What does your brother do? she asks Eddy on the way home, and Eddy says he has three paper routes. Paper routes? A grown man? Isn't he twenty? Says he doesn't need much to live on. And we both got something when the old man died. He lives on that? No, he bought a Bugatti. Shit, where's he keep a Bugatti? Oh, he crashed it or gave it away, I forget. So he stays with your mom? Trailer out back. Where I saw the chickens? Mom would rather he didn't keep chickens. Did you all eat supper together all the time growing up? Yes, he says. She likes the idea of her and Eddy learning about each other's childhood. She starts to tell him about her mother's voice crackling from the intercom every night at six, the meal laid out on plates on the kitchen counter, all of them shuffling off to their rooms with their plates to eat alone. He glances at her vaguely and speeds up to take the ramp onto the highway. They are driving through early-spring croplands. She stares out. The fields look shaved. We had chewing and long silences, he says. It's not much better.
Denne historien er fra January 29, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra January 29, 2024-utgaven av The New Yorker.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.