PRICE $9.

99 JUNE 2, 2025
 FLEETWIDE
SALE
All voyages departing
through June 30, 2026

up to 30% OFF
+ FREE Beverage Package
+ Shipboard Credit up to $800
+ 50% Reduced Deposits

Portofino, Italy

THE BEST VALUE in LUXURY CRUISING

Our Fleetwide Sale is the perfect time to turn your dream vacation into your next best
adventure. Available on all voyages departing through June 30, 2026, you’ll enjoy a
Free Beverage Package and a Shipboard Credit up to $800 plus up to 30% off select
Scan this QR code with
sailings and 50% Reduced Deposits. Combined with the always free amenities of your smartphone camera
Your World Included™– 2 for 1 Cruise Fares, Gourmet Specialty Dining, Shipboard Gratuities, to view Special Offer.

Unlimited Starlink® WiFi, and so much more – you’ll discover small ship luxury for less.

L AST CHANCE TO SAVE. OFFER EXPIRES JUNE 30, 2025.

CALL 855-OCEANIA (855-623-2642) | VISIT OCEANIACRUISES.COM | CONTACT YOUR TR AVEL ADVISOR
 T H E FI N E S T CU ISI N E AT SE A®
AWA R D -W I N N I N G I T I N ER A R I E S
SM A L L SH I P LUXU RY T M

Terms, conditions, restrictions, and capacity controls apply. Fleetwide Sale is valid 6/1/25 through 6/30/25 and is available for select categories on select voyages, subject to change and capacity controlled. Savings
amounts vary per sailing and are per person. Mention Code: DSC. Promotion may be withdrawn at any time without prior notice. Please visit www.OceaniaCruises.com for complete Terms & Conditions. MAY252651
 JUNE 2, 2025

6 GOINGS ON
13 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Jelani Cobb on a tumultuous spring semester;
don’t jinx the Knicks; tiny things and Tonys;
in the friendship zone; how much is too much?
PERSONAL HISTORY
Sarah Beckwith 18 By the Canal
Remembering a rape forty years on.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Teddy Wayne 25 Pete Hegseth’s Day
ANNALS OF MEDICINE
Rivka Galchen 26 No-Pain Gains
A breakthrough in analgesics.
TAKES
Julian Lucas 29 Hilton Als’s “The Islander.”
THE POLITICAL SCENE
Evan Osnos 32 Oligarch-in-Chief
Pay-to-play flourishes in Washington, D.C.
PROFILES
Michael Schulman 40 The Last Broad
Patti LuPone, theatre’s grande dame.
FICTION
Louise Erdrich 48 “Love of My Days”
THE CRITICS
BOOKS
Louis Menand 53 A new biography of William F. Buckley, Jr.
59 Briefly Noted
ON AND OFF THE MENU
Hannah Goldfield 60 The gauzy strength of the Sonoran flour tortilla.
ON TELEVISION
Inkoo Kang 62 “ Your Friends and Neighbors.”
THE THEATRE
Helen Shaw 64 Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber onstage.
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Justin Chang 66 “Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning.”
POEMS
Ada Limón 37 “Even Here It Is Happening”
Li-Young Lee 44 “The Inheritence”
COVER
Kadir Nelson “Major Taylor, a Champion Who Led the Way”

DRAWINGS Drew Panckeri, Sarah Kempa, Barbara Smaller,

Natalie Horberg, William Haefeli, Tim Hamilton, Hartley Lin,
Asher Perlman, Roz Chast, Maddie Dai SPOTS Roland High
FINAL WEEKS
OF A GRIPPING
SEASON
A scene from Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Ken Howard / Met Opera

Don’t miss the final performances of the Met’s exhilarating

2024–25 season, featuring classic comedies, powerful dramas,
and a compelling Met premiere. The world’s greatest singers star
in Rossini’s comic masterpiece Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of
Seville), Puccini’s perennial heartbreaker La Bohème, Tchaikovsky’s
thriller The Queen of Spades, and John Adams’s grand new
Peter Gelb
Antony and Cleopatra.
MARIA MANET TI SHREM GENER AL MANAGER

Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Tickets start at $25 metopera.org 212.362.6000 JEANET TE LERMAN-NEUBAUER MUSIC DIRECTOR
 CONTRIBUTORS
Evan Osnos (“Oligarch-in-Chief,” p. 32) Michael Schulman (“The Last Broad,”
is a staff writer and the author of, most p. 40), a staff writer, has contributed to
recently, “The Haves and Have-Yachts: the magazine since 2006. His books
Dispatches on the Ultrarich.” include “Oscar Wars” and “Her Again:
Becoming Meryl Streep.”
Sarah Beckwith (“By the Canal,” p. 18)
is the author of “Shakespeare and Loss: Rivka Galchen (“No-Pain Gains,” p. 26)
The Late, Great Tragedies,” forthcom- is a staff writer. She most recently pub-
ing in December. lished the novel “Everyone Knows Your
Mother Is a Witch.”
Louise Erdrich (Fiction, p. 48) received
the Pulitzer Prize for her novel “The Kadir Nelson (Cover) received the 2020
Night Watchman.” Her latest book, Caldecott Medal. His works are in mu-
“The Mighty Red,” came out last year. seums including the Smithsonian.

Ada Limón (Poem, p. 37) served as the Louis Menand (Books, p. 53), a staff
twenty-fourth U.S. Poet Laureate. writer, won a Pulitzer Prize for history
“Startlement: New and Selected Poems” for his book “The Metaphysical Club:
will be published in September. A Story of Ideas in America.”

Teddy Wayne (Shouts & Murmurs, p. 25), Dan Greene (The Talk of the Town, p. 16)
a novelist and a screenwriter, is the au- is a member of The New Yorker’s edi-
thor of “The Winner,” among other torial staff.
books. “The Au Pair” is due out next year.
Li-Young Lee (Poem, p. 44) received
Caitlin Reid (Puzzles & Games Dept.) the 2024 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. His
began constructing crosswords in 2017. books include “The Invention of the
Her work has appeared in the Times, Darling” and the forthcoming “I Ask
the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. My Mother to Sing.”

THIS WEEK IN THE NEW YORKER APP

Helen Rosner on New York’s best sundaes,

Joshua Rothman on two paths for A.I.,
Gideon Lewis-Kraus on why bad ideas go viral,
Louisa Thomas on the French Open, and more.
ROSE WONG

Download the New Yorker app for the latest news, commentary, criticism,
and humor, plus this week’s magazine and all issues back to 2008.
 THE MAIL
CONVERSATION STARTERS fill in the gaps in sectors of our economy
where there are not enough humans to
Emma Green, in her report on univer- keep pace with our needs.
sities’ embrace of the doctrine of plural- John Joss
ism, discusses changing attitudes about Mountain View, Calif.
diversity-equity-and-inclusion programs 1
(“The Pluralism Pivot,” April 21st). Many THE STATE OF PRISON CARE
of Green’s interviewees, including col-
lege presidents and public officials, ap- As a formerly incarcerated person, I can
pear to treat as something new the idea testify to the horrendous treatment often
of designing a way for multiple view- faced by inmates of the kind detailed in
points to participate in a conversation Sarah Stillman’s article (“Starved in Jail,”
about a controversial problem. But the April 21st). Though Stillman’s focus was
concept of pluralism, along with the on facilities’ meagre food services, I would
hope to embed it in a democratic pro- add that prisons’ attitude to medical care
cess, has been around for quite a while. can also be reprehensible. I suffered a
Philosophers from John Rawls to Jür- spinal-cord injury, which made it diffi-
gen Habermas have argued for its es- cult for me to walk, and I received a
sential place in modern democracy.There non-rolling walker, which was inade-
are also a host of organizations devel- quate. I made repeated written requests
oping ways to foster this kind of open for a wheelchair, and each was denied.
discussion, such as the National Coali- My doctor was not fazed by this at all.
tion for Dialogue & Deliberation, Stan- When I finally underwent surgery, I asked
ford’s Deliberative Democracy Lab, and to be transferred to a facility where phys-
Carnegie Mellon’s Program for Delib- ical therapy was available. As with the
erative Democracy (where I am the di- wheelchair, my request was denied.
rector). Those who appear in Green’s S. Howard
piece would do well to examine their Worcester, Mass.
forerunners, who can provide guidance
about how to debate while harboring As a lawyer who has spent the past forty
differences of opinion and belief. years fighting for inmates’ rights, I have
Robert Cavalier handled dozens of cases involving inex-
Teaching Professor, Emeritus cusable indifference to the serious medical
Department of Philosophy needs of people in jails and prisons, and
Carnegie Mellon University can attest that the treatment documented
Pittsburgh, Pa. in Stillman’s article is not unique. It is
1 also my belief that, to paraphrase Cassius
FUTURE FACTORIES in “Julius Caesar,” the fault lies not with
the employees of jails or for-profit med-
John Cassidy’s appraisal of A.I.’s effect ical corporations that allow these horrors
on employment, by focussing on intellec- to occur, but with society at large. Of
tual labor, did not address the extent to course, regulating companies like Naph-
which machines will continue to augment Care is an important step, but to elimi-
and replace factory workers (“Luddite nate this kind of inhumane treatment
Lessons,” April 21st). Around the world, entirely will require a spiritual renewal.
some companies now produce goods in Greg Belzley
so-called dark factories—fully automated Prospect, Ky.
facilities that require no lighting systems,
because no humans work in them. This •
development might not be all bad, given Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
the demographic reality: in 1950, there address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
were a dozen working-age people for themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
every retiree; in 2030, there will likely be any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
fewer than four. Perhaps A.I. will help of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
 GOINGS ON

SUMMER PREVIEW
What we’re watching, listening to, and doing this season.

TELEVISION enfant terrible, Lena Dunham, makes time and different realities to explore her
the transition to Netflix with her latest family history. The more comedic “Long
Tech Billionaires, series, “Too Much” ( July 10). Dunham, Story Short” also tells a family saga by
whose series “Girls” has found a steady leaping back and forth between eras. On
Hawaiian History, afterlife, is sure to generate chatter with FX, the prolific showrunner Noah Hawley
Murder Mysteries a semi-autobiographical rom-com that
stars the “Hacks” breakout Megan Stalter
propels the audience nearly a century into
the future with “Alien: Earth” (Aug. 12), a
Many of the summer’s most anticipated as a burned-out New Yorker who moves prequel series set in the “Alien” universe
TV projects hail from the medium’s lead- to London and quickly falls for a man she that imagines the first encounter between
ing auteurs and hitmakers. The season suspects she should run from. humanity and the titular extraterrestrials.
kicks off with “Succession” creator Jesse Also on Netflix, the “BoJack Horse- Jason Momoa, who played Aquaman
Armstrong’s HBO movie “Mountain- man” creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg in the D.C. superhero movies, joins the
head” (May 31), in which a quartet of tech reunites with that series’ beloved pro- ranks of series creators with the ambi-
billionaires—played by Jason Schwartz- duction designer, Lisa Hanawalt, for tious historical drama “Chief of War”
man, Steve Carrell, Ramy Youssef, and their latest adult animated series, “Long (Aug. 1). Momoa, who shares creator
Cory Michael Smith—watch the world Story Short” (Aug. 22). Since the end of credits with Thomas Pa’a Sibbett, head-
burn down from an isolated, snowy retreat “BoJack,” Bob-Waksberg co-created the lines this Apple TV+ miniseries, about
and question their roles and responsibil- underwatched Amazon drama “Undone,” Hawaii’s unification and colonization,
ities in the crisis. That network’s former about a woman who transports through playing Ka’iana, a real-life eighteenth-
century warrior. On the cozier side, the
streaming service attempts to recapture
the magic of “Ted Lasso” with the Owen
Wilson vehicle “Stick” ( June 4). Wilson
plays a Lasso-ian sportsman—a sweet,
sad former pro-golfer—who finds a new
calling in coaching an amateur (Peter
Dager) with extraordinary promise but
a tough home life.
As feels right amid the heat and stick-
iness of summer, there’s no shortage of
murder mysteries in the next few months.
They come in an array of flavors. Julianne
Moore and Sydney Sweeney play it seri-
ous as a mother and daughter bound by
a secret in the Apple TV+ movie “Echo
Valley” ( June 13), while Shudder/AMC+
ILLUSTRATIONS BY DANNY MILLER

serves up killings with a wink in the sa-

tirical miniseries “Hell Motel” ( June 17),
in which true-crime aficionados keep
turning up dead. It can vie with the fourth
season of “The Bear” ( June 25), on FX
and Hulu, for the loudest screaming and
the handiest knifework.
—Inkoo Kang
6 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 SUMMER PREVIEW

ART adding his rarely seen posters, prints, and “Hilma af Klint: What Stands Behind the
photographs. Part of what makes Shahn Flowers” displays a never-before-seen
Vermeer’s Ladies, Hilma fascinating—and ripe for this moment— portfolio of forty-six botanical drawings
is the way he turned his relentless quest by the Swedish pioneer of abstraction,
af Klint’s Botanicals for justice into a brushy, almost delicate whose fame has continued to grow since a
style that was wholly his own. groundbreaking 2018 survey of her work
Summer is generally a quiet time in From the Jewish Museum, it’s a short at the Guggenheim. These delicate wa-
the art world, so it makes sense that the walk to the Metropolitan Museum of tercolors feature careful studies accompa-
highlights of the season are more low-key Art, where the annual, much-discussed nied by geometric diagrams and written
gems than splashy blockbusters. Fore- Costume Institute exhibition is on view. notes. Viewers who know af Klint for her
most among them is the Drawing Center’s This year’s edition, “Superfine: Tailoring iconic mystical paintings will discover a
“In the Medium of Life: The Drawings of Black Style,” takes a long historical look different dimension of her practice. For
Beauford Delaney” (opening May 30), a at Black dandyism, with objects ranging those seeking a more contemporary take
survey of the work of a great but still un- from Frederick Douglass’s tailcoat to the on nature—and a rather more fraught
derappreciated artist. You may know of the fashion journalist André Leon Talley’s one—the International Center of Pho-
African American modernist through his caftans. While you’re at the Met, stop by tography has “Edward Burtynsky: The
longtime friendship with James Baldwin, “Lorna Simpson: Source Notes.” You may Great Acceleration” ( June 19), a survey
who once wrote, “I learned about light have seen her pioneering photography- of the photographer’s often awe-inspir-
from Beauford Delaney.” Indeed, the art- and-text pieces, which focus on the emo- ing large-format pictures that document
ist’s portraits, landscapes, and abstractions tional experiences of Black women, but humanity’s impact on the Earth.
are luminous and buoyant with color—a this is the first survey of Simpson’s more On the hottest days, when you can’t
technical feat as much as an emotional recent paintings. bring yourself to look too closely or think
one, as Delaney struggled with poverty, Further down Fifth Avenue, the re- too hard, head to the Brooklyn Museum
racism, mental illness, and his own homo- cently renovated Frick Collection is for “Christian Marclay: Doors” ( June 13).
sexuality. This exhibition should go some mounting a big exhibition that’s actually A multimedia artist and composer, Mar-
way toward giving him his due. quite small—the first outing in the mu- clay sparked a cultural craze when his film
The Jewish Museum also revisits a seum’s new special-exhibitions gallery. “The Clock” débuted, in 2010; it mes-
contemporary forebear, with “Ben Shahn, “Vermeer’s Love Letters” (June 18) features merized huge crowds with clips of clocks
On Nonconformity” (May 23). Shahn, a just three paintings by the Old Master, all taken from movies and TV and mas-
Lithuanian Jew who grew up in Brook- depicting ladies with their maids and with terfully edited into a twenty-four-hour,
lyn, was a lifelong socially committed letters of some kind. It’s a portal to the real-time montage. “Doors” only runs for
artist; his best-known work is a series domestic lives and social relationships of an hour, on a loop, but does something
of gouache paintings dramatizing the women in the seventeenth century, which similar with its subject, making meaning
fate of the Italian-immigrant anarchists are recurrent themes in Vermeer’s œuvre. from pop culture’s transitional moments
Sacco and Vanzetti. This retrospective There’s another intimate powerhouse by turning them into the main attraction.
celebrates the breadth of Shahn’s vision by of a show at the Museum of Modern Art. —Jillian Steinhauer
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 7
 SUMMER PREVIEW

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

Pop Savants, Rhiannon

Giddens, Weird Al
Summer gets a jump start with the 2025
edition of the Governors Ball ( June 6-8),
led by the ascendant rap auteur Tyler,
the Creator; the gutsy pop-rock savant
Olivia Rodrigo; and the Irish soul man
Hozier. The season gets in full swing
the following week with the jazz harpist
Brandee Younger at Blue Note (June 9); the
chamber-pop innovator Perfume Genius
on his “Glory” tour, at Brooklyn Para-
mount ( June 10); and the dance-music vet
Crystal Waters, at 3 Dollar Bill ( June 12).
DANCE structed using archival video and notes. Tyler, the Creator, with four solo shows
They include “Tablet,” from 1960, with in July—two at Madison Square Gar-
Ballet Luminaries, colorful costumes (and face paint) by den (14-15) and two at Barclays Center
Ellsworth Kelly, for which Pina Bausch (17-18)—leads an assorted cast of per-
Alfresco Dance Parties was in the original cast. The Mark Morris formers through both arenas. At M.S.G.:
Dance Group ( July 15-26) brings two the comedy musician Weird Al Yankovic
In the summer, we tout the joys of out- new dances—including “You’ve Got to ( July 12); the belligerent rap duo Run the
door dance. It is, indeed, magical to watch Be Modernistic,” set to music by the piano Jewels ( July 16); the glitter-pop prima
the sun sink over the Hudson while get- innovator James P. Johnson, reinterpreted donna Kesha ( July 23); rock legends the
ting your groove on at a d.j.-led dance by the jazz pianist Ethan Iverson—and Who (Aug. 30); and Lady Gaga, a star
party on Little Island (Aug. 1-12); or to “The Muir” (2010), a suite of bittersweet reborn with the gloriously messy March
hold one’s tango partner close under the vignettes set to Scottish songs adapted by album, “Mayhem” (Aug. 22-23, 26-27). At
giant disco ball dangling above Lincoln Beethoven, such as the naïf “Sally in Our Barclays: the tumbling sing-song rapper
Center Plaza, for one of many themed Alley.” The Joyce’s summer closes with a Lil Baby, on his “WHAM” tour ( June 18);
social-dance events during Summer for program of short works by Jerome Rob- the R. & B. singer Keyshia Cole ( July 12);
the City ( July 11-Aug. 9). bins (Aug. 12-17), curated by the New the reconceptualized Linkin Park, looking
But, let’s be honest, most great York City Ballet luminary Tiler Peck and to escape the shadow of the late singer
dance happens indoors, in temperature- danced by members of A.B.T., N.Y.C.B., Chester Bennington ( July 29); and the
controlled spaces far from mosquitoes. and the Paris Opera. Peck herself becomes Afrobeats trailblazer Davido ( July 31).
American Ballet Theatre moves into the the first woman to perform the solo “A Artists new and old settle into more
Metropolitan Opera House ( June 10- Suite of Dances,” which was created in intimate venues. U.S. Girls, the art-pop
July 19), bringing big ballet spectacles like 1994, for none other than Baryshnikov. project of the musician Meghan Remy,
“Swan Lake” and “Giselle.” A good reason The country’s oldest summer dance celebrates the upcoming album “Scratch
to revisit the latter is a rare appearance by festival, Jacob’s Pillow, returns to the Berk- It,” out June 20, at Bowery Ballroom
the guest artist Olga Smirnova ( June 21), shires ( June 25-Aug. 24) with a packed ( June 25). At Le Poisson Rouge, on
an extraordinary ballerina, formerly of schedule that includes visits by Indigenous June 27, the prolific lyricist Boldy James
the Bolshoi, who took a principled stand Enterprise (dancing outdoors! on July 10), samples his trove of recently released
against the Russian invasion of Ukraine a young troupe vibrantly bringing the an- LPs—six this year alone—and, a day
and is now based at the Dutch National cient dances of Native American nations later, fixtures of hip-hop’s mixtape econ-
Ballet. Another highlight is Christopher into the twenty-first century; and the mes- omy Jeezy and the d.j. Drama take on
Wheeldon’s elegant précis of Shake- merizing “Touch of RED,” by Shamel the historic Apollo Theatre. One of the
speare’s “The Winter’s Tale” ( July 1-5), Pitts (Aug. 6-10), a sexually fraught pas de defining New York City bands of the
in which a horrific deed is expiated, and deux for two men that draws from boxing, two-thousands, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs,
a daughter is lost and then found. club dance, krump, and Fred and Ginger. returns home for a trio of shows cele-
The Joyce’s summer season in- It will be performed at the newly rebuilt brating twenty-five years with reimagined
cludes the Paul Taylor Dance Company Doris Duke Theatre, the original structure versions of fan favorites (Beacon Theatre;
( June 17-22), reviving an intriguing pair of which was lost in 2020 to a fire. July 28-30). In Brooklyn, the misfits of
of early works that have been recon- —Marina Harss alternative and indie scenes reign. The
8 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 SUMMER PREVIEW

alt-rocker Sabrina Teitelbaum, who per-

forms as Blondshell, crashes in with the
new album “If You Asked for a Picture,”
at Brooklyn Steel ( June 20). At Pioneer
Works, noise music extends to its poles:
the droning of Godspeed You! Black
Emperor ( June 25-26) and the experi-
mental sounds of Deerhoof ( June 28).
On July 15 and 16, Kurt Vile opens for
the Pixies at Brooklyn Paramount. Over
at Market Hotel, the buoyant Bay Area
rapper LaRussell continues his mission to
“make rap fun again” ( July 27).
The season’s outdoor shows are no less
bracing. The roots revivalist Rhiannon
Giddens headlines a free concert for Cen-
tral Park’s SummerStage ( June 25). On
July 18, the Canadian dream-pop band
Men I Trust unveils music from two new CLASSICAL MUSIC Lights,” a new setting of Ben Lerner
albums, “Equus Asinus” and “Equus Ca- poems by Matt Aucoin (Aug. 2-3). The
ballus,” at Prospect Park Bandshell. A slew Powerhouse Baritones, Time:Spans festival brings new-music
of ambitious rock pairings hit the Rooftop mainstays including the violinist Miranda
at Pier 17: Primus with special guest Ty Orchestras in the Park Cuckson (Aug. 11) and the flautist Claire
Segall ( July 21); Drive-By Truckers and Chase (Aug. 19) to the DiMenna Cen-
Deer Tick, on the “Charm & Decadence” Three months of free and low-cost pro- ter; and the Chamber Music Society pres-
tour ( July 25); and co-headliners Guster gramming claps back at the idea that any- ents six twenty-dollar concerts at Alice
and the Mountain Goats ( July 31). And one with the money, or the sense, flees New Tully Hall ( July).
across two sets at Under the K Bridge Park York in the summer. At Lincoln Center, a Still, it’s nice to get out of town.
(Aug. 1-2), the English d.j. and producer takeover by the American Modern Opera Those who prefer their Baroque opera
Jamie xx runs through the 2024 album Company leads off with “The Comet/ straight up might head to Caramoor,
“In Waves,” his first in nearly a decade. Poppea,” a startling mash-up of Mon- in Westchester, for “Pimpinone & Ino”
—Sheldon Pearce teverdi’s 1643 Roman drama and a 1920 ( June 29)—a pairing, by the Boston Early
sci-fi short by W. E. B. Du Bois, starring Music Festival, of an opera and a cantata
the bass-baritone Davóne Tines and the by Telemann—or for Capella Mediter-
countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, ranea’s semi-staged “L’Incoronazione di
with new music by the composer George Poppea” ( July 12). The Bard Music Fes-
Lewis ( June 18-21). In the same precincts, tival showcases the neoclassical Czech
Karen Kamensek conducts the Lincoln composer Bohuslav Martinů (Aug. 8-17),
Center Festival Orchestra in a program and the Glimmerglass Festival premières
that includes Golijov’s “Three Songs for “The House on Mango Street,” adapted
Soprano and Orchestra,” sung by Gabriella by Derek Bermel and Sandra Cisneros
Reyes (Aug. 1-2); and the string quartet from Cisneros’s much-loved novel (opens
Brooklyn Rider reunites with the composer July 18). At the Boston Symphony Or-
and kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor to chestra’s summer home in Tanglewood,
perform his “Silent City” (Aug. 7-9). Massachusetts, the powerhouse baritone
Outdoor concerts make up in am- Bryn Terfel sings Scarpia in a concert
biance what they lack in acoustics. The performance of “Tosca” ( July 19), and
Naumburg Orchestral Concerts, in Cen- Emanuel Ax premières John Williams’s
tral Park, host a series of punchy mid- first piano concerto ( July 26). But, if you
size ensembles, starting with the Knights think travel’s a drag, the “Schleptet” by
( June 10); the New York Philharmonic, P. D. Q. Bach—the comic alter ego of the
conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, makes late composer Peter Schickele, who will
its annual rounds, playing in Central, be remembered in a memorial concert at
Van Cortlandt, Prospect, and Cunning- the Society for Ethical Culture ( June 2)—
ham parks ( June 4-6, 7). At Little Is- may be just the thing.
land, Roomful of Teeth premières “The —Fergus McIntosh
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 9
 SUMMER PREVIEW

MOVIES reunites the director Danny Boyle and Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris
the screenwriter Alex Garland, from the Evans, about a matchmaker who is torn
Action Sequels, the first film in the cycle. In “M3GAN 2.0” between a rich man and a poor one. John-
( June 27), the first installment’s A.I.- son returns in “Splitsville” (Aug. 22), the
Chill of Alienation equipped doll with a violent streak is story of two married couples, one facing
now harnessed for military uses; Allison divorce, the other practicing polyamory;
Summer’s usual action-franchise sequels Williams and Violet McGraw return in it’s directed by Michael Angelo Covino,
come in a range of formats, including a the lead roles, and Gerard Johnstone again who co-stars with his co-screenwriter,
spinoff that builds its marketing into the directs. Comedy is represented with “The Kyle Marvin, and Adria Arjona. “Oh, Hi!”
title: “From the World of John Wick: Bal- Naked Gun” (Aug. 1)—back after thirty- ( July 25) is also a rom-com, directed by
lerina” ( June 6), starring Ana de Armas as one years—directed by Akiva Schaffer and Sophie Brooks, about a couple (Molly
a dancer who trains to be an assassin and starring Liam Neeson as Lt. Frank Drebin, Gordon and Logan Lerman) whose
joins the underground network in which Jr., the son of the earlier entries’ hapless de- weekend road trip veers into breakup
the franchise hero (Keanu Reeves) also tective. “Freakier Friday” (Aug. 8), directed territory and leads to an act of revenge.
serves. Anjelica Huston, Gabriel Byrne, by Nisha Ganatra, brings back Jamie Lee Chills of alienation thread through
Ian McShane, and the late Lance Reddick Curtis and Lindsay Lohan for a body- upcoming releases, as in Neo Sora’s dys-
(in his final role) co-star. There’s a new switching plot that now involves a third topian drama “Happyend” ( June 20),
Clark Kent en route, played by David generation, portrayed by Julia Butters. set in Tokyo in the near future, in which
Corenswet, in James Gunn’s “Superman” High-stakes competition makes for the friendship between two high-school
( July 11), co-starring Rachel Brosnahan high drama in “F1 the Movie” ( June 27), students is put to the test by the threat of
as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult as the directed by Joseph Kosinski, starring an earthquake and a repressive regime of
villainous Lex Luthor. “Jurassic World Brad Pitt as a Formula One driver who surveillance. Eva Victor wrote, directed,
Rebirth” ( July 2), directed by Gareth is forced out of action by a grave accident and stars in “Sorry, Baby” ( June 27), a
Edwards, stars Scarlett Johansson, Ma- and is recruited to train a younger driver drama about a professor who is attempting
hershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey, and (Damson Idris). Albert Serra’s documen- to cope with the trauma of a sexual assault
involves a pharmaceutical company’s tary “Afternoons of Solitude” ( June 27) that occurred at the college where she
secret machinations to acquire dinosaur follows the Peruvian bullfighter Andrés studied and where she teaches; Naomi
DNA. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Jo- Roca Rey over the course of three years Ackie co-stars. “Eddington” ( July 18), di-
seph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach of corridas. “Wild Diamond” ( July 11), the rected by Ari Aster, is set in mid-2020, in
headline “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” first feature directed by Agathe Riedinger, a New Mexico town where a liberal mayor
( July 25), directed by Matt Shakman. stars Malou Khebizi as a young woman in (Pedro Pascal) and a conservative sheriff
Sequels arrive in other genres, too; a small French town who struggles fiercely ( Joaquin Phoenix) clash amid conflicting
zombie films are represented by “28 Years to be cast in a reality-TV show. views of the COVID pandemic and the
Later” ( June 20), about the apocalyptic The summer of love is heralded by Ce- murder of George Floyd; Emma Stone
results of a lab-leaked virus; it stars Jodie line Song’s second feature, “Materialists” and Austin Butler co-star.
Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and ( June 13), a romantic comedy, starring —Richard Brody

