hospital buildings. Some
people were surprisingly outspoken.
They denounced the prices charged
for examinations (in a system of sup-
posedly free health care), the corrup-
tion, the intimidation, the outrageous
prices for sterile gauze, saline, food
(when there was food), and medica-
tions. Some militares had the nerve to
accuse the families of proteering, and
to seize their hard-won supplies when
they tried to enter the hospital. These
were items that, often, they had bought
from other militares, who had looted
them from pharmacies, or from ship-
ments meant for hospitals. The worst
actors were the colectivos, gangs of bar-
rio toughs armed by the government
and deputized as defenders of the
revolution. Their main activity, as
runaway ination and food rationing
gripped the country, was shaking down
and monitoring their neighborhoods,
but they found opportunities around
hospitals and seemingly answered to
no one. (Some colectivos could trace
their descent to urban guerrillas from
the sixties who had never disarmed.)
A young woman in a wheelchair
had been shot in the leg in a robbery,
and was unable to get the pain re-
liever she needed. But that wasnt why
she was out here. She was looking
after her mother, who was in the hos-
pital. The young woman taught pri-
mary school, and her students came
to school hungry, and she had some
choice things to say about President
Maduro. Use my name, she said. She
wasnt afraid. But I didnt want to
put more than her rst name in my
notes. If guards or the col
ectivos saw my notebooks,
they might be seized.
T defended is usually
he revolution being
known, in Venezuela, as
Chavismo, for its chief pro-
tagonist, Hugo Chvez,
who was the countrys Pres-
ident from 1999 until his
death, in 2013. For decades, the coun-
try had been ruled by two centrist par-
ties that took turns winning elections
but were increasingly out of touch with
voters. A move to impose scal auster-
ity was rejected, in 1989, with a mass
revolt and countrywide lootinga par-
oxysm known as the Caracazowhich
was put down by the Army at a cost of
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.
Chvez was an Army lieutenant colo-
nel, from a humble backgroundhis
parents were village schoolteachers. He
crashed the national stage in 1992, by
leading a military-coup attempt. The
coup failed, and Chvez went to jail,
but his televised declarations of noble
intent caught the imaginations of many
Venezuelans. He oered a charismatic
alternative to the corrupt, sclerotic sta-
tus quo. After his release, he headed a
small leftist party and easily won the
Presidency.
He soon rewrote the constitution,
concentrating power in the executive.
Like his hero, Simn Bolvar, the Ven-
ezuelan leader who drove the Spanish
out of South America, he had regional
ambitions. He used Venezuelas oil
wealth, which is vast, to help cement
a close alliance with Cuba and then
with a number of other neighbors in
South America, Central America, and
the Caribbean, creating a strategic and
economic bloc to counter the traditional
hegemony of the United States.
Chvez was a telegenic populist with
a gift for electioneering. He mesmer-
ized the country with his Sunday TV
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 51
show, Hello, President!, on which he
railed for hours on end against his op-
ponents, particularly the countrys tra-
ditional business lites and imperialist
Washington, told jokes and stories,
sang, extolled the achievements of his
Bolivarian Revolution, and issued de-
crees, some of them consequential
the expropriation of a factory, the con-
signment of ten military battalions to
the Colombian border. He even took
to TV to order the jailing of a judge
who had released a hated enemy. (In
the case of the judge, the enemy was a
banker who had been in jail awaiting
trial for three years, which was longer
than the law allowed, and the judge
herself then spent three and a half years
in jailwhere her lawyer says she was
rapedand under house arrest. Al-
though she has never been tried, she
is still forbidden to speak to the press
or leave Venezuela.)
Chvez propped up the Cuban
economy with cheap oil, and in return
the Cubans sent thousands of doctors,
to help start a network of health clin-
ics. After Chvez barely survived a
2002 coup attempt, the Cubans also
sent teams of military and intelligence
advisers who taught their Venezuelan
counterparts how to surveil and dis-
rupt the political opposition Cu-
ban-style, with close monitoring, ha-
rassment, and strategic arrests.
The Bolivarian Revolution is not
the Cuban Revolution. The twenty-
rst-century socialism that Chavismo
seeks to build has relied on electoral
democracy; opinion polling and elec-
tions qualify as national obsessions.
Chvez ruled in permanent campaign
modethere was always a referen-
dum, a parliamentary election, a Pres-
idential contest looming. These cam-
paigns, lively and technically free and
fair, were not without risk for partic-
ipants. In 2003, when three million
voters signed a petition calling for a
Presidential recallusing a mecha-
nism included in the 1999 constitu-
tiontheir names and national-
identity numbers were recorded and
used to create a blacklist. Those who
had signed were red from govern-
ment jobs, denied loans and contracts,
and otherwise penalized. During an
oil-price boom that began in 2004,
the distribution of state largesse to key
52 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
constituencies went into overdrive.
Chvez won nearly every important
election held over fteen years, includ-
ing the recall eort.
Nicols Maduro, a onetime bus
driver and Chvezs Vice-President,
lacks the magic voter touch. He
squeaked into oce in a special elec-
tion held in April, 2013, six weeks
after Chvez died. Maduro has a mys-
tical streak, and has told the nation
that a little bird speaks to him, bring-
ing news of Chvez from the after-
life. He calls himself the son of
Chvez, and he and his government
justify, at least to their fellow-chavistas,
much of what they do by insisting
that it represents the will of the late
leader. In parliamentary elections in
December, 2015, antichavista parties
won two-thirds of the seats in the Na-
tional Assembly. From that base, an
opposition alliance has been demand-
ing a referendum to recall Maduro,
whose poll numbers have dropped
steadily. The Maduro government is
stalling, throwing up procedural road-
blocks through institutions it still con-
trols, notably the Supreme Court and
the National Election Commission.
If a vote is held, Maduro will very
likely lose.
T Its a stylized graphic, just a few
he eyes of Chvez are everywhere.
heavy black lines, depicting eyes and
brows, and you see it on billboards,
T-shirts, ags, and the left sleeve of
a polo shirt on a man sitting across
the airplane aisle. The eyes are the
rst thing I see each morning when I
open the curtains in my Caracas hotel
roomtheyre painted huge, on the
building opposite. Evidently, many peo-
ple nd them inspiring, or comforting:
El Comandante continues to watch
over us.
True believers still abound. I sat with
Carmen Ruiz, a trim grandmother with
merry eyes, in a breezy passage between
shops in a small town near Caracas
called El Hatillo. My life has im-
proved, she said. Ruiz grew up in pov-
erty, in a hillside barrio called El Cal-
vario, just above the old town of El
Hatillo. She worked as a seamstress
and a cook, and learned accounting,
while raising four kids. The living wasnt
easy. She mentioned the terror of the
Caracazo. We rst heard of Chvez
in 1992, when he attempted the coup,
she said. My husband and I started
studying his words. From jail, he was
sending out strategic lines, about Ven-
ezuelas whole situationhistorical,
economic, national, international. It
was a complete analysis, from 1811, more
than twenty constitutions. He was very
wise. And we were convinced: This is
the man. He was a campesino, very
simple. Everybody would be equal. We
started working for his release.
For the poor, everything got better
under the revolution, Ruiz said. Health
care, education, housing, transporta-
tion: Many shacks in El Calvario got
new roofs. My mother, who always had
the intelligence, nally learned to read,
in her seventies. In 2005, Ruiz became
a member of the communal assem-
blya neighborhood council meant to
counter the power of mayors. She de-
scribed herself, smiling shyly, as a sol-
dier of the revolution. She went to
work for the ministry of culture and
began to study, among other things,
local history. She was carrying two bags
lled with books and papers, and told
me that she was writing a history of
El Hatillo. Her family had lived here
for eight generations, and I really want
to document the history of the place.
I dont want it to be lost.
Her ancestors, who were black and
indigenous, were cafeterossmall coee
farmersin the neighboring country-
side. But my great-grandfather had a
big hacienda, and eighteen children,
with the women who worked for him.
My grandpa inherited one-eighteenth
of the hacienda, and he lived well as a
cafetero. Then modernity came. The
family who had the rst radio used to
put it on the corner for everybody to
hear news and music. The government
built roads to Caracas, and rich peo-
ple built big houses here. The cafeteros
dwindled away. But the militares who
governed us were always trying to ad-
vance their own interests. They didnt
care about anyone else.
I asked about the current food
shortages and failing hospitals. It is
an economic war totally orchestrated
by fascistic factions on the right, Ruiz
explained. In every country, you have
an oligarchy, a bourgeoisie, working to
prevent other groups from gaining
power. Our economic situation is im-
posed by outside powers, by transna-
tional companies like Polar.
The government constantly cites
this economic war, secretly directed
from Washington, to explain the gut-
ted economy. Polar is Empresas Polar,
Venezuelas leading manufacturer of
food and beer. Polar has been threat-
ened with expropriation, and is ha-
rassed and vilied by the government
as a treacherous bastion of capital, but
it has become indispensable to feed-
ing the country. Ruiz explained that
Polar is responsible for shortages be-
cause it has reduced production. Po-
lars management contends that it can-
not import essential ingredients, because
the government, which controls all for-
eign exchange, declines to provide the
dollars necessary. These claims are false,
according to Ruiz. They have enough.

I El Hatillo. It was a sunny Saturday

had an unsettling experience in

afternoon and the old plaza, which is
planted with venerable shade trees and
surrounded by small, brightly painted,
tile-roofed houses and a pink and white
colonial-era church, was packed with
families. I had just found a seat on a
bench when a gunght broke out, pop
pop pop. People started running,
screaming, snatching up kids. I ran
with them, away from the gunre.
There were ten, fteen shots. I ended
up dodging into a pizzeria on a side
street just before the owner slammed
the door shut. People were shouting,
whimpering, praying.
This never happens here, a pizze-
ria worker told me. I must have looked
skeptical. Secuestro, s, he said. Kid-
napping, yes. Thats what happens in
El Hatillo.
The shoot-out had taken place across
the plaza, near the entrance to a mod-
ern shopping mall. By the time I got
there, the municipal police had control
of the scene. The casualties were one
killed, one wounded, according to a by-
stander. There were cars parked at odd
angles with bullet holes through the
windshields. The dead and the injured
had been removed. But the police
seemed jumpy. When I got too close,
a young ocer in a black vest and a
green shirt lifted a shotgun, pointing
the barrel at my chest. I retreated, heart
Dear Diary: So I texted Julie and I told her that just because Im
hanging out with Linda a lot it doesnt mean Im not her friend
anymore and she said she knows that but she just feels weird because
she thinks that Linda doesnt like her and because she thinks Linda
and I have more in common, so I told her to stop worrying about what
Linda thinks and she said fine but I could tell she was upset so I talked
to Linda about it and she said she does like Julie and was trying really
hard to be nice to her and when I told Julie what Linda had said she
said she felt bad because she had been saying a lot of mean things about
Linda. Anyway, I had a day off so I decided to go to the aquarium
in mouth. Then the cops rushed a black ne. It was an unusual, almost corny
man standing next to me who was tak- vignette: bad guys pick the wrong dude
ing a photograph with his phone. They to mug, get blown away.
bundled him into a van. Did they think But that wasnt right. As I learned
he was press? A maa sta photogra- afterward, in a caf overlooking the crime
pher? As I pieced the story together, scene, the muggers knew that their tar-
their jumpiness became more under- get was a cop. They often attacked po-
standable. The gunre had started when lice ocers, hoping to steal their weap-
two malandros on a motorbike had tried ons. Robbing, disarming, even killing a
to rob an o-duty policeman. The copthese were highly regarded feats
ocer turned out to have a pistol in in criminal circles. It was one of the
the waistband of his jeans. After a strug- many reasons that being a cop sucked.
gle, he had shot both assailants. Now A hipster bartender, tattooed and po-
the ocer was sitting on the sidewalk, nytailed, said that the cafs patrons had
his back against a wall, his girlfriend hit the oor when the gunre erupted.
beside him, their shopping bags lined Once it stopped, though, people were
up on the curb. He had a scraped elbow, enraged. They wanted to go into the
and he quietly vomited in the gutter street and lynch the malandros.
once or twice. Otherwise, they seemed Looking around the caf, I found
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 53
that scenario impossible to picture.
People had returned to their meals,
their WhatsApp chats, their conver-
sations. I had read about an epidemic
of lynchings in Venezuela, seen the
gory images of crowds beating accused
thieves and rapists, even burning sus-
pects alive. But surely those things hap-
pened only in desperate shantytowns,
not in leafy, funky, elegant El Hatillo.
But I later looked online and found
images of men stripped, beaten, and
left for dead in broad daylight by mobs
in Chacao, the upscale Caracas area
where my hotel was.
The mayor of El Hatillo, David
Smolansky, said that violent crime
what everyone in Venezuela calls la in-
seguridadis deliberate policy. Its
part of the plan, he said. This anar-
chy. We were talking in the confer-
ence room of a small clinic, because it
wasnt safe, that day, for the Mayor to
be in his oce. The government was
jailing opposition leaders in advance
of a planned protest march, and Smo-
lansky had calculated, probably rightly,
that he might be next. He is a hulk-
ing thirty-one-year-old, with a full beard
and watchful eyes. Impunity, he said,
made it dicult to ght crime even
on the local level. In the rst seven
months of the year, he said, his mu-
nicipal police had arrested a hundred
and eleven suspects. Eighty-eight of
them had been released without charges
by corrupt judges. The government
knows its probably going to need those
gangs to maintain power. He had red
dozens of cops for corruption and mis-
behavior. A house robbery had been
caught on video surveillance. They
were able to positively identify six rob-
bers. All six were cops, and not one of
them was in jail today.
Smolansky was at least proud to
say that kidnapping was down. Of
course, he admitted, he was talking
only about reported kidnappings. Most
were never reported; it was safer to try
to settle them privately, with a nego-
tiated ransom. La inseguridad, he said
gloomily, puts everybody in their
houses by 6 or 7 P.M. Just like the dic-
tator wants.
Its understandable that angry Ven-
ezuelans talk about the dictatorship.
Their rights are under siege. But real
dictatorships impose order. Hugo
54 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Chvez worshipped at the feet of Fidel,
who would not tolerate one-tenth of
the disorder, street crime, and gun vi-
olence that plague Venezuela. To be
fair, crime was already rampant when
Chvez came to power, and people
hoped that, as a military man, he would
be able to rein in the malandros. But
Chvez showed little interest in law
enforcement. He even objected to the
idea of a professional police force. That
would be a police of the bourgeois
state. Crime was a result of poverty,
inequality, and capitalism. Today, re-
searchers estimate that the annual num-
ber of homicides is as high as ninety
per hundred thousand people. The
government says it is only fty-eight
per hundred thousand. Whatever. In
1984, the number was between eight
and ten.
A ward.
vanza, avanza. Forward, for-
An old woman picks up
her plastic chair. Another woman,
Mar ibel Guzmn, hoists her bags.
Everybody shues a few yards. Theyre
waiting on a food line for a super-
market in the La Trinidad neighbor-
hood of Caracas. The supermarket is
not in sight. Its around the corner, up
a hill, around another corner, on a
dierent street. Guzmn is from Mona-
gas, in eastern Venezuela. I came to
Caracas to nd food, she says. She
is forty-one. She left her family in
Monagas and found a job here, in the
capital, as a housekeeper. She has an
agreement with her employershe
works an extra half day each week in
exchange for the day she needs to
stand in la cola to buy food. Her fam-
ily back home depends on her: Last
Wednesday, I got only toilet paper,
and I thought, Oh, my God, what am
I going to send home? They need
food. Today, shes hoping for two ki-
lograms of our and two hundred
grams of butter. Shes been in line all
day. Its now late afternoon. She is still
several hundred yards from the super-
markets door.
Youre allowed to queue up for
price-controlled items only on certain
days of the week, and those days are
determined by the last digit on your
cdulayour national-identity card.
Several people show me their cdulas.
They all have numbers that end in 3
thats today. A woman with a parasol
says that last week she waited from
8 A.M. to 5 P.M. and went home with
nothing. Today, shes hoping for our
and toothpaste. A television repairman
says that he arrived at 3 A.M. but de-
cided that it was too dangerous at that
hour and left. The National Guard
usually arrives around ve-thirty, and
security improves after that. The store
opens at seven or seven-thirty. There
are often robberies in food lines
Theyll even take your glasses, the
TV repairman saysand, of course,
ghts. Full-scale food riots break out
sometimes. Many supermarkets have
been sacked. The National Guard can
itself be dangerous, though not in this
neighborhood.
Venders sell orangeade, single cig-
arettes, and cheap Popsicles to the peo-
ple on line. A sallow bank clerk waits
with his dreadlocked sixteen-year-old
son. I ask him about his work. Com-
puter security, he says. His wife is a
hairdresser, now working out of their
apartment. She has started asking her
clients to pay her with food. This is
their youngest child. The older ones
are still at home, too. Young people
cant aord rent. I ask why. The clerk
studies me. He seems immensely tired
and sad. Ination, he says. Lack of
production. The government needs to
invest. The factories in this area all
closed. Chvez closed them in 2000.
Other people join in: Rice, pasta,
sugar, cooking oil, bread, coee. We
produce these things. Or we used to.
Now they all require lines. Polar is
mentioned. Without Polar, there would
be no arepascorn cakes, the Vene-
zuelan national dish.
P bling, belligerent speeches on radio
resident Maduro, in his ram-
and TV, frequently accuses Polars
owner, Lorenzo Mendoza, of waging
economic war on Venezuela and on his

THE BRIDE TREE LIVES THREE TIMES
In willing textures where the wood rat lives
the drought lets trees die twice.
Realism & magic steady one another
& the hurt in your heart
from the human fact
circles the edge of the park. The bride
tree blooms late this year, its nature
stored at the edge of day
some like to avoid the word nature
but what to put in its place
for ants & thoughts & parking meters,
stars & skin & granite, quarks,
the world above & below
When you are confused about poetry
& misunderstand its brown math,
the sessile branches & a seal of awe
attach the tree to the dark.
Someday, youll need less evidence;
the missing wont cease to exist.
For now, you stop to eat the free fruit
only you knew would appear
& for that you have your human hands,
infinite nature, a single
body standing on this earth
Brenda Hillman
government by deliberately creating estimates his net worth to be $1.5 bil-
shortages. He has called Mendoza a lion. He rarely gives interviews, or
thief, a coward, a hypocrite, a traitor, a speaks publicly, but when he does de-
bandit, an oligarch, and a long-haired fend himself or his company he can be
devil. He seems particularly oended trenchant. After Maduro accused Polar
by Mendozas hair stylehow it falls of failing to produce enough corn our,
to one side, just so. But the real source Mendoza publicly oered to lease from
of Maduros obsession, according to a the government some of the corn-our
former Presidential aide, is his belief, plants it had seized from other com-
expressed often in private meetings, panies. Polar could produce far more
that Mendoza wants his job. than the state did, he said. Nobody
Mendoza denies having political seemed to doubt that assertion. Hes
ambitions. And Polar, which was so logical, an admirer told me. Thats
founded by his grandfather, as a beer what bothers the chavistas the most.
company, in 1941, actually stands out Maduro did not acknowledge the corn-
among big Venezuelan enterprises for our oer.
its record of careful abstention from Polar employs about thirty thou-
politics. But having survived seventeen sand workers (it is the countrys larg-
years of Chavismoand innumerable est private employer) and is responsi-
threats of expropriation, as the govern- ble for more than three per cent of
ment seized more than a thousand fac- Venezuelas non-oil gross domestic
tories and farmsis itself a potent po- product. Besides corn our and the
litical statement. Mendoza, who is countrys top-selling beer, Polar pro-
fty-one, studied engineering at Ford- duces pasta, rice, tuna sh, wine, ice
ham and management at M.I.T. Forbes cream, yogurt, margarine, ketchup,
mayonnaise, and detergent. Yet it op-
erates in an atmosphere of continual
uncertainty, its planners and logistics
mavens never sure what roadblock or
subterfuge the government will toss
up next.
I stopped in at Polar headquarters,
in Caracas. The press ocer seemed
happy to show me around, although
he insisted that I not quote employees.
The government jumped on every stray
comment from Polar. Suce it, then,
to say that people seemed thrilled to
be working there, and beleaguered by
ocial obstructionism and shortages,
and determined to ght institutional
decapitation. Every single delivery of
goods required a permit. Last year,
inspection teams descended on Polar
facilities around the country thirteen
hundred times. They disrupted work,
and often carried o both les and per-
sonnel. Managers and workers were ar-
rested, accused of hoarding or price
gouging or, in many cases, of oenses
yet to be determined. Amid red tape,
harassment, shortages of nearly every-
thing, and the chronic lack of hard cur-
rency, few plants were operating at full
capacity. Some were idle.
I visited a Polar brewery in San Joa-
qun, west of Caracas. It was an enor-
mous place, built in the seventies. Its
eighteen towering yellow silos, topped
by a neon sign with the companys
polar- bear logo, were visible from
miles away. SEBIN, the national intel-
ligence service, had staged a raid in
July and arrested the manager. The
factory was producing at only sixty per
cent of capacity. Still, when I saw the
giant silver fermentation chambers,
dierent vats for dierent malts and
Pilsners, immaculate labs, conveyor
belts, forklifts, and trucks loaded with
product, that seemed like a huge
amount. It was a glimpse of an alter-
native Venezuela.
From the factory, one could see the
hulking, rusting slabs of an unnished
high-speed railway. It was part of a
mega-project that predated Chvez, a
rail network intended to knit together
Venezuelas ports, cities, and indus-
trial centers. Only a few miles had
been completed. This section, meant
to connect a distant inland town to a
port in the north, had been abandoned
ve years earlier. Some of the migrant
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 55

