CATEGORIES

The Maths Tutor

In her thirties, Lorraine was unfaithful once or twice; she didn’t tell her husband. Quentin owed her, she reckoned, in that long accounting of pluses and minuses which is marriage.

THIS MORTAL COIL

Ato Blankson-Wood stars in \"Hamlet\" in the Park.

American Chronicles: The Nashville Underground

Tennessee's politics have turned hard red, and the ruling sound in Music City is still bro country. Can other voices grab the mike?

The Great Pretender

Caroline Calloway's first big "scam" was a lark. Her next, a matter of self-preservation. She's about to debut her latest project-or so she says

It's Like That

Fifty years of HIP-HOP in a world that could not exist without it

Τhe Golden Dream

California knows it's a state in crisis-its leaders know, its residents know, the rest of the country knows. But how it got here-and whether the way out is any kind of model to follow-nobody can agree on

War of the Rosé

They came together in a blaze of passion, then split amid a storm of recriminations. In between, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie established a hugely profitable wine label on an enchanting estate in the South of France. Now, as lawsuits continue to fly, Mark Seal uncovers the truth about the battle for Miraval

Phoebe Invincible

Actor Andrew Scott, A.K.A. Hot priest, says Phoebe Waller-Bridge is nothing less than good at life. To this, we'd add that she's a captivating writer and actor, as well as a smasher of things, including but not limited to expectations, the fourth wall, stodginess, and pointless decorum. On a long ramble through London, she talks about the journey from Fleabag to Indiana Jones, pausing only to greet birds and besotted fans

Becoming Tennessee

A portrait of the playwright as a young artist.

The Ice-Cream Truck

Not a lot of good sounds could be heard on our street. Police sirens and ambulances.

Galaxy Brain

How Samuel R. Delany reimagined science fiction.

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

Boasting Thurston Moore as a record-label honcho and having shared bills with Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney, Big Joanie feels like an honorary member of an indie world of yore.

Night of the Happy Bodies

I like parties where you sit around and talk to people. But I love parties where you dance and make noise with people. This may seem strange for a writer, but I can find spoken words overly complex and unwieldy, especially in the fast-moving currents of a party.

The Kitchen God

I tried peeling the kitchen wall with my fingernails, but that didn't work, so I pressed hard with my fingers and a flake of the \"stucco,\" which is what I call it, fell off.

A Lesson for the Sub

During my mid-twenties, I hit what you might call a bottom. Since college, I'd partaken too liberally in wine and song, although in this case the wine was cheap beer and street drugs and the song was my self-sabotaging punk band.

Tell No Tales

Storytelling has been sold as the solution to everything. But it comes at a cost.

Colorín Colorado

SHOULD THEY HEAR THIS? - The day they came for the interview, I woke up too early, thinking about Bernard Loiseau. This happens when I'm nervous-not thinking about Loiseau, specifically, but thinking in my sleep, waking up mid-thought.

Toy Story

Barbie's now a movie star. Can Mattel gin up plots for Hot Wheels and UNO?

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT: AFTER AFFIRMATIVE ACTION- Any proper obituary for affirmative action (1961-2023) in higher education would be obliged to note that it had been in decline for years before it met its ultimate demise last week. The policy had weathered successive legal challenges dating back to the nineteen-seventies. It was often difficult to tell whether the effect of these suits was to inspire more nuanced and legally sustainable approaches for insuring diversity or to better define the target opponents were aiming at. As with other untimely passings, the scale of what has been lost is difficult to assess in the moment. But not entirely impossible.

Killing Dickens

Why I wrote a historical novel.

Roberta at the Morrison

One day in 2010, I dropped in to the Morrison Center, in Union Square. The office was high-ceilinged and light-filled, and its I.V. room contained potted ferns and many recliners.

Lives of the Artists

Gabriela Lena Frank's \"El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego,\" in San Francisco.

Last Gasps

\"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny\" and \"Biosphere.\"

P's Parties

I should note straightaway that P's parties took place every year at her house, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, during the mild winters we typically enjoy in this city.

Agentspotlight

Seasoned literary agents on the business of publishing.

Cold Case

The final season of "Happy Valley."

Measure for Measure

On the frontiers of penile enhancement, competition for patients grows cutthroat.

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

The Jamaican-born artist Ebony G. Patterson’s installation “. . . things come to thrive . . . in the shedding . . . in the molting . . . ,” at the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx (through Oct. 22), is the result of a four-year residency. Dotting the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and its lawn are glittering black-foam vultures and glass sculptures of feet and plants, just some of the pieces with which Patterson probes the garden’s surface. “How do I get people to look beneath the landscape?” she asks. “There’s a secret that’s being concealed.”

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

COMMENT HAZY DAYS The masks came out again this month-only, contrary to the COVID years, New Yorkers donned them outdoors and slid them off when they stepped inside. As smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires drifted across the northern U.S. border, engulfing much of the eastern seaboard in an orange miasma, it sent New York's air quality to the worst levels on record, and, at one point, the worst in the world. Planes were grounded, outdoor activities were cancelled, and patients with asthma and other respiratory conditions filled emergency rooms. Senator Chuck Schumer called on the Biden Administration to send more American firefighters up North to stave off a \"summer of smoke.\"

MAN CHILD

Raising a boy in a world of male monsters.