Owed her not only because he was unfaithful, too—although he certainly had been, she didn’t doubt it, and more than once or twice—but also because he was impossible. He was one of those impossible men, attractive but also sleazy, in a way that was more popular then, in the eighties and nineties, than it is now. He was long-limbed and superskinny, fizzing and jigging and restless with energy, his ugly sharp face alight with cleverness and mockery of everything. Nowadays he wouldn’t get away with it. Quent didn’t once, not ever, attend any of the parents’ evenings at their children’s schools, or cook a meal for the family, or use the vacuum cleaner. If he took the children out it was on some crazy, risky adventure, not to buy shoes. Usually, anyway, he was high on some illegal substance or another. When Lorraine thought of him, that was how she pictured him: deep in concentration, his long hair falling forward around his face dipped to the toke, his hand cupped around the lighter flame, his gracile long fingers stained with nicotine. Sometimes he fried up steaks with herbs and wine when they had friends round to eat, and everyone was amazed by his culinary skills; it was all so delicious. He paid a fortune once, at a time when they were so short of money, for a good suit lined in purple silk, sewn by a tailor who made suits for the Rolling Stones.
Denne historien er fra July 24, 2023-utgaven av The New Yorker.
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Denne historien er fra July 24, 2023-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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GET IT TOGETHER
In the beginning was the mob, and the mob was bad. In Gibbon’s 1776 “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the Roman mob makes regular appearances, usually at the instigation of a demagogue, loudly demanding to be placated with free food and entertainment (“bread and circuses”), and, though they don’t get to rule, they sometimes get to choose who will.
GAINING CONTROL
The frenemies who fought to bring contraception to this country.
REBELS WITH A CAUSE
In the new FX/Hulu series “Say Nothing,” life as an armed revolutionary during the Troubles has—at least at first—an air of glamour.
AGAINST THE CURRENT
\"Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!,\" at Soho Rep, and \"Gatz,\" at the Public.
METAMORPHOSIS
The director Marielle Heller explores the feral side of child rearing.
THE BIG SPIN
A district attorney's office investigates how its prosecutors picked death-penalty juries.
THIS ELECTION JUST PROVES WHAT I ALREADY BELIEVED
I hate to say I told you so, but here we are. Kamala Harris’s loss will go down in history as a catastrophe that could have easily been avoided if more people had thought whatever I happen to think.
HOLD YOUR TONGUE
Can the world's most populous country protect its languages?
A LONG WAY HOME
Ordinarily, I hate staying at someone's house, but when Hugh and I visited his friend Mary in Maine we had no other choice.
YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”