The school wants all the mothers who come to pick
up in tights and crazy boots to dress better.
construction workers left unemployed, shrank by nearly six per cent last year,
I was told, had stayed in the area and and is expected to shrink by between
formed a gang known as the Aragua eight and ten per cent this year. Price
TrainAragua was the next state controls on staple goods, meant to
eastwhich preyed on local residents, keep those goods aordable and con-
businesses, and travellers on the na- strain ination, have instead helped
tional highway. The gang is part of a cause critical shortages. Currency con-
criminal network thats headquartered trolsestablished by Chvez in 2003,
in a federal prison at Tocorn, just in an eort to stop capital ightx
across a lake from the Polar factory. the exchange rate of the bolivar, which
Tocorn is famous for many things. is accepted nowhere outside Venezu-
Ransoms for the return of kidnapping ela, and create a roaring black market
victims or stolen vehicles can report- for dollars. A dollar is worth about
edly be paid in cash at the prisons front sixteen hundred bolivares at the mo-
gates. The crime bosses in Tocorn ment. The ocial exchange rate for
have built a disco thought to be the importing essential goods is ten. Be-
best in Venezuela. They live in de- tween those two gures, the space for
tached houses on the grounds beside nancial mischief is eectively im-
manicured playing elds. Theyve even measurable. The government just keeps
built a swimming pool. I didnt believe printing money, with no relationship
the swimming-pool story until I to production, helping to fuel ruinous
checked it out on Google Earth. ination. It has been reported that
high-denomination bills will be issued
reserves. Oil accounts for ninety-six
per cent of the countrys export earn-
ings. When the oil price plunged two
years ago, it sparked the present eco-
nomic disaster. But the price has since
rebounded, and oil now trades in a
middling range, and the Venezuelan
economy continues to crater. The gov-
ernments foreign reserves are around
a third of what they were in 2009, which
forces dicult choices. Will the lim-
ited dollars go to pay the governments
creditors or to feed schoolchildren?
Venezuelas largest creditor is China,
which takes most of its payments in
oil. The government has managed to
stave o default so far, at the expense
of its citizens.
In the late nineteen-seventies, Ven-
ezuela was the richest country per cap-
ita in South America. The Concorde
was ying weekly from Paris to Cara-
cas. But the resource curse that aicts
many mineral-rich, particularly oil-
rich, nationsreducing incentives to
develop other industries, exacerbating
inequality as lites hog oil rents and
fail to build a strong individual-income-
tax basebegan to hit Venezuela hard
in the eighties and nineties. The eco-
nomic collapse, that is, had started long
before Chvez came to powerin-
deed, the countrys growing despera-
tion led to the embrace of Chvez. Oil
had been nationalized in 1976, and dis-
placed foreign owners had been com-
pensated. Crony capitalism, irrespon-
sible policies, and long-term looting
of the countrys wealth were gather-
ing steam.
Chvez promised to stop the loot-
ing, and he did eventually direct a much
higher percentage of oil rents to hous-
ing, education, and health care for the
poor. He cut the poverty rate, which
was spiking before he took oce, nearly
in half. Like many of his predecessors,
Chvez understood the need for re-
ducing the countrys dependence on
oil, and yet the opposite occurred. He

V the worlds worst-performing

enezuela has, by some measures,
economy. It suers from the worlds
highest ination ratenearly a hun-
dred and eighty per cent last year, with
projections for this year as high as
seven hundred per cent, according to
the International Monetary Fund.
Meanwhile, the economy as a whole
56 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
in December, but for now the largest
Venezuelan note is still a hundred bo-
livares. Thats six cents. To pay cash for
a night in a hotel requires a suitcase
stued with bills.
The standard explanation for this
asco turns on the price of oil. The
truth is more discouraging. Venezuela
sits on the worlds largest proven oil
deepened the states control of the oil
industry and seized private businesses,
factories, and large commercial farms.
The new management of these enter-
prises was rarely able to keep them
alive. Overgrown elds, shuttered fac-
tories, empty warehouses, and aban-
doned infrastructure projects litter the
landscape today. Non-oil exports fell
steadily as the productive economy
hollowed out.
In 2008, when the global nancial
crisis battered the oil price, Venezuela
got a foretaste of the current crisis. The
Army was put in charge of food dis-
tribution. Soldiers are not trained to
understand the global supply chain.
Supermarkets emptied, people went
hungry, and food ended up on the black
market. Later, a hundred thousand tons
of food was found rotting in ware-
houses at the ports. Today, there is a
wherever their passports will take them.
In Caracas, For Sale signs (Se
Vende) on houses and shops are com-
mon. But the signs often lack basic
contact information. Thats because, I
was told, its dangerous to advertise
your phone number. Criminals, know-
ing that you own property, may call
with extortion demands and kidnap-
ping threats. Better to let potential buy-
ers ask around the neighborhood, where
their faces can be seen.
nine hundred and fty. In the past, a
family of ve would come in and buy
ve golfeados. Now, if I have golfeados,
a family of ve will come in and buy
one and divide it into ve parts.
Romeras mother was doddering
around the shop. She was quite old,
and had a timid, worried smile.
Heres how things have changed,
Romera said. When I got married, my
husband and I both worked and we
waited eight years to have kids. By then,
we had a house and a car. We sent our

E and was born in Caracas, had some

brigadier general in charge of cooking
oil; another is assigned to laundry soap,
body soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and
deodorant.
Over the years, senior ocers dis-
covered that import-export was a lu-
crative eld. Chvez and his military
had a warm relationship with the main
guerrilla army in neighboring Colom-
sther Romera, who is fty-three
distant roots in Spain, so that was where
she and her family would go. Romera
owned a sweetshop in El Hatillo, known
for its golfeadossticky buns with cin-
namon and cane sugar. The rst time
I stopped there, she apologized. There
was no our, therefore no golfeados. The
children to private schools, to univer-
sity. Now my daughter, who is twenty-
six, cant buy a car or aord an apart-
ment. The three of them were leav-
ing for Spain in November.
I nodded toward her mother. Romera
shook her head, very slowly. They would
not be taking her.

T she and her neighbors would be

bia, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC), which was in-
volved in narco-tracking. Venezuela
had long been a main transshipment
route for cocaine going north. Vene-
zuelan generals ran the Cartel of the
Suns, referring to a military insignia.
Chvez and Maduro came to preside
over a kleptocracy. State contracts were
awarded without competitive bidding
to companies connected to the leader-
ship. Huge amounts of money have
simply disappeared.
Few airlines y to Caracas today.
Paying bills owed to foreign air carri-
ers is not a government priority.
Lufthansa left in June, swallowing a
loss of more than a hundred million
dollars. American Airlines wrote o
more than half a billion dollars in Ven-
ezuela earlier this year. At the Caracas
airport, unwary travellers are robbed,
and worse, by taxi-drivers. The sensa-
tion of being monitoredby suspicious
ocialdom, by scammers, by preda-
torsis thick in the airport. But a mood
of grief is thicker still. People sob in
check-in lines, on the way to security.
Parents watch grown children shue
toward ights to afuerathe outside,
the world beyond Venezuelaas if
they might never see them again. Its
a mass emigration: perhaps two mil-
lion already gone, many of them young.
They go to Spain, Colombia, Panama,
the United States, the Dominican Re-
public, Argentina, Chile, Mexico
bachaquero wanted eighty dollars for a
bag of our, and she couldnt aord
that. She had other sources, though.
Maybe Saturday.
Romera used to be a schoolteacher.
She raised two kids, and opened her
rst shop, on the plaza in El Hatillo,
ten years ago. It ourished, and she ex-
panded, serving many types of coee
and golfeados. El Hatillo had good
restaurants, which drew families from
central Caracas, and also foreign tour-
ists. French, Italian, American, she
said. Then la inseguridad got worse,
and they stopped coming. The Chi-
nese, who work with the government,
kept coming, but six months ago even
they stopped.
Romera had to downsize, moving
to a smaller place, o the plaza. Her
menu was on the wall, with the price
list papered over and new prices scrib-
bled in. Every restaurant did that. In-
ation sent costs up too fast to do any-
thing else. One golfeado used to be
fteen bolivares, she said. Now its
omorrow morning, Romera said,
out on the Santa Fe autopista, march-
ing. The opposition was planning a
major protest, calling it the Toma de
Caracasthe Taking of Caracasand
the government was doing its best to
scare people away. Highways into Ca-
racas had been blocked. There were
soldiers everywhere in the city, check-
points at major intersections, machine-
gun nests by bridges and tunnels. It
would be dangerous. I was surprised
that Romera was marching, consider-
ing that she was about to move to
Spain. We got the signatures, Romera
said indignantly. She meant that the
opposition had collected close to two
million signatures, far more than le-
gally required, to force a referendum
on Maduros Presidency. They have
to hold the referendum. The march is
a form of social pressure on the gov-
ernment to hold the recall.
S, hay futuro. Yes, there is a future.
This plaintive battle cry is ubiquitous
in Venezuela: on billboards, placards,
T-shirts. Its the oppositions slogan,
but its everybodys nagging worry. Is
there, really, a future? The opposition
is a blanket term for many parties that
have formed an antichavista coalition
called the Democratic Unity Round-
table (MUD). The government routinely
describes the MUD as rightists, al-
though few, if any, of the coalitions
parties can be described as right wing,
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 57
as we understand the term. The big-
ger parties in the coalition are mostly
social-democratic. There are far-left
members. The most conservative ele-
ments of the MUD are Christian Dem-
ocratic and neoliberal. Its a broad co-
alition, which is its main problem as it
vies for powerit has no leader, no
single gure to coalesce around.
Before the march, which was sched-
uled for September 1st, I stopped at
the oces of El Nacional to see how
the independent press planned to cover
it. A deputy editor, Elas Pino Iturri-
eta, said that the hottest item would
be the photographs. The organizers
were talking about putting a million
people in the streets. The government,
determined to prevent aerial shots of
a big crowd, had banned drones and
private airplanes over Caracas. Were
looking for roofs and the penthouses
of tall buildings now, getting permis-
sion, Pino Iturrieta said. The colecti-
vos will be out, attacking anybody with
a camera, anybody writing anything
down. You can be standing on the cor-
ner painting the mountains, theyll at-
tack you. And the police will stand and
watch. They attacked us yesterday
morning.
I had seen, on my way into the build-
ing, a crew cleaning its front windows.
The glass had been pelted with bags
of excrement. There were two Molo-
tov cocktails that didnt explode, Pino
Iturrieta said. And pamphlets that
called us a fascist newspaper. It was the
third attack this year. The police will
do nothing. No investigation. They
have no interest in the security of em-
ployees here.
After years of government assault
on the press, El Nacional is one of the
last independent national dailies still
standing. National television and radio
stations were closed when their li-
censes came up for renewal. Three
years ago, a state company took con-
trol of paper distribution, and it re-
fused to sell to El Nacional. The daily
began buying from papers in Colom-
bia, Peru, and Puerto Rico. But weve
had to go from six sections down to
two, Pino Iturrieta said. Thank God
for the Web. El Nacional has the most
visited Web news site in Venezuela,
but advertising has become a problem:
Companies feel pressured not to ad-
58 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
vertise in El Nacional. I could also see
how the local Holiday Inn managers
might think twice about having their
ads appear alongside carefully reported
accounts of torture.
On the eve of the march, the MUD
held a mass meeting in an old union
hall in downtown Caracas. The hall
was jammed and smelled of sweat.
These were working people, most of
them not young. A parade of speakers
red up the group. A congressman from
Caracas, who had been jailed for three
months and then released without
charges, shouted, Were going to take
Miraores! People roared. I was star-
tled: Miraores Palace is the White
House of Venezuela. The Maduro gov-
ernment regularly accuses the MUD of
planning a coup, and the MUD always
denies such intentions. Was the plan
really to march on Miraores? That
was the plan when nineteen people
died in a march in 2002.
Caracas is laid out east to west, nes-
tled in a long, lush mountain valley
parallel to the Caribbean coast. The
old downtown, El Silencio, houses the
seat of government powerMiraores,
the National Assembly, the Supreme
Courtand is near the west end of the
city. The march was organized to have
seven starting points, most of them
miles east of El Silencio, with a plan
to converge at some great junction. But
where would it go from there? The
protest would be peaceful, the organiz-
ers said, but they always said that. The
government was planning a counter-
march, convening thousands of loyal
chavistas near Miraores.
The headliner at the union hall was
Henry Ramos Allup, the leader of the
National Assembly and the head of the
Democratic Action Party. A slight, wiry
man in his seventies, with big eyeglasses
and a gray brush cut, he is a throwback
to the pre-Chvez era. Democratic Ac-
tion was one of the two parties that
had traded the Presidency back and
forth for nearly forty years, into the
nineteen-nineties. Unlike the scream-
ers and st-shakers who preceded him,
Ramos Allup was calm, worldly, almost
professorial. He talked about the sup-
port that the opposition had from other
countries in Latin Americaand you
knew that he had been speaking to
their leaders. He urged people to be
nice during the march, including to
bus drivers. His comic timing was good.
Chvez, he said, was psychotic. The
country was now suering the terrible
fallout from his fantasies and obses-
sions. But Ramos Allups body lan-
guage was unaggressive, his hands limp,
sometimes raised as if to protect him-
self. In recent opinion polls, Ramos
Allup was the publics rst choice for
President, far ahead of Maduro. Now
I could see why. People were nostalgic
for the era of bourgeois democracy, for
a Venezuela that worked. Not a soldier,
not a raving messiah in a red beret, but
a mensch in a baggy business suit who
knew how to run a government. In
truth, Ramos Allup can be erce, and
he has a long history to live down
his political enemies might not all agree
that hes a menschbut the crowd that
night adored him.
O it was dicult to tell how many
n the morning of September 1st,
marchers had turned out for the pro-
test. I wanted to follow the stream that
would be the spear point if the march-
ers headed for El Silencio. But on the
previous evening the original gather-
ing place for that stream had been
lled by tanks and soldiers, so people
massed about a half mile northeast,
outside the headquarters of the Dem-
ocratic Action Party. The narrow streets
were packed in every direction. The
protesters wore whitethe opposi-
tions colorand sang, Its going to
fall! Its going to fall! The government
is going to fall! Everybody was in
sneakers, prepared to walk or, if nec-
essary, run.
A drone appeared overhead, twirl-
ing between trees and telephone wires,
red video light blinking, and march-
ers laughed and screamed and waved.
Henry Ramos Allup emerged from his
partys building, in a scrum of body-
guards, and the crowd set o south,
toward Avenida Libertador, a main
east-west thoroughfare. People thrust
HAY FUTURO and yo tE REVOCO (I
recall you) placards skyward, and
danced in place when forward move-
ment stalled. The critical question was
which direction this large, loud stream
of marchers would go when it reached
the Avenida Libertador, which had
been closed to trac.
 The march went east, toward other the political binary that seems, at a dwellings, many of them multistory, all
streams of marchers coming from that glance, to dene Venezuela. Like most of them beyond the dull comprehen-
direction. Spirits, which were already of their countrymen, they have cam- sion of building codes. Liendo charges
buoyant, seemed to soar. There would pesino family roots but were born and forty-ve bolivares a tripless than a
be no bloody confrontation near Mira- raised in the city. They grew up to- nickel. He belongs to an association of
ores. National Guard soldiers, in riot gether in Petare, a sprawling hillside twenty-four jeep drivers. We used to
gear, began to appear in ranks, but they barrio in east Caracas, where they were work till 11 P.M., but now we knock o
stayed at the margins of the wide, sunny high-school sweethearts. Theyve been at eight or nine, because of the delin-
avenue. The march passed between red married for thirty-ve years. She is a cuencia, he said. He has never been
brick high-risespublic housing built nurse; he owns and drives a Land Cruiser robbed or attackedthe malandros have
by Chvez. Red ags and red shirts taxi on the steep and narrow streets of a special interest in his well-being. He
hung from some apartment windows: upper Petare. He showed me his taxi ferries wounded ghters down the
signals, middle ngers, from loyal rig one sunny morning. Its a heavy- mountain to hospitals from places
chavistas. White shirts and white bed- duty beast, built in 1980, now painted where no ambulance would come to
sheets streamed from other windows: sky blue, with seating for ten on fac- get them.
support for the opposition. The march- ing benches (two more up front) and, Petare was all chavista, Liendo,
ers shook their sts in solidarity and stencilled across the windshield, PAN- who is soft-spoken and solidly built,
shouted, The government is going CRACIO, for the patron saint of the told me. Zambrano agreed. He remem-
to fall! young. Liendo drives two routes, both bered clearly the brief, electrifying ap-
Caracas was not taken that day. The of them absurdly steep, with switch- pearance of Chvez on TV after the
government succeeded in channelling back turns and clearances best mea- failure of his coup in 1992. Liendo
the multiple streams of the opposition sured in millimetres. Riding with him had grown up in a Democratic Action
march into dierent routes that never is a master class in pothole dodging home. He broke with the old party
converged, and the stream I was in pe- and neighbor greeting. Hola, guapo! and voted for Chvez in 1998. So did
tered out around noon, with a few Hey, Jess! Hey, Coyote! The cries Zambrano. Her mother, who read three
speeches in front of a Burger King. But come from inside houses, from balco- newspapers a day, was devoted to the
the government did not succeed at pre- nies and motorbikes. Petare is an as- Social Christian Party, the other major
venting aerial (or penthouse) photo- tounding maze of improvised brick cli party at the time, and she had been
graphs, which showed an enormous,
city-lling turnout.
The street ghting started in the af-
ternoon. I rst saw a car set alight on
a freeway in Chacao, and then armed
ocers ring tear gas and chasing scat-
tered groups of demonstrators down a
shopping street. The demonstrators
seemed much younger than most of
the people who had marched that
morning, and, once the tear gas began,
many wore vinegar-soaked bandannas
pulled up over their mouths and noses.
Others wore gas masks. A bookstall
vender frantically tried to close up shop
before a wave of sooty tear gas engulfed
him and his kiosk. If he ran for it with-
out locking up, his stock would be sto-
len by looters. He and his bookstall
disappeared into a toxic smoke cloud
while the rest of us rushed away from
the advancing police.

A been growing in recent months,

lthough the opposition has

independents are still a major group.

Thirty-three per cent, a local poll-
ster told me. They oppose Maduro
but dont support the opposition.
Hermogenes Jos Liendo and Yolly
Zambrano live outside, or alongside, Youre holding a lot of homophobia in your lower back.