10 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025

 SUMMER PREVIEW

THE THEATRE

The Delacorte Returns,

Tennessee on Ice
When people refer to the theatre “season,”
they usually mean the combined fall-
winter-spring, when most Tony Award-
eligible productions open. But there’s a
secret, better season: summer. The fairest
months still boast their share of Holly-
wood glitz, and so Jean Smart stars in
Jamie Wax’s “Call Me Izzy,” at Studio 54
(previews begin May 24); John Krasinski
plays “Angry Alan,” in Penelope Skinner’s
dissection of getting lost online, at the
Seaview Studio (May 23); and Helena
Bonham Carter’s disembodied voice nar-
rates the immersive “Viola’s Room,” at the
Shed ( June 17).
Summer is primarily precious, though,
for its playwrights. Donald Margulies’s
marital meditation “Lunar Eclipse” comes
to Second Stage (through June 22); Taylor
Mac converts Molière’s “Le Bourgeois
Gentilhomme” into “Prosperous Fools,”
at Theatre for a New Audience ( June 1);
Jordan Tannahill débuts a metatheatrical
queer-futurist manifesto, “Prince Faggot”
(Playwrights Horizons; May 30); Abby June 22); and, on Broadway, the unkillable artists Nile Harris, Lena Engelstein, Lisa
Rosebrock’s twisted rom-com “Lowcoun- ABBA jukebox lark “Mamma Mia!” returns Fagan, and Tiresias.
try” occupies the Atlantic ( June 4); Em- to the Winter Garden (Aug. 2). “Here,” as The nearby Hudson Valley Shake-
manuelle Mattana’s high-school-debate someone Swedish once sang, “I go again.” speare—a jaunt on the Metro-North to
satire “Trophy Boys” pops up at MCC Outside, you have more options. Little Garrison, New York—rotates Thornton
( June 5); and Charles Randolph-Wright’s Island’s gorgeous amphitheatre hosts a Wilder’s jolly farce (and “Hello, Dolly!” in-
Afghanistan romance “Duke and Roya” number of buzzy productions, including spiration) “The Matchmaker” and Shake-
plays the Lortel ( June 10). New-play con- Kate Tarker’s new take on John Gay’s speare’s “The Comedy of Errors” ( June 6-
noisseurs never miss Clubbed Thumb’s “The Beggar’s Opera,” “The Counterfeit Aug. 3); Dave Malloy’s song cycle about
Summerworks festival, which includes Opera” (May 29-June 15), Lee Breuer technological addiction “Octet” ends their
Mara Nelson-Greenberg’s “Not Not and Bob Telson’s “The Gospel at Colo- summer on a meditative note (Aug. 11-
Jane’s,” ( June 2) and Ro Reddick’s “Cold nus” ( July 8-26), and a communal mu- Sept. 7). A slightly longer trip will get you
War Choir Practice” ( June 19). July is sical celebration called “The Tune-Up,” to Massachusetts for the Williamstown
quiet, apart from Crystal Skillman’s gonzo by Suzan-Lori Parks ( July 30-Aug. 3). Theatre Festival ( July 17-Aug. 3), which
magic play “Open” at the WP ( July 8), The Public’s Shakespeare in the Park re- presents Pamela Anderson in Tennessee
but August has Sophie McIntosh’s abuse sumes in the newly renovated Delacorte, Williams’s surreal “Camino Real”; Wil-
drama “Road Kills” at the Paradise Factory which hosts “Twelfth Night,” starring the liam Jackson Harper and Chris Messina in
(Aug. 15) and Romina Paula’s “The Whole swoon-worthy Lupita Nyong’o and Sandra Williams’s prison drama “Not About Night-
of Time” at the Brick (Aug. 22). Oh, directed by Saheem Ali. Other alfresco ingales”; a new piece from the festival’s
Musicals mostly skip the dog days. But offerings include Will Power’s reworking creative director, Jeremy O. Harris, called
Ken Davenport and AnnMarie Milazzo of a Trojan War tale, “Memnon,” for the “Spirit of the People”; and the director Will
mount their bio-musical of Joy Mangano, Classical Theatre of Harlem, in Marcus Davis’s tribute to Williams, choreographed
the inventor of a self-wringing mop, “Joy,” Garvey Park ( July 5-27), and the brand- for ice-skaters. Maybe save that last one for
at the Laura Pels ( June 21); Laurence new performing-arts series Sugar, Sugar!, the summer’s hottest day—and sit as close
O’Keefe and Kevin Murphy’s “Heathers,” in Brooklyn’s Domino Park ( June 4-28), to the rink as possible.
from 2014, returns (New World Stages; which hosts the thrilling experimental —Helen Shaw
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 11
 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT ignations of the leaders of Harvard Uni- ity of the current climate. “I’ve studied
LOWER EDUCATION versity, Columbia University, and the McCarthyism’s impact on higher edu-
University of Pennsylvania, all of them cation for fifty years,” she said. “What’s
n a morning in May, Mordecai women. Johnson’s appearance, however, happening now is worse.”This is in part
O Johnson, the president of Howard
University, testified before a congressio-
occurred not in the current wave of fed-
eral overreach but in May of 1935, amid
because universities today are far more
beholden to the federal government.
nal subcommittee about the prevalence a feverish preoccupation with commu- The explosive expansion of higher ed-
of far-left ideas among his faculty and nism in academia. The hearings of these ucation that began after the Second
students. Given that the federal govern- presidents are separated by nearly a cen- World War was underwritten by fed-
ment has historically provided funding tury of history, yet their quandaries are eral dollars. So members of Congress,
for the university’s budget, through an strikingly similar. and President Trump, too, have lever-
annual allocation, Johnson had a diffi- Academic freedom in the United age that demagogues who preceded them
cult choice to make. He could respond States has found itself periodically under could only dream of.
to representatives’ questions with a de- siege. In March, Ellen Schrecker, a his- In March, the Trump Administra-
fense of the free exchange of ideas (and torian and the author of “No Ivory tion threatened to cancel fifty-one mil-
risk them holding up the allocation) or Tower: McCarthyism and the Univer- lion dollars in federal grants to Colum-
take the safer path of conceding their sities,” spoke via Zoom to deans at Co- bia. Days later, that amount was increased
criticisms and promising to work to in- lumbia (including myself ) about gov- to four hundred million, and the uni-
sure that the thinking on campus better ernment repression on college campuses versity received a letter demanding a se-
aligned with putatively American values. in the nineteen-fifties. Schrecker, who ries of changes to internal operations as
Johnson’s dilemma will be familiar has taught at both Columbia and Har- a prerequisite for discussions about re-
to anyone who has observed higher ed- vard and retired as a professor at Ye- storing the funding.The university, which
ucation in this country during the har- shiva University, emphasized the sever- also saw four of its students targeted by
rowing academic year that is now coming the Administration for their political
to a close. Spring is typically a joyous views—one, Mahmoud Khalil, remains
time on campus, when graduating stu- in detention—has largely complied. But,
dents celebrate having overcome what- on Thursday, the Administration de-
ever challenges they may have faced clared that Columbia had acted with
along the way. This month, administra- “deliberate indifference” toward the ha-
tors and faculty are likely equally re- rassment of Jewish students, violating
lieved to have made it through. That, civil-rights law.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTIANA COUCEIRO;

in fact, has been the prevailing senti- In April, an even more stringent let-
ment since December of 2023, when Re- ter was sent to Harvard, which responded
SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM GETTY

publicans in the House of Representa- by suing over its demands in federal

tives—citing harassment and, in some court. The Administration halted 2.2 bil-
cases, even the physical assault of Jew- lion dollars in grants to the university,
ish students on campuses, in the wake then another four hundred and fifty mil-
of the October 7th attacks in Israel— lion, and has threatened to rescind the
began summoning university presidents school’s tax-exempt status. Last Thurs-
to appear before committees, where they day, the Department of Homeland Se-
were berated and belittled. Those ap- curity took the extraordinary step of ter-
pearances prefaced the subsequent res- minating Harvard’s certification to enroll
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 13
international students; Harvard is suing or Alzheimer’s research is an appropri- institutions such as Bob Jones Univer-
the D.H.S., and a federal judge has halted ate strategy to correct alleged religious sity, a conservative Christian school that
the department’s effort. The Adminis- bias. Meanwhile, NPR reported last banned interracial couples on campus.
tration had also announced that it would month that three officials in the govern- The biggest mistake that some univer-
investigate sixty institutions and initi- ment have “close ties to antisemitic ex- sities have made in responding to the
ated seemingly arbitrary cuts at schools tremists.” This news dovetails with pre- White House has been to presume that
such as Johns Hopkins, which had eight vious events, such as Trump welcoming it is operating in good faith. It is not. Ef-
hundred million dollars in grants re- the prominent antisemites Nick Fuentes forts to engage with it have yielded es-
scinded. A resource-sharing pact among and Kanye West to his home for dinner. calating punishments and leadership
the eighteen universities of the Big Ten The incursions also take place amid turnover but little by way of concession.
Conference has been proposed, in order a conservative insistence on greater “view- Mordecai Johnson was a Black man
to provide mutual support should any point diversity.” This push comes just as leading an academic institution during
of them be targeted. measures enacted to protect other kinds Jim Crow when representatives from an
The Administration has relied on two of diversity are being overturned. The almost entirely white Congress asked
pretexts to justify these incursions. It has Supreme Court’s 1978 Bakke decision him whether professors with radical
used the language of rooting out anti- invalidated racial quotas at the Univer- sympathies should be allowed to teach
semitism to rationalize actions that at sity of California, but held that affirma- at Howard. Yet he firmly said that he
best have tangential connections to that tive action was constitutional, and ex- would sooner shut down his university
cause. The rescinded grants have been perts have long since acknowledged that than allow anyone to dictate what its
clustered in areas that include climate- racial diversity fosters a wider range of students could or could not learn. The
change research or that use terms such viewpoints. The threats to rescind Har- principle at play—that without free in-
as “diversity” in proposals. It further vard’s tax-exempt status represent a sim- quiry there is no basis for a university
strains credulity to argue that curtailing ilar inversion of history: the government to exist—still applies.
a university’s ability to conduct cancer first used the tactic decades ago against —Jelani Cobb

PROGNOSTICATION DEPT. The key to the series is the tempo. If in six.”—Jackie Faherty, astrophysicist,
BASKETBALL TOWN the Knicks are able to control the tempo, American Museum of Natural History.
and if they hit their shots, they should “With Jalen Brunson’s clutch scor-
win in seven games.”—Peter Gelb, gen- ing, K.A.T. from both the three-point
eral manager, Metropolitan Opera. line and the paint, Bridges and O.G.
“Knicks in six. Unless Reggie Miller anchoring both ends of the floor, Mitch
comes out of retirement, then Knicks dominating the offensive boards, Mc-
in seven.”—Alison Roman, food writer. Bride contributing on both offense and
t the beginning of the N.B.A.’s “If the Knicks spread the ball around defense off the bench, and Josh Hart’s
A Eastern Conference Finals, Knicks
fans of all varieties were ready once again
like the Pacers do and guard the three-
point line, we should be good. Great
non-stop hustle, this team has the grit
and the chemistry. The Knicks will
to risk emotional ruin: matchup for Karl-Anthony Towns. take this series in six games.”—Julie
“Lawd have mercy we are goin’ to da Knicks in seven.”—Matthew Collier, Eichner, manager, Union Square Cafe.
promise land. Us in six.”—Spike Lee, special-education teacher, George West-
film director. inghouse Career and Technical Educa-
“For the next month, I am a sincere tion High School, Brooklyn.
convert, bowing before the greatness of “They can’t stop Jalen Brunson.
these Knicks. The Knicks are simply the Knicks in five!”—Lynaea, fourteen, stu-
most dynamic, passionate team left stand- dent, Westinghouse High.
ing. This is a team any sports fan has to “Ferocious beats slick. Knicks in
love. Knicks in six.”—Bill de Blasio, for- seven.”—Donald Moss, psychoanalyst.
mer mayor, Celtics fan. “Knicks in five. I was at the Reg-
“I was at both series when the Knicks gie Miller game with my late dad. I
won their championships in 1970 and haven’t uttered the words ‘safe lead’
’73. Particularly the first time they won, since.”—Anthony Weiner, politician.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA

with the lineup of Frazier and Willis “Not only is it playoff season, it’s Man-
Reed and DeBusschere and Bradley hattanhenge season. On May 28th at 8:13
and Dick Barnett, that was the most P.M., the day before Game Five, the sun
selfless, brilliant team. I get that same will set perfectly framed on one side by
sense of camaraderie with this Knicks M.S.G. on Thirty-fourth Street. We’re
team. That’s what’s been missing. Ob- hoping this is when the city will get cos-
viously, talent, too. But they’ve never re- mically charged up and the Eastern Con- Fran Lebowitz, Tom Thibodeau, and
ally meshed in the way this team has. ference series will turn in our favor. Knicks George Santos
14 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 “I’m rooting for Jalen Brunson to do six hard-fought games.”—George like, really large and feels very, very po-
become the greatest Knick ever. I say Santos, politician. tent and clear to me,” she said. She’s tall,
they win it all . . . next year. Pacers in —Zach Helfand with glasses, springy brown hair, and a
four.”—Julian Casablancas, singer. 1 quality of joyful expansiveness. She wore
“These teams are strange mirrors— THE BOARDS a patterned blue skirt and top and old-
each reflecting what the other dreads. DANCING GIRLS school Adidases. Admiring a little dining-
The Garden’s going to shake its roof off, room set, she said, “I love tiny things so,
but the series will hinge on the breaks of so, so much!” and hiked up her skirt. “Not
the game: some second-quarter scram- to immediately show off my leg tattoo,
ble, some mid-range miss, some road but this is my childhood doll house, with
game no one wants to remember. Knicks my kitten on it,” she said. “Literally right
in seven.”—Rowan Ricardo Phillips, poet. after we got her, she was climbing around
“As New Yorkers, we eat adversity he searing, funny “John Proctor Is the doll-house porch. I was, like, ‘I’m
for breakfast. Brunson, O.G., and Hart
will find a way to pull it out. I believe
T the Villain,” which has been nom-
inated for seven Tonys, including Best
going to explode. This is the greatest
thing I’ve ever seen.’”
we will make it to the finals for the first Play, centers on five boisterously articu- Belflower, who grew up in Georgia,
time since ’99. Knicks in six.”—Benja- late teen girls reading “The Crucible” in lives in Atlanta with her partner, Dan
min Adler, associate principal clarinet, an honors English class in rural Geor- Stemmerman, and teaches playwriting at
New York Philharmonic. gia; a key moment features cathartic danc- Emory. She’s been in Manhattan for the
“The Knicks vs. the Pacers ing to “Green Light,” by Lorde. The rare play’s duration—her longest stint in the
or non-musical Broadway show that in- city since her twenties, when she had day
NY vs. Indiana spires rapturous teen hollering, “John jobs (bookstore clerk, nanny), connected
We already won.”—Fran Lebowitz, Proctor” can seem to generate a giddy, with fellow-artists, and saw as much the-
writer. righteous energy loop among the actors, atre as she could. The doll-house shop re-
“The Pacers have a really fast-paced the much discussed Salem-witch-trial minded her of Annie Baker’s play “John,”
game, but I think Jalen Brunson’s the girls, and the audience. Offstage, young which features a miniatures-loving pro-
real deal. My prediction is the Knicks fans flock to the play’s author, Kimberly tagonist: “She says, like, ‘When there’s too
in six.”—Sunil Rao, director of inter- Belflower, hoping to connect. (“She’s our much small stuff I get so excited that I
ventional cardiology, N.Y.U. Langone. Tennessee Williams,” Natasha Katz, the start to grind my teeth.’That’s how I feel.”
“I’ve had season tickets since the be- play’s lighting designer, observed one Belflower loves set models, too. Her play
ginning of the beautiful ’69-’70 season. night, watching a line form.) On a re- takes place in a school “built in the fifties,
We had seats in the tenth row beneath cent sunny day, Belflower, who is thirty- when ‘The Crucible’ premièred—there
the basket. The game started and the seven, headed to a favorite old haunt: are these layers of time in the classroom.”
referee handed the ball to DeBusschere, Tiny Doll House, a shop on East Seventy- Belflower’s other tattoos depict Ra-
and I remember looking down at the eighth Street. “I think my girlhood lives, mona Quimby, Matilda, and Harriet the
court and thinking, There’s no place in
the whole world I’d rather be. I hope the
Knicks are going to win, but I don’t
want to jinx it.”—Joe Crowley, ninety-
one, grandfather.
“My first game was when I was six.
One time I got to talk to Jalen Brun-
son. I asked, ‘Does Thibodeau ever
smile?’ And he laughed and said, ‘Very
rarely, but yes, sometimes.’ After I talked
to him, I felt, like, everything. I was run-
ning around. My eyes got watery. I got
way more flexible for some reason. I
was sweating. It’s gonna be close, but,
I mean, if you were, like, who’s better,
Brunson or Haliburton—what would
you say? Brunson. I think in Game Six
the Knicks are gonna win.”—Calvin
Crowley, eight and a half, grandson.
“As a lifelong Knicks fan, this is a
first, to see them win anything. I be-
lieve they will perform as they have been
but will lose at the end, keeping with “I just wish we could nude sunbathe one time
their decades-long track record. They’ll without the paparazzi showing up.”
Spy. After admiring more miniatures painful or dramatic and get out on the After befriending a colleague on a proj-
(“Teen-agers!” “Mice!”), she bought a other side and be, like, ‘Oh, I’m going ect, he hit the guy up to hang out. The
tiny basket and a tiny cake, then walked to make something from that.’” guy blew him off. “I saw myself kind of
to Harriet the Spy’s hangout, Carl Schurz At the Tonys, Belflower’s youth will spinning out,” DeYoung said. Once he
Park. Growing up, Belflower had as- be reflected in several forms. Two close got a grip, he wrote a screenplay inspired
sumed that Louise Fitzhugh, who wrote friends from her early New York era, by the experience. He realized that Rob-
and illustrated “Harriet the Spy,” was a Andrew Durand and Taylor Trensch, inson, an actual friend, whom he’d met
New Yorker. She later learned that are fellow-nominees; her date is her “the- at the wedding of the comedians Aidy
Fitzhugh was a Southerner (no won- atre best friend” from high school. “We Bryant and Conner O’Malley, had to
der Harriet loved tomato sandwiches— made a pact when we were teen-agers play the lead. “Tim’s very alive,” DeYoung
“Such a Southern thing,” Belf lower in his bedroom in Cleveland, Georgia, said. “There are some performers, like
said) who’d had a lonely childhood but that if one of us ever got nominated for Chris Farley, who just pierce through
found happiness in New York. Harriet a Tony we would bring each other,” she your defenses.”
played a game called Town in the dirt; said, laughing. “And so—it’s happening!” In the arcade, young men hunched
Belflower, while her brother climbed —Sarah Larson over machines ringing with beeps and
trees, “would be holding a rock and a 1 dings, and DeYoung considered the so-
stick, making them talk to each other.” THE PICTURES called crisis of masculinity. “It feels like
Belflower’s home town is much like NOT CUTE the fascistic turn we’re experiencing
the one in “John Proctor”: it had two now is a response to the invitation to
stoplights, no bookstore, twelve Bap- vulnerability in the culture,” he said.
tist churches, and an emphasis on “pu- “We’re in a hyper-stimulated world, so
rity culture.” Despite good friends and it makes sense to go to the right, be-
a supportive family, she, too, felt like a cause it gives you at least a sense of con-
misfit. Reading and theatre helped. trol. Ideally, Craig embodies some of
(She based Beth, the play’s apologiz- ollywood loves edifying tales of that rage of not knowing how to con-
ing overachiever, on her younger self.)
Belflower eventually got an M.F.A.
H male friendship. Woody saves Buzz.
Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.
nect, yet deeply wanting to.”
He approached a “Jaws” machine,
in playwriting at U.T. Austin. “There’s Bill and Ted excel on their adventure. For which was equipped with a miniature
a poetry to the way that teen-age girls his début feature, a dark comedy with pop-out shark. “This is sick,” he said,
talk,” she said, walking along the park’s “Friendship” as its very title, the writer sliding quarters into its slot and eying
esplanade. “The repetitions and the apol- and director Andrew DeYoung wanted a dripping container of chum. “We
ogies and the ‘like’s and the ‘um’s and to manage expectations. The film’s tag- gotta get the blood bucket,” he said.
the kind of, like, finding the circuitous line: “Men shouldn’t have friends.” “It’s No dice. The talk turned to superhero
path to the thing you want to say.”There’s funny and dumb, and it’s not cute,” he franchises. DeYoung isn’t much of a
a timelessness in that speech, she went explained the other day, in Greenpoint. fan. (In “Friendship,” Craig suggests
on, as well as “the cultural references and “I was, like, ‘We can’t let this be cute.’ ” seeing a new Marvel film—“It’s sup-
finding yourself in the things you’re con- DeYoung, wearing clear-framed posed to be nuts”—with an enthusiasm
suming.” Behind her, a teen-age boy and glasses and a navy button-down over a that reads as damning.) “I mean, grow-
girl were having a sprinting contest. “Fast T-shirt, was spending a beautiful after- ing up, those things were awesome,”
like the Flash!” the boy yelled. Belflower noon indoors, at Sunshine Laundromat DeYoung said.
found a plaque honoring Harriet the and Pinball. In “Friendship,” Tim Rob- A trio of twentysomething dudes—
Spy and beamed at it, taking a picture. inson stars as the sort of pariah familiar two in Hawaiian shirts, one in all black—
Motifs of ecstatic teen dancing ap- to fans of his Netflix series, “I Think walked in, a lone girl in tow. The all-
pear in both “The Crucible” and “John You Should Leave”—socially maladroit black one took up a position in front of
Proctor.” “There is something so ancient and desperate, prone to cataclysm. His a Metallica machine. One of the oth-
and primal with women and dancing,” character, Craig, lives a staid suburban ers mimed palming the girl’s rear while
Belflower said; in high school, she and life until he befriends a magnetically the third snapped a photo. In DeYoung’s
her friends made up dances all the time. cool neighbor named Austin, played by film, Craig tries, and fails, to keep up
An “Aha!” moment came when she first Paul Rudd. They bond the ways men with his new pal’s social circle. “It’s so
heard “Green Light,” in her office at U.T. often do: beer, cigs, trespassing. But Aus- lonely when you’re invited to or around
“It just immediately did something wild tin soon calls it all off, and Craig’s crash- a friend group that knows each other
to me,” she said. She listened on repeat, out doesn’t stop until the credits roll. “It’s well and how quickly they’re just doing
then went to teach a class and had her so painful when someone has the ma- their thing, like they’re speaking an-
students listen to it. “Structurally, it’s turity to be direct,” DeYoung said. “We’re other language,” DeYoung said. “Even
doing something so interesting—rebel- so avoidant as a culture that it’s shock- if they’re nice and trying to bring you
ling against these established rules and ing when someone is clearly, like: ‘No.’ in, there’s an alienating quality to it.”
the math of pop songs, both sonically And I respect the hell out of it.” He went on, “Friend groups go on
and lyrically,” she said. The song evokes A few years ago, in a similar social weekend trips together that destroy
what it’s like “to go through something situation, DeYoung got no such clarity. things. It’s all guys you’re used to spend-
16 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
ing four hours at a time with, and then top and wore her hair in choppy bangs.
you go away for three days. Especially “I wouldn’t say I’m very confrontational
if there’s alcohol, the wheels start to in my everyday life,” she said, watching
come off. It’s a different kind of pres- sheets of water cascade over granite. “I
sure. The masks start to slip.” think I’m honest, but maybe not to this
The twentysomethings nearby had degree. The songs are my chance to
started to compare dating-app experi- figure out how I’m feeling.”
ences. “I was, like, ‘So you were born That afternoon, she was having trou-
after 9/11?’” one said. “Gen Z girls don’t ble finding a satisfying substitute for
like when you ask that.” the word “fuck” to sing on Kimmel.
Before “Friendship,” DeYoung, who “Legs” is a propulsive and dissonant
is based in L.A., established himself as pop-punk song about an intoxicating
a director of TV shows (“PEN15,” “The romantic entanglement—a situation-
Other Two,” “Dave”). He had just ship, to use the parlance of the era—
wrapped his second week of directing that might undo her sanity. “We kiss
Robinson’s upcoming HBO series, “The like we’re talking,” DiRusso sings, her
Chair Company.” DeYoung was con- voice clear yet full of longing. The gui-
cerned, before “Friendship,” that work- tars scrape; the chorus pummels:
ing with Robinson might affect their Annie DiRusso
relationship. “I never talked to him di- I am loosening my grip
I don’t give a shit
rectly about it,” he said. “Staying hon- If we fuck or we date
no answer of where the line is.’ Some
est and transparent with each other, with I’m not making myself sick people are just ruthless about it, which
the stress, you make it out even closer.” I can really respect, because it’s a song—
Generally, he said, his friendships de- The new word needed bite; at the it doesn’t belong to anyone. But then
velop in less pressured circumstances. very least, it needed to be funny. She I’ve had moments where I’m, like, Re-
“Just going over, talking about movies, mulled the virtues of “smash,” and briefly ally? Is this going to be my life? I’m going
talking shit,” he said. “No adventures. considered “bone,” before deciding to to write revealing or bitchy things about
That’s all I want: just fuckin’ around and punt on the first chorus (“I don’t give people that I love, and then release them?
hanging out.” aaaaaa/If we f— or we date,” she would And disconnect from my relationships?”
—Dan Greene sing) and submit to being bleeped on After leaving the dam, she stopped
1 the second. in at the Blue Pig, an ice-cream shop
SINGER-SONGWRITER DEPT. DiRusso, whose début album, “Super where she worked when she was four-
SHOW AND TELL Pedestrian,” was released in March, grew teen. She ducked behind the counter.
up listening to Taylor Swift, One Di- “I feel very comfortable back here,” she
rection, and Paramore, although, on said, scooping up a few samples. She
“Legs,” it’s hard not to hear echoes of used her paychecks to buy an electric
Liz Phair’s “Fuck and Run,” a sad-girl guitar. “I loved interacting with custom-
banger from 1993. (“And what ever hap- ers,” she said. “It’s a very social job. Let’s
pened to a boyfriend? /The kind of guy just say the tips were rollin’ if I was be-
he singer and guitarist Annie Di- who makes love cause he’s in it?”) hind the dipping cabinet!”
T Russo was recently back in Croton-
on-Hudson, the sleepy Hudson River
Lately, she has been working on how
to balance her private life with the con-
Her parents, who live around the
corner, have been supportive of her ca-
town where she was brought up. Di- fessional nature of her work. “I’m dat- reer, even when she sings about the more
Russo, who is twenty-five, was prepar- ing right now,” she said. “I just kind of toothsome details of her personal life.
ing for an appearance on “Jimmy Kim- started seeing someone, ish. Second date “My dad only cares when I say ‘fuck.’
mel Live!” and trying to rework the yesterday.” She identifies as queer. “From There’s something happening in his
lyrics to “Legs,” a new single, so that it the moment I started making music, brain that doesn’t let him understand
might be suitable for network television. everyone assumed I was gay,” she said. how much I’m talking about sex,” she
Much of the pleasure of DiRusso’s “Even though I’m using male pronouns said. “My mom will be, like, ‘Oh, my
songwriting is in its frankness. “My fa- all the time! People were still, like, ‘That’s God!’ She’ll call things out in front of
vorite music is always when I’m, like, such a gay song. It’s about unrequited my dad. ‘You’re talking about giving
Wow, I’ve had that exact thought before, love and a specific type of yearning.’ I head!’ I can see her relating it to her
but never in my life would I have said it didn’t really understand that.” own ex-boyfriends. My dad just pre-
out loud,” she said. She was leaning on DiRusso is also trying to figure out tends to zone out.” The tiresome boys
a picnic table near the New Croton Dam, whether it might be advantageous to in DiRusso’s songs—with their insecu-
a three-hundred-foot, hand-hewn struc- self-censor in her lyrics. “I don’t want rities and their misery—seem to be time-
ture that, upon its completion, in 1906, to do that,” she said. “I’ve talked to all less. “Yeah,” she said, with a laugh. “Ev-
was the tallest dam in the world. She my songwriter friends to get their takes eryone’s got a guy.”
had on a faded black off-the-shoulder on this. Everyone’s, like, ‘There’s really —Amanda Petrusich
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 17
 raped as many as seventy women at
PERSONAL HISTORY knifepoint across London from 1982 to
1986. Some of these attacks were perpe-
trated with David Mulcahy, with whom
BY THE CANAL he formed a duo that became known as
the Railway Killers. Duffy and Mulcahy
Returning to the scene of a brutal violation. raped and murdered Alison Day on De-
cember 29, 1985, near Hackney Wick,
BY SARAH BECKWITH within walking distance of where I had
been raped eighteen months earlier. In
1986, they murdered Maartje Tamboezer
in Horsley, near Guildford, and Anne
Lock in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire.
“Two bodies with one brain, soul-
mates,” is how one intended victim de-
scribed the attackers’ silent choreogra-
phy of nods and glances and mutual
understanding. It was an eerie distortion
of Aristotle’s definition of friendship:
“one soul dwelling in two bodies.” Duffy
raped on his own; Mulcahy apparently
did not. For the murders, it was always
the two of them. This was an aspect that
fascinated forensic psychologists. Their
double act had begun at secondary school,
in North London, where Mulcahy pro-
tected the diminutive Duffy from bul-
lies. From the beginning, they appren-
ticed themselves in cruelty. It moved
them to hilarity to club a hedgehog to
death. They stole cars and went on joy-
rides; they got a kick out of spooking
couples on Hampstead Heath, and cor-
nering girls to grope and grab them.
When did the inexorable escalation hap-
pen? It is not clear exactly when they ex-
panded their repertoire of violation.
Duffy’s mode of domination was rape.
woman is running. In the path, a life. The base tone of them all: a man Mulcahy was reportedly more excited by
A man appears as if from nowhere.
He is masked and he holds a knife. What
who wants to rape her could be careless
enough of her to kill her. In this, she turns
the extremes of fear that he could instill
in his victims. He prolonged their terror
are her choices? On one side is the canal out to be right, not just psychologically by striking them, marching them to other
and on the other a high, impassable and ethically but as a matter of history. locations before raping them; he enjoyed
fence, aluminum and concrete. She can She, her. I am avoiding the first per- watching them perform dangerous feats
run back to where she came from, but son. I, me. I was raped. This happened he would improvise. He forced Alison
he will be faster and quicker. Perhaps to me. Day to walk across a narrow outer ledge
she will be lucky, and some cyclist or Almost forty years after I was raped, of an iron bridge over a canal. He sought
walker will show up and the man might I happened upon the place where it oc- to control Duffy, too, by deepening his
vanish as quickly as he had appeared. She curred. I was on a walk. Some genius involvement in cruelty. Often, the two
calculates her chances of surviving. At loci, some presentiment told me that I men gagged the women. One looked
this moment, they don’t seem good. Per- was very near, if not at, a place my body out, the other raped; they decided who
haps he wants to rape her without tak- remembered. should go first with a toss of a coin. They
ing her life? Perhaps her desire to live I was raped at knifepoint along a canal wore balaclavas and carried knives and
will lead her to undergo whatever the towpath in the East End of London in used various methods to distract and
man wants, hoping it will be short of the summer of 1984. I did not realize overpower their victims. They chose spots
death. Would a struggle, an attempt to until recently—prompted by that strange near railway lines whose edgelands, tracks,
escape, make him angry enough to wield spirit of place to do my own research— and exit paths they had meticulously re-
that knife to stab or slash her? Her rapid that the man who raped me was likely searched. According to Duffy’s later tes-
thoughts and instincts are in the hope of to be John Francis Duffy, who may have timony, Mulcahy talked about the “god-
18 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 ILLUSTRATION BY ISABEL SELIGER
like feeling” he had when he committed walked in shock toward the cottage. He gone right up to him and pointed at him.
murder. They developed a crude method asked me what was wrong. When I told Before the identification parade, they
of covering up their crimes: they would him, he rushed off to search for the man, put all the raped women together in a
ask their victims to wipe themselves down and his wife ushered me into their home. room. I can’t recall exact numbers, but
with tissues, which the pair later burned. Despite my protestations—the rapist the room was full. I later read that twenty-
They both brought boxes of Swan Ves- had said he could find me—the lock- seven women had been linked by Oper-
tas matches, and Mulcahy stuck strips keeper phoned the police, and I was ation HART. Some of us had been raped
of tape inside his jacket to silence their taken to the Bow Road Police Station. by one man; others by two men acting
victims. After murdering the women, I made a statement. They took swabs together. The numbers cannot commu-
they sometimes set fire to them to de- from all the entrances to my body; they nicate what happened to this woman, to
stroy “evidence.” took my clothes as evidence. Will I get that woman, to each and every one. But
It is possible that Mulcahy pushed them back? I asked forlornly. they show the importunity, the scale.
Duffy into murder to deepen his com- But after that I heard nothing from Even after one of the most extensive in-
plicity. On December 29, 1985, Mulcahy the police for two years, until I was called vestigations in modern English history,
used Duffy’s first name in front of Al- to an identification parade, or police the police can’t know for certain exactly
ison Day. They might have feared she lineup, in Guildford, in November, 1986. how many women the pair raped. Duffy
could identify them, but Mulcahy’s need By then, I was living and working in a kept thirty-seven sets of keys, perhaps
for violence and terror had intensified, new city. Two coppers in an unmarked including mine, as souvenirs.
too, so he may not have needed any rea- car, cheery, burly, aftershave competing, I am now astonished that they gath-
son to escalate things. “We are in it to- picked me up from my home and drove ered us all in the same room before we
gether. We have got to do this together,” me to a police station a hundred and were called, one by one, to attempt our
Duffy later said, recalling Mulcahy’s ex- fifty-odd miles away. I had little to go identifications, but if they had not done
hortations, his insistence. Both of them on—the balaclava my rapist had worn so I would never have heard a story that
twisted the tourniquet that Mulcahy had had largely concealed him. But I hoped I have held in my heart ever since. I re-
made from Alison Day’s blouse before that confronting him in the lineup might member her as a young woman, and
they cast her into the water. prompt some identifying memory: I since I myself was young then—twenty-
had seen his inflamed face, scarred by five—she must have been several years
peration HART—short for Har- old acne, flushed with excitement, when, younger than me. She had been dragged
O ley’s Area Rape Team, after Su-
perintendent Ian Harley, who led it—
in an unbearably incongruous gesture,
he had momentarily pulled up his mask
and pushed by two men into a copse on
Hampstead Heath. As she entered the
an inquiry into a series of rapes that to kiss me. dark woods, where the ground, I imag-
had been taking place across London, I remembered his cheap trainers, ine, was sloped and full of tangled tree
was disbanded in 1983, because of a lack white but dirty. I remembered the smell roots, she tripped and began to fall. The
of progress and funds. It was reconsti- of him. He smelled as if he came from smaller man was the one holding her
tuted, the following year, when investi- an institution—a rancid undertone and and pulling her along. But, as she tripped,
gators discovered more connections the harsh detergents used to bleach it he supported her and stopped her from
among the cases. In time, John Hurst, out. Afterward, I realized it might have falling. The young woman said that the
a police officer in Guildford who was been the smell of unlaundered poverty. small one then argued with the big man
investigating the murder of Maartje Perhaps I would smell him again and and persuaded him to let her go. I like
Tamboezer, and Charlie Farquhar, an so single him out. I trusted that I would to think that for a transforming mo-
officer in Romford investigating the simply know when I stood in front of ment he had experienced himself in a
murder of Alison Day, realized that him, for in those days no glass screened different way. He was a savior, not a rap-
there were similarities in the murders the men from the women who hoped ist, and he could not harm her.
which had not been revealed to the press, to recognize them. You met in the same After the lineup, I once more heard
and that both murders could be linked space and breathed the same air again. nothing. I was not given the man’s name
to the rapes. DNA testing was in its in- I remember the distant curiosity of some or told whether he had been caught. I
fancy; indeed, it was first used in a crim- of the men in the lineup; they seemed did not read the red-top papers that cov-
inal case in 1986, in England. Computer so casually divorced from our fears and ered Duffy’s trial or see the more dis-
databases were not yet widely shared our hopes. To my chagrin and frustra- creet notices in the broadsheet papers,
among local authorities. tion, I failed to identify the man who so I had no idea that the man I had been
For a long time, I did not realize my raped me, though I learned later that called in to identify was tried at the Old
part in the narrative. The decision to he was there. Bailey—or, as it’s formally known, the
report the rape was taken out of my Much later, when I read Simon Far- Central Criminal Court of England and
hands. The man on the towpath had quhar’s book “A Dangerous Place: The Wales—and convicted and sentenced to
grabbed the keys to my flat and told me Story of the Railway Murders,” I discov- life, in 1988, for five rapes and for the
that he knew where I lived. Less than ered that five women in the Guildford murders of Maartje Tamboezer and
a hundred yards on, around a bend in lineup that I was part of had identified Alison Day. (He was acquitted of the
the path, there was a lockkeeper’s cot- John Francis Duffy. A fourteen-year- rape and murder of Anne Lock.) In 1989,
tage, and the lockkeeper saw me as I old girl, face streaming with tears, had I left Britain and took a job in the United
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 19
States, teaching medieval English liter- don skyline, with its deliberate counter- quhar’s book was the most detailed ac-
ature, still knowing nothing about his point of wobble and structure. count of the Railway Killers and the most
arrest, trial, and conviction. I’ve reconstructed the exact geogra- sensitive to their victims. Farquhar is the
phy retrospectively. At the time, my niece son of Charlie Farquhar, who investi-
ere is how I discovered my part in was reading the maps, and I had no idea gated Alison Day’s murder. His book
H this story. In September, 2023, on
a visit to the U.K., I was walking the
where, exactly, I was. I knew only that I
was vaguely near my former home in
was written after the death of his father,
in 2012, and is dedicated to him.
Capital Ring, an ingeniously composed Bow. Our walk was a saunter, a delight- I learned how Duffy was caught. He
seventy-eight-mile route circumnavigat- ful, wayward, exploratory street haunt- had a history of domestic violence—he’d
ing London’s center, with my niece. The ing, to use Virginia Woolf ’s term for the assaulted his ex-wife and her boyfriend—
trail traverses parks, woodlands, pastures, adventure and discovery of walking in that had placed him on a list of sex of-
and cemeteries. It’s an urban walk, of the city. We emerge from our houses, she fenders. It was also known that he, like
course—passing great Victorian terraces, says, and “the shell-like covering which one of the rapists, had Type A blood
the suburbs spawned by the Tube lines our souls have secreted to house them- and was a secretor, meaning his blood-
of the thirties and forties, the docklands selves, to make for themselves a shape type antigens were secreted into bodily
hugging the Thames and its arteries, distinct from others, is broken, and there fluids such as saliva, tears, mucus, and
once the commercial hub of maritime is left of all of these wrinkles and rough- semen; he was the one-thousand-five-
traffic and seaborne trade. Inside the nesses a central oyster of perceptiveness, hundred-and-ninety-fourth such man
Woolwich Foot Tunnel, the Sweet an enormous eye.” on the police’s list. A rape in Mill Hill
Thames, singing softly, flows over and It is this deeply pleasurable way of provided the police with a decent pho-
over you. The route casually encompasses being that the rapist interrupts. And tofit likeness of him. (I remembered the
the palatial follies of rich men from long now your enormous eye must be watch- process of working with the photofit art-
ago and the built hallucinations of more ful, forever on the alert; the exhilarat- ist myself, as I tried to piece together a
recent architects—bulbous, curvy, fan- ing self-forgetfulness that allows the composite face from assorted photo-
tastic. It incorporates sudden drops into world to reveal itself to you has disap- graphs of eyes and noses and hairlines,
the uncanny silence of the waterways peared. Now the place you are in might a task the balaclava had made hopeless.)
and canals with their locks, joins, and obscure a threat, a menace you must After another rape, of a fourteen-year-
channels, with their cold smells, coots, hold in mind. The world is no longer old near Watford Junction, Duffy was
and dragonflies. yours to behold or to share in. The phi- put under surveillance. The police ar-
We walked the ring in stages, as the losopher Susan Brison, in her book “Af- rested him on suspicion of murder. Ques-
weather and our schedules permitted. termath: Violence and the Remaking tioning proved futile, so investigators
We had taken to linking two or three of a Self,” writes that after suffering a searched for hard evidence. In his home,
sections together for treks that lasted a nearly fatal assault and rape, in France, the police discovered a large collection
leisurely day. On this particular morn- in 1990, she felt as if she had a “percep- of knives, a manual containing instruc-
ing, we planned to begin in Stoke New- tual deficit”: a “hazardous lack of eyes tions on garrotting, and a box of Swan
ington, in North London, and head south in the back of my head.” Vestas matches stuffed with blue tissues
and east via Hackney Wick; these eight My niece and I had turned off a used for cleaning up after the messy
or so miles skirt the canalized section of stretch of path, and we were stopping business of rape. In his parents’ house,
the River Lea, as it branches to readjust our packs, to investigators also found a ball of string
out into the myriad chan- have a drink of water by like the type that had been used in the
nels that make up the area the scrubby borders of the murder of Maartje Tamboezer.
known as Bow Backs. canal. I felt an overwhelm- The police knew that there was a sec-
There’s a complex lock sys- ing and visceral sense— ond man, and they strongly suspected
tem—Bow Locks—that through my stomach, Mulcahy. He was arrested on several oc-
links the industrial trading through my skin—that I casions but released each time for lack of
routes with the Lea. The had stumbled upon the forensic evidence and eyewitness testi-
warehouses that line the ca- place where a man had mony, and because of alibis he’d fabri-
nals are being converted into raped me. I kept this feel- cated. Duffy did not reveal his partner’s
luxury flats and artist stu- ing to myself, saying noth- part in the rapes and murders, and
dios. Any barges are now ing. The feeling was too Mulcahy somehow escaped identifica-
kept for love or for living. In the sum- large, too unmanageable. I did not yet tion by his victims. In the mid-nineties,
mer, open-air pubs are lively with know what to do with it, how to an- a detective named Les Bolland, who had
Pimm’s-fuelled laughter. The path passes swer the body’s unmistakable call. worked on Anne Lock’s murder inquiry
the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on for the Hertfordshire police, decided to
its left, part of the massive reconstruc- fter that day, I started to read about pay Duffy a visit at Whitemoor, a Cat-
tion of the entire area undertaken, at the
millennium, for the London Olympics
A the rapes in London in the eight-
ies. It was only then that I began to sus-
egory A men’s prison in Cambridgeshire.
After his arrest, Duffy had faked amne-
of 2012. Anish Kapoor and Cecil Bal- pect that my rapist was John Francis sia and sought asylum in a psychiatric
mond’s Orbit pushes into the East Lon- Duffy. Of everything I read, Simon Far- hospital, where doctors prevented the po-
20 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
lice from interrogating him, but the pre-
tense of the amnesia was exposed at the
trial by his ex-wife and a friend. He did,
apparently, experience some real amne-
sia during the first years of his impris-
onment. In Bolland’s judgment, Duffy
was fearful of unlocking the past and thus
naming and confronting his acts. The
visit prompted nightmares for Duffy. He
dreamed repeatedly, according to later
notes taken by Jenny Cutler, the head of
forensic psychology at Whitemoor, of a
girl being pursued along a towpath. That
is Simon Farquhar’s locution: “being pur-
sued.”Where is Duffy in this dream logic?
And where are we, the ones he pursued
along the edgelands?
The Railway Killers called their care-
fully planned pursuits of women “hunt-
ing.” It was, as Duffy said in court, “a bit
of a joke, a bit of a game.” They would
play Michael Jackson’s song “Thriller” to
get in the mood. “It’s close to mid-
night / And something evil’s lurking in
the dark,” it begins, and it ends with his-
trionic, manic laughter. This was the pre-
lude to their chase. They planned the lo- “Do you prefer to have something stuck in your teeth for the
cations as entrapments, making sure there rest of the day or something disappointingly bland?”
were no easy exits or escape routes.
Duffy’s dreams were nightmares,
chronic, insufferable: there must have
• •
been at least an unconscious identifica-
tion with the “prey.”The nightmares dis- had been taking place along the same double-jeopardy rule.) Mulcahy’s trial
turbed him enough that he requested canal paths. Mulcahy, aware that he had took place in 2000, and Duffy was a key
psychiatric help. Cutler spoke to him no involvement in these, willingly gave witness for the prosecution. In Febru-
throughout a period of two years. During the police a hair sample, not suspecting ary, 2001, Mulcahy was convicted on fif-
this time, he confessed to more rapes. that it would be used to connect him teen counts, which included the mur-
“There is a lot of self-hate for what I with the attacks of the eighties. Inves- ders of Alison Day, Maartje Tamboezer,
have done,” he later testified. “I feel a lot tigators located the clothing of two and Anne Lock. He, too, was sentenced
of guilt. I have raped and killed young eighteen-year-old Danish au pairs who’d to life in prison.
ladies. I accept that. I am not trying to been raped on Hampstead Heath by Stunned, I drew a time chart and fit-
shift the blame. I did what I did.” The two men in 1984. One set of trousers ted my rape into their prolific pattern
accents of remorse are elliptical, inartic- and underwear matched Mulcahy’s and into the time line of the police in-
ulate. Is his strangely courteous “ladies” DNA, and the other matched Duffy’s, vestigation. I mourned the three women
his stab at rendering some respect back corroborating his confession. they had killed. I understood how close
to his victims, some odd belated cour- Taken to the original crime scenes, my fate was to theirs.
tesy owed and owned? Duffy verified the details of the crimes
Duffy had been told that he would with alarming precision. Police legwork n 1984, my body healed from its in-
never be released from prison because
of what the police described as the “ex-
broke Mulcahy’s alibis, and advances in
technology could now reveal his finger-
Iclosed;
vasion quite quickly. The wounds
the bruising lessened and then
treme nature of the offences.” He began prints on tape used to cover the mouths disappeared. But I was left with other
talking to Cutler about his accomplice. of his victims. The police could not find aftereffects of my encounter with un-
She asked him where his other half was evidence of other rapes or murders com- fathomable badness, or—in the bald
serving his term, and Duffy revealed mitted by Mulcahy in the eleven years precision of Judge Michael Hyam, who
Mulcahy’s identity and said that he was since Duffy was imprisoned. Duffy was presided over Mulcahy’s trial—“deso-
still at large. tried again, in 1999, for seventeen fur- lating wickedness.”
The police brought Mulcahy in for ther crimes he’d confessed to. (He’d also Shortly after I was raped, I came
questioning about a string of rapes, sim- admitted his guilt in the murder of Anne across a description of a man sitting on
ilar to those of the Railway Killers, that Lock but escaped justice because of the a woman he had just raped, so that he
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 21
could more easily tie his shoelaces. My dered, the moral harm of rape named “Soul murder” comes the closest to my
rapist did not sit on me to tie his shoe- and acknowledged. Forty years later, I understanding of the harm inflicted. It
laces. But the man sitting on the woman returned with some urgency to this task. was the term used by Daniel Paul Schre-
as if she were a log lodged in my mind A predominant definition of rape is ber, the subject of a case study by Freud,
as the most fitting, the most accurate sex without consent. Susan Brison points and, again, by Leonard Shengold in his
image for the peculiar experience of being out that the notion of violation is built searing 1989 book on child abuse. I pre-
of so little account. Indeed, it almost into our understanding of the acts of fer to say that my rapist was soul-blind.
seemed as if it had happened to me, so murder and theft, but this understand- He could not see my soul in my body.
precisely did it encapsulate the rapist’s ing of violation fails when rape is de- And the human body, as the twentieth-
indifference and oblivion to my being. fined as sex without consent. Did you century philosopher Ludwig Wittgen-
But it is euphemistic to call the rapist’s consent to be punched in the jaw? Did stein has said, is the best picture of the
attitude indifferent or oblivious unless you consent to have your company em- human soul.
these words also capture the horror of bezzled? Is theft gift-giving minus con- As for sex without consent, no raped
being nothinged. My rapist was not sent, she asks, or is murder assisted sui- woman would approximate anything in
merely oblivious to me, to the idea that cide minus consent? Why in rape alone the experience of rape to sex. Did I “have
I had a life to lead as had he. My deg- is violation not utterly embedded in how sex” with the rapist without my consent?
radation was not a side effect of his as- we define it? Did he “have sex” with me? This ought
sault but its point. It was this sheer abil- It is as if our linguistic resources veer to sound parodic. Under what under-
ity to ruin and despoil, to decide whether from a panicked vengefulness to a melo- standing of sex could this even be con-
I should live or die, that made him feel dramatic sentimentality, or to a shallow ceivable, let alone the gold standard for
he could take the place of God. Such and terrible misprision. Let’s think about judicial definition? The rapist invades
force was as intoxicating to him as it was those two words—“consent” and “sex”— our bodies against the background and
annihilating to me. To be raped is to so central to rape’s legal lexicon in a phil- possibilities of our loves, against the in-
confront this particular evil, a staining, osophical context. They rely on an en- timate, trusting, and wondrous ways we
ineradicable harm that is not reducible trenched idea of a concertedly autonomous may welcome passionate embraces, rap-
to physical, or even psychological, trauma. individual and the rights that accrue to ture, the chance of betrayal, tears, and
When I was raped, I was a graduate him or her. In acting without my “con- laughter. The rapist forces himself into
student at King’s College London, writ- sent,” my rapist has “denied me my au- us, onto us. But we do not share any-
ing a dissertation on medieval women tonomy”; he has “violated my rights.” thing with the rapist. I remember the re-
mystics who in channelling God’s voice This is anemic, bathetic. He did not vi- volting incongruence of my rapist wish-
found their own, forming the first wom- olate my rights; he violated me. The lan- ing to kiss me as if we were lovers. He
en’s literature in English. After the rape, guage assumes an altogether contractual did not “have sex” with me. “The prob-
I immersed myself in ethical and philo- understanding of the relations among lem is that the injury of rape lies in the
sophical investigations of sexual violence. human beings, as if an identity were in- meaning of the act to its victim,” the
I wanted my experience answered or ren- tact or secure outside our encounters. legal scholar Catharine A. MacKinnon
writes, “but the standard for its crimi-
nality lies in the meaning of the act to
its assailant.”
The body is a moral form, as the phi-
losopher J. M. Bernstein has articulated,
because of our dependence on one an-
other to sustain our sense of humanity.
The violent rapist understands this; it is
how he undoes us. He rams through the
integrity of our bodies and souls. It’s as
though the rapist is saying, “There is no
inside of you I cannot reach.”

y rapist’s hint that he knew where

M I lived and his theft of the keys
to my home were intended to terrorize
me. Who knows whether I would have
reported the rape at all if the lockkeeper
had not done so? The attempt to silence
is a way of cutting off connection with
others, thus cutting off the very possi-
bility of acknowledgment.
How was I acknowledged in the im-
“I’ll be summering in my room—see you in September.” mediate aftermath? I was raped by a
stranger, and I was believed. I never suf- limitations of the language of rights with- want to add (to cry out!), “When harm
fered the failure to credit my words which out the prior concept of obligation. The is done to a woman, real evil enters into
besets so many women raped by men tone in which rights are demanded is, her . . . the actual horror of evil.” Out of
they know. The doctor who swabbed me she claims, a tone of contention and hag- an evil encounter, I starved for the good,
for evidence of the rape discussed the gling, and it smacks of commerce. “Sup- and when I found it articulated in Weil’s
thesis I was then writing, as if—amaz- pose,” she writes, “the devil were bar- work I thought it beautiful.
ingly—I had something to say. The first gaining for the soul of some poor wretch, My rapist, before he attacked me,
woman from a rape crisis center I talked and someone, moved by pity, should step asked me the time. It was one reason I
with on the phone the night of my rape in and say to the devil: ‘It is a shame for suspected it had been Duffy; I later read
was a lawyer and also a rape survivor. I you to bid so low; the commodity is that this was one of his signatures. What
learned from her that it was possible to worth at least twice as much.’” time is it? He could not possibly have
go on, that there was life after rape. But The precious value of a life, she con- wanted to know: it was a distraction
a second woman, whom I visited in per- tends, is not derived from a man’s per- technique, incongruously paired with
son at the rape crisis center, wanted me sonality; it is “him, this man, no more the knife he wielded in front of me, the
to talk about the rape in a way that I and no less.” She poses a question: If I mask that obscured all but his glitter-
could not. I was so matter-of-fact, she feel like poking out someone’s eyes, as ing eyes. I have no idea whether the
said. She kept pressing me: What did I the Duke of Cornwall does to the Duke rape took minutes or hours, because
actually feel? So much, but nothing I of Gloucester in “King Lear,” what stops there was no knowing the time. Then,
could or yet wanted to say, and not now me? Her reply is breathtaking: “What when I found myself back at the scene
to her. I had to accept, I recall her say- would stay [my hand] is the knowledge of the crime, it was as if time present
ing, that all men were rapists. In 1975, that if someone were to put out his eyes, and time past, as T. S. Eliot puts it in
Susan Brownmiller had given rape a his- his soul would be lacerated by the thought “Four Quartets,” were “both perhaps
tory in her feminist classic, “Against Our that harm was being done to him.” What present in time future / And time fu-
Will”: rape is “nothing more or less than is sacred in every human being is a nat- ture contained in time past.”
a conscious process of intimidation by ural expectation we have from infancy When the young woman tripped on
which all men keep all women in a state that good and not evil will be done to Hampstead Heath, when the smaller
of fear.” I had read it, too; I understood us: “There is nothing sacred except the man—Duffy, I now believe—saved her
where this canard came from in the fem- good and what pertains to the good.” Yet from her fall, he was acting in response
inist literature, but as an act of counsel- this profound and almost childlike pre- to her rapid grasping of his hand, out of
ling it was a disaster. I do not blame the sumption is not sounded in the language her natural and unreasoned expectation
volunteer: perhaps this mantra protected of rights; it is, in fact, obscured in it. that he would prevent the harm of her
her from her own history of harm. When we perceive sacrilege—as we falling. He was acting, if you like, by an
As for me, I had to learn—I wanted might, she says, in the debasing, demor- instinct he could not or did not abort.
to learn—that not all men were rapists. alizing conditions of factory labor—our For that moment, he was aware of her
The rapist’s mask made him Everyman. recognition of it cannot be fully voiced as a fellow-human, one who might be
He could have been anybody. He had in the clamoring for rights but, rather, cherished and protected, one who could
said he knew where I lived. He saw me, might be heard and seen in the revolt of suffer as he, too, could. No wonder he
but I did not see him. I did not know the whole being. Think here, Weil says, could not rape her. This momentary
who he was. Was he the man staring at of a young girl whom someone is trying pause, this saving interruption of the
me so intently on the Tube or the one I to force into a brothel. Her fierce and headlong, breathless trajectory of rape
imagined was following me home? desperate cry is one of hope coming from or murder, admitted a kind of compas-
the bottom of the heart: it is the impulse sion, pity, even tenderness, halting injus-