appalled when her daughter bolted,
in the early nineteen-nineties, to a
far-left party. Zambrano, a handsome
woman of fty-one, gave me a nod.
Yes, she had been an ultra-leftist in
her day.
Chvez built schools and health-
care clinics in Petare. The clinics were
staed by Cuban doctors, and were
open seven days a week, even at night.
But corruption and bad management
began to take their toll, and by 2008
Petare had an opposition mayor. The
clinics are now either abandoned or
rarely open, with few medicines. Gar-
bage lies uncollected, unlicensed vend-
ers jam the barrios narrow streets and
stairways, and crime gets ever worse.
I dont like any politician right now,
Zambrano said.
She works at two hospitals. Her spe-
cialty is surgical preparation, but there
are fewer surgeries being performed
now, owing to a lack of basic supplies.
I dont know why the government
wont accept international help, Liendo
said. People are dying while the gov-
ernment worries about its pride.
I declared a humanitarian emergency,
n January, the National Assembly
and in May it passed a law allowing
Venezuela to accept international aid.
President Maduro scorned the idea,
saying on national television, I doubt
that anywhere in the world, except in
Cuba, there exists a better health sys-
tem. Instead of accepting aid, Maduro
60 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
declared a state of emergency that al-
lows him to rule by decree.
Gringo, respeta! is a popular
chavista grato, and the slogan ex-
presses historical grievances that are
deep and wide throughout Latin Amer-
ica. Its true that the Maduro govern-
ments cruel and obtuse denial of its
peoples suering is often ascribed to
chavista pride, but its more than that.
The crisis has a small but crucial con-
stituency, starting with the generals and
other high government ocials who
are thriving nancially, mainly through
smuggling, graft, and import fraud.
Then there are the boliburgueses, a new-
money business lite riding high on
government contracts, cronyism, and
money laundering. A stampede of for-
eign do-gooders and international
nancial auditors into Venezuela would
probably mean trouble for them.
A Maduro-recall referendum would
be even worse. He would lose, and
where could these guys go? a local an-
alyst asked me. What country would
even take them? They wont have a very
comfortable exile in Kazakhstan. Re-
pression increased markedly after the
death of Chvez, an escalation often
attributed to a consolidation of power
by hard-liners in the government. The
circus-tent populism of Chvez gave
way to an even less accountable, charm-
less tropical Leninism. And yet ideol-
ogy seems increasingly irrelevant to a
true description of power in Venezu-
ela. The regime seems to be in survival
mode. In late October, Maduro and his
allies on the election commission, rec-
ognizing that elections have become
unwinnable, suspended the recall pro-
cess indenitely. The opposition staged
angry protests throughout the country,
and called for a general strike. The gov-
ernment threatened to expropriate busi-
nesses and factories that closed in sup-
port of the strike, and underlined the
threat by surrounding Polars headquar-
ters in Caracas and the home of Lo-
renzo Mendoza and his family with
heavily armed SEBIN agents. The strike
zzled.
But the political crisis continues,
and the Vatican has sent an envoy to
convene a dialogue between the gov-
ernment and the opposition. This gam-
bit eectively split the MUD. One of its
main partners, the Popular Will Party,
whose leader, a former Caracas mayor
named Leopoldo Lpez, has been jailed
since 2014, declined to join the discus-
sion. It is, to be sure, dicult to see
what there is to discuss. Maduro and
the chavistas are determined not to re-
linquish power, and seem willing to
out the law, denying Venezuelans the
right to choose their leaders.
The military is the wild card in every
scenario. For much of Venezuelas his-
tory, the military has had a hand in
ruling the country. Today, ordinary sol-
diers are clearly suering from the
same food scarcity as all poor Vene-
zuelans. Liendo, who was once a con-
script, told me, The military loses re-
spect when you see soldiers selling
potatoes and onions at the side of the
road. One hears persistent talk about
how Maduro is besmirching the mil-
itarys dignity with his economic fail-
ures. The subtext is a wan hope that
the military will step in, perhaps by
forcing Maduro to follow the law and
hold the recall election. No one says
this in public.
Understanding Venezuelas failing
state as just another failure of social-
ism, and of statism generally, is ahis-
torical. Venezuela before Chvez was
often extravagantly statist. Corruption
has been a major problem in every era.
Even dire food shortages are not new.
These things happened under capitalism,
too, as did intense political repression.
Todays crisis is for most people the
worst in memory, but it is not all about
socialism. The predatory state, the ex-
treme insecurity, the sheer weakness
of the rule of lawthese are problems
more profound, at this stage, than a
traditional left-right analysis can clar-
ify, let alone begin to solve.
T inscribed on the land around
he story of the oil bonanza is
Lake Maracaibo, and on the lake it-
self. Its an enormous shallow estu-
ary, ve thousand square miles, in the
hot, dry, northwest corner of Vene-
zuela. Forty-three billion barrels of
oil have been pumped from the Mara-
caibo Basin since 1914. Rusting tank
farms line the shores of the lake. Pet-
rochemical complexes glitter in the
brushlands at night. Oil platforms,
many of them abandoned, stud the
lakes surface. Snaking across the lakes
bottom are fteen thousand miles of
pipeline. The water is dense with sul-
fates, uoride, nitrogen, detergent,
fecal coliform. Huge blooms of nox-
ious duckweed look, from above, like
pea-green wigs spread out in the sun.
Oil leaks from the pipelines shine in
gassy, muted rainbows. The leaks have
reportedly multiplied since Chvez
nationalized seventy-six oil-services
companies, in 2009. The government
blames the leaks on sabotage. Far
more likely, they stem from lack of
maintenance and from the depreda-
tions of thieves, who work the lake
in boats. A long-running turf war be-
tween rival maas was reportedly set-
tled in recent years by dividing the
lake down the middle. La Familia
Leal runs the western shore, which
includes the city of Maracaibo, Ven-
ezuelas second largest, with a popu-
lation of two million. La Familia
Melen runs the eastern shore, which
has more oil facilities.
The bulk of investment in Venezu-
elan oil has shifted in recent years to
new elds in the east, in a region called
the Orinoco Belt, where the proven
reserves are immense. There are still
nineteen billion barrels of proven re-
serves in the Maracaibo Basin, though.
Thats more oil than Mexico and Nor-
way combined have.
And yet Venezuelan oil production
is steadily falling. Since 1998, it has
declined by thirty per centby nearly
a million barrels a day. Corruption and
lack of maintenance are the culprits
most often cited. Crime gangs also
exact a heavy tax. The state-owned oil
and gas monopoly, Petrleos de Ven-
ezuela (P.D.V.S.A.), was Chvezs
piggy bank. Between 2001 and 2015,
it poured perhaps a hundred billion
dollars into his favored programs.
Today, the piggy bank is nearly empty.
Two-thirds of oil-export revenues go
to paying the Chinese and other cred-
itors. Until recently, the monopoly was
able to use Citgo, its American rening
unit, to obtain loans in international
credit markets, but the government
has destroyed its credit rating, and it
is no longer able to borrow on inter-
national markets. With the recent col-
lapse of the oil price, it is scrambling
just to service its debts.
The oil wont simply stop ow- it was for the best, I thought, on the
ing. In the city of Maracaibo, its clear
that theres still plenty of money
around. Fancy new high-rises line
the lakefront on the north side
of town. Massive banks with blue
glass walls loom downtown. Jos Fe-
liciano is coming to play in the con-
vention center. I asked my driver, a
local woman, about the lakefront high-
rises. Money laundering, she said
cheerfully. The apartments were in-
vestments, she said, owned by maosos, between them. They were drinking
militares, narcotrackers from Co-
lombia, corrupt ocials. The build-
ings were dark at night. Almost no-
body actually lived there.
Maracaibo is only two hours from the
Colombian border. Colombian products,
presumably smuggled, ll the supermar-
kets. I saw a bachaquero set up at a table
in front of his house, in broad daylight,
and stopped to inspect his goods. He
was selling Polar precooked corn our,
at eight times the price on the label, but
he also had Colombian our.
On the eastern shore of Lake Ma-
racaibo, in the territory of La Familia
Melen, I turned o the highway at a
Halliburton oil-treatment plant. It
looked deserted. Huge tanks and tow-
ers, connected by catwalks, baked in
the heat. A roof panel had blown loose
from one of the tanks and now hung,
bent like a giant brown tropical leaf,
halfway to the ground. Even after all
the nationalizations, P.D.V.S.A. de-
pends heavily on foreign oil-services
companies like Halliburton and Schlum-
berger to get the drilling done. But
Schlumberger recently closed four plat-
forms on Lake Maracaibo, because its
bills werent being paid. Argentine and
Peruvian oil companies recently did
the same, for the same reason, except
that they closed thirty-six platforms.
Halliburton was also cutting back. This
was how production dwindled. Maybe
lakeshore, behind the Halliburton plant.
Tar-soaked sandbags, tar-soaked palm
fronds, tar-soaked trees and trash lit-
tered the waters edge. The smell was
heady and rank. Its not as if oil were
the fuel of the future.
An old pickup truck was backed
down to the shore, in the shade of some
scrawny trees. A middle-aged couple
were sitting quietly in plastic chairs in
the bed of the truck, a cooler resting
beer, having a picnic. They studied me
as I approached. Hola. Yes, it was much
nicer in the shade. There was even a
little breeze o the lake, every now and
then. This was a good spot, the man
said, because the only road to it was
the oil-company road, which had a
surveillance camera on it.
So the plant was not abandoned?
Oh, no.
Yes, they lived in Maracaibo. They
had been married foreverkids, grand-
kids. He worked in air-conditioner
maintenance. She waits in lines,
he said. It was a joke, but not really.
The couple wearily denounced Ma-
duro. All these lines and bachaqueros
are his fault, she said. If they got the
chance, they would both gladly vote
him out.
I was being bitten by tiny insects. I
asked if they ever went swimming here.
The woman laughed. Yes, she said.
Sometimes. Its nice to cool o. But
theres too much oil. We come out look-
ing like Dalmatians.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 61

DESERT BLOOM
This year, the hidden vitality of Death Valley emerged in full ower.
D
eath Valley, the majestically
desolate national park on the
eastern edge of California, is
a rain-shadow desert, meaning that
nearby mountain ranges drain mois-
ture from incoming weather systems
and stop rain from reaching the other
side. Eighty miles to the west is the
Sierra Nevada range, the highest in the
contiguous forty-eight states, rising to
fourteen thousand ve hundred feet.
Close by are the jagged Panamints,
which reach eleven thousand feet. Any
system that can carry water across those
barriers is a freak occurrence. The dry-
ness of the region is compounded by
the depression of the valley ooras
low as two hundred and eighty-two
feet below sea level. Whatever rain gets
in tends to evaporate as it descends to
the sunken bottom. In summer, noth-
ing stands in the way of extreme heat.
In 1913, a weather observer reported a
temperature of a hundred and thirty-
four degreesstill the ocial world
record. Some meteorologists doubt that
measurement, but even without it Death
Valley would remain one of the hot-
test places on Earth.
The shadow lifted in October of last
year, when several storms struck Death
Valley National Park, resulting in what
the U.S. Geological Survey called a
thousand-year-ood event. At Scot-
tys Castle, a Mission Revival villa that
an eccentric millionaire built in the north
of the park in the nineteen-twenties,
three inches of rain fell in ve hours.
The deluge tore up roads and carried
Dumpsters for miles. In a ashback to
the Ice Age, when a lake lled the val-
ley, a shallow body of water covered the
basin for several weeks.
Because of the rain, Death Valley ex-
perienced what came to be called the
Superbloom: cascades of wildowers
across thousands of acres. Park rangers
had predicted an exceptional owering
after the October storms, but they were
62 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
ANNALS OF NATURE
BY ALEX ROSS
unprepared for the intensity of the pub-
lic response. The park usually receives
about a million visitors each year. In
March alone, more than two hundred
thousand people came through. No
mania in the bizarre history of Death
Valleythe prospectors and swindlers
of the late nineteenth century; the play-
boy adventurers and car racers of the
Jazz Age; the psychedelic goings on in
the sixties and seventies, including a res-
idency by the Manson familymatched
the Superbloom invasion.
In early March, when the bloom was
at its height, I drove from Los Angeles
to Beatty, Nevada, northeast of the park,
and checked in at a Motel 6. This thing
with the owers, its crazy, the man on
night duty said. The town cant han-
dle it. Restaurants are running out of
food, having to get supplies from
Pahrump or Vegas.
Just before sunrise, I drove into the
park. As the mountaintops lit up, I
thought of Willa Cathers description
of a desert morning: The world is
golden in an instant. I went through
Daylight Pass, and the entire expanse
of Death Valley sprang into view: the
dark mountains, the white oor, the per-
petual mirage of an ancient lake. Snow
capped the Panamints. Few places on
the planet oer a more dramatic juxta-
position of extremes: the climate ranges
from desert to subarctic conditions.
The valley shimmered with myriad
points of color, as if Georges Seurat had
touched up a Georgia OKeee. The
dominant presence was desert gold, a
sunower that blossoms on a long, spin-
dly stem. Notch-leaved phacelia, in col-
ors ranging from blue to lavender, were
also common, along with the free-
oating white blossoms known as gravel
ghosts. Scarlet clusters of paintbrush
spattered higher elevations. The ow-
ers were especially thick along the shoul-
ders of the roads, since runo soaks the
ground on either side. They seemed to
greet you as you went by, like bystand-
ers cheering a paradeor, perhaps, like
protesters silently resisting the incur-
sion of asphalt.
As the day went on, the landscape
was overrun by people. They moved
through the elds in slow motion, their
legs extended at funny angles, their heads
bent down. From a distance, they ap-
peared to be playing Twister or per-
forming modern dance. Once I got o
the road, I understood why people were
contorting themselves. You did not want
to step on any of the brave little blooms
that were coming up in this unlikely
terrain: bone-dry sandy soil, cracked
sheets of dried mud, patches of soil on
the ledges of clis. The desert-ve-spot
ower looks up at you with a tiny, bright-
painted facepurple petals speckled
with red. All that color has a practical
purpose: to seize the attention of hum-
mingbirds and other pollinators. But it
was hard not to see it symbolically, as a
deant assertion of life in the face of
death.
Such a conceit assumes that there
is something inherently deadly about
Death Valley. The name was coined
by gold-seekers who passed through
in 1849 and 1850. They had a dicult
time, and as the survivors escaped over
the Panamints one of them exclaimed,
Goodbye, Death Valley! He probably
had the Biblical psalm in mind: Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death. Since then, macabre
nomenclature has been in vogue: the
Black Mountains, the Funeral Moun-
tains, Con Canyon, Devils Golf
Course, Dantes View. The rst over-
look on the drive in from Beatty is called
Hells Gate. Yet Death Valley is no more
lethal than any other stretch of wilder-
ness. On average, there are one or two
fatalities a year, mostly from car acci-
dents. Members of the Timbisha Sho-
shone tribe, who have lived in the area
for hundreds of years, call the place
JIM MANGAN

In the spring, the valley shimmered with myriad points of color, as if Georges Seurat had touched up a Georgia OKeee.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 63
Timbisha, after a red ochre that their
ancestors used as body paint. For them,
death became a looming presence only
when the rst white men arrived.
In Death Valley, life does keep a low
prole. Often, it is latent: seeds stay in
the soil for years, waiting for a deluge
to awaken them. Or it is hidden, as in
the isolated pockets of water where des-
ert pupshsurvivors of
the Ice Age lakesdart
about. The feminist adven-
turer Edna Brush Perkins,
whose 1922 book The
White Heart of Mojave is
among the best of the many
Death Valley travelogues,
wrote, The desert mixes
up your ideas about what
you call living and dying.
You see the dreadful, dead country liv-
ing in beauty, and feel that the silence
pressing around it is alive.
S what Perkins called, not without
ome years ago, I succumbed to
irony, the terrible fascination of Death
Valley. I was lured by the spooky cli-
chs; Id read Helter Skelter, which at the University of Washington. A
describes how the Manson family ran
amok while hiding out at Barker Ranch,
in the parks southwest corner. (Man-
son was apprehended when members
of his gang set re to a piece of Park Ser-
vice earthmoving equipment, prompt-
ing rangers to investigate.) After a few
days in the region, I lost interest in all
that. I realized that Death Valley is not
so much a desert as a surreally varied
mountain region with a desert at its
heart. At rst sight, the landscape seems
xed and timeless, but you soon sense
that there was violent change in the not
so distant past. Vistas rearrange them-
selves kaleidoscopically as pastel-colored
geologic formations move in and out of
view. Vast slabs of rock descend into the
earth at severe angles, like the Titanic
making its fatal dive. I took a photo-
graph of a stretch of two-lane highway,
with sky, mountains, desert, and asphalt
forming a geometric abstraction. The
image haunted me, becoming the desk-
top picture on my computer. I have gone
back to Death Valley every so often, and
this year I have made a series of visits,
trying to better understand its allure.
Almost everything anomalous about
the placeits climate, its ecology, its
64 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
historyis the result of its geology. It
belongs to a region known as the Basin
and Range, which passes between the
Rockies and the Sierra Nevada. Here
the earths crust is being pulled apart:
in some areas, blocks have been shoved
upward, forming mountain outcrops,
and in others the blocks have fallen,
forming a basin. Hence the vertiginous,
two-mile drop from Tele-
scope Peak, the highest of
the Panamints, to Badwa-
ter Basin, the low point of
the valley. Earthquakes are
frequent, and in the past few
thousand years there has
been volcanic activity in
Ubehebe Crater, one of the
more unearthly features of
the park. In geologic time,
all this happened just the other day: the
Death Valley that we see now did not
begin to form until about three million
years ago. It has a raw, chaotic look, like
an unnished construction project.
One weekend in April, I rented a
Jeep Wrangler and toured the park with
Darrel Cowan, a professor of geology
outside the parkand more than three
weathered, t seventy-one-year-old, he
is a native of Los Angeles, and rst saw
Death Valley as a child, while on a fam-
ily vacation. He returned in college, when
he took a eld trip with a geology class.
I was amazed to realize that I could
make a living wandering through this
kind of landscape, he told me. A few
years ago, he and his brother bought a
small house in Shoshone, California, a
pleasant roadside village on the eastern
edge of the park. He goes there several
times a year, often bringing students
with him.
We rst drove down the Badwater
Road, which winds along the foot of
the Black Mountains. At Badwater
Basin, we stopped to survey the terrain.
Nestled in the rock face high above us
was a sign reading sea level, in white
block lettering reminiscent of the Hol-
lywood sign. The actual bedrock is
much lower, Cowan told me. It goes
three or four kilometres beneath our
feet. Theres layer upon layer of sedi-
ment on top.
Cowan turned to the Panamints, on
the far side of the ats. See that dark-
green coloring, below Telescope Peak?
Thats high-altitude vegetationpion
and juniper. The stratigraphy of the rock
up there is well known: middle Paleo-
zoic going into Proterozoic. The strange
thing is that all those elementshe
turned back to the slope above usare
missing from the Black Mountains.They
should be here, but they arent. The
provocative theory is that the Panamints
used to be on top of the Black Moun-
tains and then moved. He put his left
hand on top of his right and slid it to
one side, forming a cleft. I used to think
it was a crazy idea, but Im liking it more
and more.
We drove across the ats, leaving a
plume of dust in our wake. On the
other side, we went up the Hanaupah
Canyon road, a rocky trail that justied
the use of a jeep. In this area, Cowan
and a colleague, Paul Bodin, had con-
ducted an experiment designed to test
for seismic activity along Death Val-
leys faults. They deployed ten seis-
mometers on the east side of the Pan-
amints and monitored data for eigh-
teen months. The devices recorded
man-made tremorsthe rumbling of
o-road vehicles, blasts from mines
hundred microearthquakes.Indeed, the
mountain-moving forces remain ac-
tive. The Panamints are probably still
rising; Death Valley will only get drier
and hotter.
The following day, we drove through
Titus Canyon, one of the parks glo-
ries. You approach from the Nevada
side, over the Grapevine Mountains.
You pass a ghost town called Leadeld,
where an alleged hundred-million-
dollar silver-lead mine created hyste-
ria in the twenties. (The mine was bal-
lyhooed in Jazz Age lingo: Shes a
High Stepping Baby and I dont mean
maybe.) Then comes a two-thousand-
foot descent down an increasingly nar-
row canyon, with tilting towers of rock
on all sides. Cowan pointed out mul-
ticolored formations that are charac-
teristic of the area: Bonanza King, Car-
rara, Zabriskie Quartzite. But see how
its foldedbent this way and that,
turned upside down? he said, shaking
his head. How did you do that to these
thick limestones?
A Subaru clattered by, risking a at
tire on the rough road. Stop and look
at the rocks! Cowan mock-shouted.
He became xated on a striking
complex of dark-gray limestone blocks
surrounded by whitish calcite, a shat-
tered geometry reminiscent of a Futur-
ist composition. You can see how these
blocks once t together and then were
pulled apart. Sometimes its like there
was an explosion and all these pieces
just blew o. And, over there, these re-
ally massive blocks, just oating. Ive
never seen anything like this.
Cowan mentioned a 1941 study by
the geologist Levi Noble, who was the
rst to decipher the roiling processes at
work in Death Valley. Noble coined the
term Amargosa chaos to describe the
folding and twisting of rock formations.
(The Amargosa is a river that ows from
southern Nevada to Badwater Basin,
largely underground.) Noble wrote, The
fantastic disorder of the rock masses
that form the precipitous mountain
ranges bordering Death Valley imparts
a quality of strangeness to the scenery
that is felt even by the casual visitor.
I dont mean to dis the Grand Can-
yon, Cowan said, with a laugh. But,
compared with this, its monotonous.
There you have all the layers beauti-
fully stacked up, the oldest on the bot-
tom and the youngest on top. Its the
same thing the whole way through.
This is dynamic.
speakers was the NASA researcher Chris-
topher McKay, who is helping to plan
a Martian rover mission in 2020. (NASA
has a history of testing rovers in Death
Valley.) Several hundred people turned
out for lectures and eld trips. At night,
amateur astronomers set up telescopes
in Furnace Creek, an oasis village where
the Park Service has its local headquar-
ters. In a matter of minutes, I caught
glimpses of Mercury, four of Jupiters
moons, the Messier 3 star cluster, and
the Whirlpool Galaxy.
At Badwater Basin that morning, a
couple of dozen peoplemostly of a
type that might be described as Tour-
ists with Autodidact Tendenciesgath-
ered to hear a lecture by Susanne Doug-
las, a biologist who teaches at East Los
Angeles College and has also been as-
sociated with NASA. Her specialty is
communities of organisms that thrive
in conditions that seem extreme from
a human standpoint. On trips to Death
Valley, Douglas has examined the mi-
crobial life that can be found in the
ats, where millennia of ooding and
evaporation have left an encrustation
of salt. Although there is water here
three groups of pools are fed by springs
owing under the Black Mountains
most species cannot handle the high
levels of salt and boron.
In the summer, the ground tem-
perature can approach two hundred de-
grees, Douglas said. But the microbes
actually grow better in extreme heat.
Some can live without light, and some
can live without oxygen. They obtain
their energy from minerals. Each of
the three Badwater pools has a unique
network of microbes, depending on the
minerals that are present in the ground.
Douglas ventured out onto the salt
ats with three of her students, stepping
o the walkways provided for tourists.
A park ranger commented, Shes pretty
much the only person whos allowed to

G entists who see vitality amid the

eologists arent the only sci-

barrenness of Death Valley. Biologists

and ecologists go there to study the stub-
born persistence of various life-forms,
from microbes to mammals. For these
researchers, the so-called Superbloom
was of no great note; it simply made
visible life that is always present. Exo-
biologistsscientists who theorize about
the possibility of extraterrestrial life
have taken particular interest in the place.
If you can make it here, it might be
said, you can make it almost anywhere.
Generations of tourists have com-
pared Death Valley to Mars. For sev-
eral years, the park has capitalized on
its far-out reputation by hosting an event
called MarsFest, in which the public
can listen to presentations by members
of NASA and the Search for Extraterres-
trial Intelligence Institute, and by ali-
ated scientists. This years edition, held
in April, was renamed the Celestial Cen-
tennial, in honor of the centennial of
the National Park Service. One of the Of course, you try to raise your kids so they wont need lawyers.

do that. She brought back a few sam-
ples from the deposits. They were
streaked with color: green, orange, pur-
ple, and black. The orange, she explained,
acts as a sunscreen, protecting the green
layer underneath. The bacteria feed on
the deposits and alter their chemistry.
Gypsum, which can create bulbous,
cauliowerlike forms, transforms into
sulfur, and then into a sulfur variant
known as rosickyite.
The rosickyite is what jumps out,
Douglas went on. Geologically, it should
never have been here. You usually nd
it only at a volcanic pit or a hydrother-
mal vent. Microbes make it stable. If
such a mineral were to be seen on Mars,
it might signal the former presence of
microbial life. In her work with NASA,
Douglas has tested the Mars rovers in-
struments on Badwater samples, to see
how well they detect the biosignatures.
The drying up of Death Valleys lakes
after the last Ice Age killed o almost
66 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
all aquatic vertebrates except for the
pupshminnowlike creatures less than
two inches long. They persist in Salt
Creek, a few miles north of Badwater,
and several other pockets of water in
the region. As the desert advanced, the
pupsh evolved in such a way that they
could withstand high salinity and water
temperatures exceeding a hundred de-
grees. When I visited Salt Creek this
spring, the breeding season had just
begun. The males, like the wildowers,
showed brilliant colors: yellow at the
head, iridescent blue at the tail.
Elsewhere, Death Valley shelters po-
tentially endangered organisms. In Lee
Flat, an elevated plain in the northwest
part of the park, Joshua trees dot the
landscape. A few are elderly giants, their
thick trunks coated with brous mat-
ter; many others are striplings, with a
few tufts of green atop a short trunk.
The tiniest ones resemble pineapples.
The biologist James Cornett, who has
studied the Lee Flat grove for twenty-
one years, sees evidence of a demographic
shift. Young treesnew recruits, he
calls themare increasing in number.
For various reasons, including higher al-
titude, Lee Flat trees are healthier than
the ones in Joshua Tree National Park,
to the south, where rising temperatures
and drought are depleting the young-
sters. Cornett believes that a century
from now, if current trends continue,
Death Valleys Joshua trees will be the
primary California population.
All living things in Death Valley dwell
in the shadow of the human presence.
The ultimate threat comes from Las
Vegas, a hundred and twenty miles to
the southeast. As the biologist Chris-
topher Norment writes, in his 2014 book,
Relicts of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Ex-
tinction, and Conservation in a Desert
World, the Southern Nevada Water
Authority has proposed pumping
groundwater that feeds into the Death
Valley ecosystem. The authority has
agreed to avoid unreasonable adverse
eects, yet no one has dened what
those eects might be. Would the ex-
tinction of the pupsh be too great a
price? Norment thinks so. We need
their beauty and otherness, their deli-
cate and fragile strength, he writes. We
need the refugee species, the discards
that ask for nothing more than the home
that each and every one of us desires.
D cause early white settlers had no
eath Valley got its name be-
idea how to live in it. The history of
non-Native people in the region is, for
the most part, a stunning panorama of
hubris and stupidity.The denitive treat-
ment of the subject is Death Valley and
the Amargosa: A Land of Illusion, a
1986 book by Richard E. Lingenfelter,
an astrophysicist who moonlights as a
historian of the Old West. (His other
works include the paper Is There a
Dark Matter Signal in the Galactic Pos-
itron Annihilation Radiation?) The
chief illusion was that Death Valley could
be mined for gold, silver, and other mar-
ketable metals. There were such reserves,
but the expense involved in extracting
them usually exceeded their value. The
dream of wealth was made all the more
romantic by tales of death-defying ad-
venture. One early chronicler claimed
to have seen white sands strewn with
skeletons; another conjured poisonous
dust clouds swooping over elds of glit-
tering gems.
The saga began with a wrong turn.
In 1849, at the height of the gold rush,
a wagon train with as many as a thou-
sand people was making its way from
Salt Lake City to Nevada and Califor-
nia. One group, misled by a largely imag-
inary map, attempted a shortcut through
Death Valley. Some of the pioneers es-
caped alive; others perished. A sizable
number, including families, were trapped
for weeks in Furnace Creek. Two young
men, John Rogers and William Lewis
Manly, found a path across the Pana-
mints, then returned with supplies to
rescue the party. Manlys memories of
Death Valley were less than fond: If
the waves of the sea could ow in and
cover its barren nakedness . . . it would
be indeed a blessing, for in it there is
naught of good, comfort or satisfaction,
but ever in the minds of those who
braved its heat and sands, a thought of
a horrid Charnel house. He might have
been happy to know that his name is
now axed to Death Valleys Ice Age
lake, which covered the charnel house
in waters six hundred feet deep.
Several forty-niners glimpsed pre-
cious metal as they dragged themselves
over the mountains. One survivor later
fashioned a gun sight from a hunk of
silver; this engendered the legend of the
Gunsight Lode, which prospectors pur-
sued for decades. There was said to be
a mountain of purest silver, as well as
inexhaustible veins of gold, copper, and
lead. Such stories attracted con men by
the dozen. Geologists were paid to tout
gigantic deposits; stock was sold back
East; boomtowns sprang up; the huck-
sters cashed in. Supreme among them
was Walter Scott, after whom Scottys
Castle was named: he parlayed specu-
lation around a nonexistent mine into
national celebrity. One of his publicity
schemes was a train that he called the
Death Valley Coyote. He rode it from
Chicago to Los Angeles at record speed,
throwing out ten-dollar bills as he went.
Few people made honest money from
Death Valley mines, at least until the
borax business came in, at the turn of
the twentieth century. The humble
chemical, which forms easily in salt ats,
has many household uses, notably as a
laundry detergent. Initially, teams of
mules were used to carry loads of borax
out of the valley. You can still buy boxes
of 20 Mule Team Borax, although all
mines in the park are now closed.
Death Valley became a national mon-
ument in the last weeks of the Hoover
Administration. In the twilight of power,
Hoover seemed drawn to vast, empty
spaces: three of the parks he created at
that time were deserts. As Hal Roth-
man and Char Miller note, in the 2013
book Death Valley National Park: A
History, the notion of a desert park
was novel. The classic parks, Yosemite
and Yellowstone, matched nineteenth-
century ideas of the sublime, their gran-
diose scenery celebrated by Albert Bier-
stadt and other landscape painters. In
the twentieth century, the epoch of The
Waste Land, an aesthetic of desolation
took hold. Death Valley found its place
in artistic lore: Frank Norriss 1899 novel,
McTeague, and Erich von Stroheims
ill-fated 1924 lm adaptation, Greed,
both end with the image of the protag-
onist handcued to a corpse in Badwa-
ter Basin. Dozens of movie scenes have
given the park a post-apocalyptic or
sci- tint. R2-D2 meanders down one
of its canyons in Star Wars.
Even if its menace is exaggerated,
Death Valley can wipe out those who
act foolishly. In 1996, a German couple
with two children drove a van up a re-
mote canyon in the Panamints, got stuck,
set o on foot, and vanished. Thirteen
years later, a retired trac engineer
named Tom Mahood, who specializes
in tracking desert disappearances and
U.F.O.s, uncovered their remains. In
2001, one of Darryl Cowans students
found scattered bones in Hanaupah
Canyon, with jeans and sneakers nearby;
they belonged to a tourist who had gone
missing months earlier. Last summer,
there were two heat-related fatalities.
In June, a German motorcyclist suc-
cumbed to heat stroke after parking his
vehicle and wandering a short distance.
In August, a Las Vegas woman died
after her car got stuck in sand. Rangers
speak of death by G.P.S.: people fol-
low bad directions into oblivion, refus-
ing to believe that their devices could
lead them astray.
At 3.4 million acres, Death Valley is
the largest national park outside of
Alaska, yet its annual budget, a little
under nine million dollars, is relatively
modest. Only eight full-time park po-
lice patrol the region, plus a few sea-
sonal hires. Although emergencies arise
every week, most of the time police and
rangers handle lesser problems: illicit
camping, grati, unlicensed lm proj-
ects and car commercials. (Tested in
Death Valley is a favorite car-ad con-
ceit, going back to a 1916 campaign by
the Dodge Brothers.) Inevitably, much
of the park goes unsupervised. Rangers
tend to take a see-no-evil attitude to-
ward countercultural activity at the hot
springs in Saline Valley, which hosts
clothing-optional softball games on
Presidents Day weekend.
For some Park Service people, Death
Valley can be a gruelling assignment:
high schools and shopping are an hour
or more away, and for serious medical
needs you have to go to Las Vegas.
Others thrive on the solitude. In March,
I spent a few hours looking at wildow-
ers with Dianne Milliard, a ranger who
had been dividing her time between
Death Valley, in the winter, and Mc-
Carthy, Alaska, in the summer. Ev-
eryone says that I live in these extreme
places, she told me. But for me ex-
treme would be ChicagoI cant imag-
ine living in a place like that. I need
more space than most people.
We drove through Greenwater Val-
ley, once the scene of a short-lived
copper-mining craze. Milliards radio
crackled to life: Need a ranger to
handle what looks to be a commercial
photo shoot happening at the entrance
to Twenty Mule Team Canyon. We
walked through elds of wildowers.
Heres the little purple Death Valley
phacelia, always hiding in the bushes,
Milliard said. She took photographs
of choice owers as she walked along;
she had been posting pictures on Death
Valleys Facebook page, along with di-
rections to the best viewing spots. But
I dont give away everything I see, she
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 67
told me. A very fragile area could get
trashed if I sent a lot of people there.
On her days o, Milliard hiked alone
or with a colleague in stretches of the
park that are overlooked by guide
booksplaces she liked to call name
less canyons. She told me, Im trying
to decide where to disappear to this
weekend.
eyes. All these other names: Funeral
Mountains, Devils Golf Course, Hells
Gate. A writer once brought up the
idea of changing the name, and peo
ple at the Park Service said that its
part of the folklore. The folklore! What
the heck is that?
For the most part, the Timbisha
evaded the regime of slaughter and
enslavement that caused the Native
which has assumed control, is pursu
ing plans for a casino, to be built out
side the park. Those in Furnace Creek
favor a museum and an environmen
tally conscious inn. Barbara Durham,
Estevess niece, serves as the Tribal His
toric Preservation Ocer, and she
maintains a small display of artifacts
in the Timbisha oce.
While I was talking to Durham, a

T Death Valley is the one adopted by

he only sensible way of living in
the Timbisha Shoshone people, in the
centuries before the Manly cohort blun
dered through. In the winter months,
when temperatures tend to peak in the
seventies, the Timbisha lived on the
ats, at springs like the one in Furnace
Creek. In the summers, they avoided
the heat by going into the mountains.
They hunted gamebighorn sheep
were the largest prizeand gathered
pine nuts and mesquite beans. In greener
parts of the park, such as Saline Valley,
they grew potatoes, squash, corn, wheat,
American population of California to
drop from about a hundred and fty
thousand, in 1846, to about sixteen
thousand, in 1880. The arrival of the
National Park Service posed a new
challenge: because the Timbisha were
never recognized as a tribe, they had
no legal standing when Death Valley
became public land. From the start,
they felt that the rangers were up to
no good; in their uniforms, they looked
like soldiers. Esteves recalls, I never
saw really harsh things being done to
our people, but we kids rebelled against
them, because they intimidated us. We
family of Norwegian tourists stopped
by. In the summer months, the park
gets a lot of business from Europeans,
who relish extreme heat of a kind they
may never have encountered. (To New
Yorkers, the park feels not unlike the
lower level of the West Fourth Street
subway station on a hundreddegree
day.) After the Norwegians left, Dur
ham said, The Europeans romanti
cize us. Theyve seen all kinds of ver
sions of us on TV. But they tend to
know more about Native American
history than the average U.S. citizen.

T from the valley oor is to experi

and fruit trees.
Last summer, I went to see Pauline
Esteves, the elder of the Timbisha Sho
shone. She was born in Furnace Creek
in 1924. Her mother, Rosie, came from
a family that had long lived near the
spring. Her father, Steve, was of Basque
descent; he was a stonemason, and
helped to build the Furnace Creek Inn,
the only highend lodging in Death
Valley. The Park Service didnt arrive
until Esteves was nine, and she can re
member the traditional summertime
expeditions into the mountains. She
now lives alone in a roomy trailer in
the Timbisha village, which lies about
a mile south of the Park Service visi
tors center. Around thirtyve people
occupy a group of adobe homes and
trailers, with mesquite trees providing
a modicum of shade.
To call it Death Valley, that was a
very immoral and evil thing, Esteves
said, scrutinizing me through black
framed glasses. We didnt even talk
about death. We talked about now, and
the future. Death is part of lifeits
going to happen. Why talk about it?
My elders used to ask, What do these
people know about death, anyway? How
do you dene death? Theyd go into
heavy conversations that Id listen to.
Then theyd wind up making a big joke
out of it. She laughed and rolled her
68 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
did crazy things. Once, we let the air
out of the tires of the rangers car when
they were giving a lecture to the rich
folk at the Furnace Creek Inn, proba
bly saying how we eat snakes.
The Timbisha were right to be sus
picious: the Park Service considered
their encampment a blemish on the sup
posed purity of the wilderness. During
the Second World War, young men of
the tribe joined the armed forces, and
often they moved their families out of
Death Valley. When an adobe house
became unoccupied, a ranger hosed it
down until its walls dissolved. The ap
parent hope was that the tribe would
vanish completely, yet the community
hung on. In the nineteenseventies and make no progress.
eighties, Esteves became active in the
Timbishas eorts to win formal recog
nition and ownership of land. After tor
tuous negotiations, the tribe was granted
three hundred and fourteen acres at
Furnace Creek. In 2000, President Bill
Clinton signed the Timbisha Shoshone
Homeland Act, and the tribes name
now appears on Death Valley signage.
Once the Timbisha had regained a
parcel of their ancestral home, new
problems arose. The tribe split into fac
tions, with Esteves and others at Fur dark. I could see no articial light ex
nace Creek pitted against a larger group,
based in Bishop, at the northern end
of Owens Valley. The Bishop group,
o gaze at the Panamint Range
ence an old and dangerous illusion: the
mountains do not seem nearly as high
or as far o as they really are. Distant
objects look stark and near, Edna Brush
Perkins wrote. What you judge to be
half a mile usually turns out to be ve,
and four miles is certainly eighteen.
In the blinding light of day, the mass
of rock attens into two dimensions,
like a cardboard cutout on a comic
opera set. At sunset, the mountains
turn an ethereal blue and purple. When
you start walking toward them across
the salt pan, they do not appear to get
any closer. Your feet move, but you
I had wondered for years what the
view is like from above, and in August
I decided to climb Telescope Peak. The
hike is a fourteenmile round trip, and,
while it requires no mountaineering
abilities, the guidebooks do not lie in
calling it strenuous. I drove to Mahog
any Flat, a campground just above eight
thousand feet, where I spent the night
in a tent. Down in the valley, the tem
perature had hit a hundred and seven
teen; up there, it got a bit chilly after
cept, very faintly, the glow of Las Vegas
to the east. The night sky blazed so
brightly that it was hard to pick out
constellations. Sunrise was eerie: a red
disk materialized behind mountain haze,
and Badwater Basin became visible as
a faint white patch.
I saw no one else hiking that day.
Evidently, I had the mountain to my-
self. I like spells of solitude, but this was
a bit much. I did not lack for company,
though. A black-tailed jackrabbit froze
in place. A Panamint chipmunk perched
atop a rock, its foxlike ears twitching.
Lizards darted across the path. I scanned
the far ridges for bighorn sheep, but had
no luck.
From afar, these peaks had appeared
forbidding and featureless. Up close,
they were startlingly green, their slopes
covered by trees, bushes, and ower-
ing plants. The elds below had turned
an arid brown by April and May, yet
at this elevation the bloom was still in
progress: I saw purple lupine, scarlet
paintbrush, yellow rabbitbrush. Flow-
ers were bunched up against the path,
oering a more informal, hey-whats-up
greeting. Under my feet was a geolog-
ical layer known as the Johnnie For-
mation: gray, green, and reddish slate.
The shards clinked metallically when
I stepped on them. This was the result
of metamorphic hardening, Darrel
Cowan told me later.
Halfway up, the path attens out
and traverses an open, rolling terrain,
which has the delightful name Arcane
Meadows. Then you enter a pine grove,
mostly juniper and pion. I looked at
the pion cones, knowing that in the
fall members of the Timbisha tribe
would harvest them on the slopes below.
Following an ancient practice that Pau-
line Esteves teaches the younger gen-
erations, they pick cones o the trees
with poles, remove the nuts, and roast
them. Farther up the slope are bristle-
cone pines, with sinewy, almost hu-
manoid trunks. They can live for thou-
sands of years.
After four hours, I reached the sum-
mit. In a reversal of the illusion on the
valley oor, Badwater seemed impossi-
bly distant, much farther than fteen
miles o. A scrim of haze had hidden
the peaks of the Sierra Nevadathere
were forest res to the southbut the
panorama was staggering all the same.
Ridge after ridge, basin after basin, the
entire pulled-apart topography of the re-
gion came into view. Each range here is
like a warship standing on its own,
John McPhee wrote in Basin and
Range, his great 1981 book about the
geology of the American West. It is a
soundless immensity with mountains in it.
Next to the summit cairn was a
beat-up old ammunition box contain-
ing a visitors log going back several
months. In that time, around a hun-
dred hikers had reached the top, in-
cluding a college graduate who was cel-
ebrating his freedom with a cross-
country trip; a mother who was hiking
with her kids; and two women who
were marking the anniversaries of their
cancer diagnoses. I sifted through the
comments:
I pray that I leave lifes worries on top of
this mountain and come down with a new per-
spective.
Dont know how much longer Ill be able
to do this, but happy I can & did today!
Started up in 1985 + made it to the top
today.
Take good care of mother nature please, all
of you. You still have her presence here in the
US.
Its all one big mystery.
Hope we make it down the gravel road with
my Prius.
Several people remarked on the para-
dox that Death Valley is full of life. One
underscored the message with a sketch
of a lizard. I thought again about the
misfortune of the name. In recent years,
Mt. McKinley, in Alaska, has reverted
to its Native name, Denali; perhaps the
same thing could eventually happen
with Timbisha.
The environmental historian Wil-
liam Cronon, in a 1995 essay entitled
The Trouble with Wilderness, observes
that national parks can have the eect
of letting us o the hook: reassured by
the sight of seemingly pristine nature,
we go back to trampling it in our daily
lives. Death Valley is, in a way, the most
honest of parks: it oers no such Edenic
mirage. The mining craze has left an in-
eradicable mark, with one escarpment
after another clawed by greed. There is
also no escaping the force eld of the
military-industrial complex. Above much
of the park is a Special Use Airspace
used by the Naval Air Weapons Station
China Lake and other Department of
Defense facilities: the silence of the des-
ert is periodically broken by the noise
of jets. From Telescope Peak, it is not
hard to imagine a world that has been
comprehensively stripped and scoured.
You wonder how much more of the
planet will begin to look like Mars.
Todays people are beginning to see
a little dierently, Pauline Esteves told
me. They see climate change, which
we brought on ourselves, being so greedy.
They see how weve destroyed nature,
which is good medicine for you. Maybe
if they start to call this place Timbisha
instead of Death Valley, it will be a step
in the right direction.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 69
 FICTION

MAGNUM

70 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 PHOTOGRAPH BY LARRY TOWELL

W
ar in Saeed and Nadias city
revealed itself to be an inti-
mate experience, combatants
pressed close together, front lines dened
at the level of the street one took to work,
the school ones sister attended, the house
of ones aunts best friend, the shop where
one bought cigarettes. Saeeds mother
thought she saw a former student of hers
ring, with much determination and focus,
a machine gun mounted on the back of
a pickup truck. She looked at him and he
looked at her but he did not turn and
shoot her, so she suspected it was him,
although Saeeds father said it meant noth-
ing more than that she had seen a man
who wished to re in another direction.
She remembered the boy as shy, with a
stutter and a quick mind for mathemat-
ics, a good boy, but she could not remem-
ber his name. She wondered if it had re-
ally been him, and whether she should
feel alarmed or relieved if it had. If the
militants won, she supposed, it might not
be entirely bad to know some people on
their side.
Neighborhoods fell to the militants in
startlingly quick succession, so that Saeeds
mothers mental map of the city where
she had spent her entire life now resem-
bled an old quilt, with patches of govern-
ment land and patches of militant land.
The frayed seams between the patches
were the most deadly spaces, to be avoided
at all costs. Her butcher and the man who
dyed the fabrics from which she had once
made her festive clothes disappeared into
such gaps, their places of business reduced
to rubble and glass.
People vanished in those days, and
for the most part one did not know, at
least not for a while, if they were alive
or dead. Nadia had been estranged from
her family since she had completed uni-
versity and announced, to their anger
and fear and dismay, that she would
henceforth live on her own. She passed
their house one afternoon on purpose,
not to speak with them, just to see from
the outside if they were there and well,
but the home she had forsaken looked
deserted, with no sign of inhabitants or
life. When she visited again, it was gone,
unrecognizable, the building crushed by
the force of a bomb that weighed as much
as a compact automobile. Nadia would
never be able to determine what had be-
come of her family, but she always hoped
that they had found a way to depart un-
harmed, abandoning the city to the pre-
dations of warriors on both sides, who
seemed content to atten it in order to
possess it.
Nadia resided alone, and Saeed with
his parents, but both were fortunate that
their homes remained for a while in gov-
ernment-controlled neighborhoods, and
so were spared much of the worst ght-
ing and also the retaliatory air strikes
that the Army was calling in on locali-
ties thought not merely to be occupied
but disloyal.
They had met three months earlier,
when the city was not yet openly at war.
It might seem odd that in cities teeter-
ing at the edge of the abyss young peo-
ple still go to classin this case an eve-
ning class on corporate identity and
product brandingbut that is the way
of things, with cities as with life. One
moment we are pottering about our er-
rands as usual and the next we are dying,
and our eternally impending ending
does not put a stop to our transient be-
ginnings and middles until the instant
when it does.
Their class had not resumed after the
recent assault on the citys stock exchange.
Now Saeeds boss had tears in his eyes
as he told his employees that he had to
shutter his business, apologizing for let-
ting them down and promising that there
would be jobs for them all when things
improved and the agency was able to re-
open. He was so distraught that it seemed
to those collecting their nal salaries that
they were in fact consoling him. All
agreed that he was a ne and delicate
man, worryingly so, for these were not
times for such men.
At Nadias oce, the payroll depart-
ment ceased giving out checks, and within
days everyone stopped coming to work.
There were no real goodbyes, or at least
none that she was part of, and since the
security guards were the rst to melt away,
a sort of calm looting, or remuneration
in hardware, began, and people left with
what they could carry.
O changed in the city. A window was
nes relationship to windows
the border through which death was
possibly likeliest to come. Windows
could not stop even the most agging
round of ammunition: any spot indoors
with a view of the outside was a spot
potentially in the crossre. Moreover, a
windowpane itself could so easily be-
come shrapnel, shattered by a nearby
blast, and everyone had heard of some-
one or other who had bled out after
being lacerated by shards of ying glass.
Many windows were broken already,
and the prudent thing would have been
to remove those which remained, but it
was winter and the nights were cold, and
without gas and electricity, both of which
were in increasingly short supply, win-
dows served to take some of the edge o
the chill, and so people left them in place.
Saeed and his family rearranged their
furniture instead. They placed book-
shelves full of books against the win-
dows in their bedrooms, blocking the
glass from sight but allowing light to
creep in around the edges, and they
leaned Saeeds bed over the tall windows
in their sitting room, mattress and all,
upright, at an angle, so that the beds
feet rested on the lintel. Saeed slept on
three rugs layered on the oor, which he
told his parents suited his back.
Nadia taped the inside of her win-
dows with beige packing tape, the sort
normally used to seal cardboard boxes,
and hammered heavy-duty rubbish bags
into place over them, pounding nails
into the window frames. When shed
had enough electricity to charge her
backup battery, she would lounge around
and listen to her records in the light of
a single bare bulb, the harsh sounds of
the ghting mued somewhat by the
music, and she would then glance at her
windows and think that they looked a
bit like amorphous black works of con-
temporary art.
The eect doors had on people al-
tered as well. Rumors had begun to cir-
culate of doors that could take you else-
where, often to places far away, well
removed from this death trap of a coun-
try. Some people claimed to know peo-
ple who knew people who had been
through such doors. A normal door, they
said, could become a special door, and it
could happen, without warning, to any
door at all. Most people thought these
rumors to be nonsense, the superstitions
of the feeble-minded. But most people
began to gaze at their own doors a little
dierently nonetheless.
Nadia and Saeed, too, discussed these
rumors and dismissed them. But every
morning, when she woke, Nadia looked
over at her front door, and at the doors
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 71