Ithenthework
the summer of 2024, troubled by
memory of my rape, I turned to
of Simone Weil. Born in Paris
and outrage of her being. It expresses
pure affront and sacrilege. That cry—
“Why has someone done evil to me?”—
tice in its tracks. “Force” is Weil’s word
for “the ability to turn a human being
into a thing.” Force is what can kill, or
in 1909, to Jewish parents, Weil was a Weil says, is never wrong. what can and sometimes does not kill
philosopher, an activist, and a kind of In sociological and legal parlance, but “hangs, poised and ready,” over the
ascetic-mystic who revered Greek trag- there is little talk of evil. Perhaps it ap- head of the creature it can kill. Here, that
edy and Homer. She wrote aphoristi- pears in the sentencing words of judges, force, intoxicating for the one who imag-
cally and with astonishing originality in their shocked tones and occasional ines he wields it, crushing for those who
until dying, in 1943, at the age of thirty- outrage. It is exclaimed with barely con- must submit to it, was poised and paused.
four, of cardiac failure brought on, in cealed delight in the mock scandal of The girl’s hope that she might not be
part, by her extreme and principled as- the tabloids—yet there it merely tames harmed, her wordless appeal to him, was
ceticism. In Weil’s work, I found a lan- and sentimentalizes. But Weil’s invoca- answered, showing the depth of the ex-
guage for the kind of harm done to me. tion of evil exactly identifies a major part pectation of goodness and the natural-
In her essay “La Personne et le Sacré” of the moral harm of rape: “When harm ness of the response.
(or “Human Personality” in its English is done to a man, real evil enters into I kept remembering this story as I
translation), written in London during him; not merely pain and suffering, but braced myself to research the Railway
the Second World War, she shows the the actual horror of evil.” Of course I Killers. I kept feeling that we cannot
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 23
even discern the shape of evil without port. Naturally, the station was closed to Adam and Eve leaving Eden in “Paradise
a primordial good, without that natu- the public. A phone number sent a caller Lost”: “Some natural tears they dropped,
ral sense of justice we are born with. straight to a central phone-triage ser- but wiped them soon.” I was once not
vice. Did I know my case number? The raped, and then I had to accept that I was.
ecause my body had so urgently re- kindly people on the other end had prob- Not far from the map, two young men
B minded me of what had happened in
that spot by the canal, I wished to locate
ably not yet been born when I was raped.
There were more dead ends as I tried
were raising money for the Canal & River
Trust. They showed me what the water-
it—in space, in time, in the long reach of to find the path to the canal. I crossed a ways looked like before the Trust cleaned
its impact. I decided to return there, not huge intersection under the flyover, pick- them up. The pictures captured the life-
accidentally but purposefully. What did I ing my way through the traffic, navigat- less water full of debris and silt, stagnant,
want? I had found a place in a devastat- ing the massive pillars of the overpass, clotted and scabbed with rubbish. As if
ing story which was surely a reprieve—I where, rumor has it, one of the victims to explain my tears, I blurted out my
was not killed! I lived! But the sheer luck of the Kray twins, notorious gangsters story to these young strangers: once, a
and chance of my escape brought into of the nineteen-fifties and sixties, is im- long time ago, I was raped nearby. What
focus how close I was to not existing. mured in the concrete. But, once across, was I thinking? One of the men—who
In the many years since the rape, I I kept finding that the pathways led to can blame him—was flummoxed. What
had driven over Bow numerous times new construction sites where entry was was the etiquette for this meeting? But
on the large flyover, or overpass, built in prohibited. I could see the interlocking the other man, with saving compassion
the late sixties, but I had not been back waterways from the street but could not and gentle gravity, said, “Oh, I am so
to Bow itself. Now I pored over maps get onto the towpath. sorry that happened to you.” It was per-
to figure out the longitude and latitude A woman walked by, and I told her I fect, and it was enough.
at which I was raped. used to live here but could not remem- But where was the lockkeeper’s cot-
My home in the eighties was in a block ber how to reach the canal. Of course I tage? I could not see it. I asked them
of former council flats managed by a hous- concealed the reason for my journey, the whether there had ever been a lock-
ing co-op. The flyover whizzed nearby. confused palpitations and self-doubts keeper’s house here. Yes, they said, it’s
Bow was run-down then. The popula- that made me feel that I was half mad fenced off now and privately owned, be-
tion had fallen since the local docks had to return. Oh, yes, it’s really nice down hind that tall hedgerow—you can take
closed: St Katharine Docks, the London there, she said, you’ll see some barges and a peek through the chink in the gate.
Docks, the Surrey Docks, and, finally, the a little café farther on. It all sounded so Some things loom larger and some di-
Royal Docks, in 1981, a year or so before pleasantly normal. Nevertheless, as I found minish in memory. There it was, more
I arrived. Large companies and small and the concealed pathway and the bridge august and grand than I remembered,
dirty riverside businesses shut up shop, she had pointed out, I felt invisible walls but tangibly there. I gave an extravagant
leaving scrub and wasteland. The area closing in on me. There was indeed a donation to the Canal & River Trust and
was pocked with the post-industrial ruins fence on my right side and the canal to asked them the way to Hackney Wick
of deserted warehouses and lots. It had the left, and the path wove under the station. It was time to leave, to go back
the vacancy of departed life. railway lines that crisscrossed overhead. from the underworld of my history to
The few remaining Victorian terraces But my outsized feelings of enclosure the life I have made since then.
were squats or derelict. The block I lived and entrapment were the tunnel vision After that journey, I had a dream. In
in was riven with racial violence. I re- of a forty-year-old fear crashing through 1923, William Butler Yeats composed a
member a recent arrival from Pakistan my long and studied insulation. Sounds savage sonnet called “Leda and the Swan.”
drunkenly berating himself as he hit his at my back startled me—a cyclist, a cou- In the poem, Zeus, taking the form of a
own back: “I’m a bloody Paki.” Welcome ple of walkers. I was having difficulty re- swan, grasps with “his indifferent beak”
to England. One night, Fred, one of the membering whether the rapist had ap- Leda, the Spartan queen, and rapes her,
few white residents left on the estate, peared before me or behind me. his “great wings beating still/Above the
would chase his partner, Mary; the next Eventually, I saw a man polishing the staggering girl.” He holds “her helpless
night, after heavy drinking at the pub, brass handles on his impressively kit- breast upon his breast.” In my dream,
it would be Mary chasing Fred, a knife ted-out barge. Is there a lock near here? Zeus’ powerful webbed hind limbs hold
in hand, through the courtyard and along Yes, it is just around the corner. I was me tightly, and my helpless breast beats
the balconies that linked the flats. And almost at the place. A few yards on, I against his strong light rib cage. I am Leda.
then there was us—the earnest students, stood in front of a map of the waterways: But then, in the wondrous logic of dream,
some of us fresh from uni, some trying the natural and the man-made, the soft- still held by Zeus, I am the swan. My
to model a different kind of community. banked river and the even edges of the oily feathers slick his grip. I slip away so
In the summer of 2024, though, you canal. And there, right there, staring stu- forcefully, so rapidly, that he is left clutch-
can buy a cortado and a treat for your pidly at the map, hiding my face from ca- ing the empty air. I dive deep down into
dog at the little coffee shop by the Tube sual passersby, I wept for my unraped self: water as it rushes past my impervious
station’s exit. I’d had the naïve idea that hopeful, expectant, ardent for encounter, body, and now I am flying into the sky
I would be able to return to the Bow anticipating adventure, only not this one. as the drops condense around me. I am
Road Police Station to talk to someone My tears surprised me—they were utterly nothing solid but disseminated into the
who might help me locate my police re- involuntary. Later on, I thought of Milton’s great and welcoming world around me. 
24 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 course, I know everything you’ve been up to.
SHOUTS & MURMURS HEGSETH: Well, not everything.
(Smiles with pursed lips, raises eyebrows,
bobs head to indicate possession of a juicy
secret he’s dying to tell someone.) Let me
add you to this Signal chat called “Indo-
Pacific Theatre—Da Boyeeezzz.”
CLASSMATE: Um, I don’t think I
should be on that.
HEGSETH: It’s cool, trust me.
CLASSMATE: I really don’t want to
get in trouble for—
HEGSETH (“accidentally” stumbles, holds
up phone to classmate’s face, and exposes
Notes app document titled “TOP Secret—
No Girls Allowed!!!”): Oh, no, I’ve inad-
vertently revealed my super-classified
PETE HEGSETH’S DAY military stuff, which any civilian would
acknowledge is next-level sick!
BY TEDDY WAYNE
Press conference
The previously unreported existence of a sec- CAP and strike sorties over the Aegean TUURNALIST: Did you share war plans
ond Signal chat in which Mr. Hegseth shared Sea in T minus thirty minutes. with people without proper clearance?
highly sensitive military information is the lat- Barista writes down all information HEGSETH: War plans? Absolutely not.
est in a series of developments that have put
his management and judgment under scrutiny. on coffee cup. TUURNALIST: What would you call
—The Times. HEGSETH: That’s Aegean with an “A-e.” shouting in the D.M.V., “I’m not saying
that CENTCOM is authorizing a force-
School drop-off Therapy projection exercise in the northern Ara-
HEGSETH: Here you go, champ. Work HEGSETH: Whatever I say in here is bian Gulf just before the start of ‘Fox and
hard, behave yourself, and first missiles private, right? Friends,’ but I’m not not saying it”?
launch at oh nine fifteen hours in Or- THERAPIST: I’m bound by doctor- HEGSETH: Did I mention it would
ange Zone 4. patient confidentiality, unless what you include amphibious landing rehearsals,
CHILD: What did you say? say poses a threat of immediate harm coördinated air support from Carrier Air
HEGSETH: All affected personnel are to others. Wing 7, and joint interdiction missions
to be on heightened alert for the Hell- HEGSETH: What if it poses a threat against high-value maritime targets? Nope.
fire launch at oh nine fifteen hours. of harm to ISIL combatants in the Al- TUURNALIST: So when would it tech-
CHILD: Ah. I thought you said oh dhubat Quarter of Mosul? nically be “war plans”?
nine fifty, which was yesterday’s Har- THERAPIST: Well, I suppose in that HEGSETH: What else do you want to
poon launch, and you always say— case— know, guys? That the PIN to enter my of-
HEGSETH and CHILD: “Never repeat HEGSETH: And dawn isn’t exactly fice at the Pentagon is 0606—my birth-
launch times on consecutive days, be- immediate. day? That the nuclear launch codes are in
cause it confuses Grandma in the fam- THERAPIST: That’s beyond my pur- my desk drawer, the unlocked one labelled
ily group text.” view. Now, last week we were talking “Nuclear Launch Codes (Don’t Lose)”?
Hegseth ruffles his child’s hair. about your anger issues. How’s about that my daughter has a seri-
HEGSETH: I guess they started with ous crush on Tommy Jenkins, but she won’t
Starbucks my dad. make the disclosure until she has verified
HEGSETH: Venti blonde vanilla latte THERAPIST: Your father? intel from his best friend that he like-likes
with two per cent, extra foam, and four HEGSETH: Yeah, my old man. (A sin- her and doesn’t just like her as a friend?
syrup pumps. gle tear rolls down his cheek.) Three-three TUURNALIST: You’re revealing, in a
BARISTA: Anything else? degrees, twenty minutes north, four-three press conference, that your daughter
HEGSETH (winces like he’s restraining degrees, nine minutes east. (Exhales ca- has a crush on Timmy Jenkins?
himself ): No. thartically.) You don’t need to do the con- HEGSETH (sighs): Tommy Jenkins—
BARISTA: Name? fidentiality thing if you don’t feel like it. get your facts straight, fellas. No fur-
HEGSETH: Pete. (Pauses.) Hegseth. ther questions until after tomorrow’s
(Tilts head slightly for a reaction.) Supermarket H-bomb attack.
LUCI GUTIÉRREZ

BARISTA: Five minutes, Pete. CLASSMATE: Pete Hegseth! Haven’t TUURNALIST: There’s going to be a
HEGSETH: It’s a common name, so, seen you since high school! hydrogen-bomb attack tomorrow?
if there’s another Pete, I’m the one over- HEGSETH: How’s it hanging, Kemosabe? HEGSETH: And you just leaked it. This
seeing the F/A-18 Hornets conducting CLASSMATE: Same old same old. Of is why no one trusts the media. 
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 25
 and a hot-water bottle with a stomach
ANNALS OF MEDICINE ache, unless the stomach ache is caused by
appendicitis, which calls for a more radi-
cal remedy. The ancients had as wondrous
NO-PAIN GAINS and occasionally questionable a mixture
of notions as we have, and also knew, as
The radical development of a new painkiller. we do, that not all pains respond to the
same remedies. Dioscorides of Anazarbus,
BY RIVKA GALCHEN a first-century Greek physician, recom-
mended treating hip pain with mountain-
goat droppings on oil-soaked wool; for
anesthesia, he suggested boiled mandrake
root or Memphitic stone, and for mi-
graines an unguent of roses, applied to the
temples and forehead. Pliny reported the
use of a mole’s tooth as an aid for human
toothache. Some eighteen hundred years
later, Nietzsche had his migraines treated
with leeches applied to his ears.
These remedies were imperfect, and
the path to finding them was uncertain.
In the nineteenth century, pain and fever
were treated with sodium salicylate, but
the drug could cause nausea and a ring-
ing in the ears, so a chemist for Friedrich
Bayer & Co. thought it would be worth
trying variants on salicylic acid. He con-
cocted the acetylsalicylic acid that we call
aspirin. Other painkillers followed more
zigzagging paths. In 1886, two German
physicians decided to try naphthalene as
a treatment for a patient with worms and
a fever; the worms were unfazed, but the
fever dropped. The physicians discovered
that the pharmacist had accidentally given
them the wrong substance, the later iden-
tification of which led to the develop-
ment of acetaminophen, or Tylenol. The
common epilepsy drug carbamazepine
was developed to treat the shooting nerve
ain might flicker, flash, prickle, drill, groups, with an additional five words to pain of trigeminal neuralgia, which is de-
P lancinate, pinch, cramp, tug, scald,
sear, or itch. It might be blinding, or gru-
describe intensity and nine to describe
pain’s relationship to time, from tran-
scribed as feeling like a hatchet to the
head and is often called the suicide pain.
elling, or annoying, and it might, addi- sient to intermittent to constant. Not in- Physicians today have a number of
tionally, radiate, squeeze, or tear with an cluded in the M.P.Q. is the language ways of categorizing pain and its causes,
intensity that is mild, distressing, or ex- that Friedrich Nietzsche used in describ- and the categories often overlap. Rheu-
cruciating. Yet understanding someone ing the migraines that afflicted him: “I matoid arthritis is an example of inflam-
else’s pain is like understanding another have given a name to my pain and call matory pain, and also of chronic pain.
person’s dream. The dreamer searches it ‘dog.’ It is just as faithful, just as ob- Nerve damage or malfunction—like sci-
out the right words to communicate it; trusive and shameless, just as entertain- atica—is neuropathic pain, whereas the
the words are always insufficient and im- ing, just as clever as any other dog.” pain you appropriately feel when you
precise. In 1971, the psychologist Ronald Specific words for pain can correlate close a door on your thumb is nocicep-
Melzack developed a vocabulary for pain, with the underlying causes of it—and dif- tive pain. Surgery, broken bones, burns—
to make communication less cloudy. His ferent causes point to different approaches that’s acute pain. The pain associated
McGill Pain Questionnaire, versions of to relief. A steroid injection might help with cancer, and with cancer treatment,
which are still in use today, comprises with a slipped disk, Tylenol with injuries is another category. It tends not to be
seventy-eight words, divided into twenty from a fall, a dark room with a migraine, sufficiently ameliorated by any available
drugs—though the standard of care is to
The opioid crisis has made novel approaches to easing suffering even more urgent. treat it with opioids.
26 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 ILLUSTRATION BY ARIEL DAVIS
 We have tended to get in trouble when more than a hundred and fifty clinical think it was at that stage that it stopped
we mismatch pains and painkillers. Opi- trials, told me. “Everybody was waiting being a mythical disease for me,” Woods
oids and opiates have been particularly for a magic non-opioid opioid—some- said. “I hadn’t got it—that, if you feel pain,
vexed. Historians disagree about how thing that wasn’t an opioid, but behaved well, there are some things you would
long humans have been using opium. just like one.” Now, at last, there is some- normally not do because you know it’s
One relatively early data point comes thing substantially new. going to hurt.” Now we know that there
from the tenth-century Persian poly- is a condition known as congenital in-
math al-Razi: “I have heard amazing ac- eoff Woods, a clinical geneticist sensitivity to pain. Woods met other peo-
counts, amongst which is the following:
the physician . . . prescribed for gout a
G working at St. James’s University
Hospital, in Leeds, wasn’t thinking about
ple in the region who had experiences
similar to those of the child who died.
potion prepared with two mithqals of pain. It was the late nineteen-nineties, “The boys, about half of them end up
colchicum, half a dirham of opium, and and he kept seeing a rare form of micro- killing themselves by their early twenties,
three dirhams of sugar. This drug is said cephaly—undersized heads—in York- just doing the craziest things that nor-
to be effective within the hour, but I need shire’s Pakistani-immigrant community, mally pain would have taught you not to
to verify this.” Thomas De Quincey, the most of whom came from Mirpur. do,” he said. “The girls are sensible. They
nineteenth-century English essayist, fa- (Woods is now at Cambridge.) “They are hypervigilant. They know they’re at
mously offered a firsthand account of his were always saying, ‘Oh, we’ve got a great risk of terrible problems and are
laudanum addiction in “Confessions of cousin back in Pakistan with the same very careful.” Woods eventually discov-
an English Opium-Eater.” One chapter condition,’”Woods told me. Woods knew ered that all these people had mutations
is titled “The Pleasures of Opium,” and that this suggested a genetic basis. If he in the SCN9A gene, which is involved
another “The Pains of Opium”; he goes could see the cousins—take their med- in the production of tiny passageways,
into the pains more extensively, the plea- ical histories, speak with multiple fam- found in cell membranes, which regulate
sures more seductively. Today, the opi- ily members, obtain blood samples—he the flow of sodium ions into and out of
oids Percocet and Vicodin are often pre- would have a better chance of identify- cells, and are thus crucial in sending elec-
scribed for acute pain, which they are ing the underlying genes. trical signals. Nerves use such signals to
very good at alleviating. They are also Woods started to spend a few weeks communicate pain to your brain.
prescribed for chronic pain, which is es- every year working in clinics in and around Around the same time, Stephen Wax-
timated to affect around fifty million Mirpur and meeting with the extended man, a professor of neurology, neurosci-
Americans. This is trickier: a meta-study families of his patients from Yorkshire. ence, and pharmacology at Yale’s medi-
has concluded that they aren’t particu- On one visit, doctors told him about a cal school, received a phone call about a
larly helpful for such pain. They’re also child who worried them. They suspected neighborhood in Alabama where many
not much good for neuropathic pain. that he had a genetic condition, and they people preferred to walk barefoot, or
The not inconsequential effectiveness of were curious to get Woods’s opinion. The wore open-toed sandals and liked step-
placebos should be considered, too, when boy was well known as a street performer. ping in cold puddles. Some of them said
thinking about how best to treat pain. He would stab his arms with a knife, or that their hands and feet felt like they
Patients in clinical trials are sometimes walk on hot coals. “And then he would were on fire, and that this was true of
asked to keep a pain diary, and it turns come to casualty, and they would patch family members going back at least five
out that the keeping of the diary itself him up,” Woods recalled being told. He generations. “These people feel excruci-
can diminish the intensity of pain and was usually brought in by his overwhelmed ating, burning, scalding pain in response
improve one’s mood. mother, who wished that she could talk to mild warmth—wearing a sweater,
The risks of addiction and overdose some sense into him. The boy said that wearing shoes, going outside when it’s
make prescribing opioids not unlike send- he couldn’t feel pain. Woods agreed to seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit,” Wax-
ing someone home with a gun. More see him on his next visit to Pakistan. man told me. Their condition is known
than two million people in the United Woods knew of cases of people who as inherited erythromelalgia or “Man on
States are believed to have an opioid-use didn’t feel pain, but those cases were Fire” syndrome. Waxman sent a team
disorder, and last year more than fifty marked by excessive sweating and in- from his lab to Alabama to meet both
thousand died from overdoses. The risk creased infections—they seemed clini- affected and unaffected family members,
of addiction for any particular person cally different. He told me that, at the and to collect DNA samples. All the af-
can’t be confidently predicted, but stud- time, few researchers really believed that fected members, and none of the unaf-
ies show that some seven per cent of some people were simply born unable to fected ones, had the same mutation of
people who are prescribed opioids after feel pain. It would have sounded like a the SCN9A gene—the gene that Woods
an operation are still refilling their pre- fable, or like the Grimms’ fairy tale about had identified as altered in the Pakistanis
scriptions three months later. Opioids the boy who didn’t know fear. When who couldn’t feel pain.
are miserable in other ways: they leave Woods returned to Pakistan, the clini- “I assigned a team of skilled Ph.D.
users sleepy, confused, and constipated. cians told him that the boy, on his four- physiologists who worked around the
But what else is there to give? “The last teenth birthday, had jumped from the clock,” trying to figure out what changes
twenty years have been quite depressing roof of a house to show off for his friends. the mutation produced, Waxman recalled.
to be a pain researcher,” Todd Bertoch, He had been brought to the hospital un- The neuroscientist Sulayman Dib-Hajj,
an anesthesiologist who has overseen conscious and died a short time later. “I also at Yale, inserted the mutant SCN9A
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 27
gene into neurons. The neurons “were fir- ions—that generate electrical signals in crazy, because people without NaV1.7
ing like a machine gun when they should nerves and other cells.) “They couldn’t see were pain-free but otherwise normal,”
have been silent,” Waxman said. The so- the channels,” Waxman said, with admi- Wood, the doyen of sodium channels,
dium channels were too easily activated. ration. “They had no idea of their struc- told me. “It was unbelievably exciting.”
“And suddenly we knew why these peo- ture. Yet they predicted their presence and All that researchers had to do was to
ple were on fire when they should be feel- their properties with great prescience.” make a compound that affected only that
ing mildly warm,” Waxman said. The ge- A decade earlier, an anesthetizing sodium channel. Well, actually, that would
netic mutation associated with inherited compound that acted on sodium chan- be very difficult, but still. “The genetic
erythromelalgia is what is called a “gain nels had been found—though it wasn’t validation for NaV1.7 was knock-your-
of function” mutation. There can also understood that it was sodium channels socks-off strong,” Waxman said. NaV1.7
be “loss of function” mutations—that’s it was acting on. Researching a mutated was the perfect target. “But there’s a catch
what the people who felt no pain had. strain of barley, scientists at Stockholm in the story,” Wood said.
Woods’s and Waxman’s work sug- University tried synthesizing substances Waxman’s lab started with a small trial
gested a potential target for a novel pain- that lent the plant pest resistance. The of a drug that targeted the NaV1.7 so-
killer. Opioids target the parts of the testing method was of its time. “One of dium channels. Five people with inher-
brain that receive pain signals. A drug them tests a compound on his tongue, ited erythromelalgia participated. “We
acting on sodium channels might miti- and his tongue goes numb,” John Wood, saw an encouraging response,” Waxman
gate the sending of pain signals. a professor of molecular neurobiology recalled. The drug advanced to a trial in-
at University College London, whom volving dozens of patients with other
“ W eputers,
know that, in radios and com-
electricity is carried by
Woods describes as “the doyen of sodium
channels,” told me. During the war, the
conditions at multiple sites. But, in the
large trial, researchers “did not see a sig-
electrons through wires,” Chris Miller, Swedish anesthesiologist Torsten Gordh nal of efficacy,” Waxman said. It could be
a professor emeritus of biochemistry at ran a small trial using his medical stu- that the drug did block NaV1.7 channels,
Brandeis University, explained to me. “In dents as subjects. As compensation, he but that the dose was insufficient; or that
biological systems, it’s carried by ions via offered them a choice of a copy of his the drug didn’t distribute to the right lo-
ion channels.” Miller has spent decades Ph.D. dissertation or a pack of cigarettes. cations in the body; or that NaV1.7 block-
studying how the channels work. “I don’t Half the students were given the com- ing worked on some forms of pain but
really care what these molecules do for pound, half were given the placebo, and not others. And there was yet another
human health—I just find them such fas- most took the cigarettes. The results were possibility. “Pain is important for survival,
cinating entities. A nerve spike will zoom conclusive: the substance killed pain. so it makes sense that the mechanism of
down an axon to the tune of one hun- “That’s the origin of lidocaine,” Wood pain signalling has redundancy at the mo-
dred metres per second.” He compared told me. “It’s a Swedish fairy tale.” lecular level to make it robust,” Bruce
that with other bodily systems, like hor- When applied locally, lidocaine was a Bean, a sodium-channel researcher at
mones, which effect changes over minutes marvellous anesthetic. It worked espe- Harvard, told me. NaV1.7 was out of favor.
to hours. It is only relatively recently that cially well for dental procedures. But, if
we began to understand in much detail you took enough of it to knock out pain ut it wasn’t the only promising so-
how the channels in our nerves work. In
August, 1939, the British physiologist Alan
in your whole body, it could kill you. Post-
war anesthesiologists and dentists knew
B dium channel. A toxin found in the
puffer fish, that marine creature that re-
Hodgkin and his student Andrew Hux- not to give the drug systemically, but they sembles a devilish massage-therapy ball,
ley (Aldous’s half brother) examined squid didn’t yet fully understand that it worked affects six of the nine known sodium
giant axons, which are up to a thousand by acting on sodium channels, which are channels. During their research into pain,
times thicker than typical human nerve found in pain-sensing neurons, as well as Wood and his team discovered that mice
fibres and thus easier to study. Hodgkin in muscles in the heart, and in the brain. in which they had disabled the gene for
and Huxley used fine electrodes to look Lidocaine blocks all the sodium chan- NaV1.8—a channel that the puffer-fish
for voltage differences across axons, and nels, everywhere in the body. Your heart toxin does not block—felt much less
within a few weeks had exciting prelim- muscles fail to contract, your brain goes pain. The researchers were thrilled. They
inary results—but then Hitler invaded quiet. Researchers realized that if you formed a company and quickly raised
Poland. Their work was put on hold for want to design a painkiller that you can eight million British pounds in support.
about seven years. (Hodgkin went into administer systemically and safely, it needs But they, too, encountered difficul-
radar development.) In 1946, before mod- to block only some kinds of channels, and ties. Wood said, “We were all set to go
ern computers or microelectrodes, Hod- only in specific locations. into toxicity studies”—and then they ran
gkin and Huxley designed clever experi- The genetic mutations that the pa- out of money, then merged with another
ments from a few basic measurements that tients of both Waxman and Woods had company, which also ran out of money.
allowed them to conclude that the nerve affect a sodium channel called NaV1.7, A further discouragement: by 2015, it be-
cells must have ion channels embedded in which is predominantly found in periph- came known that some people with Bru-
them, regulating the flow of current. (We eral pain-sensing neurons. A drug inter- gada syndrome, in which the heart may
now know that there are channels spe- rupting pain signalling before it ever abruptly stop, had mutations in the gene
cific to five kinds of ions—sodium, cal- reached the brain would likely lack the that encodes NaV1.8. It wasn’t clear
cium, potassium, chloride, and hydrogen addictiveness of opioids. “We all went whether a substance that blocked NaV1.8
28 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 Walcott quarrels with a fruit seller:
TAKES He reached for a fruit that he remembered
from his childhood. It was a pomme arac, red
Julian Lucas on Hilton Als’s “The Islander” and specked and shaped like a guava.
Walcott said, “When we were boys, we used
to throw stones to catch this fruit from the
tree.” He rubbed it tenderly.
he literary Profile comes into the irreverent curiosity. Others might have
T world facing a double skepticism.
Most people don’t care enough about
written a moralizing takedown of Wal-
cott, who’d lost out on university jobs
“Don’t touch that,” the fruit seller said. She
was black and old and fierce.
Walcott blushed.
books to read about authors—unlike, for sexually harassing students, or a du- “Then why is the damn thing out there?”
say, pop stars or tech titans. And those tiful hagiography. Als simply arrived he asked sharply.
“To buy.”
who do care often look down their noses on the beach—sunglasses and folding “Then I buy,” he said, and reprimanded her
at the genre, which Roland Barthes chair in hand—and set out to discover in patois for scolding him.
mocked as a relatable fantasy for middle- how such an imperfect man wrote such Walcott bit into the pomme arac. “We have
class readers anxious to be told that the extraordinary work. to wash it first, Dodo!” Sigrid said. Walcott
great novelist enjoys “his pajamas and The Profile is framed by a long day’s turned away from the fruit seller and looked
at the sea, and the woman turned away from
his cheeses,” too. Fiction, of course, drive to a volcano, which I now rec- him.
is already based on ransacking every- ognize as the making-do of a reporter
day life. But poetry is supposed to who couldn’t get any other scenes. Yet The petulant outburst ripens to a
come from the soul, tradition, and the island is full of noises. We hear vision of Edenic bittersweetness, a
psychic tremors too minute and par-
ticular to be grasped by a journalist
on assignment. Or so I thought in
college, when I took a break from an-
notating Derek Walcott’s “Omeros”
to read Hilton Als’s 2004 Profile of
its author in this magazine.
It was called “The Islander,” and it
left me shipwrecked. At the time, I
was writing a thesis on “Omeros”—a
verse epic set in Walcott’s native St.
Lucia which traces a Biblical arc from
slavery and Native genocide to the
multicultural modern Caribbean. Wal-
cott was a god to me, and his book a
sacred text. Then Als’s casually pierc-
ing, coolly amused dispatch from the
island introduced me to a man I hadn’t
expected: a moody, tantrum-prone pa-
triarch, whose cantankerous charm February 1, 2004
hardly concealed the fact that being
history’s most successful St. Lucian the poet’s disdain for the tourist’s gaze cameo-size glimpse of a man who so
had gone to his formidably musta- in a cutting remark to his German- loved the island of his childhood that
chioed head. Walcott chases kids away born partner, Sigrid, and the fierce love he grew too big for it. I eventually met
from his easel (they were criticizing of home behind his mission to “ ‘fin- Als, who became a friend and a men-
his watercolors); at lunch, he not only ish’ his incomplete culture” in his joy- tor, and Walcott, who was exactly as
flirts, mid-interview, with a giggling ful shout as he lifts a smiling boy onto described. (It was for his annual birth-
waitress but bends her over his knee his shoulders at the beach. Als’s own day party in St. Lucia, where he cracked
and spanks her: “You want lash!” identity, as the Black gay son of Ca- dirty jokes and made a group of for-
I, too, felt struck. But my admira- ribbean immigrants, invisibly informs mer students recite Auden on cue.)
tion for the portrayal swiftly salved my his rendering of the older man’s proud, Having now written more than a few
disenchantment with the portrayed. I brittle masculinity, as well as the poi- Profiles, I still wrestle with the line be-
was already familiar with Als’s uncan- gnancy of his celebrity-induced es- tween a subject’s life and a subject’s
nily intimate style of psychoanalytic trangement from the ordinary island- work. But I never forget the pomme
portraiture, having read his affection- ers he’d made a point of remaining arac’s lesson: Roland Barthes was wrong
ate Profile of Missy Elliott and his pas- among. In one revealing exchange, about watching writers eat. 
sionately vexed essay on Prince’s coy-
ness about identity. Now he was To celebrate its centenary, The New Yorker has invited contributors to revisit notable
showing me the power of detached yet works from the archive. See the collection at newyorker.com/takes.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 29
 nology that allowed them to screen com-
pounds much more quickly; it was like
buying tens of thousands of lottery tick-
ets, instead of a few hundred. Eventually,
they discovered a previously undescribed
class of molecules that looked promis-
ing—a process that took about ten years.
Ideally, one wants a drug that is highly
selective—like Cinderella’s glass slipper,
it fits the intended target and not a whole
range of feet—and potent. An early ver-
sion of an NaV1.8 blocker developed by
Negulescu’s team was selective and fairly
potent. But, in drug development, ad-
verbs like “fairly” won’t do. Years of “op-
timization” followed. When I asked Neg-
ulescu to explain what optimization was
like, day by day, he said, “Painful. It’s it-
erative learning. There’s the hypothesis:
this is what we think would improve the
potency of the molecule, or the selectiv-
ity of it.” Synthetic chemists then make
the compounds they think might im-
prove efficacy, and the lab team tests
• • them quickly—“within hours”—then
sends the data back to the synthetic
would precipitate such a problem, but it of someone whose disease is managed chemists. I asked Negulescu how many
was a serious concern. “We thought, Oh, with supportive-care treatments only. “We compounds his team screened. “Hun-
that’s no good,” Wood said. Many re- like ion channels,” Negulescu said. “We dreds of thousands,” he said. Then he
searchers put NaV1.8 behind them. But think they’re really good drug targets. said it again. “Hundreds of thousands.”
the cell biologist Paul Negulescu, who They just require a lot of care and atten- Millions were screened to find the class
had started looking into it in 1998, con- tion to how you measure them.” of molecules, and then there were an-
tinued working. The papers that Wood’s team pub- other ten thousand or so screenings done
In college, at Berkeley, Negulescu had lished on the role of the NaV1.8 chan- in the optimization process. Negulescu
initially studied history. “Then, as a ju- nel in pain signalling were a major in- recalled encountering one of the chem-
nior, I took a physiology class where a spiration for Negulescu to turn his ists holding a tray in the hallway outside
professor explained how the kidney attention to sodium channels and pain. a lab: “I asked him, ‘Are there some im-
worked,” he told me. “It was all about “Each sodium-channel type has its own portant compounds in there?’ He looked
keeping sodium ions and chloride ions personality,” he said. “They open at dif- at me and said, ‘Paul, they’re all impor-
and potassium ions in balance.” The kid- ferent voltages. They remain open for tant.’” After more than twenty years, they
ney, a tremendously under-celebrated different lengths of time. They evolved had a potent and extremely selective com-
organ, basically does four-dimensional to perform in certain ways in certain tis- pound, called suzetrigine. And it wasn’t
sudoku with ions. “I was just in awe of sues.” NaV1.8 channels open and close making people sick. The time had come
the genius of nature. It just clicked in my up to twenty times a second. “So we had to bring it to a large-scale clinical trial.
head—this is amazing.” He volunteered to catch them in the act,” he said.
in an ion-channel lab as an undergrad, In trying to find a molecule that would stablishing a painkiller’s efficacy is
and later, as a Ph.D. student in physiol-
ogy, collaborated with the professor on
inhibit NaV1.8, one might surmise that
likely compounds would have shapes sim-
E trickier than, for example, seeing
whether a blood-pressure drug is ef-
research; when the professor started a ilar to those of lidocaine or of other an- fective. There’s a reason that the Mc-
company, Negulescu joined it, and in 2001 esthetics. But, Negulescu said, “We didn’t Gill Pain Questionnaire had seventy-
it was bought by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, want to rely only on our intuition about eight words. Todd Bertoch ran the
where he is now a senior vice-president. what chemical classes might work.” His Phase III clinical trials for suzetrigine.
In 2019, Negulescu’s team received F.D.A. team aimed to be “agnostic,” remaining “It’s a very high bar in pain research,
approval for Trikafta, a drug for cystic fi- open to unforeseen possibilities. This ap- to show effectiveness,” Bertoch said.
brosis which works on the faulty chlo- proach would not have been feasible even “Some of the drugs don’t reach that
ride channels responsible for the disease. a few years earlier, because of limits on bar, not because they’re not great drugs
A patient who starts taking the drug as how many lab tests could be done in a but because the models are imperfect
a teen-ager has a life expectancy of more reasonable window of time. But Neg- and our statistical approaches are im-
than eighty years—nearly twice the span ulescu’s team had developed a new tech- perfect.” Terms like “moderate” and
30 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
“uncomfortable” don’t offer the preci- “Before suzetrigine, if acetaminophen with patients who can’t feel pain: “Pain
sion of, say, 135 and 150. As Negulescu and an NSAID were insufficient, my next has this great function. It allows you
put it, “There’s no pain-o-meter.” step was a mild to moderate-strength to understand what your body can and
Two large-scale Phase III clinical tri- opioid. Now I can kick the opioid can can’t do. It allows you to learn how to
als on suzetrigine have been completed down the road.” Bertoch said that early modulate your activities and become
so far. One looked at 1,118 patients fol- in his career a mentor told him, about graceful.” Melzack, of the McGill Pain
lowing an abdominoplasty, and another opioids, that, “as long as someone had Questionnaire, considered pain “one of
at 1,073 patients following a bunionec- real pain, they can’t become addicted. Ob- the most fascinating problems in psy-
tomy; both are procedures after which viously, that’s been proven completely chology.” In his book “The Puzzle of
people experience acute pain. Participants wrong.” And the correction on opioid Pain,” he thinks through mechanisms
were given either suzetrigine, Vicodin, or prescribing has precipitated a new prob- by which the mind might be doing its
a placebo, and were monitored for forty- lem—pain going undertreated or un- magical work of modulating pain sig-
eight hours. A smaller trial looked at su- treated. “We need something else to fill nals. He gives the example of a foot-
zetrigine versus a placebo in two hun- that gap,” Bertoch said. “We’re not just ball player who injures his shin while
dred and two patients with sciatica, a talking about addiction—we’re talking playing, but doesn’t feel pain until later,
nerve pain. In the sciatica study, suzetrig- about people who are suffering and can’t when he takes off his sock in the locker
ine worked about the same as the pla- get the pain medicine they need.” He room and sees blood. It’s not mind over
cebo. However, for the abdominoplasty went on, “Ultimately, I think we are going matter—it’s mind and matter.
and bunionectomy patients, suzetrigine to be able to find a place where, if opi- And not all pain arrives as a mes-
worked as well as Vicodin and better oids are needed, it’s going to be rare.” sage received from peripheral pain-
than a placebo. And more patients re- In the laboratory, more compounds sensing nerves. “More Die of Heart-
ported side effects on the placebo than continue to be screened. “We keep min- break” is one of the few novels by Saul
on suzetrigine. In January, suzetrigine, ing,” Negulescu told me. “It’s never over— Bellow whose title doesn’t include the
under the name Journavx, became the there’s always more to learn.” He, too, main character’s name or role, making
first new non-opioid painkiller in more sees suzetrigine as a kind of first step, it seem as if the central character is
than twenty years to receive F.D.A. ap- and believes that “our future NaV1.8 mol- heartbreak itself. “The only pain they
proval for acute-pain treatment. ecules will probably be even more po- ever suffer is emotional pain, which is
This has occasioned enormous cele- tent.” He and others are looking both at interesting,” Woods said to me, of his
bration, which can at first glance be dif- blocking NaV1.7 and at combining the patients who feel no physical pain.
ficult to understand, since the results seem blocking of NaV1.7 and NaV1.8. That’s one of the reasons he finds the
modest: the comparison is to a relatively Waxman has continued to follow his diagnosis of congenital insensitivity to
weak opioid, and it remains unclear if Man on Fire patients. He noticed some- pain to be a bit misleading. “They know
Journavx will be helpful with chronic pain, thing curious, which later proved reve- what pain is. They just don’t know
cancer pain, or neuropathic pain. Addi- latory. There were two mother-son pairs what it is physically,” he said. When
tionally, the drug costs fifteen dollars a in which both mother and son had the Woods made this observation, it at
pill. Insurance plans and assistance pro- same pain-causing NaV1.7 genetic mu- first confused me. Emotional pain and
grams can lower the price, but it is still tation but the mother experienced much physical pain appear so categorically
much more expensive than the pennies- less pain than expected. The different that it seems odd
per-pill option of a generic opioid. “pain-resilient” mothers, it that we use the same word
Yet scientists working in pain re- turned out, had a further to describe them. And
search described the underlying scien- mutation, one that affected yet the extent of the com-
tific achievement as “a magisterial first not a sodium channel but a mon language for emo-
step,” “just marvellous,” and “the holy potassium channel.This new tional and physical pain is
grail.” “This proves the concept,” Wax- channel was involved in itself remarkable: crushing
man told me. “My expectation is that dampening pain signals.The sadness, pangs of guilt,
there may be next-generation medica- mothers have one mutation wrenching news, the need
tions that work even better.” Painkillers that makes the neuron hy- for something to kill the
that alleviate chronic and neuropathic peractive and another that pain. In thinking about
pain are especially needed. A Phase III mutes it. “So, in addition to why any given person be-
clinical trial of suzetrigine for diabetic sodium channels, which are the batter- comes addicted to opioids, we aren’t
peripheral neuropathy is under way, and ies that produce the signalling, we’re look- thinking only about pains for which
the F.D.A. granted the drug a Break- ing at potassium channels, which are the we might first try extra-strength Ty-
through Therapy designation for the brakes,” Waxman said. lenol. Edward Kessler writes in his
treatment of such pain, which should poem “Pain”:
speed the drug’s potential approval.
“I don’t think there’s a miracle drug
“ P ain is not our enemy,” Negulescu
told me. “We’re not trying to get There are days when you wish your pain
Would hunker down on a toe or finger,
that’s going to replace opioids—and su- rid of pain. But we’re trying to get rid Some extremity you could do without,
zetrigine isn’t that drug—but what we’re of needless suffering.” Woods had made Instead of wandering around the universe,
doing is chipping away,” Bertoch said. a similar point, in reflecting on his work Calling itself fancy names like Angst. 