The second stage is sleeplessness.
At first there was worry.
The third stage is ordinary people.
The fourth: what to do.
The first stage is chaos.
The second is invention.
The steam engine. The napkin.
The picnic table. Money.
First you were walking across a bridge.
Then you were flying.
Then you were sweeping the floor.
First comes love.
Then nausea.
First pleasure.
Just a little pinch.
First the pupa, then the wings.
Wordlessness. Night.
The first thing is labor.
The second, we dont know.
First comes water.
Then air.
A hurricane. A sigh.
Abigail. Norma. Laquisha.
Molly. Sylvia. Roxanne.
Temperance. Emma. Delilah.
Daphne. Wilhelmina. Georgette.
Landfall. Rubble.
to her bathroom, her closet, her terrace.
Every morning, in his room, Saeed did
much the same. All their doors remained
simple doors, on-o switches in the ow
between two adjacent places, binarily ei-
ther open or closed, but each door, re-
garded thus with a twinge of irrational
possibility, became partially animate as
well, an object with a subtle power to
mockto mock the desires of those who
desired to go far away, whispering silently
from its doorframe that such dreams were
the dreams of fools.
W impediment to Saeed and Nadia
ithout work, there was no
meeting during the day except for the
ghting, but that impediment was a
serious one. The few local television
72 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
PLOT
The first stage was childhood.
The second stage was Beatrice.
The first stage was Beatrice.
The second stage was hell.
First the city, then the forest.
The second stage was Virgil.
The third stage was expurgated.
The fourth went unnoticed.
The last stage was a letter.
A single meaningless hum.
What came first the money launderers or the
flatterers.
What came first the Catherine wheel or the icebox.
In the beginning a voice.
In the beginning paramecia.
First carbon.
Then electricity.
Then shoes.
In the beginning a tree.
Before the house, a cave.
Before the cave, a swamp.
Before the swamp, a desert.
The garden was in the middle.
Between the sidewalk and the street.
In the beginning soup.
channels still on the air were saying move in with him and his family, tell-
that the war was going well, but the ing her that he could explain things
international ones were saying that it to his parents, and she could have his
was going badly indeed, adding to an room, and he would sleep in the sit-
unprecedented ow of migrants hit- ting room, and they would not have
ting the rich countries, which were to marry, they would only, out of re-
building walls and fences and strength- spect for his parents, have to remain
ening their borders, but seemingly to chaste in the house, and it would be
unsatisfactory eect. The militants had safer for her, for this was no time for
their own pirate radio station, featur- anyone to be alone. He had not added
ing an announcer with a deep and un- that it was especially unsafe for a
nervingly sexy voice, who spoke slowly woman to be alone, but she knew both
and deliberately, and claimed in a de- that he thought it and that it was true,
celerated but almost raplike cadence even as she parried his suggestion. He
that the fall of the city was imminent. could see that the subject unsettled
Whatever the truth, being out and her, so he did not raise it again, but
about was risky, so Saeed and Nadia the oer stood, and she considered it.
typically met at Nadias place. Nadia was herself coming to ac-
Saeed had once more asked her to knowledge that this was no longer a
 Then tables. The stock market.
Things on four legs.
In the beginning I was frightened.
Then the darkness told a joke.
Which came first the river or the bank.
Which came first the priest or the undertaker.
Which came first crime or punishment.
Which came first the firemen or the cops.
Which came first conquest or discovery.
The fork or the spoon.
The point or the lineup.
The FBI or the CIA.
Which came first gravity or grace.
Which came first cotton or wool.
Which came first the slaver or the ship.
Which came first the ankle or the wing.
The hummingbird or the frog.
Puberty or ideology.
Who is more powerful Mephistopheles or Marguerite.
Whos it going to be me or you.
What would you rather do burn or drown.
In the beginning I was invincible.
In the middle I came apart.
First there was a library then there was a caf.
Then there was a wall of glass.
Which came first The Melancholy of Departure or
The Double Dream of Spring.
Which came first repression or resistance.
Grammar or syntax.
The siren or the gunshot.
Which came first granite or marble.
The army or the drone.
The whistling or the blackbird.
Which came first sugar or rum. Pineapple or bananas.
The senate or the corporation.

Which came first memory or forgiveness.
Which came first prohibition or womens surage.
Coee or tea.
What came first yes or no.
What comes first silver or gold.
Porcelain or silk.
Pen or paper.
What came first Kyoto or Dresden.
What came first the renaissance or the reformation.
What would you rather be a rabbit or a duck.
Was the story half-empty or half-full.
What feels better pity or anger.
What scares you more life or death.
What describes you best, the steam in the engine or a
penny on the tracks.
What were you thinking, a whimper or a bang.
What would you choose, a sandwich or a phone call.
What did you expect, a question or an answer.
A piano or a clock.
Take all the time you want.
Elizabeth Willis

city where the risks facing a young
woman living independently could be
thought of as manageable, and, equally
important, she worried for Saeed each
time he drove over to see her and then
again when he returned home. But she
might have waited much longer had
Saeeds mother not been killed, a stray
heavy-calibre round passing through
the windshield of her car and taking
with it a quarter of her head, not while
she was driving, for she had not driven
in months, but while she was check-
ing inside for an earring she thought
she had misplaced, and Nadia, seeing
the state that Saeed and Saeeds fa-
ther were in when she came to their
apartment for the rst time, on the
day of the funeral, stayed with them
that night to oer what comfort and
help she could, and did not spend an-
other night in her own apartment.
Nadia slept in what had been Saeeds
room, on a pile of carpets and blan-
kets on the oor, having refused Saeeds
fathers oer to give up his bed, and
Saeed slept on a similar, though thin-
ner, pile in the sitting room, and Saeeds
father slept by himself in his bedroom,
a room where he had slept for most
of his life, though he could not recall
the last instance he had slept alone,
and for this reason the room was no
longer completely familiar to him.
Saeeds neighborhood had fallen to
the militants and small-scale ghting
had diminished in the area, but large
bombs still dropped from the sky and
exploded with an awesome power that
brought to mind the might of nature
itself. Saeed was grateful for Nadias
presence, for the way in which she al-
tered the silences that descended on
the apartment, not necessarily lling
them with words but making them
less bleak in their muteness. And he
was grateful, too, for her eect on his
father, whose politeness, when he re-
called that he was in the company of
a young woman, would jar him from
what otherwise were interminable rev-
eries and would bring his attention
back for a while to the here and now.
Saeed wished that Nadia had been
able to meet his mother, and his mother
able to meet her.
Sometimes, when Saeeds father
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 73

I know by outward standards Im successful, but a voice inside
my head keeps saying, Wheres your private plane?
had gone to sleep, Saeed and Nadia
sat together in the sitting room, their
sides pressed close for connection and
warmth, perhaps holding hands, at
most exchanging a kiss on the cheek
as a farewell before bed, and often they
were silent, but often they spoke in
low voices, about how to escape from
the city, or about the endless rumors of
the doors.
O came, banging on the front door
n one occasion, the militants
in the middle of the night. They were
looking for people of a particular sect,
and demanded to see I.D. cards, to
check what sort of name everyone had,
but, fortunately for Saeeds father and
Saeed and Nadia, their names were
not associated with the denomination
being hunted. The neighbors upstairs
were not so lucky: the husband was
held down while his throat was cut,
the wife and daughter were hauled out
and away.
The dead neighbor bled through
a crack in the oor, his blood appear-
74 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
home of a cousin who was like an
elder brother to him and his surviv-
drank tea and coee and discussed
ing as a stain in the corner of Saeeds
sitting-room ceiling, and Saeed and
Nadia, who had heard the familys
screams, went up to collect and bury
him, as soon as they dared, but his
body was gone, presumably taken by
his executioners, and his blood was al-
ready fairly dry, a patch like a painted
puddle in his apartment, an uneven
trail on the stairs.
The following night, or perhaps
the night after that, Saeed entered Na-
dias room and they were unchaste
there for the rst time. A combina-
tion of horror and desire subsequently
impelled him back each evening, de-
spite his earlier resolution that they
do nothing that was disrespectful to
his parents, and they would touch and
stroke and taste, always stopping short
of sex, to which he remained as ever
morally opposedand which they had
by now found ample means to circum-
vent. His mother was no more, and
his father seemed not to concern him-
self with these romantic matters, and
so they proceeded in secret, and the
fact that unmarried lovers such as they
were now being made examples of and
punished by death created a semi-ter-
ried urgency and edge to each cou-
pling that sometimes bordered on a
strange sort of ecstasy.
A extinguishing the last large salients
s the militants secured the city,
of resistance, a partial calm descended,
broken by the activities of drones and
aircraft that bombed from the heav-
ens, and by the public and private ex-
ecutions that now took place almost
continuously, bodies hanging from
street lamps and billboards like a form
of festive seasonal decoration. The ex-
ecutions moved in waves, and once a
neighborhood had been purged it could
then expect a measure of respite, until
someone committed an infraction of
some kind, because infractions, al-
though often alleged with a degree of
randomness, were invariably punished
without mercy.
Saeeds father went each day to the
ing siblings, and there he sat, with
the old men and old women, and
the past, and they all knew Saeeds
mother well and had stories to relate
in which she featured prominently,
and while Saeeds father was with
them he felt not that his wife was
alive, for the magnitude of her death
impressed itself upon him again with
every morning, but, rather, that he
could share some small portion of her
company.
Saeeds father tarried at her grave
each evening on the way home. Once,
he saw some young boys playing foot-
ball and this cheered him, and re-
minded him of his own skill at the
game when he was their age. Then he
realized that they were not young boys
but teen-agers, young men, and they
were playing not with a ball but with
the severed head of a goat, and he
thought, Barbarians, but then it dawned
on him that this was the head not of
a goat but of a human being, with hair
and a beard, and he wanted to believe
that he was mistaken, that the light
was failing and his eyes were playing
tricks on him, and that was what he
told himself, as he tried not to look
again, but something about the young
mens expressions left him in little
doubt of the truth.
S dedicated themselves single-mind-
aeed and Nadia, meanwhile, had
edly to nding a way out of the city,
and, as the overland routes were widely
deemed too perilous to attempt, this
meant investigating the possibility of
securing passage through the doors, in
which most people seemed now to be-
lieve, especially since any attempt to use
one or keep one secret had been de-
clared by the militants to be punishable,
as usual, by death, and also because those
with shortwave radios claimed that even
the most reputable international broad-
casters had acknowledged the doors
existence, and indeed they were being
discussed by world leaders as a major
global crisis.
Following a tip from a friend, Saeed
and Nadia headed out on foot one eve-
ning at dusk. They were dressed in ac-
cordance with the rules on dress and
he was bearded in accordance with the
rules on beards and her hair was hid-
den in accordance with the rules on
hair, but nonetheless they stayed in the
margins of the roads, in the shadows
as much as possible, trying not to be
seen while trying not to look like they
were trying not to be seen. They passed
a body dangling from a signpost and
could barely smell it until they were
downwind, when the odor became al-
most unbearable.
Because of the ying robots high
above in the darkening sky, unseen but
never far from peoples minds, Saeed
walked with a slight hunch, as though
cringing at the thought of the bomb or
missile that one of them might at any
moment dispatch. By contrast, because
she wanted not to appear guilty, Nadia
walked tall, so that if they were stopped
and their I.D. cards were checked and
it was pointed out that her card did not
list him as her husband, she would be
more believable when she led the ques-
tioners home and presented their forged
marriage certicate.
The man they were looking for called
himself an agent, though it was unclear
if this was owing to his specializing in
travel or to his operating in secret or to
some other reason, and they were to
meet him in the labyrinthine gloom of
a burned-out shopping center, a ruin
with innumerable exits and hiding places,
which made Saeed wish he had insisted
that Nadia not come and made Nadia
wish that they had brought a ashlight
or, failing that, a knife. They stood, barely
able to see, and waited with mounting
unease.
They did not hear the agent approach-
ingor perhaps he had been there all
alongand they were startled by his voice
just behind them. The agent spoke softly,
almost sweetly, his whisper bringing to
mind that of a poet or a psychopath. He
instructed them to stand still and not to
turn around. He told Nadia to uncover
her head, and when she asked why he
said it was not a request.
Nadia had the sense that he was ex-
tremely close to her, as if he were about
to touch her neck, but she could not
hear his breathing. There was a faint
sound in the distance, and she and Saeed
realized that the agent might not be
alone. Saeed asked where the door was
and where it led to, and the agent re-
plied that the doors were everywhere,
but nding one the militants had not
yet found, a door not yet guarded, that
was the trick, and might take a while.
The agent demanded their money and
Saeed gave it to him, uncertain whether
they were making a down payment or
being robbed.
As they hurried home, Saeed and
Nadia looked at the night sky, at the
forcefulness of the stars and the moons
pockmarked brightness in the absence
of electric lighting and in the reduced
pollution from fuel-starved and hence
sparse trac. They wondered where
the door to which they had purchased
access might take them, someplace in
the mountains or on the plains or by
the seaside. In their apartment, they
told Saeeds father the potential good
news, but he was oddly silent in re-
sponse. They waited for him to say
something, and in the end all he said
was Let us hope.
A Nadia did not hear from the agent
s the days passed, and Saeed and
again, they increasingly questioned
whether they would hear from him at
all. It might seem surprising that even
in such circumstances Saeeds and Na-
dias attitudes toward nding a way out
were not entirely straightforward. Saeed
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 75
desperately wanted to leave his city, in
a sense he always had, but in his imag-
ination he had thought he would leave
it only temporarily, intermittently, never
once and for all, and this looming po-
tential departure was altogether dier-
ent, for he doubted he would come back,
and the scattering of his extended fam-
ily and his circle of friends and acquain-
tances, forever, struck him as deeply sad,
as amounting to the loss of a home, no
lessof his home.
Nadia was possibly even more fever-
ishly keen to depart, and her nature was
such that the prospect of something new,
of change, was at its most basic level ex-
citing to her. But she was haunted by
worries, too, revolving around depen-
dence, worries that in going abroad and
leaving their country she and Saeed and
Saeeds father might be at the mercy of
strangers, subsisting on handouts, caged
in pens like vermin.
Whatever their misgivings, neither
of them had any doubt that they would
leave if given the chance. And so nei-
ther expected, when a handwritten
note from the agent arrived, pushed
under the apartment door one morn-
ing and telling them precisely where
to be at precisely what time the fol-
lowing afternoon, that Saeeds father
would say, You two must go, but I will
not come.
Saeed and Nadia said this was im-
possible, and explained, in case he had
misunderstood, that there was no prob-
lem, that they had paid the agent for
three passages and would all be leaving
together, and Saeeds father heard them
out but would not be budged: they, he
repeated, had to go, and he had to stay.
Saeed threatened to carry his father over
his shoulder if he needed to. He had
never spoken to his father in this way,
and his father took him aside, for he
could see the pain he was causing his
son, and when Saeed asked why his fa-
ther was doing this, what could possibly
make him want to stay, Saeeds father
said, Your mother is here.
Saeed said, Mother is gone.
His father said, Not for me.
And this was true, in a way. He pre-
ferred to abide in the past, for the past
oered more to him. But Saeeds fa-
ther was thinking also of the future,
even though he did not say this to
Saeed, for he feared if he said this to
76 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
his son that his son might not go, and
he knew above all else that his son must
go, and what he did not say was that
he had come to that point in a parents
life when, if a ood arrives, one knows
one must let go of ones child, contrary
to all the instincts one had when one
was younger, because holding on can
no longer oer the child protection, it
can only pull the child down and
threaten him with drowning, for the
child is now stronger than the parent,
and the circumstances are such that
the utmost strength is required, and
the arc of a childs life appears only for
a while to match the arc of a parents,
in reality, one sits atop the other, a hill
atop a hill, a curve atop a curve, and
Saeeds fathers arc now needed to curve
lower, while his sons still curved higher,
for with an old man hampering them
these two young people were simply
less likely to survive.
Saeeds father told his son he loved
him and said that Saeed must not dis-
obey him in this, that he had never be-
lieved in commanding his son but in
this moment was doing so, that only
death awaited Saeed and Nadia in this
city, and that one day, when things were
better, Saeed would come back to him,
and both men knew as this was said
that it would not happen, that Saeed
would not be able to return while his
father still lived.
Saeeds father then summoned Nadia
into his room and spoke to her without
Saeed and said that he was entrusting
her with his sons life, and she, whom
he called daughter, must, like a daugh-
ter, not fail him, whom she called fa-
ther, and she must see Saeed through
to safety, and he hoped she would one
day marry his son and be called mother
by his grandchildren, but this was up to
them to decide, and all he asked was
that she remain by Saeeds side until
Saeed was out of danger, and he asked
her to promise this to him. He said it
softly, like a prayer, and she sat there
with him in silence and the minutes
passed, and in the end she promised,
and it was an easy promise to make, be-
cause she had at that time no thoughts
of leaving Saeed, but it was also a di-
cult one, because in making it she felt
she was abandoning the old man, and
so by making the promise he demanded
she make she was in a sense killing him,
but that is the way of things, for when
we migrate we murder from our lives
those we leave behind.
T was an interminable one, and as they
he walk to the rendezvous point
walked Saeed and Nadia did not hold
hands, for that was forbidden in public
between genders, even for an ostensibly
married couple, but from time to time
their knuckles would brush at their sides,
and this sporadic physical contact was
important to them. They knew there was
a possibility that the agent had sold them
out to the militants, and so they knew
there was a possibility that this was the
nal afternoon of their lives.
The rendezvous point was in a con-
verted house next to a market. On the
ground oor was a dentists clinic, long
lacking medicines and painkillers, and
as of yesterday lacking a dentist as well,
and in the dentists waiting room they
had a shock because a man who looked
like a militant was standing there, as-
sault rie slung over his shoulder. But
he merely took the balance of their pay-
ment and told them to sit, and so they
sat in that crowded room with a fright-
ened couple and their two school-age
children, and a young man in glasses,
and an older woman who was perched
erectly on her seat as if she came from
money, even though her clothes were
dirty, and every few minutes someone
was summoned through to the dentists
oce itself, and after Nadia and Saeed
were summoned they saw a slender man
who also looked like a militant, and was
picking at the edge of his nostril with
a ngernail, as though toying with a cal-
lus, or strumming a musical instrument,
and when he spoke they heard his pe-
culiarly soft voice and knew at once that
he was the agent they had met before.
The room was gloomy, and the den-
tists chair and tools resembled a torture
station. The agent gestured with his head
to the blackness of a door that had once
led to a supply closet and said to Saeed,
You go rst, but Saeed, who had until
then thought he would go rst, to make
sure it was safe for Nadia to follow, now
changed his mind, thinking it possi-
bly more dangerous for her to remain
behind while he went through, and
said, No, she will.
The agent shrugged as if it were of no
consequence to him, and Nadia, who had
not considered the order of their depar-
ture until that moment, and realized that
there were risks to each, to going rst and
to going second, did not argue but ap-
proached the door, and drawing close she
was struck by its darkness, its opacity, the
way that it did not reveal what was on the
other side and also did not reect what
was on this side, and so felt equally like
a beginning and an end, and she turned
to Saeed and found him staring at her,
and his face was full of worry and sorrow,
and she took his hands in hers and held
them tight, and then, releasing them, and
without a word, she stepped through.
I passage was both like dying and like
t was said in those days that the
being born, and indeed Nadia experi-
enced a kind of extinguishing as she en-
tered the blackness and a gasping strug-
gle as she fought to exit it, and she felt
cold and bruised and damp as she lay
on the oor of the room on the other
side, trembling and too spent at rst to
stand, and she thought, while she
strained to ll her lungs, that this damp-
ness must be her own sweat.
Saeed was emerging, and Nadia
crawled forward to give him room, and
as she did so she noticed the sinks and
mirrors for the rst time, the tiles of the
oor, the stalls behind her, all the doors
of which save one were normal doors, all
but the one through which she had come,
and through which Saeed was now com-
ing, which was black, and she understood
that she was in the bathroom of some
public place, and she listened intently
but it was silent, the only noises ema-
nating from her, from her breathing, and
from Saeed, his quiet grunts like those
of a man exercising, or having sex.
They embraced without getting to
their feet, and she cradled him, for he
was still weak, and when they were
strong enough they rose, and she saw
Saeed pivot back to the door, as though
he wished maybe to reverse course and
return through it, and she stood be-
side him without speaking, and he was
motionless for a while, but then he
strode forward and they made their
way outside and found themselves be-
tween two low buildings, perceiving a
sound like a shell held to their ears and
feeling a cold breeze on their faces and
smelling brine in the air, and they
looked and saw a stretch of sand and
gray waves coming in, and it seemed
miraculous, although it was not a mir-
acle, they were merely on a beach.
The beach was fronted by a beach
club, with bars and tables and large out-
door loudspeakers and loungers stacked
away for winter. Its signs were written
in English and also in other European
tongues. It seemed deserted, and Saeed
and Nadia went and stood by the sea,
the water stopping just short of their
feet and sinking into the sand, leaving
lines in the smoothness like those of
expired soap bubbles blown by a par-
ent for a child. After a while, a pale-
skinned man with light-brown hair
came out of the club and told them to
move along, making shooing gestures
with his hands, but without any hostil-
ity or particular rudeness, more as
though he were conversing in an inter-
national pidgin dialect of sign language.
They walked away from the beach
club, and in the lee of a hill they saw
what looked like a refugee camp, with
hundreds of tents and lean-tos and peo-
ple of many colors and huesmany
colors and hues but mostly falling within
a band of brown that ranged from dark
chocolate to milky teaand these peo-
ple were gathered around res that
burned inside upright oil drums and
were speaking in a cacophony that was
the languages of the world, what one
might hear if one were a communica-
tions satellite, or a spymaster tapping
into a bre-optic cable under the sea.
In this group, everyone was foreign,
and so, in a sense, no one was. Nadia and
Saeed quickly located a cluster of fellow
countrywomen and men and learned
that they were on the Greek island of
Mykonos, a great draw for tourists in the
summer, and, it seemed, a great draw for
migrants this winter, and that the doors
out, which is to say the doors to richer
destinations, were heavily guarded, but
the doors in, the doors from poorer places,
were mostly left unsecured, perhaps in
the hope that people would go back to
where they came fromalthough almost
no one ever didor perhaps because
there were simply too many doors from
too many poorer places.
Too many to guard them all.
NEWYORKER.COM
Mohsin Hamid on his story, Of Windows and
Doors.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 77

W get here? Well, unless they are
hen aliens come, how will they
sly inltrators of the esh, they will
probably go for the kind of boastful,
get-a-load-of-us craft that was immor-
talized by Douglas Adams in The
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. He
wrote, The ships hung in the sky in
much the same way that bricks dont.
That was true of Independence Day,
and it is doubly true of Arrival, in
which a dozen mountainous ovoids
charcoal gray and rough to the touch,
like a pumice stoneshow up at var-
ious locations around Earth. Rather
than land, the vessels suspend them-
selves in dignied fashion, with their
tips facing downward and not quite
touching the ground. Whatever their
occupants want, its a pretty cool way
to make an entrance.
But what do they want? No ultima-
tum is issued; no humans are abducted
and probed until they blush; no hair-
less mini-travellers trot out to say hello.
In the face of this stonewalling, Dr. Lou-
ise Banks (Amy Adams) is summoned
to the cause. She is, you will be heart-
ened to hear, a linguist by trade. Add
her to the botanist played by Matt
Damon, in last years The Martian,
and you sense a new Hollywood trend,
whereby superheroes and special agents
will be gradually replaced by people with
proper jobs. The question is not who
will play James Bond but whether Bond
should retrain as a geography teacher.
Jack Reacher could be huge in plastics.
The director of Arrival is Denis
Villeneuve, who is both a brooder and
a tease. Anyone who saw Prisoners
(2013), Enemy (2014), or Sicario
(2015) will know how sparing he can
78 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
THE CRITICS
THE CURRENT CINEMA
TALK TO THEM
Denis Villeneuves Arrival.
BY ANTHONY LANE
be with facts, divulging them slowly as
the tale gets under way. You have a clue
whats going on, but no more than a
clue, and what you learn is far from
comforting. So it is with Louise, who
nds herself lecturing, at college, to an
almost empty room. Cell phones are
ringing. Outside, as she walks to her
car, ghter jets hurtle overhead, like
thunderclaps. At home, where she lives
alone, she goes to bed with the televi-
sion on and the news channels in a
frenzy. The next day, she is approached
by Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker),
from Army Intelligence, who plays her
a recording of unearthly noisesknocks
and clicks, with a hint of moanand
asks if she can translate. Louise is per-
fectly clear on the matter; she cant
hope to understand such a vocabulary,
if thats what it is, unless she meets the
speaker face to face. Or, as things turn
out, face to sucker.
The rst forty minutes of Arrival
consumed me utterly. I gave up taking
notes and resorted to scrawling sketches
in the dark, as one prodigious image
followed another. So sure is the stride
of the narrative, and so bracing the air
of expectation, that you feel yourself,
like Louise, beginning to spin, and barely
able to catch your breath. She is borne
away, by night, in a military helicopter,
introduced on board to Ian Donnelly
( Jeremy Renner), a scientist from Los
Alamos, and own to Montana, where
one of the spaceships has come to rest.
Until now, we have been granted mere
glimpses of them, as granular smudges
on a TV screen, but now we are blessed
with a prime example, on a beautiful
day. Behold the great mass of the thing, they like to hit the wall with a scary
standing prouder than a neolithic stone,
with green prairies beneath and billows
of bright fog streaming o the hills and
breaking around it like waves. David
Lean would have approved.
The test, of course, is what happens
when you enter the craft. The Special
Edition of Close Encounters of the
Third Kind tacked on a scene of Rich-
ard Dreyfuss goggling inside the mother
ship, to no avail. All we needed was to
see him walk up the ramp, and what
he found withinbasically, a mall de-
signed by Busby Berkeleywas so
much less witty than the fairground-like
exteriors that it bled the movie of imag-
inative power. Arrival does things
dierently. For a start, within the belly
of the vessel, gravity takes a holiday. At
one point, Louise and Iansmall
gures in protective orange outts,
shepherded by Weber and other per-
sonnelare seen advancing cautiously,
upside down, along the ceiling of a vast
gray vault. If they practiced long
enough, and ditched the suits for white
waistcoats, maybe they could dance
there, like Fred Astaire in Royal Wed-
ding. Hence the grin that Ian cant
suppress. The physics he thought he
knew just ew away.
As for the aliens, suce to say that
nothing youve ever eaten, even in a
Greek restaurant, will prepare you for
tentacles like these. Shaking hands is
not recommended, unless youve got a
spare afternoon. The newcomers are
set apart, at the far end of the vault, by
a transparent wall, behind which they
ABOVE: LUCI GUTIRREZ
drift in a hazy medium. Their gestures
are nicely poised between a writhe and
a waltz, and, for particular emphasis,
splat. To Louises innite satisfaction,
Amy Adams plays a linguist tasked with translating messages from alien visitorsand determining what they seek.
ILLUSTRATION
BY KEITH NEGLEY THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 79
 when she shows them a wordher
species, or her nameon a whiteboard,
they write back, not in script but in
mottled black circles that they describe
in elegant squirts, daring her to deci-
pher every blot. All this puts the visi-
tors in good company. Aristotle, an-
other ancient philosopher complained,
surrounds the diculty of his subject
with the obscurity of his language, and
thus avoids refutationproducing
darkness, like a squid, in order to make
himself hard to capture. Louise speaks
Mandarin, among other tongues, but
those are no help. How do you become
uent in monsters ink?
F tion that Villeneuve and his screen-
or better or worse, its a ques-
writer, Eric Heisserer, prefer to duck.
Halfway through the lm, as Louise is
preparing to solve the circular codes,
we get a lumpy voice-over, explaining
that she has cracked them and updat-
ing us on her progress. Suddenly, she
is scrolling through extraterrestrial sym-
bols on her tablet and matching them
to English nouns and verbs. Huh? Did
the studio take fright at the prospect
of linguistics? Was the Pentagon con-
cerned that hackers might communi-
cate in squid? There are splendid things
to come, in Arrival, but somehow,
from here on, the focus is blurred. We
get a rushed and scruy subplot about
a plan to sabotage the craft, and an ex-
pansion of the movies rangereports
from China, Russia, and other inter-
ested parties, declarations of war against
the aliens (on the strength of one trans-
lated word), and Louise single-hand-
edly striving to halt the meltdown. The
moral of the tale is that our world could
be as one, if only we could all talk the
same talk. You know, like Esperanto.
That worked out well.
None of which, I hasten to add, is
a reason to skip Arrival. It may be
weaker in the resolution than in the
setup, but that is an inbuilt hazard of
science ction, and what lingers, days
after you leave the cinema, is neither
the wizardry nor the climax but the
zephyr of emotional intensity that blows
through the lm. The dominant feel-
ing, strange to say, is sadness, which
may cause audiences who associate
spaceships with the zap of merry may-
hem to stir uneasily in their seats. The
80 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
rst thing we get in the movie, even
before the aliens roll up, is a ashback
or, at any rate, a ashto a daughter
whom Louise bears, raises, loves, and
loses to illness. The ensuing grief re-
fuses to dispel. Indeed, it may account
for the hunger with which she greets
the news of visitors from beyond as
though it were an annunciation: a shaft
of light to pierce her private gloom.
What happens to that hope, and how
Villeneuve plays around with time in
order to extract the maximum fervor
from Louises experience, I wont re-
veal, not least because Im too dumb-
foundedor simply too dumbto
have worked it out yet. The most ac-
curate guide to such mysteries is Jhann
Jhannssons music, which is rife with
choral chanting, swelling brass, skit-
terings, and booms. Is it based on the
heartbeat of the beasts? Should we be
threatened or thrilled?
This uncertain mood extends to the
secondary characters. Whitaker is at
his most creepy-kindly as Louises han-
dler, exhorting but not badgering her
to establish the aliens intent, and Ren-
ner, likewise, sheds the tough hide of
his action-movie persona for the sake
of a wonkish inwardnessrelieved, I
suspect, to swap the arrows of Marvel
for a pair of spectacles. Above all, Vil-
leneuve attends to Adams, using her
as our gauge of these momentous
events; time and again, we see her face
responding to something before we
properly witness the thing itself. The
spry benevolence that carried her
through a lm like Enchanted (2007)
has been cross-grained, in recent years,
by the stern resolve of The Master
(2012) and the snap of American Hus-
tle (2013), and now, in Arrival, her
gift for sorrow, her strength, and her
instinctive sweetness of temper are
rolled into one. It is Louise, not the
military men, who dares to do her
headgear inside the spacecraft and to
inhale the risky air; it is she who draws
near to the broad and shining screen
within whose frame the creatures loom
into view. Just for a minute, she looks
like a moviegoer, waiting, with a thump-
ing pulse, for the show, and all its won-
ders, to begin. I know how she feels.
NEWYORKER.COM
Richard Brody blogs about movies.
 should change like skirt lengths, she
BOOKS wrote in 2008. The same year, in her
essay Two Paths for the Novel, she
declared herself nished with the sort
TWO STEP of polished realism that had marked her
previous book, On Beauty (2005), a
Zadie Smiths Swing Time. loose tribute to E. M. Forster and itself
a departure from both White Teeth
BY ALEXANDRA SCHWARTZ (2000), her boisterous dbut, and its
successor, the comparatively cramped
The Autograph Man (2002). Her fol-
lowing novel, NW (2012), shifted be-
tween a lush high modernism reminis-
cent of The Waves-era Virginia Woolf
and clever, postmodern nuggets of nar-
rative. Swing Time, a longish book
split into short, eeting chapters, chan-
nels the propulsive, addictive, discursive
mode of the novel-memoir hybrid that
has lately been in fashion (Smith has
admiringly referred to the work of Karl
Ove Knausgaard as crack), but in the
service of more traditional ction, the
kind that is unambiguously invented. It
is Smiths most aecting novel in a de-
cade, one that brings a piercing focus
to her favorite theme: the struggle to
weave disparate threads of experience
into a coherent story of a self.
Smiths narrator, a woman in her
thirties, isnt named. We know her only
by her I, a pronoun that she wields
warily. Her voice is muted and analyt-
ical, her tone guarded. This circum-
spect attitude is, she tells us, a long-
rehearsed tactic of self-preservation
and defense. As a child, she read that
her hero Fred Astaire critiqued his per-
formances in the third personHe
isnt doing that rightin order to eval-

A elected to his rst term as Presi-

month after Barack Obama was
dent, Zadie Smith appeared at the New
York Public Library to deliver a lecture
called Speaking in Tongues on the va-
garies of race and identity. Obamas de-
scription, in his memoir, of the liminal
position he occupied between his moth-
ers and his fathers worlds prompted
her to imagine Dream City, a fantasti-
that people are various creatures, and
that such variety is cause for celebra-
tion, not censure. Its the kind of town
where the wise man says I cautiously,
because I feels like too straight and sin-
gular a phoneme to represent the true
multiplicity of his experience, Smith
said. Instead, citizens of Dream City
prefer to use the collective pronoun we.
The imperfect truth, eight years later,
uate his errors with an impartial eye.
This struck her as wise. And I took
this to heart, or rather, it echoed a feel-
ing I already had, mainly that it was
important to treat oneself as a kind of
stranger, to remain unattached and un-
prejudiced in your own case. I thought
you needed to think like that to achieve
anything in this world.

S When the novel begins, with a pro-

cal place of many voices, where the
unied singular self is an illusion. In
Dream City, a person born to parents
of dierent nations, colors, and cultures,
as Smith and Obama were, doesnt have
to worry about declaring allegiance to
one or the other. Its taken for granted
Smiths fifth novel follows two girls bound and battered by memory.
ILLUSTRATION
BY OLIMPIA ZAGNOLI
is that I often seems like all we have.
Thats the case in Swing Time (Pen-
guin Press), Smiths fth novel, and the
rst shes written in the rst person.
Smith is a restless stylist, candid about
her openness to inuence. Forms, styles,
structureswhatever word you prefer
he is right to be on her guard.
logue set in October, 2008, she is in a
state of disgrace. She has just been red
from her job as the personal assistant
to Aimee, a pop star too famous to need
a surname, and exiled to a luxury apart-
ment to wait out a scandal that she ap-
pears to have caused. For three days, she
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 81

I know youre not a quitter, Petein fact, thats the
main reason I have no choice but to re you.
keeps her phone on airplane mode, an
act that she feels should be counted
among the great examples of personal
stoicism and moral endurance of our
times. When she plugs back in, an
e-mail from an anonymous sender, sub-
ject line WHORE, is waiting for her. It
contains a concise message: Now ev-
eryone knows who you really are.
Thus we are introduced to Tracey,
the narrators best friend from child-
hood. The two have long been estranged,
but the e-mail launches the narrator
back in time to recount the moment
they met, in 1982, at the weekly Satur-
day dance class held at a church in Kil-
burn, the slice of North West London
where they grew up in neighboring coun-
cil estates. The girls are drawn to each
other at rst sight. Our shade of brown
was exactly the sameas if one piece of
tan material had been cut to make us
both, Smiths narrator remembers. Each
82 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
some had it in their hips or their little back-
is an only child and the product of a bi-
racial union, though Tracey gloats that,
according to the norms of the neigh-
borhood, the narrators family has things
the wrong way round: a black mother
(a severe-minded feminist with a half-
inch Afro who shuns makeup and, to
her daughters shame, dresses in a plain,
aspirationally bohemian uniform of es-
padrilles and linen trousers) and a white
father (a manager at the Postal Service
who takes care of the household chores
so that his wife can study for her sociol-
ogy-and-politics degree).Traceys mother
is obese, pink, pimpled, tacky, unem-
ployed; her Jamaican father is in and out
of prison. Tracey, by circumstance and
temperament an expert magical thinker,
claims that hes away on tour as a backup
dancer for Michael Jackson.
Between the friends themselves, the
narrator can see no contest. She herself
is gawky, her frizzy hair pulled back in
a serviceable pu above a narrow, long-
nosed face. Tracey is a darker Shirley
Temple, perfect down to the yellow
satin bows in her spiral-curl braids and
outtted in the sort of enviable style
that violates the narrators mothers
pro-austerity policies: Logos, tin ban-
gles and hoops, diamant everything,
expensive trainers of the kind my mother
refused to recognize as a reality in the
worldthose arent shoes.
But the main point is that Tracey can
dance. She has presence, that mysteri-
ous, magnetic quality of the natural per-
former. If passion and dedication were
all that counted in the way of such things,
the narrator would be just as accom-
plished as her friend. Dance is her reli-
gion. Raised on the Gershwin and Por-
ter tunes her father loves, she pores over
pulpy show-biz biographies of Fred As-
taire like a Victorian lady reading her
psalms and studies with a scholars in-
tensity the classic M-G-M musicals she
nds on VHS. But some truths belong
to the body alone. Her feet are at. And
so she watches Tracey do what she cant:
I really felt that if I could dance like Tracey
I would never want for anything else in this
world. Other girls had rhythm in their limbs,
sides but she had rhythm in individual liga-
ments, probably in individual cells. Every move-
ment was as sharp and precise as any child
could hope to make it, her body could align it-
self with any time signature, no matter how
intricate. Maybe you could say she was overly
precise sometimes, not especially creative, or
lacking in soul. But no one sane could quarrel
with her technique. I wasI amin awe of
Traceys technique. She knew the right time
to do everything.
That slip into the present tense is
telling. The narrator was in thrall to
Tracey from the moment she laid eyes
on her; years later, shes in thrall to her
still. She doesnt care that Tracey lacks
soul. Its enough that she has total com-
mand over her body, the exquisite look
of artistry without its animating spirit.
T kind of devotion. She has a gift for
racey knows how to exploit this
cruelty, the authority that comes with
spotting others weaknesses. Look at
her, she tells the narrator, as they watch
a video of Astaire, in Top Hat, twirl-
ing Ginger Rogers to Cheek to Cheek.
She looks fucking scared. In one dis-
comting chapter, the girls are invited
to the birthday party of a white, mid-
dle-class schoolmate, Lily Bingham.
They are the only black kids there, and
as soon as Tracey realizes that Lilys
mother wont smack her for misbehav-
ing she seizes power, stealing candy and
kicking seats on a trip to the movies.
Later, she raids Mrs. Binghams under-
wear drawer for lingerie to wear in a
lewd dance routine in which she enlists
her friend. The narrator is sure that her
own mother will punish them when she
picks them up; instead, she defends Tra-
ceys behavior to Mrs. Bingham as an
impressionable childs imitation of her
parents bad inuence.
This turns out to be an excuse to save
face. Her real worry is Traceys bad in-
uence on her daughter. The narrator
has heard her say that Tracey, who has
already started hanging out with rough
boys, is destined to become a single mom.
When she looks at her mother, she is
shocked to see angry tears in her eyes.
Few emotions are more unnerving to
a child than pity for a parent. The nar-
rator thinks of her mother as impervi-
ous, not quite mortal, but Tracey exposes
her fear of losing control over the life
she has fought to make for herself. An
idealist with a pedantic streak and a po-
litical mind, she is forever initiating com-
munity-improvement programs. If her
husband quibbles about the vacuuming,
she lectures him on the importance of
having a revolutionary consciousness, or
the relative insignicance of sexual love
when placed beside the struggles of the
people, or the legacy of slav-
ery in the hearts and minds
of the young, and so on.
She wants to rise in the
world, and, amazingly, she
does, eventually getting
elected to Parliament. Child-
hood is an experience of
bursting through the chrys-
alis of family to y o into
the world beyond, but the
narrators own growth is outstripped by
that of her mother, who is all too will-
ing to leave domestic life for a public one
when the time is right.
Yet, as devoted as the mother is to
the principle of the people, she remains
aloof from them in reality. Although
she loves to talk of Africa as homeland,
she avoids the topic of Jamaica, the site
of a brutal childhood she doesnt care
to discuss. Changing ones voice is a
motif in Smiths ction, a new accent
and diction the best costume in which
to disguise an identity better left be-
hind, and the narrators mother has all
but scrubbed away her native patois.
Unless the past is actively contained, she
feels, it may surge up to ood the pres-
ent and drown the future. This is the
threat that she sees in Tracey and wants
her daughter to recognize. Tracey is on
track to train as a professional dancer,
but dancing is a vain ambition. School
is the only sure way up and out, and
when she runs into Traceys mother she
brags of her own daughters academic
accomplishments. She was in a com-
petition of caring, and yet her fellow
contestants, like Traceys mother, were
so ill-equipped when placed beside her
that it was a fatally lopsided battle,
Smiths narrator thinks. I often won-
dered: is it some kind of a trade-o ?
Do others have to lose so we can win?
T thread through Swing Time, as
he question runs like a bright
it does through Smiths larger body of
work. She has often used the device of
doubling, planting two characters to-
gether to observe the dierent ways they
grow, and the soil she chooses tends to
be her own. White Teeth featured Mil-
lat and Magid Iqbal, twins in Willes-
den, Smiths childhood neighborhood,
whose father separates them at the age
of ten, keeping one in London, where
he becomes a hapless Muslim funda-
mentalist, and sending the
other to be brought up in
Bangladesh, where he de-
votes himself to a life of
science. The protagonists
of NW, Leah and Kei-
sha, are Willesden child-
hood friends; Leah, who
is white, stays in the neigh-
borhood, leading a com-
fortable, if static, life, while
Keisha, who is black, changes her name
to the more bourgeois Natalie, becomes
a barrister, marries rich, and feels like a
fraud. These are not trade-os, exactly.
Neither Leah nor Natalie considers her-
self a winner. Magid doesnt have to turn
out good for Millat to turn out bad. (For
that matter, a novelist from Willesden,
admired since the age of twenty-four,
has not had her success at the expense
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 83
of another girl from down the street.)
No great principle of cosmic causality
is at work; it just feels that way.
Traceys true foil in the novel isnt
the narrator, who never attempts to scale
the heights of fame that Tracey seeks,
but Aimee, the narrators boss. Like
Tracey, Aimee is a talented girl from
nowhereBendigo, Australia, in this
casebut where Traceys career sput-
ters out after a few chorus gigs on the
West End Aimee is a beloved queen of
pop known more for her persona than
for any particular musical style, shifting
her sound with the times to stay on top
of the charts.
Why does one make it and not the
other? Aimee would chalk it up to for-
tune, which, mixed with a drop of posi-
tive thinking, she sees as the universes
prime mover. She has no tragic side,
Smiths narrator observes. She accepts
everything that has happened to her as
her destiny, no more surprised or alien-
ated to be who she is than I imagine Cleo-
patra was to be Cleopatra. She refuses
to recognize the impediments of econom-
ics, geography, race, and history, just as
she shrugs o the degree to which her
life depends on the work of other people.
The narrator sums up the tasks that fall
to the celebritys personal assistant with
a mordant list: I scheduled abortions,
hired dog walkers, ordered owers, wrote
Mothers Day cards, applied creams, ad-
ministered injections, squeezed spots,
wiped very occasional break-up tears.
The narrator goes to work for Aimee
when she is in her early twenties, a re-
cent college graduate unsure what kind
of person she should try to be. She has
no particular ambition; she has tried on
various poses in disparate crowds. (Smith
is wonderful on black conspiracy theo-
rists who look to the supernatural to ex-
plain the unbearable phenomena of rac-
ism and inequality, and on the plight of
the lone black girl in a group of goths,
powdering her face ghostly pale.) Float-
ing in Aimees bubble of bland interna-
tional luxurythe private ights and
cars, the town houses in London and
Manhattandoesnt provide her with
an adult identity so much as it allows
her to defer her search for one.
That changes when Aimee decides
to boost her image by building a girls
school in a West African village. As the
narrator begins to take part in life there,
84 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
sharing meals and sleeping in commu-
nal huts, she nds herself eager for the
rst time to imagine belonging to a
common people with a common past.
Still, close as she gets to this new com-
munity, community itself continues to
elude her:
Even the simplest ideas Id brought with
me did not seem to work here when I tried to
apply them. I was not, for example, standing
at this moment in a eld with my extended
tribe, with my fellow black women. Here there
was no such category. There were only Sere
women, the Wolof, and the Mandinka, the Ser-
ahuli, the Fula and the Jola, the last of whom,
I was told once, grudgingly, I resembled, if
only in basic facial architecture: same long
nose, same cheekbones.
On one of Aimees trips to the vil-
lage, a celebration is called in her honor,
and a female drum circle forms. One by
one, people enter the circle to dance, and
nally, pulled forward by both arms, the
narrator is forced to take her turn. She
listens to the beat, watches the steps, and
realizes that she can follow them. We
havent seen her dance since her church
class days, when Tracey was the star; now
she gives herself over to the pleasure of
movement, as Tracey once did, silencing
the mind and putting her body in con-
trol. Five ecstatic minutes later, she col-
lapses beside a villager friend, who trans-
lates the praise she has earned: They
are saying: Even though you are a white
girl, you dance like you are a black!
Traceys threatening e-mailNow
everyone knows who you really are
has become a promise that may never
quite be fullled. Even at her most phys-
ically free, she is as immaterial as a sim-
ile, like the only thing she has ever
thought herself to be.
A rator attends a public lecture where
t the start of the novel, the nar-
she watches a scene from Swing Time,
the 1936 Astaire movie that gives Smiths
novel its title. Astaire tap-dances on a
stage, with three gures silhouetted on
the curtain behind him, struggling to
keep up. It is an exuberant dance, which
the narrator remembers from childhood.
Later that night, she takes a closer look
at the clip on YouTube and is horried
to discover that Astaire is in blackface,
complete with white gloves and lolling
Bojangles grin.
Smith hangs the moment over her
novel like a portent, a warning about
memory and the distorting tricks it can
play with the sense of self one takes
or makesfrom the past. As the book
progresses, she interleaves chapters set
in the present with ones that deal with
memories of college, of home, of Tracey.
It is a graceful technique, this metro-
nomic swinging back and forth in time,
calling to mind the sankofa bird, one of
the African symbols that the narrators
mother holds dear. It looks backwards,
at the past, and it learns from whats
gone before, she tells her daughter. The
narrator has taken note. The novels
structure feels true to the eect of mem-
ory, the way we use the past as ballast
for the present. And it feels true, too, to
the mutable structure of identity, that
complex, composite we, liable to shift
and break and reshape itself as we re-
call certain pieces of our earlier lives and
suppress others.
The preciousness of memory doesnt
make it less unreliable; the unreliabil-
ity of memory doesnt make it less pre-
cious. As the novel progresses, Tracey
turns into a gure of demonic, almost
cartoonish spite; it is as if she has re-
sponded to the failure of her adulthood
by striving to erase the picture of the
promising child she once was. But the
narrator hasnt forgotten. At one point,
she describes sitting in front of the TV
with Tracey, watching a tape of Jeni
LeGon, a black dancer from the thir-
ties and forties, long ago relegated to a
historical footnote. Smith has restored
her; the narrator notices the striking
likeness of her friend to the woman on-
screen. She watches Tracey study Le-
Gons moves, trying to see what can be
taken from this earlier version of her-
self: She sat inches from the television
screen, ready to point out this or that
moment of action or expression, an emo-
tion passing over Jenis face, a variation
in one step or another, and interpret-
ing everything she saw with that sharp-
ness of insight I felt I lacked, that I con-
sidered, at this point, Traceys possession
alone. A gift for seeing that seemed to
have its only outlet and expression here,
in my living room, in front of my tele-
vision, and which no teacher ever saw,
and no exam ever managed to success-
fully register or even note, and of which,
perhaps, these memories are the only
true witness and record.