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 31

 THE POLITICAL SCENE

OLIGARCH-IN-CHIEF
The greed of the Trump Administration has galvanized America’s ultra-rich—and their opponents.
BY EVAN OSNOS

T
o understand the vagaries of Witkoff, whose father, Steve, is Trump’s ported MAGA now feel we have been
power in Washington, pay at- Middle East envoy, and Omeed Malik, played.” Marcy Kaptur, a Democratic
tention to where the powerful a founder of 1789 Capital, a venture- representative from Ohio, invoked the
congregate. When Teddy Roosevelt was capital firm that named Don, Jr., as a excesses of Nero, and called the club a
ascending, he could be found at the Met- partner. (In April, Malik was appointed “grotesque portrait of ruling billionaires.”
ropolitan Club, a blue-blood hangout to the board of the government-backed Historically, ruling billionaires have
where he and his fellow-members mortgage firm Fannie Mae.) tried to avoid such portraits. (A publi-
planned the Spanish-American War. Last month, Sacks co-hosted a launch cist for J. P. Morgan used to say that he
The more literary-minded might pre- party at the Occidental, a venerable was “paid to keep the bank out of the
fer the Cosmos Club, which hangs up restaurant near the White House where press.”) But the Trump Presidency has
portraits of members who win the Nobel political operatives once worked to de- embraced an unusually open marriage
Prize. (Thirty-six, so far.) The late Jus- fuse the Cuban missile crisis over crab of politics and profit. Official filings re-
tice Ruth Bader Ginsburg enjoyed the cakes and pork chops. The place was vealed that his Inauguration fund set a
City Tavern Club, a modest, threadbare done up in Trump’s customary mode, new record by collecting some two hun-
place with monthly dues on the order evoking a pricey wedding on the Jersey dred and fifty million dollars from cor-
of two hundred dollars. The club closed shore: caviar bumps for arriving guests, porations, C.E.O.s, and other large do-
last year, for lack of funds. designated spaces for V.I.P.s and V.V.I.P.s, nors. The biggest donation, five million
When Donald Trump returned to and seafood arrayed on a table-size ice dollars, came from a major poultry pro-
the White House this winter, mem- sculpture topped with the club’s initials. ducer called Pilgrim’s Pride. A few
bers of his circle set about creating The guest list included an extraordi- months later, Trump’s Agriculture Sec-
an establishment that might suit their nary range of officials from the new Ad- retary delighted the industry by agree-
preferences. The President’s oldest son, ministration. Lobbyists from the phar- ing not to increase salmonella testing
Don, Jr., was among the founders of a maceutical and finance industries were and promising to cut “unnecessary bu-
members-only society called the Exec- pleased to find themselves in close quar- reaucracy.” By then, Trump had already
utive Branch, open by invitation to those ters with the Secretary of State, the At- fired the director of the Office of Gov-
who can pay initiation fees of as much torney General, and the director of Na- ernment Ethics and the head of the Of-
as half a million dollars. One founding tional Intelligence, as well as the chairs fice of Special Counsel, which investi-
member, David Sacks, a Silicon Valley of the Federal Trade Commission, the gates whistle-blower complaints.
tycoon who serves as the Administra- Federal Communications Commission, Even seasoned practitioners of Wash-
tion’s A.I. and crypto czar, explained, and the Securities and Exchange Com- ington pay-to-play have been startled by
“We wanted to create something new, mission. One attendee later described it the new rules for buying influence. In
hipper, and Trump-aligned.” The loca- as an improvement over the scene at the December, a seat at a group dinner at
tion has yet to be announced, but Sacks Trump International Hotel, which was Mar-a-Lago could be had for a million-
promised that the club would provide popular during the first term. “That was dollar contribution to MAGA Inc., a super
like-minded members with a sanctuary, open,” the guest told me. “You could find PAC that serves as a war chest for the
where they wouldn’t have to encounter Rudy”—Giuliani—“pretty tipsy on any midterms. More recently, one-on-one
a “fake-news reporter” or anyone else given night, holding court in the lobby.” conversations with the President have
“we don’t know and we don’t trust.” The new club has higher barriers to entry. become available for five million. The
The Executive Branch, which has a “It’s a sign of how Trump has filled his return on investment is uncertain, a
coat of arms that combines a bald eagle Administration with people who can ac- government-affairs executive told me:
with a monogram of the club’s initials, tually afford that,” the guest said. “It felt “What if he’s in a bad mood? You have
offers a home to those who stand astride like a White House party, to be honest.” no clue where the money is eventually
the MAGA ledger—the people who both Outside Washington, the founding going.” Another lobbying veteran de-
fund Trump’s initiatives and profit from of the Executive Branch was greeted less scribed the frank exchange as “outer-
them. A number of the co-owners are, warmly. The former New Hampshire borough Mafia shit.”
like Don, Jr., known less for their achieve- governor Chris Sununu, who voted for Trump has sold influence so briskly
ments in business than for their prox- Trump twice but occasionally criticizes that the political machinery cannot keep
imity to Trump. They include the cryp- him, derided the club as a “money grab.” up. After he was offered a four-hundred-
tocurrency entrepreneurs Zach and Alex On X, a user wrote that “those who sup- million-dollar gift from the government
32 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
Trump’s exchange of influence for money is so frank that one lobbying veteran called it “outer-borough Mafia shit.”
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY RICARDO TOMÁS THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 33
 donors, of course. But a decade ago no
one on earth had more than a hundred
billion dollars. Now, according to Forbes,
at least fifteen people have surpassed
that mark. Since Trump first took of-
fice, Musk’s net worth has grown from
roughly ten billion dollars to more than
four hundred billion.
The ultra-rich have captured more of
America’s wealth than even the nineteenth-
century tycoons of the Gilded Age. Schol-
ars who study inequality as far back as
the Neolithic period struggle to find
precedents. Tim Kerig, an archeologist
who directs the Museum Alzey, in Ger-
many, told me, “The people who built
the Egyptian pyramids were probably
in a less unequal society.” He suggested
that today’s richest people are simply
accumulating too much wealth for the
system to contain. “The economic and
technical evolution is much faster than
the social, mental, and ideological evo-
lution,” he said. “We had no time to
adapt to all those billionaires.”

wo decades ago, Jeffrey Winters, a

“Perhaps gallery walls should be left to galleries.” T political-science professor at North-
western University, started teaching a
course called Oligarchs and Elites. His
• • students at the time considered this ex-
otic terrain. One protested, “Russia has
of Qatar—an airplane so opulent that it mitted forty million dollars to a docu- oligarchs. America has rich people.” But
was dubbed the “palace in the sky”— mentary on Melania Trump, who stood over the years Winters noticed a shift
Dan Pfeiffer, a former White House to gain a reported twenty-eight million in his students, accelerated by the Su-
communications director, called it “the dollars from the deal. preme Court’s decision, in 2010, to re-
most brazenly corrupt move by any Pres- Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. of move limits on political contributions.
ident in U.S. history, and it’s not close.” Meta, dined at Mar-a-Lago, then scut- “The challenge really became convinc-
Less than a day later, a crypto venture tled his company’s fact-checking system ing any of them that the United States
owned by the Trump family auctioned and settled a lawsuit with Trump by was still a democracy,” Winters said.
off a dinner with the President at one of agreeing to pay him twenty-five million “They argued that oligarchs dominated
his golf clubs. The family profited from dollars. Not long afterward, Zuckerberg everything that matters.”
the crypto auction twice over: from fees, bought a mansion near the White House; Many Americans today espouse two
which have so far netted them and their his company even paid sponsorship fees seemingly opposed sentiments toward
partners three hundred and twenty mil- for the White House Easter Egg Roll. the very rich: resentment and aspiration.
lion dollars, and from their own stash of But nobody has blended his empire with In a 2024 Harris poll, fifty-nine per cent
Trump-branded coins, which had grown Trump’s more than the world’s richest of respondents said that billionaires are
in value to $4.1 billion even before the person, Elon Musk. After spending nearly making society more unfair, and a nearly
auction was complete. three hundred million dollars on the elec- identical number said that they hoped
The President has received tributes tion, he was given vast powers to reshape to become billionaires themselves. There
from a parade of wealthy patrons. Jeff the government, as well as access to an is a growing sense that only those who
Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the office in the White House complex and, belong to the club can thrive. New in-
owner of the Washington Post, once said occasionally, an overnight berth in the vestment vehicles allow people to copy
that he “would be humiliated to inter- Lincoln Bedroom. the portfolios of Congress members, on
fere” in journalistic decisions; in Febru- In a matter of weeks, the flood of the theory that lawmakers have an edge
ary, he ordered the paper’s opinion sec- cash swirling around the White House that the rest of us do not. The rapper
tion, which had featured criticisms of swamped whatever bulwarks against cor- Kendrick Lamar secured his status as a
Trump, to focus on promoting “personal ruption remained in American law and liberal icon by using the Super Bowl
liberties and free markets.” Amazon com- culture. There have always been wealthy halftime show to protest the unfairness
34 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
of American life. He also released an garch is Ferdinand Marcos, the Presi- investigations of all the major broadcast-
ode to “more money, more power, more dent of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. ing companies—except for Fox. He dis-
freedom,” which centers on the refrain Marcos was a dogged kleptocrat, esti- missed suggestions of partisanship by
“I deserve it all.” mated to have stolen as much as ten bil- saying, “If you are a broadcast and you
Winters, looking across history, be- lion dollars during his tenure. On an of- don’t want to serve the public interest,
lieves that the U.S. has reached “peak oli- ficial salary of $13,500, he secured for his you are free to turn your license in, and
garchic power,” a time when “the rules family at least four skyscrapers in Man- you can go podcast.”
of the political process make it possible hattan and a set of Old Master paint- Soon afterward, Trump pardoned a
for wealth to shape the outcomes and ings. His wife, Imelda, was known for fellow billionaire felon, Trevor Milton, an
agenda.” He added, “It’s so undeniably amassing thousands of pairs of shoes—a electric-truck-maker convicted of de-
visible now that it’s no longer possible habit so distinctive that few people recall frauding investors. (In a promotional
to say we have rich people and other she also tried to buy Tiffany & Co. video, Milton had showcased a speeding
countries have oligarchs.” As Winters notes, oligarchs of this prototype that was, in fact, rolling down-
Oligarchy, in Aristotle’s formulation, category govern through “fear and re- hill.) Milton and his wife had donated
is “when men of property have the gov- wards.” Marcos subdued the business $1.8 million to Trump’s campaign, and
ernment in their hands.” It is a pattern community by strategically deploying hired a lawyer who happened to be the
as old as civilization. In ancient Meso- permits and broadcast licenses. He made brother of Trump’s Attorney General,
potamia, those who mastered irrigation a special example of Eugenio Lopez, Pam Bondi. The pardon spared him res-
amassed more crops and consequently the country’s richest man and the owner titution payments estimated at six hun-
more power. Later, the coin of the realm of the Manila Chronicle, by breaking up dred and eighty million dollars. Trump
was livestock; in Old English, the word an empire estimated at four hundred claimed that Milton had been targeted
feoh meant both “cattle” and “wealth.” million dollars. After a few years, there for his political views. Speaking of him-
(You can still hear a trace of that his- was little boundary between the Presi- self in the third person, the President said,
tory in the English word “feudal.”) Early dent’s financial assets and the nation’s. “He supported Trump, he liked Trump.
oligarchs did not enjoy sedate life styles. Marcos gave the sugar industry to one I didn’t know him, but he liked him.”
As the anthropologist Timothy Earle of his former fraternity brothers, and Trump’s executive branch—the gov-
writes, leaders of this type “rarely died turned over the banana business to an- ernment version—also wasted no time
in bed; they were killed in battles of re- other friend. As Marcos’s pals misman- in aiding Musk’s businesses. The Com-
bellion and conquest or were assassi- aged their holdings, the country sank merce Department is considering his
nated by their close affiliates.” into its worst recession since the Sec- Starlink internet service for a forty-two-
In Winters’s book “Oligarchy,” he of- ond World War. billion-dollar expansion of rural broad-
fers a typology. Medieval Europe was Oligarchs-in-chief don’t like to retire, band; the Defense Department may en-
riven by violent competitions among because civilian life leaves them vulner- list SpaceX to help build a missile-defense
“warring” oligarchies, in which each able to retribution from those they ejected project called the Golden Dome. Musk,
baron had his own castle, soldiers, and from their club. But in 1986, after three in turn, has found moments when his
territory. These arrangements (later prac- years of public protests, the Marcoses business needs aligned with Trump’s po-
ticed in certain Mafia strongholds of fled into exile, with a planeload of jew- litical needs. As a major recipient of Pen-
New Jersey) were costly and stressful, so els, cash, and gold bars. In time, their al- tagon contracts, Musk took a special in-
they tended to evolve toward “ruling” lies rewrote enough history that, after terest in defending the nomination of
oligarchies, in which the participants Ferdinand died, Imelda was able to re- Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host,
agreed to put down their weapons and turn home and eventually got elected to as Secretary of Defense. After Senator
govern collectively. This was generally a Congress. In 2022, after a relentless dis- Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican, expressed
more profitable state of affairs, until the information campaign that cast the doubts about Hegseth, a political group
members of the coalition could no lon- Marcos years as a “golden age,” their son tied to Musk ran digital ads against her.
ger resist fighting one another. became President. Their perfidy is me- Ernst fell in line.
The nascent United States had its morialized in the English language, But not everyone was ready to com-
own share of oligarchs, as voting was re- though. Alfred McCoy, a historian at the ply. On April 7th, as a cold rain fell on
served for white men who held property. University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Washington, a couple of hundred peo-
But it was a “civil” oligarchy, in which me, “Marcos’s corruption led to the cre- ple gathered in a hotel ballroom near
the wealthiest citizens supported the ation of the term ‘crony capitalism.’ It’s Dupont Circle, in a spirit of genteel re-
state, because it protected their interests a useful term to describe the Trump era.” sistance. The Patriotic Millionaires, a
and because they profited more under society of prosperous Americans con-
the rule of law. If the rule of law col- s Trump’s second term took shape, cerned about rising inequality, were
lapses, though, a civil oligarchy can be-
come a “sultanistic” oligarchy, in which
A he rarely missed a chance to remind
Americans of the powers at his disposal,
meeting to discuss, as the conference
banner put it, “How to Beat the Broli-
the ultra-wealthy consent to be ruled by to reward and to punish. The new F.C.C. garchs.” This being Washington, the
one of their own—an “oligarch-in-chief,” chairman, Brendan Carr, who demon- decorations featured an eagle in flight,
in Winters’s phrase. strated his loyalty by wearing a gold lapel but, unlike the eagle on the Executive
A prime example of a sultanistic oli- pin shaped like Trump’s head, launched Branch club’s insignia, this one clutched
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 35
photos of Musk, Bezos, and Zucker- than two hundred times that much. Payne its recent publications offers tips, built
berg, dressed in tuxedos. told the crowd, “There’s a point where on focus-group data, for talking to “per-
For fifteen years, the Patriotic Mil- money is no longer money. It is power— suadable” voters about raising taxes on
lionaires have waged an earnest battle and they’re using that power to screw the rich. (Do suggest “simplifying the
to persuade wealthy people to lobby for life up for everybody else.” tax system and eliminating loopholes.”
higher taxes on themselves. This has Don’t engage in “categorical villainiza-
often been a lonesome endeavor, but ow much is too much? The inves- tion of the wealthy.”)
Trump’s assault on democracy, financed
by some of America’s richest people, has
H tor Warren Buffett, who has what
he calls “an almost incomprehensible
Davis, who has since left the institute
to focus on more assertive tactics, argues
fortified the group’s arguments. Scott sum” of money, plans to leave his chil- that economic inequality harms not just
Ellis, a member who used to run a con- dren enough to “do anything but not the poor but also the rich, by in5aming
sulting group at Hewlett-Packard, told enough that they can do nothing.” Yet divisions, stress, and status anxiety. He
me that even skeptical peers in Silicon Buffett faces an unusual problem: his hears about it from friends all the time—
Valley had become increasingly recep- fortune, by sheer algebraic momentum, the father priced out of tickets to the
tive. “Some friends used to humor me, grows faster than he can give it away. Giants “because a billionaire is paying a
but they’re listening more,” he said. Though he has donated at least sixty centimillionaire to hit a ball”; the wife
Members, and prospective recruits, billion dollars, he is still worth a hun- who dreads her husband’s role in the
had 5own in from around the country. dred and sixty billion. (Not an absolut- Young Presidents’ Organization because,
They heard from lawyers who are suing ist, Buffett has kept his private jet, which Davis said, “he has made a shitload of
to force Musk’s team to reveal internal he named the Indefensible.) money but is seated next to a guy who’s
documents, and from political organiz- In 1965, during Lyndon Johnson’s made a shitload-plus.”
ers facilitating protests against the slash- War on Poverty, the government estab- Patriotic Millionaires is lobbying Con-
ing of government services. Onstage, lished the concept of a poverty line, to gress on what the group calls the Anti-
Erica Payne, the group’s founder, a for- help design policies that promote human Oligarch Act, which proposes ways to
mer Democratic strategist with a Whar- f lourishing. (The line now stands at prevent “dynastic” levels of inheritance.
ton M.B.A., put up a slide of survey re- about thirty-two thousand dollars a year Davis knows the arguments against wealth
sults suggesting that the movement might for a family of four.) Alan Davis, a mem- taxes—people will cheat or move; inno-
find supporters among both Democrats ber of the Patriotic Millionaires, main- vators will stop taking risks—but he be-
and Republicans. “Nobody on either side tains that we should also be concerned lieves that a balance between good and
is happy!” she said. “The only people who with the “extreme-wealth line”—a de- harm might be struck by aggressively tax-
are happy are the people at the very tippy- gree of affluence past which it becomes ing fortunes above fifty million dollars.
top.” She ticked through some tax poli- impossible to avoid societal harm. Why fifty million? At that level, he ex-
cies, crafted by lobbyists, that patently A few days after the group’s meeting, plained, “you can’t own the Picasso, but
benefit the very rich. “If you own a yacht, I visited Davis at his house in Jordan you have enough money where you could
two Picassos, and a room full of gold Park, a San Francisco neighborhood of have every museum director take you on
coins, you pay less in property taxes than lush gardens and quiet streets. Davis, a private tour.” He added, “We’re trying
some person who owns a two-hundred- who is tall and patrician, with swept- to get people to think of the American
and-fifty-thousand-dollar house in a back white hair, led the way to a sitting Dream differently—that you can do any-
small town in Ohio,” she said. Some out- room decorated with handblown glass. thing, but you can’t own everything.”
comes are even more startling. In 2020, He told me that his parents had built a In May, Trump 5oated the possibility
according to ProPublica, at least eigh- fortune in the insurance industry, but of increasing taxes on the rich, musing
teen billionaires filed tax returns so deftly that he had grown up uneasy about hav- that it might make for “good politics.”
assembled that they were eligible for pan- ing so much money. During a cruise that But the “big, beautiful” bill that enshrined
demic stimulus checks. When Bezos was stopped in Caracas, Venezuela, as the his Administration’s agenda left the top
worth eighteen billion dollars, back in family dined at a posh club, Davis found tax rate unchanged. Instead, it offered
2011, he qualified for a child tax credit. himself preoccupied with the surround- concessions to Trump’s wealthiest sup-
Just when the gathering was begin- ing poverty. “I’m looking at a hill with porters, including a tech-friendly provi-
ning to sound like a progressive politi- cardboard houses, and it really got to sion to prevent states from regulating A.I.
cal rally, Payne drew a distinction: “We’re me,” he said. “It became an issue with and a tax cut, paid for partly with cuts to
not going to talk about all this stuff that my parents. Like, ‘What side are we on?’ ” Medicaid and food stamps, that steered
everybody else wants to talk about . . . During the pandemic, Davis launched sixty per cent of the benefits to the top
transgender, L.G.B.T.Q., guns—every- an initiative called the Crisis Charitable twenty per cent of Americans.
thing that makes everybody get mad.” Commitment, which urged philanthro- Trump and Musk had already ad-
She declared, “This is always about pists to accelerate their giving, but it vanced proposals to privatize more of
money.” In the 2004 election, according strained to recruit members. Spurred the government by selling off public
to Americans for Tax Fairness, billion- partly by that disappointment, he went buildings, handing over weather fore-
aires gave thirteen million dollars in po- on to found the Excessive Wealth Dis- casting to private operators, and dispens-
litical contributions; twenty years later, order Institute, dedicated to fighting ing federal lands to real-estate develop-
the country’s richest families spent more what it calls “compulsive greed.” One of ers and fossil-fuel producers. At times,
36 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 stunt; in a rare point of agreement between
left- and right-wing media, the conserva-
EVEN HERE IT IS HAPPENING tive talk-show host Megyn Kelly mocked
what she called the “Mission to Collect
And so I iron the dress, Selfies in ‘Space,’” while the Guardian
the steamed wool smelling decried a “perverse funeral for the Amer-
of schoolboys in the always-falling rain. ica that once enabled both scientific ad-
vancement and feminist progress.”
It’s mustard color, the dress— Viewers of the launch’s live stream
I must wear it like a uniform. were reminded that seats on future flights
were available for purchase. Blue Ori-
Sometimes someone sees gin required a deposit of a hundred and
a loneliness in me, but what fifty thousand dollars, with an unnamed
balance presumably due later. It was easy
it is is a need to be alone, out to wonder who, exactly, the potential
there—out there falling in gray air. buyers were. The country as a whole has
never been wealthier; at the start of 2025,
The clouds aren’t clean, covering the total assets held by American house-
for smoke, yet we point to clouds holds reached a historic peak. But these
as if it is our job. Oh god, figures are skewed by giant fortunes at
the top. Roughly half of Americans can-
what if all I’ve done is guard not afford a thousand-dollar emergency
myself against despair? expense, and the bottom two-thirds are
nearly as pessimistic about their pros-
—Ada Limón pects as they were during the 2008 fi-
nancial crisis. Barbara F. Walter, a pro-
fessor at the University of California,
the Administration seemed to be test- health, and national service but also harm San Diego, who specializes in political
ing how much destruction Americans to America’s moral credibility. After Musk instability, told me, “Americans don’t be-
would tolerate, if it was packaged as bragged about feeding the U.S. Agency lieve we all have to be equal in terms of
tough-minded business wisdom. After for International Development to the wealth, but we’ve been taught that we
the introduction of tariffs tanked the “wood chipper,” the agency predicted are equal politically, and the oligarchs
stock market and vaporized trillions of that the cuts would lead to millions of are seen as taking that right away. That
dollars of value, the Treasury Secretary, deaths in places where its programs had creates a feeling of being permanently
Scott Bessent, a former hedge-fund provided care. Bill Gates told a reporter, politically excluded—and that, we know
manager worth at least half a billion “The picture of the world’s richest man from quantitative studies, motivates peo-
dollars, said bluff ly that Americans killing the world’s poorest children is not ple to organize.”
weren’t looking at “day-to-day fluctua- a pretty one.” A day after the Blue Origin space-
tions” in their retirement accounts. Musk, flight, Senator Bernie Sanders made a
while overseeing the firing of tens of n April 14th, Blue Origin, Bezos’s stop on his “Fighting Oligarchy” speak-
thousands of people, called Social Se-
curity “a Ponzi scheme” and said that
O rocket company, launched an all-
female crew on a ten-minute journey into
ing tour, which he began in the weeks
following Trump’s return to Washing-
the “fundamental weakness of Western space. Bezos seemed to regard the trip— ton. Sanders was focussed on Republi-
civilization is empathy.” led by his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez—as can territory, and that afternoon’s ap-
But eventually Musk found the lim- an act of public service. When asked a pearance was at a community college in
its of the public’s tolerance for belliger- few years ago how he planned to “do Folsom, which contains one of the rare
ence. After he handed out million-dollar good” with his fortune, he said, “The only pockets of conservative voters in North-
checks to voters in a Wisconsin Su- way that I can see to deploy this much ern California. Situated where the Cen-
preme Court race, his candidate lost by financial resource is by converting my tral Valley rises into the Sierra foothills,
double digits. His company Tesla posted Amazon winnings into space travel.” Folsom still houses the prison made fa-
a seventy-one-per-cent drop in profits, His company positioned the launch mous in the Johnny Cash song “Folsom
as buyers recoiled. He also critiqued as a tribute to women in science, but the Prison Blues,” but these days the biggest
Trump’s tariff policy, referring to one of message grew muddled in preflight pub- employer is Intel. Palm-shaded neigh-
its principal authors as a “moron” and licity. One passenger, the pop star Katy borhoods radiate affluent calm.
“dumber than a sack of bricks.” Musk Perry, announced that the crew intended When I arrived, an advertising plane
retreated from Washington, but he left to “put the ‘ass’ in ‘astronaut.’ ” Though was overhead, towing a banner that read,
behind damage that will likely be felt for the ship returned safely, the over-all re- “FOLSOM IS TRUMP COUNTRY!” But,
decades—not only the gutting of pro- ception was not positive. Press accounts with the event several hours off, the line
grams dedicated to foreign aid, public described it as a gluttonous commercial of attendees gathered to protest Trump’s
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 37
Presidency already stretched down the ica,” he said. “It’s just a stunning sight.” insulin, then wondered why people voted
road and out of sight. The organizers Very little of what Sanders said on- for Trump. “You want to know why peo-
had moved the speech from a smaller stage was new material. Thirty-five years ple are angry?” he said. “They are hurt-
venue to a track-and-field complex as ago, shortly after leaving office as the ing! They can’t go to the grocery store
big as three football fields. It was shap- mayor of Burlington, he warned a re- and buy food for the kids that they want,
ing up to be a crowd of thirty thousand, porter against the perils of oligarchy and they can’t pay their rent, they can’t af-
more than a third of the city’s popula- insisted, “The rich and the powerful ford health care.”
tion. Venders were selling pins tailored cannot continue to get everything!” But At the heart of Sanders’s tour was his
to the moment. One read, “F* Elon and back then he wasn’t drawing crowds of long-held hope to build a “class-based
the Felon.” Another had the word thirty thousand people. “It’s one thing effort” that crossed party lines. In the
“oligarchy” in the Monopoly font, along for me to talk about oligarchy as an ab- eighteenth century, Jean-Jacques Rous-
with a cartoon plutocrat in a top hat. straction,” he told me. “Trump has made seau wrote that, during times of extreme
I joined Sanders backstage, in a win- it clear. He has said it loudly and clearly: inequality, the wealthy distract those who
dowless office near the locker rooms. He we are a government of billionaires.” might resent them by fostering a “mu-
was slumped in a desk chair—wisps of Senator Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan tual hatred and distrust, by setting the
white hair, the familiar rumpled blue Democrat, had urged her party to stop rights and interests of one against those
Oxford shirt—and looked exhausted using the term “oligarchy,” saying that of another.” It was the essence of Trump’s
after a day of events across the state. But it would not resonate beyond the coasts. politics—the knowledge that desperate
when he started talking about the crowds Sanders, citing the scale of his crowds, people feel powerful when they can “look
his eyes widened, and his finger poked responded that “the American people more below than above them,” and so
the air for emphasis. The first sign that are not quite as dumb as Ms. Slotkin “domination becomes dearer to them
his tour might excite the public came thinks they are.” During my visit, he did than independence.”
on the opening day, in Omaha, where not hide his satisfaction that the largest Outside, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
the organizers switched venues to ac- political rallies in America were for an the congresswoman from New York, was
commodate a rush of attendees and still eighty-three-year-old socialist who had warming up the crowd. She mocked the
had to turn hundreds more away. In twice lost his bid for the Presidential banner overhead that declared this was
Iowa, he said, “I had to do two separate nomination. “What bothers me most Trump country. “It sure don’t look like
speeches, because it was an overflow about the failure of the Democratic it today,” she said. “I think this is our
crowd.” On a stop in Salt Lake City, Party,” he said, was a reluctance “to ac- country.” As the crowd cheered, it wasn’t
twenty thousand people showed up. “In knowledge reality.” Democrats, in his hard to see why some Democrats have
Nampa, Idaho, we had twelve thousand, view, congratulated the Biden Admin- taken to asking whether Ocasio-Cortez
in the most conservative state in Amer- istration for having lowered the price of could be the next leader of a party grop-
ing for direction. For the moment,
though, her support did not reach far
beyond progressives. Republicans had
spent years framing her as the avatar of
identity politics and language policing.
A poll published a day later by YouGov
gave her a favorability rating that placed
her eighteen points behind Sanders—
even with Trump, but trailing J. D. Vance.
Sanders took the stage to the strains
of “Power to the People,” offered gruff
thanks, and set to work. After decades
of broad systemic critiques, he now had
the advantage of a target with a face
and a name. “Elon owns more wealth
than the bottom fifty per cent of house-
holds in America,” Sanders shouted.
“That, brothers and sisters, is insane!”
I was reminded of the tips from the
Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute,
about avoiding “categorical villainiza-
tion of the wealthy.” Subtlety is prob-
ably never going to be Sanders’s style,
but it didn’t seem to matter. As he spoke,
the line of attendees was still winding
“ You gotta watch this house. If you’re not careful, out the entrance to the stadium. Oth-
the dog will rush out and read you his poetry.” ers were peering through fences and
watching from neighboring hillsides. Vladimir Putin cement his rule, he grew room, a host brought in dozens of horses
When I talked to people in the crowd, worried about empowering competitors, with champagne in the saddlebags, so
I was struck by how many were at their so he jailed some and exiled others, giv- that his guests could dine on horseback.)
first Sanders rally. One of them, Stephen ing their empires to new loyalists. “The The income tax was finally implemented
Jackson, a retired home builder, told me, party is great while it’s happening, but in 1913—after nearly two decades of
“I know a lot of Republicans that are re- there’s a really terrible hangover at the concerted activism.
ally sorry that they voted the way they end, and they don’t seem to consider Benjamin Page, a Northwestern
did. They were hoping it would just be this, even as Russian oligarchs are being political scientist who has studied atti-
better for business, less government. thrown out of windows,” Walter went tudes on inequality, told me, “It’s a mis-
They’re seeing the total opposite.” He on. “That’s all I want to say to these tech take to say nothing can be done.” The
went on, “Musk is not there because he’s entrepreneurs. The data shows that social movement of the eighteen-nineties
trying to lower the government’s spend- autocracies don’t do well revealed how to “dilute and
ing. And everybody can see it.” In a coun- economically, so the dicta- equalize oligarchy power
try where the two dominant parties agree tor needs resources to sur- with citizen power.” He went
on scarcely anything, the collective ex- vive, and eventually the pots on, “If enough people are
asperation with Musk generated unusual of money that these oli- angry enough, it becomes
consensus. “Republicans and Democrats garchs are sitting on become feasible to think about what
are on the same roller coaster,” Jackson quite attractive.” institutions, rules, and ar-
said, “and everybody’s thinking, Where’s Sultanistic oligarchies rangements could be changed
the seat belts? Well, we got rid of the seat have inherent fragilities.The that would actually make a
belts, because it saves money.” élites must submit to a ver- big difference.”
sion of what scholars call In politics and business,

H alf a century after Trump started

selling the illusion of exclusivity—
through casinos, mail-order steaks, and
the “authoritarian bargain”:
the leader agrees to defend their wealth
against legal challenges and calls for re-
leaders become so insulated
from unflattering truths that they blun-
der into igniting public outrage, a pat-
a bogus university—his family has fi- distribution, in return for payoffs and tern sometimes called “autocratic back-
nally discovered what people will pay for political fealty. Élites who do not ade- fire.” When oligarchs start to see their
most exorbitantly: access to the top of quately submit are often destroyed—but winnings as evidence of all-encompass-
the U.S. government. The open practice leaders who fail to protect the élite are ing brilliance—rather than a combina-
of crony capitalism is pushing America also prone to be overthrown. tion of specific acumen, timing, govern-
toward a reckoning between two paths, Oligarchs can also be vulnerable to ment contracts, and luck—they can get
one in which oligarchy comes to be seen civil society. Popular movements in grandiose. Richard White, a Stanford
as normal and one in which it does not. South Africa, Ukraine, and the Philip- historian who specializes in the Gilded
McCoy, the historian, sketched the first pines demonstrate a pattern: sustained Age, said, “They cannot manage things
scenario. “The standards for propriety of pressure—cross-class protests, labor as complex as they try to manage. I think
those holding office will be diminished,” strikes, investigative reporting—can chip Elon Musk’s implosion is an example
he said. “It will lower the bar on what away at self-enriching, inept regimes. that things just slip out of their control
we expect from our public servants.” If When a crack appears, in the form of very, very quickly.”
the current economic trend continues, a recession, a botched show of force, or In April, protests around the country
the effect will be severe. In the next four an élite split, the ruling order must re- surprised even the organizers with their
decades, according to the tax expert Bob form, bargain, or collapse. But in places scale; in Washington, there were a hun-
Lord, the top .00001 per cent of Amer- like Egypt and Russia, where civic forces dred thousand demonstrators, quintuple
icans (about nineteen people, at current are demoralized or divided, oligarchs the projections. Trump, who was golfing
population) will increase their share of can hang on with daunting endurance. that day, did not comment on the pro-
the nation’s wealth tenfold, from 1.8 per If politics can help solve America’s testers, and Musk dismissed them as
cent to eighteen per cent. In other words, inequities, it will not happen quickly. “puppets.” But their presence, like the
if Washington pretends that Trump’s Seventeen years passed between when crowds lining up to hear Sanders speak,
corruption is not connected to a deeper Mark Twain coined the phrase “the raises the prospect that an angry public
imbalance of power, the oligarchs win. gilded age” and when the country en- may unite, even if some of them are ul-
Even for those who benefit from the shrined its first law against monopolies, timately less interested in eating the rich
current arrangement, it is not without in 1890. Even that was only a limited than in joining them at the table. During
risk. In the short run, using money to success. A few years later, the United the Gilded Age, White said, “the oli-
buy power and power to make money States tried to establish an income tax, garchs allowed people to have a set of
may shield them from Trump’s rages. but it was derided as part of a “commu- common targets. There was no common
But they are also investing their sultan nist march,” and the Supreme Court solution then, and I don’t think there will
with immense power. “What happens struck it down. Eventually, the ultra-rich be a common solution now. But when
to business élites who align with auto- brought trouble on themselves by ig- you can agree that this is not working, this
crats?” Barbara Walter said. “It doesn’t noring public anger. (At a notable party is not fair, this is not right—then you can
end well.” After Russian tycoons helped of the time, held in a Manhattan ball- get a movement.” 
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 39
 PROFILES

THE LAST BROAD

Patti LuPone is done with Broadway, and almost everything else.
BY MICHAEL SCHULMAN