BOOKS
THINK TWICE
What Lee Child does, and how he does it.
BY JOHN LANCHESTER
A Samuel Taylor Coleridge called
ll fiction depends on what
the willing suspension of disbelief, the
readers decision to put the argumenta-
tive, quibbling part of his mind into
neutral and go along for the narrative
ride. The suspension is voluntary, though
not necessarily conscious; its not as if
you reach up and toggle a setting in your
brain. Rather, as readers, we usually ght
the story a little bit at the beginning,
while were getting our ear in; then we
submit, and are carried along by the
ow, unless something happens to jolt
us out of it. If something makes our dis-
belief become unsuspendedone im-
plausibility too many, a series of narra-
The Jack Reacher novels deftly ground wish fulfillment in earthbound detail.
ILLUSTRATION
BY R. KIKUO JOHNSON
torial bum notesthen the whole ction
comes crashing down.
This isnt the same thing as aesthetic
judgmentdeciding whether a book is
good as a work of art. The question is
not Is it good? but Is this for me?
Most readers have their own standards
for how much implausibility they can
handle. Mine is something that I call
the Superman test: Is what Im being
asked to believe less likely than the char-
acters being able to y?
The test doesnt apply only to genre
ction, and its also the case that the
point of maximum unlikeliness can be
one of the best things about a ctional
world. In Hilary Mantels wonderful
novels about Thomas Cromwell, the
protagonists consciousness, perceptions,
and psychology are entirely those of a
modern man. This is wildly ahistorical,
but for me and millions of other read-
ers it both passes the Superman test and
is a big part of what makes the books
so enjoyable, and the main character so
easy to like (as the real-life Cromwell,
apparatchik and bureaucrat and reli-
gious ideologue, denitely wasnt). Gone
Girl? Amazing Amy, perfect daughter
and wife turned evil psycho and would-be
murder-suicide, is only slightly less un-
likely than the ying Kryptonian in
tights, but the portrait has such glee and
brio that, again, millions of us go along
for the ride. On the other hand, I found
the cascading sequence of horrors in-
icted on Jude in Hanya Yanagiharas
A Little Life not too much to bear but
too much to swallowthough a huge
audience found a lot to like in the story
of a baby abandoned beside the trash
who grew up to be raped in a monas-
tery before being variously kidnapped,
raped again, pimped out, tortured in a
basement, and crippled by being delib-
erately run over, en route to a lifetime
of self-harm and eventual suicide. Fun!
One of the great pleasures of Lee
Childs Jack Reacher novels is the im-
mensely accomplished manner in which
he balances wish-fullling fantasy and
earthbound detail. The element of wish
fulllment is embodied in the gure of
Reacher himself. He is a six-foot-ve-
inch former military policeman, whose
weight uctuates between two hundred
and twenty and two hundred and fty
pounds, none of it ab. (This is one rea-
son that hard-core Reacher fans didnt
fall in love with the characters cine-
matic portrayal by Tom Cruise, who has
many virtues as an actor, none of which
include being the same size as an N.F.L.
linebacker.) Why a military policeman?
The explanation comes early in the rst
Reacher novel, Killing Floor, from 1997:
A military policeman deals with military
lawbreakers. Those lawbreakers are service
guys. Highly trained in weapons, sabotage, un-
armed combat. Rangers, Green Berets, ma-
rines. Not just killers. Trained killers. Ex-
tremely well trained, at huge public expense.
So the military policeman is trained even bet-
ter. Better with weapons. Better unarmed.
The implication is that if members
of Navy Seal Team 6 get a little frisky
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 85

BRIEFLY NOTED
Nicotine, by Nell Zink (Ecco). Wildly unconventional, yet con-
trolled and succinct, this novel is lled with observations likely
to provoke both laughter and dread. A death is described thus:
A week later, without another peep of complaint, Norm stops
dying. After Norms death, his daughter Penny investigates
his childhood home, in Jersey City. There she nds a welcom-
ing group of political activists for various causes whove been
squatting in the house, which they call Nicotine (they are mil-
itant smokers). Following Penny on a zany, heavily plotted path
that binds her to the anarchists in her fathers house, the novel
takes big human issuesactivism, end-of-life care, capitalism,
sexand skewers the way we deal with them.
The Story of a Brief Marriage, by Anuk Arudpragasam (Flat-
iron). In this devastating dbut novel, set in an evacuee camp
during the recent Sri Lankan civil war, an old man asks the
protagonist, Dinesh, to marry his daughter. Dinesh is numbed
by the camps terrors: the faraway whispering that pre-
cedes falling shells; the brief silence before the cries of the
injured and the bereaved; gruesome scenes at a makeshift
hospital. The author keeps the wars context shadowy, giv-
ing Dineshs plight an existential force. Dinesh, assuming
that he will soon die, makes rituals of bodily actions, bury-
ing his excrement and minutely analyzing his new wifes
every movement. Quiet, patient descriptions lead to a loss
of momentum but are an act of sustained empathy.
Eleanor and Hick, by Susan Quinn (Penguin). Darling, El-
eanor Roosevelt wrote to Lorena Hickock in November,
1933, the only real news is I love you. Hickock, a jour-
nalist, had resigned from the A.P. and soon eectively moved
into the White House to be closer to Eleanor, who got her
a New Deal job. Making sense of this famous relationship
has been complicated for historians, and Quinn concedes
the impossibility of knowing what, exactly, happened be-
tween the two women physically. But, drawing extensively
on their letters, she makes a strong case that the bond they
shared was indeed romantic. It could also be rockyboth
had other attachmentsand the abiding impression of this
book is the intricacy of Roosevelts intimate life.
Orwells Nose, by John Sutherland (Reaktion). In this patho-
logical biography, a noted critic rereads Orwell and deter-
mines that the writer was born with a singularly diagnostic
sense of smell. In addition to the infamous assertion in The
Road to Wigan Pier that the lower classes smell, Suther-
land, who recently lost his own sense of smell, turns up other
pungent landmarks of Orwells life, from the faecal and yet
sweetish scent of the Parisian paupers hospital where he
once convalesced to the ambient smells of the open air,
which Orwell apparently found sexually arousing. Stench
was a factor not just of Orwells writing: both William Emp-
son and Orwells rst wife detested his potent body odor,
masked only by a tobacco habit that persisted despite the
fact that he had tuberculosis.
86 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Reacher is the guy whos sent to make
them simmer down. Reacher isnt
just tough; hes supertough. He is
exceptionally good with all manner of
weapons. His expertise as a sniper is
regularly called upon, often via the
forensic question How would you do
it if you were the bad guy? He rou-
tinely gets into ghts with multiple
opponents, condent in his maxim
that two against one is never a prob-
lem. All the Reacher novels feature a
climactic combat, sometimes against
vastly superior numbers, sometimes
against an opponent of superhuman
size or strength or inability to feel pain,
sometimes against all of the above. The
bad guy seems impossible to defeat,
but Reacher always defeats him. In
Childs new novel, Night School
(Delacorte), Reacher gets into a ght
with a large group of neo-Nazis, and
dispatches the rst seven of them with
no diculty, needing a little help only
with the eighth and nal one.
Were verging on Superman terri-
tory here. Yet a number of things con-
spire to ground the novels in reality.
One of them is that the unlikeliness is
enjoyable: Child has a great time with
Reachers invulnerability, and is a good
enough writer to make us enjoy it, too.
The prose is crisp and clean, and the
ghting is realistic within its implau-
sibility. Reachers strength might be
hard to believe, but when bone hits
bone, when arms and faces are broken,
when villains are choked to death, it
feels real. Heres a moment from the
big ght in Night School, with
Reacher wielding a baseball bat:
The guy brought his arm up to protect his
head, and the bat caught his elbow, and his tri-
ceps, which impact smashed the heavy bone
of his upper arm backward into the point of
his jaw, where his neck met his skull. Which
dropped him to his knees, but the lights stayed
on. So Reacher swung again, this time prop-
erly right-handed, probably good enough for
nothing more than a y ball at a July Fourth
picnic, but more than adequate against human
biology. The guy rocked sideways and then
opped forward on his face.
Not prettybut its not trying to be.
The more than adequate is a clue to
Reachers psychology: he is aiming to
do maximum damage. He s a good guy
who is, with his penchant for violence,
very close to being a bad guy. His code
is chivalric, in the sense that he ghts
on behalf of the good; sometimes this
means the weak and the wronged,
sometimes this means the U.S. govern-
ment or its proxies. His actions, though,
are as unchivalric as they come. He ex-
ecutes opponents, kicks people when
theyre down. If he gets a chance to
shoot someone in the back rather than
the front, he takes it. He may be a hero,
but hes a realist, too.
A a grid well known to Childs read-
ny new Reacher novel ts within
ers. There are rst-person stories, nar-
rated by Reacher himself (Killing
Floor, Persuader, Gone Tomorrow, tential hero, the apotheosis of the lone
and three others), and third-person
stories (the bulk of them). There are
novels set during his Army career (The
Enemy, The Aair) and novels set
in the present, after Major Reachers
honorable discharge, in 1997 (the bulk
of them). There are recurring tropes and
themes. The novels roam across Amer-
ica, with a notable aection for places
in the middle, for big, blank landscapes,
for small towns where no one apart from
Reacher ever wants to stop. He visits
rural Nebraska, rural South Dakota in
winter, back-country Texas in summer.
He likes communities that, to outsid-
ers, seem nowhere in particular. Child
is a poet of diners and motels, venues
that capture an itinerants view of Amer-
ica. He dramatizes the lives you glimpse
through a bus window, the glance into
warm buildings from the cold outdoors.
According to Graham Greene, Henry
James once said that a young woman
with sucient talent need only pass the
mess-room windows of a Guards bar-
racks and look inside in order to write
a novel about the Brigade. The Reacher
novels often have that feeling, of being
constructed around half-longing in-
sights into the lives of others.
The writer whom Child most recalls,
in this respect, is Georges Simenon,
whose Maigret novels are the work of a
man who travelled around France ob-
serving strangers and their mysterious
routines. Simenon spent a lot of time in
the kinds of places where travellers spend
time. As a result, he set entire novels in
cafs and bars, in fuggy interiors popu-
lated by secretive regulars, where the
detective is an intruder. Readers nd it
easy to identify with this perspective:
we ourselves are outsiders peeking into
another world, like Reacher or Maigret.
Reachers character is dened by one
startling device: he has no home and
no belongings. He is a permanent wan-
derer, hopping from town to town with
no aim in mind, and the novels are the
story of the trouble he nds. Not only
does he own nothing; he carries noth-
ing. He doesnt even have a bag. Clothes?
He buys a new set every few days. (On
the issue of Reachers underwear, its
best if we just dont go there. A 2011
survey by Clorox found that one in
eight American men fails to change
his underpants daily.) He is an exis-
piece ght scenes are one of the xed
stranger, travelling the Lower Forty-
eight with nothing but his folding
toothbrush and his code.
Here again is the shift from implau-
sibility to something that feels real. The
alienated, possessionless freedom of
Reacher has a core of emotional truth.
Its clear from the books that Reacher
pays a high price for his freedom; he is
lonelier and more isolated than he re-
alizes. There is almost always a roman-
tic interludelove interest wouldnt
be the right way of putting it, but Reach-
ers aairs do involve liking and lust
and the not quite acknowledged appeal
of a softer life. His version of freedom
challenges the Superman test, but the
yearning it expresses feels real. If you
learn a little about the life of his cre-
ator, youll nd a hint as to why.
W the books, he wasnt Lee Child;
hen Lee Child began writing
he was an English television exec named
Jim Grant, about to be laid o from his
work at a provincial TV company in
the northwest of England. Grant knew
that he was going to be sacked, so on
September 1, 1995, he went out and
bought three notepads and a pencil, and
used them to work on the book that
was to become Killing Floorand
he has begun work on a new novel on
the anniversary of that day every year
since. In the course of those twenty-
one years, the Midlander Jim Grant has
become the U.S. thriller writer Lee
Child, whose creation, Jack Reacher,
has topped the New York Times best-
seller list eleven times. It is an extraor-
dinary story of reinvention, and it is,
perhaps, a clue to the emotional arma-
ture of Reachera character who, to
his creator, is very real. When he
writes, the scholar Andy Martin has
observed, he goes into a zone in which
he really believes that the nonexistent
Jack Reacher is temporarily existent.
As Child puts it, The novels are really
reportage. If this were a proposition in
logic, you would say that Lee Child is
to Jim Grant as Jack Reacher is to Lee
Child: the incarnated idea of freedom.
Within that freedom, the Reacher
novels are variations on a set of themes:
the same but dierent, as Child says.
One of the books great pleasures is fol-
lowing Reachers turns of thought. Set-
points of Childs work; the other is its
opposite, Reachers thought processes
as he gures out who the bad guys are
and whats going on. Thats the usual
setup: we know that something is hap-
pening, but we dont know exactly what,
and we dont know whos behind it.
Its hard to convey just how seduc-
tive following Reachers thought can
be. This is the appeal of most good de-
tective ction, from Sherlock Holmes
on, but there arent many writers who
have made the process seem as real, as
close to actual thinking, as Child has.
A hint of how he does it came last fall,
in the form of Reacher Said Nothing:
Lee Child and the Making of Make
Me, by the aforementioned Andy Mar-
tin, an academic from the University
of Cambridge with an unusual port-
folio of interests (he has published
books on surng, existentialism, Jules
Verne), which includes being a Lee
Child superfan. Martin persuaded
Child to let him sit in on the writing
of his previous novel, Make Me, and
the upshot was that he literally sat there,
in the room, while Child was writing the
book. He was there on September 1st,
when Child index-nger-typed its very
rst lines:
Moving a guy as big as Keever wasnt easy.
It was like trying to wrestle a king-size mat-
tress o a waterbed. So they buried him close
to the house. Which made sense anyway. The
harvest was still a month away, and a distur-
bance in a eld would show up from the air.
And they would use the air, for a guy like Keever.
Reading the opening as it was being
written, Martin asked Child a ques-
tion: Who is Keever? Childs answer:
Ive no idea at this point.
Here we get the stupefying, almost
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 87
impossible-to-credit explanation of
how Child captures the texture of
Reachers thinking: because its his
thinking, too. He isnt giving the im-
pression that hes guring out a mys-
tery; hes actually guring out a mys-
tery. In Martins account, Child was
about two-thirds through the writing
of Make Me before he realized what
the bad guys were doing.
Zadie Smith has written about the
distinction, among novelists, between
Macro Planners, who lay out the struc-
ture of a story in advance, and Micro
Managers, who make it up as they go
along, and whose novels exist only in
their present moment, in a sensibility,
in the novels tonal frequency line by
line. Child is the epitome of the sec-
ond type of novelist. Speaking as the
other sort, I have to say that, to me,
Martins revelations were dumbfound-
ing. I can just about see how a literary
novelist, writing in an open-ended form,
might invent his book from day to
day. But a thriller writer, obliged to
deliver a tight plot, the requisite num-
ber of twists and showdowns and set
pieces, along with a suciently di-
cult but satisfyingly resolved mystery?
It just doesnt seem possible. If I hadnt
seen the evidence that Child has done
it twenty-one times, I wouldnt have
believed it.
A read Reacher Said Nothing will
Reacher enthusiast who has
have one expectation in particular for
the new novel. Martin notes that Child
was thinking about an enjambment,
the lit-crit term for a phrase in a poem
that runs over into a second line. (The
twentieth centurys best-known exam-
ple is probably T. S. Eliots April is the
cruellest month, breeding / Lilacs out
of the dead land. . . .) He meant that
the story of the new novel might pick
up where the old one left o. The
Reacher novels tend not to ow from
one to the next but to be self-contained
and discrete, with a new predicament
and a new location every time. This
can be frustrating; 61 Hours, for in-
stance, left Reacher battered and sprint-
ing to escape from a storage facility
twenty stories underground, where ve
thousand gallons of jet fuel are about
to explode. As the book ends, we dont
even know for sure if hes alive. The
88 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
next time we meet him, at the start of
Worth Dying For, hes in Nebraska,
and heads straight into righting an-
other set of local wrongs, apparently
without a backward glancewhich is
disconcerting, if you read the books one
after another, as addicted readers might
well do. Its as if we readers were pay-
ing more attention to what happened
to Reacher than he was.
Make Me seemed to promise some
real continuity. Reacher, recovering
from a head injury and a brutal shoot-
out, climbed into the car with Agent
Chang, his co-investigator and sorta
love interest, and headed west, with
the road running straight on ahead of
them through the wheat, forever, until
it disappeared in the golden haze on
the far horizon, at that point as nar-
row as a needle. It looked as if we
might meet Chang again, and would
nally have that enjambment weve
been waiting for.
Nope. Night School is set in the
past, in 1996, not long before Reacher
leaves the Army (as we know but the
characters dont). Luckily, the setup is
so eective that we dont have time to
grieve over the romance with Agent
Chang. Opening sentence: In the
morning they gave Reacher a medal,
and in the afternoon they sent him
back to school. Reacher, freshly re-
turned from assassinating a couple of
bad guys in the Balkans, is sent on a
training course with the deliberately
snooze-inducing title Impact of Re-
cent Forensic Innovation on Inter-
Agency Cooperation. Also in the
course are two agents, one each from
the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. They have all
recently succeeded in a major case. The
three men quickly realize that this isnt
a training course but a secret mission.
Then the national-security adviser walks
into the room, and tells them that an
American has just approached a ter-
rorist organization with a cell based in
Hamburg and oered something for a
hundred million dollars. It must be a
very big thing to be worth that amount
of money, but nobody knows what. And
with that donne, as Henry James would
have called it, the excitement begins.
The Reacher novels set in the past
involve a trade-o. Since the reader
knows that our hero is still solving mys-
teries and executing malefactors two
decades into the future, the Reacher of
the prequels is, for this reader anyway,
in less jeopardy. He isnt as lonely. To
make up for this, theres a richness of
background, a context, to the military
novels. In the prequels, Reacher has
colleagues, he has bosses and subordi-
nates; he has missions that are given
to him, rather than ones he chooses for
himself. He is in a world where he thor-
oughly belongs, not peering through a
window at somebody elses.
Given the riskiness of Childs cre-
ative processes, the novels cant be
equally good. Its not that they arent
all supremely, unstoppably readable; its
that some of them have an extra qual-
ity of freshness and surprise. The very
best is the one with the twistiest plot,
Persuader. (Surelysurely?Child
must have worked at least some of that
one out in advance.) On the next level
down, but still very good, arefor this
reader, at leastKilling Floor, 61
Hours, One Shot, Without Fail,
Bad Luck and Trouble, Make Me,
and now Night School. This latest
installment has all the classic ingredi-
ents: a great setting (Hamburg), a good
villain, and a mystery that draws you
in eciently, escalates unpredictably,
and has a satisfying resolution. There
are two good female characters, includ-
ing the recurring Sergeant Neagley,
who is more than slightly in love with
Reacher but will never do anything
about it because she has a phobia about
being touchedtheyve never even
shaken hands. (Frances L. Neagley is
named for a reader who won a charity
auction at the mystery conference
Bouchercon. Shes had good value for
her bid, since this is her fourth appear-
ance in the novels and one of them,
Bad Luck and Trouble, is dedicated
to her.) There is a big ght scene, and
interesting details about Cold War his-
tory and missing nukes. All good stu.
It would be surprising if the book didnt
become the twelfth Reacher novel to
make it to the top of the best-seller
list. As a bonus, Night School also
touches on that counterfactual dilemma
posed in science ction: What would
you do if you got the chance to travel
back in time and kill Hitler before he
did anything wrong? No spoilers, but
this is Jack Reacher were talking about.
Lets just say he doesnt overthink it.