P
atti LuPone stood in a midtown her offstage rumbles. She’s fought with coven-mate Aubrey Plaza told me. Last
recording studio one spring af- Andrew Lloyd Webber, who in the nine- fall, Plaza ended up living in her apart-
ternoon, talking to Carrie Brad- ties replaced her with Glenn Close in ment, at LuPone’s urging, while mak-
shaw. LuPone, who descends from what his musical “Sunset Boulevard.” (LuPone ing her Off Broadway début. “She ba-
she calls Sicilian peasant stock, had trashed her dressing room, sued his com- sically kept me alive,” Plaza said. “I would
filmed an arc on the upcoming season pany, and used part of the settlement to wake up, and she would be making me
of “And Just Like That . . . ,” as the Ital- build herself a pool, which she christened soup. One morning, she was carving a
ian mama of Giuseppe (Sebastiano the Andrew Lloyd Webber Memorial turkey, and she would go, ‘Doll, I have
Pigazzi), the young boyfriend of Car- Swimming Pool.) She’s fought with co- to go out of town for some gigs, but I’m
rie’s gay pal Anthony (Mario Cantone). stars. (In her memoir, she called Bill Smi- gonna carve this up and put it in the
She was now recording some dialogue trovich, who played her husband on the fridge, and you’re gonna make sand-
tweaks in postproduction. On a moni- TV drama “Life Goes On,” a “thoroughly wiches with it throughout the week.’”
tor, her character, Gianna, was greeting distasteful man.” Smitrovich: “She’s a Bridget Everett, the raunchy alt-
Carrie at a party. At the microphone, very, very guileful woman.”) She has even cabaret performer who starred in HBO’s
LuPone tried out different line read- fought with audience members. She once “Somebody Somewhere,” met LuPone
ings: “Ciao.” (Imperious.) “Ciao!” palmed a cellphone from a texter’s hand, through the director and lyricist Scott
(Warm.) “Ciao-ciao!” (Sprightly.) mid-play. In 2022, during a talkback for Wittman. LuPone brought Everett on-
“Just fill it up a little bit,” the show- the musical “Company,” she berated a stage at Carnegie Hall for a duet, and
runner, Michael Patrick King, instructed. spectator, “Put your mask over your they’re now developing a double act
“I like your dress verrry much. nose. . . . That is the rule. If you don’t called “Knockouts.” “You think of her
Verrry pretty,” LuPone purred in an Ital- want to follow the rule, get the fuck out!” as the greatest living Broadway legend,”
ian accent. Ask her about Madonna (“a movie killer”) Everett told me. “You don’t think of her
“Shit, now I have to call the Writers or “Real Housewives” (“I really don’t want as a person. So when, all of a sudden,
Guild,” King joked, about her ad-lib. to know about those trashy lives”), and you’re out in the country and she hops
They moved on to a scene in which Gi- you’ll get a zinger worthy of Bette in the pool buck naked, you’re, like, ‘O.K.,
anna spars with Anthony in his apart- Davis—one of her heroines, along with there’s Patti LuPone! Let’s roll.’”
ment. King had written LuPone a saucy Édith Piaf. (“I prefer the flawed to the After her dubbing session, LuPone
exit line: “Questo corridoio puzza,” which perfect,” she told me.) Her bluntness has collected her crocodile purse and got
translates to “This hallway stinks.” made her a kind of urban folk hero. On into an S.U.V. on Eighth Avenue. As it
LuPone gave him options, punching the Tony Awards red carpet in 2017, she lurched past the theatre district, she ex-
her “P”s: “Questo corridoio puzza!” (Pug- declared that she would never perform plained why she is, at least for now, done
nacious.) “Questo corridoio puzza.” for President Trump. Asked why, she re- with Broadway. “I’m so angry at who-
(Droll.) “Questo corridoio puzza! Ugh!” sponded, “Because I hate the mother- ever choked the stem right in the mid-
(Revolted.) When they wrapped, King fucker, how’s that?” The clip went viral. dle by making Times Square a pedes-
told her, “You are a delight.” At seventy-six, LuPone has acquired trian mall,” she said. When she was
“Thank you for including me, hon- an unlikely cool factor. Since winning starring in “Company,”LuPone would
est to God,” LuPone said. “And just, you her second Tony—for “Gypsy,” in 2008— carry a bullhorn and yell at pedestrians
know, think of me. Because I don’t want she’s played herself on “Glee” and “Girls,” from her car window. “It’s impossible
to be onstage anymore. Period.” a bathhouse singer on “American Hor- for us to get to work,” she told me. “And
This was almost like a queen pro- ror Story,” and an occultist on “Penny I said that years ago. So I start work
claiming her abdication. LuPone is Dreadful,” and she’s voiced a yellow angry. I can’t get to my theatre, because
Broadway’s reigning grande dame, with giant on the cult sitcom “Steven Uni- of the traffic pattern, because of the ar-
a big voice and an even bigger mouth. verse” and a socialite mouse on “BoJack rogance of the people in the streets. It’s
She’s one of the city’s last living broads: Horseman.” The indie director Ari Aster a road. Get out of the street.”
brassy, belty, and profane, with the fe- cast her as a harridan mother in “Beau She preferred the gritty old New
rocity of a bullet train coming right at Is Afraid,” and last year she joined the York of the sixties and seventies, when
you. She’s as famous for playing musical Marvel Cinematic Universe, as a witch she moved from Long Island to make
theatre’s iron ladies—Eva Perón in in “Agatha All Along.” “She doesn’t give her name. Sure, the city was broke. Sure,
“Evita,” Rose in “Gypsy”—as she is for a shit about what anyone thinks,” her there were muggers. (Once, when a
40 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
“People ask, Why am I a gay icon?” LuPone said. “I think they see a struggle in me, or how I’ve overcome a struggle.”
PHOTOGRAPH BY RUVEN AFANADOR THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 41
stranger groped her friend near Grant’s ple ask, Why am I a gay icon? I go, Don’t she arrived. “When I got home, I saw
Tomb, LuPone turned “she-lion”—her ask me. Ask them. But I think they see police cars and fire engines, and I hid
word—and shrieked at the guy until he a struggle in me, or how I’ve overcome under my bed,” she recalled. “When
fled into Riverside Park.) Sure, she heard a struggle. What else am I going to do?” they found me, I got a serious spank-
a “scream of death” one night outside She picked apart the artichoke with ing with no explanation. There was no
her window, in Chelsea, and knew that her fingers. “I’ve been punished for won- dialogue. You did the wrong thing—
somebody was getting murdered. But dering what was going on since I was smack, smack. But why?”
the city was “bankrupt, dangerous, and four,” she said, again punching her “P”s. The LuPones lived on an apple or-
creative,” she insisted. Now it’s all gone “The question was always ‘Why?’ The chard amid subdivided farmland. North-
corporate, including the theatre, which answer was not permitted. To this day, port back then was a small fishing vil-
she worries has reverted to “the gaiety if I express myself in a way that some- lage—at one point, the mayor was also
phase of Broadway, when it was just fol- body doesn’t like, they will say, ‘Oh, the funeral director—with boggy wet-
lies and Ziegfeld girls.” that’s Patti.’” She lowered her voice and lands and rocky bluffs overlooking the
She’s even angrier at the rest of the narrowed her eyes, like a tigress ready bay. Johnny Carson would sometimes
country. She told me, more than once, to pounce. “What the fuck are you moor his yacht there, and LuPone would
that the Trumpified Kennedy Center talking about? What do you know about buzz it with her father’s boat, shouting,
“should get blown up.” In the S.U.V., me, that you can say, ‘Well, that’s Patti’? “Johnny! Hi!” It was a bucolic place to
apropos the current Administration, she And yet I never stopped asking the grow up, but LuPone sensed a menac-
pronounced, “Leave. New York. Alone. question ‘Why?’ ” ing energy, what she called the town’s
Make it its own country. I mean, is there LuPone bristles when people call her “deep underbelly.”
any other city in America that’s as di- a diva, which they do often. “I know A furtive darkness ran in her family,
verse, as in-your-face? It’s a live-or-die what I’m worth to a production,” she too. Her mother’s parents, the Pattis (her
city, it really is. Stick it out or leave.” said, her lips skewing diagonally in ag- first name is her mother’s maiden name),
The car dropped her off at a restaurant itation. “I know that I’m box-office. Don’t were immigrant bootleggers; their sew-
on the Upper West Side. She asked for nickel-and-dime me before you put me ing room had removable floorboards to
sherry—she’d discovered it while doing onstage. Don’t treat me like a piece of hide whiskey. Late in life, LuPone learned
“Les Misérables” in England in the shit. Because, at this point, if you don’t that her maternal grandfather had been
eighties—but the bartender said that value me, why am I there?” murdered in 1927, possibly with her
they didn’t carry it, so she settled for a If LuPone is the New Yorkiest of grandmother’s collusion; one newspa-
glass of rosé, with a side of ice cubes. Broadway stars, it’s not just because of per reported that his body had been
In person, LuPone is fun-seeking and her powerhouse voice. It’s because she found “in a pool of blood caused by three
dishy. She recalled one of her first trips fights her own battles, the way the city wounds in his head.” “All I knew was
into Manhattan, to see Saint-Saëns’s makes you fight through rush-hour that, growing up, every Sunday, my
“Samson and Delilah” at the Met. “They crowds. But she didn’t ask for it to be mother would call my grandmother, and
were two of the fattest people I’ve ever this way. “Why do I have to fight?” she the two of them would talk in Italian,
seen onstage,” she told me. “There was asked herself, tearing out the artichoke’s and my mother would be crying her eyes
a bed, two very large singers, a male heart. “What am I learning in this life out,” LuPone said. Why?
and a female, and a bowl of fruit on the Her father, Orlando, was the prin-
bed. And all I could concentrate on was cipal of her elementary school, and her
that bowl of fruit and when they were mother, who went by Pat, “played the
gonna knock it to the floor.” She let out part of a Long Island housewife,”
a big, booming “HA!” LuPone said; being a principal’s wife
LuPone was snapped out of her rev- required “a hostess element, a façade,
erie by two chatty young women at the because she had to entertain the teach-
next table. “The whole city is so fucking ers.” Once, overhearing her parents fight,
loud,” she groused. “People have forgot- LuPone packed her books in a suitcase,
ten that they’re in public.” She leaned stood at the kitchen door, and declared,
over to ask them, politely but firmly, “La- that I’m atoning for from the last one? “Goodbye, cruel world!” Her parents
dies, excuse me, do you mind keeping it What is it that forces me to fight? Se- divorced when she was twelve, after Pat
down just a little bit? We’re trying to riously. Why wasn’t it easier?” discovered that Orlando was having an
have a conversation.” They obeyed. affair with a substitute teacher. LuPone
LuPone ordered a fried artichoke, uPone’s many oft-recounted strug- remembers her mother herding her and
sliced in half. “I have a love-hate rela-
tionship with New York, because of
L gles began at four years old, when
she wandered off her family’s property,
her older twin brothers, Bobby and
Billy, into a car and driving to a nearby
what it forces you to face,” she went on. in Northport, Long Island, to visit a town. “We snuck up to this house and
She likes that New Yorkers can sniff out friend. Crossing a field, she got side- looked in the basement window, and
a bullshitter, but her intolerance to bull- tracked by some birds and butterflies. there was my dad sitting in a chair and
shit gets her into trouble. “On a woman, “They’re looking all over the place for this woman sitting at his knees, and my
they don’t like that smell,” she said. “Peo- you!” her friend’s father yelled when mother put her fist through the cellar
42 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
window,” she said. She didn’t see her
father again for decades.
“My brothers were freaked out more
than I was,” LuPone recalled. “I said to
Bobby, ‘Honey, we’re free to pursue show
business now!’ Daddy wanted us to be
teachers. I was, like, ‘No thanks.’ ” Pat
drove her daughter to voice lessons, in-
forming her that her great-grandaunt
was the nineteenth-century coloratura
Adelina Patti. LuPone and her brothers
had a dance group, the LuPone Trio,
which performed on Ted Mack’s “The
Original Amateur Hour.” “They had an
adagio act,” her childhood friend Philip
Caggiano said. “Bobby would heave Patti
into the air, and Billy would catch her.”
At school, she immersed herself in music,
singing Haydn with the chorus and play-
ing sousaphone in the marching band.
“I remember, in the cafeteria of our ju-
nior high school, saying, ‘I want to sing
just like Earl Wrightson,’” Caggiano re-
called. “And Patti said, ‘I want to sing
like Patti LuPone.’” “Well, I’m gonna use bricks, but I’m getting
She knew that she had a Broadway- a huge vicarious thrill from your plan.”
sized voice, but she was a “closet rocker,
or a closet groupie,” she said. One New
Year’s Eve, she and a friend drove up-
• •
state to Saugerties in a blizzard to “find
the Band—and we got so close.” She that she had “the smell of the gallows.” the Acting Company. They’d do com-
moved to Manhattan at eighteen and (It was a compliment, but she was too edy of manners in Saratoga, Chekhov in
spent a year partying at discothèques, intimidated to ask what it meant.) “I Omaha. “Patti was always pissed that,
then joined the inaugural class of the cried myself to sleep every night my whenever there was a whore to play, she
drama division at Juilliard, where her first year,” she said. usually got the whore’s part,” her class-
brother Bobby had studied dance. The Her third year, three “advanced” stu- mate Sam Tsoutsouvas remembered. The
drama program was run by the legend- dents joined the class. One was Kevin troupe also played Broadway, where, in
ary actor-producer John Houseman, Kline. “I took an instant dislike to him,” 1975, LuPone and Kline starred in the
who had worked with Orson Welles. LuPone recalled. “He looked like Pin- musical “The Robber Bridegroom.” She
LuPone said, “John Houseman went occhio to me. He had skinny legs, and received her first Tony nomination the
out and found thirty-six of the craziest he was tall, and I didn’t really see the same season that her brother Bobby was
people he could find, to see whether he handsomeness.” That changed one day nominated for playing the director in “A
could strip down their personalities and in art-appreciation class, when they sat Chorus Line.” After four years, she and
create a ‘Juilliard actor.’” together in the back and started “feeling ten other company members rebelled
The training was incoherent. One each other up,” LuPone said. Their tur- against their overseers and quit en masse,
teacher would espouse one method— bulent on-and-off relationship lasted “like America breaking away from the
René Auberjonois told them, “Acting seven years. “He was a Lothario,” she re- British Empire,” Tsoutsouvas said.
is fucking”—only to land a gig and be called. “It was a painful relationship. I While touring, LuPone had met the
replaced by another teacher with a con- was his girlfriend when he wanted me young playwright David Mamet, who
flicting method. Of the original class, to be his girlfriend, but, if there was some- cast her, Kline, and Tsoutsouvas in his
thirteen graduated. “They wanted to body else, he would break up with me play “All Men Are Whores,” at Yale Cab-
throw me out of school, so they threw and go out with that person. And I, for aret. LuPone felt at home with Mamet’s
all sorts of roles in my direction to make some reason, stuck it out—until I couldn’t dialogue; its raw aggression gave lan-
me fail as an actor—but what they did stick it out anymore.” Kline remembered guage to her own. “The writing, once I
was train one actor in versatility,” the relationship as “fraught.” “We fought understood the rhythm, became the eas-
LuPone likes to say. Houseman criti- all the time,” he told me. “In the com- iest thing to speak,” she said. “I learned
cized her diction, calling her Flannel pany, we were known as the Strindbergs.” more about acting from David Mamet
Mouth—hence her compensatory After graduation, in 1972, the drama than I learned in four years at Juilliard.”
overenunciation—and once told her class formed a repertory troupe called Despite their divergent politics—Mamet
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 43
has gone MAGA—their collaboration
has endured. In response to several writ-
ten questions, Mamet sent me back the THE INHERITANCE
following: “Opening night on Broad-
way of ‘The Old Neighborhood,’ I was Mother, your hair
looking for Patti around 7 P.M. and has fallen
found her onstage asleep in the kitchen for the last time,
counter of the set. I understood it as a and I can’t raise it up.
Sicilian Panic Attack.” And I can’t put it down.
In 1979, LuPone won the role of Eva
Perón, the power-hungry First Lady of I can’t leave it on the ground.
Argentina, in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The ground is too crowded with the living,
musical “Evita.” It was, she recalled, a too teeming with the dead.
“vitriolic experience.” The score was so
punishing that she blew out her voice I can’t store it in the sky. The sky’s too full
days before the L.A. tryout; a doctor of birds and clouds and airplanes.
told her that her vocal cords looked like
raw hamburger meat. The director, Hal And the seas are full of mountains
Prince, wanted her to play Eva as cold and creatures and ships coming and going.
and unsmiling, contrary to her instincts.
She had a matinée alternate who she And, as long as earth turns,
was convinced was gunning for her job, all of the seasons are full of days.
and some of the dancers kept telling her
how Elaine Paige had done the part in There’s no place to lay your hair down.
London. “I said, ‘Stop right there. Let
me figure it out for myself,’” she recalled. Sleep won’t have it.
“So I made enemies in rehearsal.” This, Your hair whispers too many secrets and stories.
she believes, forged her reputation as a
prima donna. “I had maybe three allies Night doesn’t want it.
in the company,” she said. “It was Bei- There are no stars your hair won’t swallow.
rut from my dressing room to the stage.
I had no support. I faced this trial by
fire by myself.” den, where, the Times reported, in 1982, he was the only player who put in his
I spoke to a former “Evita” chorus she became a “regular in Section 27AA,” bio that he loved the theatre. “I prob-
boy who remembered LuPone as “a bit right behind the opposition net. She had ably saw ‘Evita’ about ten times,” he
of a mess and undisciplined and driv- a standing invitation from a cousin of said. “And once I was allowed to stay
ing Hal crazy.” But he also told a story her neighbors back in Northport, David right behind the stage!” (The former
that validated her sense of being messed Ingraham, whom she called a “Quaker chorus boy remembered that the ath-
with. After a rainy day of rehearsal, he slash arbitrage stockbroker slash high letes LuPone had invited to watch from
shared a taxi with her, and they became roller.” “It was high Greek drama right the wings blocked the actors’ entrances,
chummy. Then Prince’s general man- before my very eyes,” she recalled. “They infuriating the cast.)
ager ordered him to keep his distance were gladiators!” Because she was on The press couldn’t get enough of
from the leading lady. “I was very upset. strict vocal rest offstage, she’d pound the Broadway’s breakout star mingling
I thought it had come from Patti—that boards without screaming, using her with New York’s home team, and ru-
I had offended her. So, from that min- voice only when she was asked to per- mors spread that LuPone was dating
ute on, I absolutely iced her. In retro- form the national anthem. the Rangers’ curly-haired Adonis Ron
spect, I realized they wanted to control “It’s a great spectator sport,” she told Duguay. LuPone says they were just
her by isolating her.” me. “Baseball bores the shit out of me— acquaintances. (She did date an Edmon-
The show made LuPone an overnight so slow. Football: I don’t get it, except I ton Oiler who broke her heart.) But
star. She won the Tony, and everyone like them in their nice, tight spandex she remembers berating Duguay when
from Ava Gardner to Andy Warhol and their dreadlocks.” She did a Mae he went to “Evita” and spent part of the
flocked to her dressing room. But she West shimmy. show flirting with his agent at the bar.
never made peace with the pain. “They LuPone would party with the hockey He’s now dating Sarah Palin. “They’re
say it’s the way you learn,” she said. “But players, and they’d come see her shows. perfect for each other,” LuPone told
is it necessary? It hurt so much.” Ulf Nilsson, then a Rangers center from me. “They’re two of the stupidest human
One way she coped with the stress Sweden, told me, “If it was a face-off beings on the face of the earth.” Then
was hockey. On Sunday nights, when at her end, I could smile and more or she paused. “How do you say stupid
“Evita” was dark, LuPone would go to less say hello to her while I was play- without saying stupid? He’s a box of
Rangers games at Madison Square Gar- ing.” LuPone and Nilsson became close; bricks.” (“Wow, that’s hurtful,” Duguay
44 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
 her to keep an eye on the Leafs’ No. 34,
Auston Matthews. She reapplied her
lipstick as the teams skated out. “I’m
going to root for whoever wins,” she said.
When you were alive, A tenor who had been on Broadway
you gathered it, bound it, and piled it, in “The Phantom of the Opera” came
to balance on the top of your head. out to sing the anthems. LuPone stood
A small black urn, it shone. and sang along to “O Canada” but gri-
Later, it shone white. maced at “The Star-Spangled Banner,”
which she finds too martial and hard to
But your hair has come undone sing. “Good luck with this one, Mister,”
once and for all time, she grumbled, declining to join in.
and what was one “I predict the Leafs winning,” she
now is many. said as the game began, citing her “Si-
cilian witch instinct.” Nilsson had told
What started at your crown me that acting and hockey are similar,
now has no beginning. because both require focus. But LuPone
didn’t see much overlap. “It was all sex
What stopped at your waist appeal,” she recalled of her hockey fix-
now has no end. ation. “It was rare to have anything in
common except for the party that we
Now can’t be collected or dispersed. were going to.” Soon she was shouting
Now neither story nor song can comb or weigh. at the players, “Take your clothes off,
Now has no measure or address. boys! Naked hockey! No cups—I want
Now can’t be counted or left out. full frontal! HA!”
“They have to wear skates,” White
And I can’t carry it. chimed in. “And the helmets.”
And I can’t put it down. LuPone grunted, “Does anyone still
wear a hat?”
—Li-Young Lee The Leafs scored, and she cheered.
Less so for the Rangers—she’d been
turned off by all the U.S.A. jingoism.
said, when I reached him by phone, Thelma Ritter, friend, and wrangler, She also disapproved of the jumbotron
adding, “I can’t imagine living my life Pat, who gives me a shot every single (“Don’t tell me how I should feel”) and
being so hateful that way.”) night. I don’t know what’s in it, but I’m the fan contests during commercial
giving the performance of my life!” breaks (“Too much shit going on”). After
ne morning, LuPone called me (The shot joke was White’s idea.) “The the first period, with the Leafs ahead
O and asked, “What are you doing
tomorrow night?” Within minutes,
people who have become star dressers
know how to anticipate—and how to
2–1, she retired to a V.I.P. lounge and
recalled her “Evita” days. At curtain call,
she’d used her hockey connections to defuse,” LuPone said, drawing out the she said, her applause would dip after
get us V.I.P. tickets to see the Rangers “Z” sound. “A lot of things can upset the ovation for Mandy Patinkin, who
play against the Toronto Maple Leafs. the equilibrium of an actor, and musi- played the populist narrator Che. “I had
“Seven-o’clock puck drop,” she told me cals, in my opinion, are by their very to convince myself it was because I was
in a voice memo. We met at a private nature a vicious beast.” so good in the part that they couldn’t
dining room high in Madison Square White, a reserved woman in her six- make up their minds how they felt about
Garden. Steve Schirripa, who played ties with a thick Massachusetts accent, me,” she said. “People thought I was a
Bobby Bacala on “The Sopranos,” was agreed. During “Sweeney Todd,” in blond bitch, a fascist, a Nazi sympa-
sitting at the next table and gave 2005, White would read out their horo- thizer.” To make herself feel better, she
LuPone a big hello. (Her brother Bobby, scopes from the Post while LuPone got started performing a midnight cabaret
who died in 2022, played Tony Sopra- made up. One night, LuPone realized act on Saturdays after the show, at the
no’s neighbor Bruce Cusamano.) She that White was reading her the wrong Chelsea club Les Mouches. She would
tried to order a sherry—no dice. “No- horoscope, and White admitted, “If cover Petula Clark and Patti Smith and
body has sherry!” she moaned. yours is bad, I just read you the best let her wild side run free: “It was a de-
LuPone had brought along Pat one out of all of them.” sire for people to see who I really was.”
White, who became her longtime back- After dinner, we were escorted to the During the second period of the
stage dresser after the 1987 revival of ice: second row, behind the Toronto hockey game, she got restless. “The fight-
“Anything Goes.” I remembered White bench. “I’m so happy!” LuPone said, ing is so stupid,” she groaned, as two
from LuPone’s Tony speech for “Gypsy,” giddy, sipping rosé out of a plastic cup players brawled. “They look like idiots.”
in which she thanked “my very own through a straw. Her son, Josh, had told The Leafs scored again, and she wiggled
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 45
two fingers above her head—her Sicilian she told the crowd, “and it’s the most rience with the R.S.C. was so perfect
witch antennae. I asked her if her affin- fun I have onstage.” A woman in the that she didn’t want to taint it. “I’ve never
ity for the away team echoed her struggle front row picked No. 5. “Oh, God,” known whether I’ve made the right de-
to win over the audience as Evita. “I grav- LuPone said. “I did this show on Broad- cision,” she told the Symphony Space
itate toward the unexpected one, I really way—for two weeks.” It was “As Long crowd, when someone picked “I Dreamed
do,” she said. At the second intermission, As He Needs Me,” from “Oliver!” She a Dream” from the hat.
with the Leafs up 4–2, the announcer had starred in a failed revival in 1984, In 1989, she went to L.A. to star in
welcomed a couple of excited children her first Broadway show after “Evita.” the ABC drama “Life Goes On,” as the
who had won rides on the Zambonis. Her eighties career had its ups and suburban mother of a son with Down
“Who gives a shit?” LuPone bellowed. downs. She left “Evita” after twenty-one syndrome. “For four years,” she wrote
She had an early flight, so she left. months, because “I lost my sense of in her memoir, “I played a docile mom
“Let me know who wins,” she humor,” she said. She declined an offer in a patriarchal family.” By the series’s
deadpanned. to play Lady Macbeth at Lincoln Cen- end, she was bored silly and no longer
ter—“I said, ‘Haven’t I just been playing on speaking terms with her onscreen
ne evening, LuPone was onstage her for two years?’”—and instead went husband. Scott Wittman was helping
O at Symphony Space, on the Upper
West Side, warming up with the piano.
into “As You Like It” at the Guthrie, in
Minneapolis, because she wanted to work
her devise a solo act when she landed
what seemed like the part of a lifetime:
She ran through “Fever,” “Bewitched, with the Romanian director Liviu Ciu- Norma Desmond in the musical ver-
Bothered and Bewildered,” and “Any- lei. (During that show’s run, she got sion of “Sunset Boulevard.”
thing Goes,” but there was a good chance kicked out of Prince’s night club after It turned out to be the biggest deba-
that she wouldn’t perform any of them. she screamed at some people who were cle of her career. Her London reviews
The concert, “Songs from a Hat,” was booing her cousin’s punk band.) She were mixed; Frank Rich, in the Times,
designed like a parlor game: spectators played Harrison Ford’s sister in “Wit- called her “miscast and unmoving.”
would reach into a top hat and pull out ness,” but Hollywood’s interest in her Meanwhile, Lloyd Webber had cast
numbered cards, and LuPone would sing was intermittent. At one point, she starred Glenn Close in a concurrent L.A. pro-
the corresponding songs—mostly show- in a dead-end TV pilot as a singing ghost duction—LuPone thought it was a ploy
stoppers she’d claimed over her career, who haunts a laundromat. Nearly a dozen to gin up a rivalry—and Close’s wraith-
such as “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” fizzled plays after “Evita,” she was cast like approach won raves. LuPone was
or “The Ladies Who Lunch.” as Fantine in the Royal Shakespeare contracted to follow the role to Broad-
An hour later, she reappeared in a Company’s première of “Les Misérables,” way, but she found out from Liz Smith’s
glittery black dress. The format cast in London. It was a runaway hit, but she column that she was being dumped for
LuPone as a woman up for a dare. “I chose not to remain with the show when Close. The repudiation, mirroring Hol-
have no idea what I’m going to sing,” it went to Broadway, because her expe- lywood’s abandonment of Norma, only
deepened her remaining performances
in London. “I’d felt rejection, but not
that kind of rejection,” LuPone said.
Years later, at a Kennedy Center tribute
to Barbara Cook, Close took a seat next
to LuPone. “She said, ‘I had nothing to
do with it,’” LuPone recalled. “I wanted
to go, ‘Bullshit, bitch!’ ”
The recovery was hard. LuPone took
out her fury on her husband, Matt John-
ston. “It almost broke up our marriage,”
she said. (They’d met when she was play-
ing Lady Bird Johnson in a TV movie
and he was a camera assistant; they mar-
ried on the set of “Anything Goes.”) She
went on Prozac. After a hike one day, a
blood vessel in her left vocal cord burst,
and she needed surgery and intensive
rehabilitation. “It’s almost like she had
to start from scratch,” recalled Wittman,
who directed her in a 1995 concert run,
“Patti LuPone on Broadway.”
Despite stray successes—a stint as
Maria Callas in the play “Master Class”;
a topless role in Spike Lee’s “Summer
“We all feel like your book-club selection was a little selfish, Mark.” of Sam”—by the early two-thousands
her agents couldn’t get her seen for a TV derwear, barefoot. We looked in the hen a bottle of champagne from his office
pilot. Her comeback came courtesy of hut, and there was the raccoon, basically and gave it to LuPone to make amends;
Stephen Sondheim. They had socialized looking at us, going, ‘I ain’t finished.’” he did not realize that the label read
in Connecticut, where both had houses, In the city, where LuPone is the apex “Happy Opening, Sunset Boulevard.”
but, she said, “I thought he hated me.” predator, she keeps a sparsely decorated “The Roommate” shared a wall with a
(He once slammed a door in her face.) apartment on Central Park West, the neighboring show, “Hell’s Kitchen,” the
Sondheim liked getting stoned in her site of raucous New Year’s Eve parties. Alicia Keys musical, and sound would
barn with her husband. She played Mrs. The guest list runs from John McEnroe bleed through. At her stage manager’s
Lovett in an acclaimed Broadway re- to Cole Escola. “I asked her, ‘What’s the suggestion, LuPone called Robert Wan-
vival of “Sweeney Todd”—the actors vibe of the party?’” Aubrey kel, the head of the Shubert
played their own instruments, allowing Plaza recalled. “She went, Organization, and asked
LuPone to show off her tuba chops— ‘Oh, you know, cops and him if he could fix the noise
and then Madame Rose, the mother of showgirls.’ ” It was at this problem. Once it was taken
all stage mothers, in “Gypsy.” She brought apartment that I met her care of, she sent thank-you
brass and rage and woundedness to Rose, one Saturday at noon, bear- flowers to the musical’s crew.
a woman whose struggles, much like ing a bottle of sherry. She was surprised, then,
LuPone’s, are as self-perpetuated as they LuPone had laid out when Kecia Lewis, an ac-
are riveting. strawberries, chocolates, tress in “Hell’s Kitchen,”
Heading into her sixties, LuPone was and nuts. “Look at our little posted a video on Instagram,
on a high, her salty bravado now part of spread, dahling,” she said, speaking as one “veteran” to
her legend. During her penultimate per- with mock grandeur. She’d another, and called LuPone’s
formance in “Gypsy,” she stopped the just returned from the GLAAD Awards, actions “bullying,” “racially microaggres-
show to scold a photographer: “How in L.A., after which she hit a gay bar with sive,” and “rooted in privilege,” because
dare you? Who do you think you are?” the trans TikTok star Dylan Mulvaney. she had labelled “a Black show loud.”
(The photos were part of a planned mag- “I talk to myself a lot,” she told me. “Oh, my God,” LuPone said, balking,
azine feature, but whatever.) Her new- “Why? Don’t ask me. But I actually talked when I brought up the incident. “Here’s
found cachet, coupled with her adven- about Hal Prince in my head today.”The the problem. She calls herself a veteran?
turous tastes, brought her to unexpected conversation was about how he had tor- Let’s find out how many Broadway
places. Jac Schaeffer, the creator of “Ag- mented her during “Evita.” “That stuff shows Kecia Lewis has done, because
atha All Along,” was looking for a “Patti doesn’t go away. It sits there, going, Why, she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s
LuPone type” before realizing that she why, why?” As much as quarrelsome de- talking about.” She Googled. “She’s done
could get the real thing. “She’s infiltrated fiance has become part of her persona, seven. I’ve done thirty-one. Don’t call
all these counterculture spaces,” Schaef- it was striking to hear that it lingers even yourself a vet, bitch.” (The correct num-
fer said. Ari Aster cast her as Joaquin when she’s alone with her thoughts. As bers are actually ten and twenty-eight,
Phoenix’s mother, Mona, in “Beau Is she sipped her sherry, a lifetime of griev- but who’s counting?) She explained, of
Afraid” after seeing her on Broadway in ance and self-pity—all evidence of her the noise problem, “This is not unusual
Mamet’s “The Anarchist.” “I’d written success to the contrary—seemed to well on Broadway. This happens all the time
for Mona an endless, withering mono- up in her. “I was dealt the hard hand, in when walls are shared.”
logue that was meant to be very theat- everything,” she lamented. “So I say, This I mentioned that Audra McDonald—
rical and histrionic and grandiloquent, life is about figuring that out. The next the Tony-decorated Broadway star—had
while also being born of a real deep pain life is going to be easier.” given the video supportive emojis. “Ex-
and anger,” Aster told me. “Her sudden She went on, “We start in life vulner- actly,” LuPone said. “And I thought, You
appearance also needed to function as able. Then we are accosted. And then we should know better. That’s typical of Audra.
something of a punch line, and having put up the barriers. We put up the armor. She’s not a friend”—hard “D.” The two
the architect of Beau’s misery be Patti I’ve never lost my vulnerability, so the singers had some long-ago rift, LuPone
LuPone really made me laugh.” shock continues. I firmly believe this: it’s said, but she didn’t want to elaborate.
better to fail, because you learn so much When I asked what she had thought

Sandince the eighties, LuPone has been

based in Connecticut. Years ago, she
Johnston got a flock of chickens and
more. If you are anointed, you have no-
where to go. Failure makes you investi-
gate. Failure moves you to the next step.”
of McDonald’s current production of
“Gypsy,” she stared at me, in silence, for fif-
teen seconds. Then she turned to the win-
named them Marilyn, Rita, Eartha, Fog- In the meantime, the battles were un- dow and sighed, “What a beautiful day.”
horn Leghorn, and the Fabulous Miller relenting. She had told me, about co-star- It was. In Central Park, New York-
Sisters (Pia, Alexandra, and Marie- ring with Mia Farrow in the two-woman ers were strolling among the apple blos-
Chantal). All but three were massacred play “The Roommate” last fall, “There soms. “Oh, people sitting by themselves,
in a raccoon attack. “It was horrific,” was a little bit of bullshit that went down, lonely as hell,” LuPone observed, peer-
LuPone said. “There was blood and and then I washed my hands of a cou- ing from her window. “HA! Just lonely
feathers and guts all over the place when ple of people in the business.” One of as hell out there.” She was ready for a
my husband heard me screaming. He them, I found out later, was a press agent nap. As I walked out, she announced,
came down in this Victoria’s Secret un- who, after an offstage blowup, grabbed “I, my dahling, am taking to my bed.” 
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 47
 FICTION

48 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 ILLUSTRATION BY BILL BRAGG