POP MUSIC
PINK LEMONADE
Miranda Lamberts audacious new album.
BY KELEFA SANNEH
P eople sometimes dont take me
seriously, Miranda Lambert once
heartache, she drew inspiration from
her parentsnot from their marriage
said. I havent been through a whole but from their jobs as private investi-
lot of tough times in my life. It was gators, which introduced them to a
2003, and Lambert had recently turned wide range of people with stories of
nineteen, though she already had a betrayal and abuse. (In 1997, they
clear idea about how she wanted to worked for the legal team of Paula
spend the rest of her life. She was Jones, who was suing Bill Clinton for
talking to a television camera, intro- sexual harassment.) Lambert intro-
ducing herself to viewers of Nashville duced Greyhound Bound for No-
Star, a basic-cable reality show for as- where, which she called a song thats
piring country singers. Like most of about a woman whos having an aair
the contestants, Lambert was some- with a married person, and she sang
thing of a professional, having supple- it as if she had lived it. When she was
mented her high-school education with nished, the judges competed to out-
independent study in the roadhouses compliment one another. This is just
and honky-tonks of East Texas, where what country needs right now, one of
she grew up. She explained that, to them said.
write grownup-sounding songs about Lambert didnt win the competi-
Nashville has rules, and Lambert has thrived by knowing which ones to break.
ILLUSTRATION
BY REBECCA CLARKE
tionshe nished third, behind a Star
Search veteran and a bilingual ballad-
eer. But she signed a record contract
later that year, and in 2005 she released
her dbut album, Kerosene, which
sold more than a million copies, de-
spite receiving modest attention from
radio d.j.s. The most successful of the
albums four singles was its title track,
which peaked at No. 15 on Billboards
country airplay chart. That song, like
many of Lamberts songs, was an orig-
inal, though the credits had to be up-
dated once someone realized that the
brash, snarling versesForget your
high society / Im soakin it in kero-
senewere sung in a way that evoked
Feel Alright, by the country maver-
ick Steve Earle. This act of stylish (and
seemingly unintentional) plagiarism
probably enhanced Lamberts credi-
bility instead of diminishing it, by an-
nouncing to listeners that she was as
big a country-music fan as they were,
probably bigger. Since then, Lambert
has claimed an enviable form of coun-
try stardom, establishing herself as both
a real singer-songwriter and a real char-
acter. She titled her second album
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, after a track
about a spurned woman on a rampage.
And in her home town of Lindale,
Texas, she owns a boutique that draws
customers from around the country;
its called the Pink Pistol.
Lambert turns thirty-three this
month, and, as her fans know, she has
no shortage of things to sing about.
In 2005, Lambert and Blake Shelton,
a fellow country singer, were paired,
at a televised concert, to sing a vener-
able love song called Youre the Rea-
son God Made Oklahoma. Footage
of the performance has been much
scrutinized since then: Lambert, who
is at least a foot shorter, gazes up at
Shelton, who happens to be an Okla-
homan, and who also happened to be,
on that night, somebody elses hus-
band. (Lamberts mother later recalled,
It was a hurdle that we had to get
past, becausehes married and hes
o limits to you, and so this is not
something you can pursue, in any
way.) Coincidentally or not, Shelton
led for divorce the next year, and he
and Lambert began dating, and even-
tually married. Glamorous but unpre-
tentious, they became the rst couple
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 89
of country music, appearing together
at awards shows, and, in cap-to-boots
camouage, on the Sportsman Chan-
nel, whose cameras captured Sheltons
proud reaction when Lambert shot
her rst wild turkey. I was shaking,
Lambert said, exultant. Its so antic-
ipated to kill a turkey!
The union, along with Sheltons side
gig as a judge on the NBC singing
contest The Voice, made the couple
famous even among people who en-
joyed neither country music nor tur-
key hunting, and they became mono-
nymic xtures on the covers of weekly
tabloids. EXCLUSIVE: MIRANDAS
NIGHTS WITH ANOTHER MAN ( June,
2013). MIRANDA TO BLAKE: ENOUGH!
STOP DRINKING OR GET OUT (Febru-
ary, 2014). MIRANDA: IM FINALLY
PREGNANT (August, 2014). Last year,
the two announced that they were get-
ting divorced, and neither the bland-
ness nor the brevity of the announce-
ment prevented an explosion of in-
vestigative (or imaginative) reporting.
Lambert, in particular, was the target
of unsubstantiated rumors linking her
to an encyclopedic list of celebrities.
Chris Young, a country singer, was
moved to issue a stern denial on Twit-
ter: My name has been mentioned as
a contributing factor in Blake and Mi-
randas divorce. That is totally FALSE.
The stories earned Shelton a measure
of sympathy, even as he embarked on
an extremely public romance with the
pop star Gwen Stefani and released an
album that included a rather unchar-
itable song about a relationship gone
bad. (She put the her in hurt, she
put the why in try / She put the
S.O.B. in sober, she put the hang in
hangover. ) Meanwhile, Lambert
stayed relatively quiet.
Then, in July, Lambert released
a new single, Vice. Having been
blamed, however unfairly, for the
breakup, she oered neither a denial
nor an apology, choosing instead to
inhabit the character of someone who
cant help herself and isnt even sure
she wants to:
Another life, another call
Another bed I shouldnt crawl
Out of at 7 A.M. with shoes in my hand
Said I wouldnt do it but I did it again
And I know Ill be gone tomorrow night
Another vice
90 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
The track, with its stately tempo
and ambient ourishes (the crackle
of an old vinyl record, the percolat-
ing sound of an electronic keyboard),
wasnt designed to conquer radio,
but it has reached No. 11 on the coun-
try airplay chart. Now comes a new
release: an audacious double album
called The Weight of These Wings,
which Lambert has decided to pro-
mote by saying virtually nothing
at all. Her response to a turbulent
year consists of twenty-four songs,
which, taken together, suggest that
the Nashville Star judges verdict
still applies: Lambert is just what
country needs.
T once threatened by the song-
he sprawling concept album,
centric demands of the MP3 era, has
lately remerged as a status symbol
for pop stars who can aord to shirk
the demands of old-fashioned hit-
making. If you are Beyonc, you can
bestow Lemonade upon the world
unannounced, secure in the knowl-
edge that just about everyone will ea-
gerly swallow it in one gulp. Lam-
bert is not quite Beyonc. But in the
context of mainstream country music,
which typically requires fat-free al-
bums packed with potential hits, The
Weight of These Wings seems like
both a protest against business as
usual and a power play: Lambert is
justiably condent that listeners care
enough to follow her through twenty-
four songs, many of them rather con-
templative, without a single big-name
guest star. she interrupts the ballads for Pink
The album arrives on tiptoe, with
the hum of a one-note bass line and on the bright side, andeven better
Lambert murmuring, Theres trou- for Ugly Lights, a bitterly mirthful
ble where Im going, but Im gonna
go there anyway. This is not, she has
said, a breakup album, but she knows
that there is nothing she can do to
prempt that notion. ( Just about any
country album might sound like a
breakup album to someone inclined
to hear it that way.) It is, though,
Lamberts least exuberant album, and
also her bestone of the years best,
in fact. The songs are enriched by
artfully casual performancesone
false start, more than one pitchy
notethat give listeners the sense
that they are listening in. Tin Man,
co-written by Lambert, is both a
lament and a nely wrought put-
down: Every time youre feeling
empty, better thank your lucky stars /
If you ever felt one breakin, youd
never want a heart.
Lambert has always had a knack
for quiet songs like these. Her rst
Billboard No. 1 country single, more
than half a decade after her dbut
album, was The House That Built
Me, a wistful reminiscence that
sounded like nothing else on the radio.
Recent events have provided her not
with material, which she evidently
didnt need, but with motivation, as
well as a context that listeners will
be hard-pressed to ignore. Pushin
Time, about unexpected love, re-
quires little more than an acoustic
guitar and some backing vocals from
a young singer named Anderson East,
who is also Lamberts boyfriend. And
the albums graceful nale is Ive Got
Wheels, which would be memora-
ble even without one subtly provoc-
ative lyric in the chorus. I cant stay
between the lines, but Im rockin
steady, Lambert sings, and only the
most high-minded listeners will not
immediately think of Rock Steady,
the 2001 album by No DoubtGwen
Stefanis band.
A sepia-toned cover, some twelve-
string guitars, a portentous title: The
Weight of These Wings has many of
the warning signs of an artist strain-
ing for seriousness and authenticity.
But Lambert seems incapable of mak-
ing music that is merely tasteful. So
Sunglasses, about a cheap way to look
rockabilly-inspired song about stay-
ing out past last call: Ill be sitting
here alone / When the ugly lights come
on. And then theres We Should Be
Friends, which provides proof that
the old, mischievous Miranda Lam-
bert has not gone very far; thats her,
chuckling as she begins the nal verse,
a salute to people who use alcohol as
a sedative / And bless your heart as a
negative. Lambert has been singing
about causing trouble for more than
a decade, and that history is part of
the reason that the new album is so
aecting: it sounds like the work of
someone who is adding up, perhaps
for the rst time, the prots and losses
of all that trouble.
W fans and critics sometimes com-
hen Lambert first emerged,
pared her to Natalie Maines, of the Dixie
Chicks, another Texan with a high, clear
voice and a roguish sense of humor.
Lambert didnt seem to mind the com-
parisonin fact, she was once a client
of the Dixie Chicks longtime manager.
Around the turn of the century, the
Dixie Chicks were the biggest and best
band in country music, able to cross
over to pop audiences without stinting
on the ddle and banjo. Their success
pushed the limits of mainstream coun-
try, just as their sudden fall proved that
plenty of limits remained. In 2003, after
Maines criticized President George W.
Bush during a concert in London, coun-
try radio stations nationwide dropped
the group, which eventually, in turn,
defected from the country-music in-
dustry altogether. (At the time of the
remarks, the Dixie Chicks were pro-
moting a No. 1 country single, Trav-
elin Soldier; they havent had another wouldnt know me if you saw me here /
country hit since.) When Lambert was
starting out, the controversy still cast a
long shadow, reminding country sing-
ers everywhere that Nashville, like any
industry town, has rules.
Unlike the Dixie Chicks, Lambert
avoids politics; unlike them, too, she
has managed to retain her independent
attitude while remaining rmly in the
country-music world (resisting the
temptation to dene herself in opposi-
tion to the Nashville mainstream). It
would have been easy for her to rail
against the Nashville establishment,
which still expects its stars to be hum-
ble and cheerful, and to provide a steady
supply of clean-scrubbed three-and-a-
half minute sing-alongs. Instead, she
has found a way to thrive within it, or
alongside it. Her previous album in-
cluded a duet with Carrie Underwood,
one of the genres most reliable hit-
makers, and Lambert spent part of this
summer touring with Kenny Chesney,
country musics biggest star, who was
headlining football stadiums. A num-
ber of rebellious, independent-minded
country singers have followed Lam-
berts lead, including Eric Church, who
conquered Nashville with relatively lit-
tle help from radio stations. (Early in
his career, Church was Lamberts open-
ing act.) Lamberts 2011 album, Four
the Record, contained one song by
Chris Stapleton and another whose
co-writers included Kacey Musgraves
and Brandy Clark; all three have since
become symbols of a new, relatively
nonconformist spirit in Nashville. Much
of this was hard to imagine before Lam-
bert, and theres no telling how much
of it might have happened without her.
Lambert may have realized what
country music has to oer someone like
her: not just a big and loyal audience but
also a tradition of obsessive attention to
songwriting, along with a vast warehouse
of styles and licks to rummage through.
From time to time, Lambert likes to re-
cord an obscure and unexpected cover.
Her new album includes You Wouldnt
Know Me, from a cult album released
in 1978 by a Texas singer-songwriter
named Shake Russell: his version is a
wonderfully shaggy country-rock song,
with gnomic lyrics descended from the
blues. Hers is a bit neater and more
muscular, but just as inscrutable. You
Im changing day to day, she sings,
deploying a girlish Texas drawl that has
scarcely changed in thirteen years.
Lamberts fans have come to expect
a certain amount of ebullience at her
live shows, which may mean that only
a few of these new songs nd a per-
manent home on her set lists. But her
changing circumstances have already in-
spired her to make one small revision.
At a recent concert, Lambert performed
one of her old hits, Little Red Wagon,
singing the bridge a bit dierently. The
album version includes the lyric I live
in Oklahoma, as she once did: she and
Shelton shared a house in a small town
called Tishomingo. But now she sang
instead, I got the hell out of Oklahoma,
drawing some sympathetic cheers. In
fact, she bought a new house last year,
neither in Oklahoma nor in her native
Texas but in a small town in Tennes-
seeabout an hour south of Nashville.
1
Our Hungry Critics
From the New York Post.
donkey meat on the sly
Walmart has recalled a donkey meat product
from some Chinese stores after tests found it had
traces of fox meat, the retailer said Thursday.
THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016 91
 richest man in Wittenberg partly by
THE ART WORLD being willing to work for almost any-
one, including fanciers of erotic and
comic imageryand Luthers enemies.
KNOCK ON WOOD But Cranach readily adapted his crisply
contoured, infectious art to charismatic
The five-hundredth anniversary of Luthers Ninety-five Theses. portraits of the Reformer and Katha-
rina, as well of the local ruler, Frederick
BY PETER SCHJELDAHL the Wise, who shielded Luther from
the wrath of Leo and Charles V, the

O
n October 31, 1517, Martin Lu- gloated over the quantity of them. I Holy Roman Emperor. The Atlanta
ther either did or did not nail a raged at Catholic schoolmates who jeered show, which I havent seen, centers on
paper titled Disputation on the Power that Luther had turned the world up- Cranachs Law and Grace (circa 1550),
and Ecacy of Indulgences, better side down for sex. (He married a for- an intricate, denitively Lutheran alle-
known as the Ninety-ve Theses, to a mer nun, Katharina von Bora, in 1525.) gory of the souls despair under the im-
church door in Wittenberg, Germany. My side taught me to deem Catholics possibly exacting law of the Old Testa-
(The evidence is murky.) But, by what- idolaters for praying to saints, but I ment, and its liberation by the New.
ever means, on that day the Augustin- secretly envied the glamorous ornament Luther was born in Saxony in 1483,
ian monk made public a multipronged and rituals of their church. That feeling the son of a well-to-do mining entre-
attack on the Roman Catho- preneur. He studied law, but
lic hierarchys sale of indul- later wrote that a terrifying
gencesget-out-of-Purgatory- experience during a thunder-
early guaranteesto raise funds storm, in 1505, led him to enter
for the completion of St. Pe- a monastery. He became a
ters Basilica, in Rome. The rev- priest in 1507 and a theology
olutionary theology that Lu- professor in 1512. Nevertheless,
ther thereby introduced held he was racked by doubts about
that only personal faith can ob- God and about his own mind
tain divine grace, rejecting any and heart. That qualied him,
intercession between an indi- in Kierkegaards words, three
vidual and God. (In 1520, he centuries later, as disciplined
declared that all Christian men in all secrecy by fear and trem-
are priests, all women priest- bling and much spiritual trial
esses.) Thanks to the relatively for venturing the extraordinary
recent technology of the print- in Gods name. But Kierke-
ing press and to widespread gaard noted a aw: Luther was
discontent with Rome and with ambitious, and to gain converts
Pope Leo X, Luthers ideas con- he eectively excused them
vulsed the Holy Roman Em- from the inner struggle that
pire. Three new museum shows gave his beliefs their meaning.
kick o the ve- hundredth W. H. Auden picked up the
anniversary of the originating theme in a sonnet, Luther:
deed: Word and Image: Mar- The Just shall live by Faith ...
tin Luthers Reformation, at he cried in dread. / And men
the Morgan Library, in New and women of the world were
York; Law and Grace: Mar- glad, / Whod never cared or
tin Luther, Lucas Cranach and trembled in their lives.
the Promise of Salvation, at A circa-1600 copy of Martin Luther on His Deathbed. In 1521, Leo excommuni-
COURTESY DEUTSCHES HISTORISCHES MUSEUM

the Pitts Theology Library, in cated Luther, and Charles V

Atlanta; and Martin Luther: Art and foretold my discovery of art as a make-do summoned him to trial at the Diet of
the Reformationby far the most com- creed. Say what one will about Leos Worms. There Luther scored an orator-
prehensiveat the Minneapolis Art monetizing of forgiveness, it helped pay ical triumph with a speech adducing
Institute. the wages of Michelangelo and Raphael. Scripture in defense of his heresies. Here
I grew up churched and Sunday- The art quotient of the three shows I stand. I can do no other, he is reputed
schooled Lutheran in Minnesota towns. would be slight but for Lucas Cranach to have said. On his way home, agents
As a pious kid, I was thrilled to imag- the Elder, Luthers close friend and tire- of Frederick the Wise intercepted him
ine Luther pounding on that church less propagandist. (The Morgan focusses and hid him in a castle, for protection
door, and though I didnt know what on the moment of the theses.)The Ger- from what amounted to an imperial dead-
theses werethe plural of these?I man Renaissance master became the or-alive warrant. Living under the alias
92 THE NEW YORKER, NOVEMBER 14, 2016
Junker Joerg (Knight George), Luther
translated the New Testament into Ger-
man, from the original Greek, in eleven
weeks. He then returned to Wittenberg
and translated the Old Testament, from
the Hebrew. The Luther Bible became
the fulcrum of the Reformation and did
for vernacular German roughly what
Dante had done for Italian. Heavily
worked manuscripts, in the Minneapo-
lis show, document his labor. Luthers
version is tendentious: he consigned the
Book of James to the Apocrypha, be-
cause it posited good works, rather than
faith alone, as a route to salvation.
The Minneapolis show is divided into
eight chronological sections, with exhib-
its ranging from items from Luthers
childhood home, and the immense pul-
pit from which he preached his last ser-
mons, to liturgical garments and such
kitsch relics as a sixteenth-century com-
memorative beer tankard. But the main
fare is linguistic: manuscripts, books, and
broadsheets. Lutheranism is a religion of
the logos. In that context, the show forth-
rightly confronts Luthers notorious anti-
Semitism, which fed on the disappoint-
ment of his early belief, based on his
reading of the Old Testament, that Jews
would accept Jesus as the Messiah. In
1523, he sympathized with their suer-
ing under Christian persecution, in a tract
titled That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew.
But, by the end of his life, in writings that
included a sixty-thousand-word screed,
On the Jews and Their Lies (1543), his
hatred verged on the genocidal.
The show also acknowledges Lu-
thers betrayal of the peasantrys hopes
that his religious populism would ex-
tend to common cause with the op-
pressed. (They may have been misled
by his mythologizing of himself as a
man of humble birth.) Instead, he pro-
moted the brutal crushing of insurrec-
tion in the Peasants War of 1524-25,
siding with the secular authorities on
whose backing he depended.
Luther did rein in followers who en-
gaged in iconoclastic destruction of Cath-
olic art. His own attitude toward art was
pragmatic: it could be used for doctri-
nal instruction. (He made an exception
for music, calling it the mistress and
governess of the feelings of the human
heart.) In Minneapolis, theres an as-
tonishing polyptychthe Gotha Altar
(1539-41), from the workshop of Hein-
rich Fllmaurer, an artist previously un-
known to methat arrays a hundred
and fty-seven painted panels, on four-
teen hinged wings, which tell Bible stories
with a Lutheran spin, emphasizing the
Gospel teachings of Jesus over the
Catholic litany of martyrs and miracles.
Luther also countenanced a media on-
slaught of polemical prints that iden-
tied the Pope with the Devil or, in a
woodcut from Cranachs workshop, pic-
tured him emerging from the womb (or
perhaps the anus) of a female demon.
Such grotesqueries, including those of
Catholic counterattacks on Luther, viv-
ify an era of sulfurous passions.
Consequences of the Reformation
for civil life set in immediately. Luthers
discounting of personal charity as a self-
deluding substitute for faith prompted
state welfare to compensate the poor.
More generally, his emphasis on per-
sonal responsibility gave rise to the Prot-
estant ethic of gainful hard work. He
believed rmly that the Second Com-
ing of Christ was imminent, and seemed
to feel that, time being short, life should
be lived to the fullest. He celebrated
convivialityno great novelty in Wit-
tenberg, where one out of three houses
was licensed to brew beerand was un-
usually supportive of women. In his view,
a woman with an impotent or unwill-
ing husband should seek a divorce and,
if he refuses, request sex with one of
his relatives or friends. Failing that, she
might leave and start fresh in another
town. Luther, who lived out his life in
familial contentment, undertook con-
siderable legal wrangling to will his en-
tire estate to Katharina, rather than to
their sons. He died in 1546.
In Minneapolis, a circa-1600 copy
of Cranachs painting Martin Luther
on His Deathbed (1546) shows the
eshy Reformer tranquilly at rest on
cloudlike pillows. The image had a pro-
paganda purpose: it was intended to
counter the Catholic belief that Luther,
in merited agony, went straight to Hell.
In fact, he left a Europe that was sub-
ject to bloody religious wars and, inci-
dentally, to the Catholic backlash of the
Counter-Reformation, which strove to
co-opt the Protestant emphasis on per-
sonal devotion in new styles of tradi-
tional piety. (Keep in mind, when be-
holding the aesthetic glory and spiritual
intensity of an El Greco or a Caravag-
gio, that we have the goad of Martin
Luthers legendary hammer indirectly
to thank for them.) As of last week, that
seed of compromise had come to at least
diplomatic fruition with Pope Francis
commemorating the anniversary of the
Ninety-ve Theses at the Lutheran
World Federation, in Lund, Sweden.
Catholic conservatives have denounced
the gesture. What would Luther say
about it? Excellent question.

THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT 2016 COND NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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 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 weeks cartoon, by Paul Noth,
must be received by Sunday, November 13th. The finalists in the October 31st contest appear below. We will announce
the winner, and the finalists in this weeks contest, in the November 28th issue. Anyone age thirteen or older
can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THIS WEEKS CONTEST

..........................................................................................................................

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

Why cant you just wear a button, like most people?

Hanna Levenson, Oakland, Calif.

Its your metaphor. You feed it!

Tom Gabriel, Minneapolis, Minn. Well, if it isnt the Gym Reaper.
Anna Kadyshevich, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Actually, its all we ever talk about.
Daniel Walsh, Atlanta, Ga.