T
his happened on the table-flat from inside, at last. “You’re Flower, pulled with frantic jerks. They weren’t
plains before most farms had the sheriff.” even the same size.
telephones. So these incidents “Well, who are you?” Flower asked. Weir was in back with the body.
came about because news travelled slow. Something in the sheriff ’s tone His teeth rattled and he felt as if his
Early one morning, Jake Weir went to deeply aggravated and frightened the head were going to burst. He kept tuck-
town to see about a mixture of grains man behind the door. ing the quilt down over Flower’s face.
for his horses. When he returned to “I am John Timble.” The voice wa- He did this tenderly. He’d stood with
his farm and went into the house, he vered, then gathered. “I am above the Flower a few years before when a cer-
saw a stranger sitting at his table. state. I am a detective. A Pinkerton.” tain town element had tried to oust
“What are you doing here?” “All right, John. Come out,” said him, and now Flower had given his life
Both men said this at the same time. Flower. He lifted his revolver and in an encounter that seemed pointless
“This is my house,” said Weir. stepped warily off the porch. and altogether Weir’s fault. He might
“You are mistaken,” said the stranger. Out John came with a rifle on his have done a better job than Ponath
“I must ask you to leave,” said Weir. hip. He pulled the trigger, then dropped with the driving, but he couldn’t leave
“You’re the one who should leave.” the gun as if in alarm. The sheriff’s death Flower. It took them nearly a full hour
“I guess I’ll have to go back to town was swift but not instantaneous. He still to travel the seven miles, and a bit more
and get the sheriff.” had time to fire. Later on, it was found time for Ponath to get straight the
“Go get him then. I don’t care.” that Flower’s bullet had struck Timble’s wording of the alert.
The man stood up. He wasn’t large hand, which would have thrown off the “John Timble has killed Sheriff Flower
or threatening, or red-haired or dark- murderer’s aim if Timble hadn’t fired and is running fugitive. Take him alive
haired or blond. Everything about him in that deadly instant in which one man or dead. He is known to be armed with”—
was middling—hair, height, face, age. has desperate certainty and owns sur- here Ponath consulted Weir, whose
Weir was confused by the man’s un- prise. The shot startled Weir’s team of weapon in Timble’s hands had killed
usual conviction, though. He half be- horses and they veered in unison to- the sheriff—“a .38-calibre Winchester.”
lieved that the man did own the place, ward the barn. Attempting to vault onto “He has plenty of ammunition,”
although he himself had bought it the the driving seat, Weir went head first Weir added, thinking of recent pur-
previous year. Yet maybe there was into the buggy box so that his legs were chases he’d left in the kitchen, heat
some odd reason that the man had a pumping in the air. The man who coming to his face, “and the fastest driv-
claim. Weir got back into his good thought he was above the state retrieved ing team in the whole damn county.”
black buggy and turned around. So the rifle and fired shots at Weir’s legs, His team consisted of the best pos-
responsive were his two horses that sending bullets through his overshoe sible combination—a mare and her
he barely needed to shift his grip on and cuff. The buggy stopped before a foal, now a four-year-old gelding. He’d
the reins. He made good time and fence. Up came John Timble. got the mare at auction for a song, no,
easily located the sheriff, who was at “Get out. I just want the team.” a short tune. No one had known what
the courthouse in the presence of a The murderer jumped onto the seat, she was. But Weir had seen it. Quar-
judge. Weir explained the predica- taking up the reins as he covered Weir ter horse, mustang, and possibly Mor-
ment, found he was in the right, and with the rifle. Weir pushed himself out gan. Dark and wonderful. The four-
proceeded to obtain a warrant for evic- of the buggy and stepped away, look- year-old had a dim white streak down
tion. Sheriff Flower and Deputy Otto ing not at the rifle but at his two horses. his back. The mare was persnickety
Ponath drove out to Weir’s farmstead, Timble drove around the yard once, sometimes, but her offspring always
with Weir following along in his buggy. and Weir watched the killer closely as steadied her. They ran in balance and
By then a thin wet snow was coming he made off with the horses. At least paced themselves to any deficiency in
down. As they entered the yard, the the man knew what he was doing. Weir the other’s mood. He’d trained them
front door of the house gaped open, and Ponath ran to help Sheriff Flower up until their gaits were matched so
but when the horses stopped the door but found that there was no life in him. perfectly that sometimes he had trou-
swung shut. The men climbed down “What are we to do now?” said ble breathing for the joy.
off their rigs, and Sheriff Flower ap- Ponath. Weir was sick about the sheriff, no
proached the house. “You’re the deputy,” said Weir. question, but now the undertaker had
“May I come in and dry my feet?” He went into the house and took him and there was nothing to be done.
he asked. the quilt off his bed. The two men car- He turned his attention to what had
“There’s no place in here to dry your ried Flower to the sheriff’s wagon, his happened and was glad the murderer,
feet” was the reply. body sagging dreadfully between them. who’d been wearing Weir’s best hat, his
“Well, then,” said Flower, “I want They hoisted him into the wagon bed, blue shirt, and his other jacket, hadn’t
to feed my team.” and Weir covered him with the quilt. killed him, too. However, he was be-
“Go to the stable and feed your team. The men tried to hurry to town to ginning to regret not putting up a strug-
I don’t care.” sound the alarm, but Flower’s spooked gle when the man took the reins into
Both men listened hard on either and jangled horses seesawed back and his hands. He kept thinking back to
side of the door. forth. The left horse just wanted to how Timble had circled the yard be-
“I know who you are,” said the voice shamble along, while the right horse fore pulling onto the road. The murderer
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 49
 belonging now to someone named Weir.
“Torn on a rough board,” said Tim-
ble, opening his palm.
Karlet went to her cupboard and found
a clean rag to use as a bandage and a tot
of whiskey to give the man and to wash
out the injury. She knew who the man
was, knew a bullet furrow when she saw
one. The house had no phone; whatever
trouble there was she could ignore for
now. So she gave him the last of the
chicken. It was a thick piece of chicken,
tender and well cooked, sandwiched be-
tween two generously buttered slices of
hot bread. That night John Timble slept
well, on the hard kitchen floor, with a
throbbing hand and the rifle beneath his
blanket, but also with a warm place in
his belly and the scent of still cooling
bread around him. The next morning,
he helped H.W. care for his stock and
accepted Karlet’s invitation to stay for
breakfast with the family.
“I know how you like your eggs
cooked,” she told Timble.
The two children were setting plates
down on the table. At their mother’s
words they spun toward her, not won-
dering how she could already know
how their guest might like his eggs but
mute with disappointment that he had
been offered the eggs. Timble cast his
gaze down, hid his smile.
“I don’t need an egg,” he said.
• • He’d found out while helping with
the chores that a slaughtering weasel
had a light and certain touch with the from the buggy with a pleasant gesture. had got into the henhouse through a
horses and drove pretty well, considering “I can sleep with my team in the crack. In the heat of its bloodlust, the
he’d just ended a sheriff’s life. barn if you’d give us shelter and a lit- weasel had killed the entire flock. The
tle food,” said the man. “John Timble.” hens now existed in jars packed and
cores of men posse’d up when they He held out his hand for a shake. “My canned on a cellar shelf. Soup from the
Sin wagons.
got the alert. Some on horses, some
Some marched back and
hope is that we might be neighbors.”
H.W. did not know the farm the man
carcass of the one chicken that the fam-
ily had spared itself bubbled on the
forth in front of their houses and farms. said he was looking for but explained stove, he could smell it, but eggs were
It was a cold December afternoon, and that he’d been there only a short while. few anyway in December and eggs there
it would be a cold night for those pa- “Luck upon you,” said Timble. would be no more.
trolling the roads and crossings. But a Cherian thanked him. I will eat an egg soon enough,
warm night for John Timble. “A man can make a lot of money,” thought Timble.
Ten days after H. W. Cherian moved Timble observed. Now the scent and sizzle of salt pork
his family onto a farmstead south of “Looks like you did pretty well for filled the house and soon large pieces
Tabor, he heard someone drive into yourself,” said H.W., shining the lamp of bread fried in the fat appeared. There
the yard. H.W. had been putting in on the good buggy and handsome team. was also porridge and strong hot cof-
order his request for a bank loan, while “So I have,” said Timble. fee. Timble thought of the blood that
his wife, Karlet, finished up a bit of They walked into the house, and had bloomed on the sheriff’s chest and
midnight baking. Holding a kerosene Timble nodded to Karlet. She noted he asked for another cup. He drank
lamp, he opened the kitchen door and that his hat and jacket were good but that down.
spoke to a well-mannered man who his trousers and shoes worn out. She “I must leave now,” he said.
had become lost in his quest to find a recognized the farm he’d spoken of as He put coins from his inner vest into
nearby farm. The man stepped down the one her family had once owned, the children’s hands, then picked up the
50 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
rifle. I was cornered but I am no killer, because the gelding’s distinction was a sounded fine and strong but they had
he thought, as he and the farmer new paddle foot. In the wrong position, he belonged to a different man. A man
to the area walked out. The problem might have cut his mother’s foreleg in who would take offense at the sheriff’s
now was that he’d got himself too far a wild chase, should such an awful sit- reedy voice. No more than that. Tim-
south, instead of heading west toward uation come about. Weir prayed it would ble’s dry fury had grabbed him like a
the coteau. The problem also was that not. He breathed fervently, trying to hungry spirit. In fact, he had been very
there’d been new snow and he was easy calm himself. He and Hartig were armed hungry at the time. Now he was well
to track. The problem for a while was only with revolvers. They meant to stop fed. The wagon behind him dropped
that he kept losing his grip on his Timble as he passed them, if he set out away. The road flowed along like milk
thoughts. He’d worked on these very east. To their intense disappointment, pouring from a jug. He forgot what he
farms when they had belonged to other Timble headed west. had done. The packed snow was hard
men. He’d worked any job he could The two men rolled into the farm- and clean, lightly dusted over. The sun
find and secured wealth for the land- yard and told the family about the killed was brilliant and mild on the western
owners. After felling trees in northern sheriff and the stolen team. H.W. was hills, where hardly anybody lived ex-
Wisconsin, he had suddenly hopped a aghast, stood outside slapping his arms cept Sioux Indians. Timble started
train back to this valley, where he’d spent as the men drove off after Timble. As thinking that he didn’t want to creep
the ardor of his youth. His ideas were Karlet well knew, a bullet had made a up on Indians. Eventually, he turned
jumbled. He’d slept cold in camps near deep groove in the outlaw’s palm. His around. He headed back toward the
the railroad with the hobos and the was a hand thickened by labor, but his men who were hunting him.
yeggers until he’d become a yegger, too. control of the horses and even his aim Every town and most farms along
After he’d arrived in the valley, he had could still be spoiled. She went back to the way now had the alert. Farmers
found himself walking to the first farm her wash. Even after it was all over, she were up their windmills and atop their
he knew, and then the next and the didn’t tell anyone what she knew, espe- barns and in other spots of vantage,
next in this limitless place. He hoped cially not her husband, who’d failed to scouting for Timble. Men were out
that the sheriff, whom he’d noticed buy- repair the henhouse when they moved with every variety of weapon. They
ing licorice drops just the other day, in. She didn’t tell her children, either, were swarming along the border be-
wasn’t mortally hurt. but she did tell her grandchildren. They tween Wakazonta and White Rock. A
The men took care with the buggy. asked her to tell them many times, in man named Budack stopped the wagon
As H. W. Cherian stroked the mare, fact, about the murderer who’d worked that Weir was driving and threw his
he noticed the new tack. on her father’s farm and who, the next carbine rifle to Hartig.
“These horses are sheer gorgeous,” time she saw him, ate the last of the “Let’s keep our heads,” said Weir,
he said. weasel-killed chicken in a sandwich. alarmed. “Don’t go blasting away around
They stood back to admire their She told how, the next morning, he had my horses.”
rich depth of brown. Had Cherian lived refused the eggs and given the children, “Don’t worry,” said Hartig.
there even a few more weeks he would who became their parents, coins. Kar- “Let me take your place,” said Bu-
have known who had reared and trained let knew how he’d earned the coins or dack to Weir.
the team. Timble nodded his thanks, used to earn them—he had kept stock, “No.”
gathered up the reins, and swept his Budack reached up with his power-
finger from his forehead to say good- ful skinny arms, grabbed Weir’s jacket,
bye. And all the while he and H.W., and wrenched him off the seat. Hartig
still warm from their breakfast, were snatched up the reins, putting down the
being watched by two very cold men. rifle. Then Budack vaulted on in Weir’s
place, yelling “Git! Git!” He found the
eir and his friend Hartig were whip and used it, so that Hartig was
W hiding a couple of hundred yards
beyond the farmstead. They had been
hard put to steady the wagon. Budack
picked up the rifle. He had seen Tim-
out all night tracking the murderer. Just ble driving toward the crossing just
an hour ago, Weir had recognized the pitched hay, plowed, managed the ahead. The horses jumped forward. Weir
marks of his own buggy wheels and the threshing teams, dug a well that had ran behind the wagon. From a distance,
shoes on his horses. From a stand of collapsed and nearly killed him. It had he saw his buggy and horses with Tim-
trees on the east edge of the farm, they seemed from his matched horses and ble driving make the crossing, and heard
were waiting to get the jump on Tim- nice shirt that he’d come up in the world, the shooting start.
ble. Weir had watched the killer lead and she was sorry that was not true.
his horses to the buggy. To his satisfac- ust be that I killed Flower, thought
tion and relief, he saw Timble harness
the team back in the same position as W hy did I say that I was a Pinker-
ton man? Timble asked himself
M Timble. Now he was travelling
along the snow-blown fields, past little
the day before. By this he knew the man this question when he noticed the outcrops and section roads. Again he
didn’t want to monkey with the setup. wagon following. Why did I say that left behind the wagon that was after
That was the satisfaction. The relief was I was above the state? Those words had him and enjoyed the flow of peace along
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 51
the reins. There’d never been anything down his man he aimed for the horse. her sleeves were rolled up over her
like this before in his life and he didn’t Why haven’t they managed to shoot strong tanned forearms and she was
want it to end. Therefore, he hadn’t me yet? Timble puzzled as he went off wiping her hands on her apron, as if
stopped when he saw men along the on foot, walked and ran, stopping occa- she’d just washed them. She was walk-
road trying to flag him down. He’d just sionally to try to kill the man who had ing quickly, purposefully, but not run-
sailed through the crossing and over jumped down to pursue him. Budack ning, so he didn’t think that he’d been
the frozen sloughs beyond. He hadn’t was an eager devil. He’d even fired a bul- hit very badly. Her brown hair was
thought why, but as soon as the wag- let that grazed Timble’s scalp and knocked loose, as if she’d just washed that,
ons drew near again he knew. Hanging him down for a moment. Timble en- too. Her hair was blowing about her
was not for a man such as himself. He tered the big White Rock ravine with shoulders and as she got near to him
was meant to drive marvellous crea- plenty of ammunition. The trees were she smiled.
tures. And not yet had he asked of them glowing with hoarfrost down there, “I seen your sister this very morn-
the utmost! Once the shooting started picked out golden by the low rays of sun- ing,” he said to her.
up, however, he slapped the reins down light. He’d got hauled out of caved earth As if this were an ordinary meet-
lightly and thrilled to the heat of power once and went from dead to living. The ing, she made an exasperated face that
in his hands. The horses were flying years since had been gravy. Oh, it was was nonetheless full of love. Her frac-
like hawks and he knew this country good to be above ground. Today was like tious sister, Karlet, had been a favor-
well, having worked these farms; if one of those dances he’d been at from ite of their conversation. Each of the
he could shake his pursuers again he time to time, where, just when you mean daughters had a name that began with
wanted to visit the rolling country and to leave, the music and the lights pick the letters of the name their father
small rivers just east of White Rock. up. But you can’t stay. Someone is wait- had chosen, upended by the letters
He wanted to see the tall winter jack- ing, he thought. I know what I had. Milk that their mother had insisted upon.
rabbits bouncing across the snow. The pouring from a jug. I will never have the Beatril was the oldest, then Nantiv,
road faltered, and he let the horses pick like of that drive again. I know these and at last Karlet. The farm had failed
their way along. He’d make up the dis- farms. Ate well in my life. I’ve no com- three years in a row, and they had
tance, he believed, and if cornered again plaint except for want of land. Yet, that moved to town, renting out the house
he still had time to kill himself. bread! And also, yet. Who would take and land, leaving Timble to hunt down
such an evil shot? Horses pull for each jobs and hop trains to follow the har-
udack did the shooting and used other and he could see the one on the vest. He’d got stuck in Nebraska. Upon
B his cavalry rifle. He’d been seven-
teen years old serving during the last
left was bred from the one on the right,
and they’d no call to shoot a son’s mother.
his return, he found that Beatril had
contracted typhus and died of it. He’d
of the Indian Wars. He considered him- A soundless drench of colors smote walked back to the train and kept
self afraid of nothing, though to tell Timble. moving—east, west, and, of course,
the truth he’d only guarded starving south down the harvest corridor. How
stragglers and left when the buffalo nce the tack and harness were un- the years passed. The things he’d seen
soldiers turned everything upside down.
When they relieved his company down
O tangled, the son lifted himself away
from his mother. He stood alone as he
and done. But he remembered best
the year that he and Beatril found
in Sisseton, he’d quit. Since that time, was being rubbed dry with hay. When that she was for him and he was for
decades had passed and he’d tried ev- half of you is gone, the half left behind her. (He’d remembered everything,
erything he could think of to get a job begins its long descent into a cold times over, bucking along in boxcars.)
as sheriff or deputy sheriff or any kind strange barn. No matter how warm you How they’d shared a jug of ginger
of official in any town at all, but peo- get you are never warm and no matter water in the heat of the day, how she
ple had turned away—as if there were how much you eat you are never full. shook off her apron and laid out a
something about him. You are out of harness but somehow picnic of bread and apples. Before he
It was not until he threw down Weir pulling the entire weight. At least the left, they lay down in the brittle yel-
and leaped up beside Hartig that he got authority came to him. Cradled his jaw, low grass and watched grasshoppers
his chance. He would do anything to kept running the brush along his back, spring from tip to tip above their
bring down a criminal. He was furious made the sounds they make when they heads. In the peace of early twilight
that they’d let the man skim by. It nearly must stand up to a loss. It wasn’t enough, they had turned to each other.
maddened him. He tried to hang on but the man stayed near and made “Love of my days.”
and kept shooting, reloading, shooting, noises, why if only and why and if only He had said it to her then and he
whether or not he was in range. Hartig and if only why—all sorts of nonsense— said it to her now. Someone’s boots
side-eyed him and told him to settle. and gave shape to the suffering. squeaked on the snow. Budack loomed
There was rough road ahead, and they over them, his revolver out. Kneeling
gained ground on the buggy. At one fter the colors cleared away, beside Timble, Beatril grasped his hand
point, Weir’s horses had to turn nearly
sideways on the broken path. Budack
A Timble was surprised to see Be-
atril walking toward him over the
and said, “Don’t mind him.” 

had the rifle on his shoulder in that mo- snow. She was wearing her summer NEWYORKER.COM/FICTION
ment. He took the shot. And to bring dress of rose pink with tiny checks; Sign up to get author interviews in your inbox.

52 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025

 THE CRITICS
JAN LUKAS

BOOKS

STRONG OPINIONS
William F. Buckley, Jr., and the making of modern conservatism.

BY LOUIS MENAND

he January 31, 1983, issue of The the author took to have his limousine
T New Yorker carried the first install-
ment of a two-part article titled “Over-
of whole-wheat toast, each topped with tuna
fish and then with a cheese something that my
wife, Pat, read about somewhere; a salad; a
customized; his recent purchase of a
thirty-six-foot sloop, the Patito; his an-
half bottle of Côte Rôtie (I remember the name
drive.” The piece was autobiographical, of the wine only because it’s the one I have in nual ski vacations in Gstaad; his base-
written in the form of a journal cover- half bottles), and coffee. ment Jacuzzi and thirty-foot swimming
ing a week in the life of the author, who pool (“the most beautiful indoor swim-
was William F. Buckley, Jr. It began: Thus deliciously launched, the arti- ming pool this side of Pompeii”); his
Monday cle proceeded, over many pages (it was loyal driver, Jerry, a retired New York
Gloria Cervantes, our Mexican-American the age of print; magazines had many City fireman (“In fifteen years, I have
cook, brought my lunch in on a tray: two pieces pages), to tell its readers about the steps never heard him complain—not even

Buckley’s ambition was to be, above all, a writer. But his true celebrity derived from being a show unto himself.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 53
about his brain-damaged but appar- to fifteen million in a camp to which CBS cam- nothing.” Still, Buckley knew how to
ently contented daughter, whom he eras have no access. turn a phrase, and “Overdrive” is writ-
permits to sit with him in the front ten with panache. This (one hopes) was
seat, but only on weekends and when Then, in the very next sentence: what appealed to the magazine’s edi-
the car is empty or I alone occupy it”); tor, William Shawn, who personally
and Pat Buckley’s bespoke Bloody Mary I completed my notes and ate the perfect edited Buckley’s pieces. They are fun
chicken sandwich Gloria Cervantes brought
mix, which calls for Campbell’s Beef me, with a glass of cool white wine. Pat came
to read. Buckley was often imitated,
Broth. Accept no substitutes. in, en route to her lunch, and we discussed the but at heart he was inimitable. Who
Along the way, names are dropped weekend plans, and she told me now don’t for- else could segue fluidly from a dead
with a gilded clatter: get that my black tie and cummerbund were in Vietnamese mother not just to a harp-
the pocket of my tux, and I promised I’d re- sichord but to a harpsichord-maker
I think it’s probably true to say that no one member, and walked down the stairs with her,
in the world knows both John Kenneth Gal- saw her out, and dangled for a minute over the
with Parkinson’s?
braith and Milton Friedman better than I do. harpsichord. And people liked him—even peo-
ple, and he was friends with many, who
David Niven bounds over, and we embrace, The harpsichord ? It was, we learn, did not share his politics. Although
French style, and gabble as we walk into the “proclaimed . . . the finest ever made he was ruthless as a debater and rarely
sunroom.
by John Challis, that shy little harpsi- pulled a punch, offstage he was
Tonight, Pat and I (and others) are guests chord-maker with Parkinson’s disease, thoughtful, generous, and warm, not
of Joseph and Estée Lauder at a benefit for the who twice, before dying, in 1974, came only to the celebrities of whose ac-
New York City Ballet at the New York State to tune and voice the instrument.” It’s quaintance he boasted but to the peo-
Theatre. all believable, because you can’t make ple he worked with and who worked
Timothy Leary called, but didn’t leave a
this stuff up. for him. On “Firing Line,” he espe-
return number. (That often happens.) “Overdrive” was actually the fourth cially enjoyed debating adversaries who,
memoir Buckley published in The New like him, were performers: Norman
Buckley was a political opinion- Yorker. They are all a little cringey, Mailer, Germaine Greer, Christopher
ator—that was pretty much his sole but they meant a lot to Buckley, be- Hitchens. He counted Zero Mostel,
occupation—and “Overdrive” is de- cause he regarded The New Yorker as who was once blacklisted as a sus-
signed, as the title suggests, to allow us the cynosure of good writing (no dis- pected Communist, a good friend.
to ride along during the impressively pute there) and considered himself Buckley’s financial circumstances—
busy yet somehow effortless (one senses to be, above all, a writer. As he was no he eventually made money as a writer,
a large staff toiling in the background) doubt at some level aware, a lot of his but his parents were wealthy and his
routine of a man who wrote three na- political writing was either hot takes wife’s parents were even wealthier—al-
tionally syndicated newspaper columns on topics he was not always terribly lowed him to be a bon vivant, and he
a week; edited a biweekly political mag- well informed about or, in longer form, invited others to share in his version of
azine (National Review); hosted a cobbled-together work. He had a the good life, about which he saw no
weekly public-affairs television show knack for sounding knowledgeable, reason to pretend embarrassment. Al-
(“Firing Line”); published, in the course but he disliked doing research. He though he gave advice to political can-
of his lifetime, some fifty books, or didates, and worked closely with a few,
things sold as books; and was constantly he knew that, at bottom, he was an en-
f lying off to speaking engagements tertainer, not a thinker or a politician.
around the country, up to seventy of In 1965, near the height of his celeb-
them a year. rity, he ran for mayor of New York City.
At a time when the unemployment Asked by reporters what he would do
rate topped ten per cent, “Overdrive” if he won, he said, “Demand a recount.”
had Buckley enjoying his half bottles But “Overdrive” was not just a lark.
and his sloop—and perpetually mull- Behind the swagger and the noncha-
ing over the contents of the always im- lance, there was a point that Buckley
minent next column, speech, or tele- bragged that he could write a news- was somewhat desperately trying to
vision program. And so, interspersed paper column in twenty minutes and make. For he drops one name more as-
with the personal and social vignettes, a whole book while on vacation in siduously than all the others:
there is a sprinkling of debaters’ points Gstaad—probably not things one
and soundbites. should say publicly. The telephone operator says would I hang
on for a minute, which I do, and presently
The juxtapositions can be a bit star- “Overdrive” was catnip to parodists. my old friend the Commander-in-Chief is
tling. For example: Prudence Crowther’s sendup, in The on the line.
New York Review of Books, began, “At
It is much easier to convey the image of a 6 AM Carmina Burana, our serf, tip- This was, of course, Ronald Reagan,
single child or mother blasted to eternity as a
result of the bombing in Vietnam than suc- toes in with my tray. She is small, mute, then in the second year of his Presidency.
cessfully to communicate the quality of life of and as usual radiant with contentment, A friendship between a man who
Ivan Denisovich multiplied by a factor of ten which we love. I nod warmly but say presented as a cornball high-school
54 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
football coach and a man who pre-
sented as an overgrown preppie seems
improbable. For Reagan genuinely was
a cornball. He kept a jar of jelly beans
on his desk in the Oval Office, and
he began every day by reading the
comic strips. He did not make him-
self out to be a sophisticate. And Buck-
ley was genuinely a preppie. No one
would have thought to call him “the
Gipper.” During the mayoral race, it
emerged that Buckley didn’t know
who Mickey Mantle was—and Man-
tle was still playing.
But five columns of “Overdrive” are
devoted to an account of Buckley ac-
companying Nancy Reagan, Ron, Jr.,
and Ron’s wife, Doria, to the eight-
and-a-half-hour Royal Shakespeare
production of “Nicholas Nickleby” on
Broadway. (“Everything about going
to the theatre with a First Lady is made
enormously easy—no tickets to buy or “They’re onto our good-cop, bad-cop trick. One of you will have
crowds to thread through.” Sweet.) to love-bomb and one of you will have to neg.”
Along the way, we learn that the Rea-
gans spent the Thanksgiving of 1976
at the Buckley family home, where the
• •
men played touch football.
In fact, Buckley and Reagan seem Buckley could find to claim his share up (Sharon), went to college (New
to have had a bona-fide friendship. As of the credit for Reagan’s success. Haven), and spent his married life
is often the way with bona-fide friend- That story, the triumph of twentieth- (Stamford). But the family was South-
ships, it was also a friendship of mu- century American conservatism, with ern, and it helps to see them that way.
tual convenience. Reagan was a regu- Buckley in a starring role, is the story The Bushes moved from Connect-
lar reader of National Review, and he Sam Tanenhaus tells in “Buckley: The icut to Texas; the Buckleys went
was undoubtedly happy to have the Life and the Revolution That Changed the other direction. William F. Buck-
political support of an erudite East America” (Random House)—a long (a ley, Sr.—Will—was a Texan (his fa-
Coast socialite who used big words and thousand pages, though it reads shorter), ther was a sheriff) who made a for-
went to Yale, someone whose alliance well-written, and intelligent take, both tune in oil, first in Mexico, then in
might convince Republican blue bloods critical and admiring, on a complicated Venezuela. His wife, Aloise Steiner,
that a former sportscaster, movie actor, man. The book is a history of postwar came from Louisiana. Both were
and television pitchman was their kind American political life in the form of devout Catholics. They settled in
of Republican. And, as the editor of a a biography of one of its actors. One Sharon when Will opened a New
diehard conservative publication, Buck- relives a lot, and one learns a lot. York office.
ley also protected Reagan on the far “He gave us Reagan” is the standard Their house, called Great Elm, was
right, or as far right as it was seemly narrative line on Buckley. It is the line grand and well staffed. Will lived in
for him to go. in John Judis’s earlier biography, “Wil- the city during the week and travelled
For Buckley, who’d had to strug- liam F. Buckley: Patron Saint of the often. The children—there were even-
gle to pretend that Richard Nixon Conservatives” (1988), also a very good tually ten; Bill was the sixth—saw lit-
was a true conservative—at least book. Still, we are left wondering tle of him, though when he was around
Nixon was anti-Communist, he used whether the rainbow hasn’t actually he loomed large. Aloise was, Tanen-
to tell himself, but then Nixon went landed us in a very different sort of pot. haus writes, “ever just out of reach,”
to China and broke Buckley’s heart— and the children relied on their nan-
Reagan’s election was a consumma-
tion he had labored thirty years in the
“ I tthat
simply happens to be the case
I have never in my entire life
nies. Bill’s was Mexican, and he spoke
Spanish before English. He was sent
political wilderness to bring about. been without servants, maids, and to school in Paris at age six, where he
Reagan was the pot of gold at the end chauffeurs,” Buckley wrote, respond- picked up French, and in Britain at
of Buckley’s rainbow. He could for- ing to those who rolled their eyes at seven. Hence the much imitated, never
give a few jelly beans. “Overdrive” may “Overdrive.” The Buckleys are associ- quite placeable accent.
have been as understated a way as ated with Connecticut, where he grew The Buckleys also owned a former
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 55
plantation in Camden, South Caro- ism of the Yale professoriat. But that an advance copy of the book. “It’s too
lina—Kamchatka, once the home of reputation for radicalism was a little intellectual for me,” McCarthy said.)
a Confederate general—which they misleading. When Buckley arrived, a They were careful not to defend
visited regularly and where they felt quarter of Yale students were legacies, McCarthy the man—an alcoholic, a
more at ease than in Yankee New En- and a third had gone to prep schools. fabricator, a political thug whose in-
gland. South Carolina was, needless In 1948, eighty-eight per cent supported quisitions destroyed reputations but
to say, a Jim Crow state. A family friend Thomas E. Dewey for President; four yielded no convicted spies. They in-
recalled visiting in 1949 and seeing per cent backed Harry Truman. Con- stead defended “McCarthyism” as “a
“black people trimming the hedges, servative opinion had plenty of room movement around which men of good
tipping their hats.” For several years to breathe at Yale. What set Buckley will and stern morality may close
in the nineteen-fifties, the apart was less his politics ranks.” They called for the Commu-
family quietly supported a than his Catholicism. nist Party to be outlawed (it never has
local paper aligned with “God and Man at Yale,” been), and stopped just short of argu-
the segregationist White published and promoted ing that expressing Communist ideas
Citizens’ Council. The with financial help from should be a crime.
Buckleys were known for Will Buckley, likely made But a month after the book’s release
being generous to their a bigger splash than its au- the Army-McCarthy hearings be-
Black help. They were gen- thor expected—certainly gan—a televised spectacle that effec-
teel segregationists. bigger than it deserved. It’s tively ended McCarthy’s career. Eight
Will Buckley’s anti- a highly ad-hominem af- months later, the Senate censured him,
semitism, by contrast, was fair, naming names and and he was finished. The book was
not genteel. “He despised calling for the dismissal of widely panned.
Jews with an intensity he made no ef- professors who didn’t promote Chris- Buckley was undaunted. A year
fort to conceal,” Tanenhaus writes. He tianity as the true religion or capital- later—again with f inancial help
saw them as Communists and money- ism as the proper economic system— from his father—he started National
grubbers, and the children absorbed professors whom Buckley accused of Review. He recruited reliable anti-
the message. One night in 1937, four orchestrating “a deft, left-wing ma- Communists, including James Burn-
of Bill’s older siblings burned a cross nipulation of an insensate and tracta- ham, a former Trotskyist whose book
outside a Jewish resort in Amenia, ble student body.” “The Managerial Revolution” was a
New York. Bill was upset that he hadn’t To the defense that such faculty big inf luence on George Orwell’s
been included. He later dismissed it were protected by academic freedom, “1984,” and Whittaker Chambers, an
as “a Halloween prank.” This was four Buckley replied that academic free- ex-Communist who had named Alger
years into the Third Reich. dom was a “hoax.” Yale, he argued, Hiss as a Soviet spy in the case that
To Will, Communists were a greater had its own orthodoxy—secularism launched Nixon’s career. (Tanenhaus
threat than Nazis. He opposed U.S. and collectivism—and alumni should is the author of a well-regarded bi-
entry into the Second World War, was force a purge by threatening to with- ography of Chambers.)
an isolationist, and belonged to the hold donations. But Buckley also welcomed literary
America First Committee. Another The book is sloppy, but the Yale ad- talent to his pages: Joan Didion, Ar-
America Firster, Charles Lindbergh, a ministration overreacted. It arranged lene Croce, Garry Wills, George Will,
eugenicist and a champion of the white for McGeorge Bundy, an alumnus, to the literary critic Hugh Kenner, and
race, was a family hero. write a takedown in The Atlantic John Leonard, a Harvard dropout who
Bill attended the Millbrook School, Monthly, where Bundy called Buckley joined National Review at nineteen and
served nearly two years in the Army “a twisted and ignorant young man.” went on to become a legendary editor
(the war ended before he could be sent A print controversy erupted, and within of the Times Book Review.
overseas), and entered Yale in 1946. He weeks “God and Man at Yale” was a It was lonely on the right in the
thrived. He became the chairman of New York Times best-seller, and “Wil- postwar years. Eisenhower didn’t dis-
the Yale Daily News, a member of Skull liam F. Buckley, Jr.” had become a brand. mantle the New Deal bureaucracy or
and Bones, and a champion debater. The book remains in print seventy-four take hard-line measures against the
Tanenhaus calls him “the uncrowned years later. Soviets. The first sign that conserva-
king of the Yale campus.” In 1950, the Buckley’s next project was a four- tism might gain national traction came
year he graduated, he married Pat Tay- hundred-page defense of Joe McCar- in 1964, when Barry Goldwater ran
lor, the Sorbonne-educated daughter thy, co-written with L. Brent Bozell, his for President.
of a Canadian industrialist. Yale classmate and brother-in-law. “Mc- National Review embraced Gold-
Having inherited his father’s un- Carthy and His Enemies: The Record water. Bozell ghostwrote his campaign
compromising politics, Buckley liked and Its Meaning” appeared in March, book, “The Conscience of a Conser-
posing as a right-wing radical—a rep- 1954, just as McCarthy was at the height vative,” a hit with college students. But
utation he would cement with the pub- of his powers, harassing the federal gov- Goldwater was crushed in the general
lication of his first book, “God and ernment with claims of Communist in- election, winning just 38.5 per cent of
Man at Yale,” an attack on the liberal- filtration. (Buckley and Bozell sent him the vote. The man who crushed him,
56 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
Lyndon B. Johnson, working with a a “gateway drug to conservatism.” It
Democratic Congress, expanded the kept conservative ideas alive, and
federal government even further. Early Buckley visible, in a liberal decade.
in the decade, the youth had looked It’s interesting, therefore, that Buck-
as if they might swing right. They ley owes much of his lasting celebrity
swung left instead. to two debates he lost—one with James
Baldwin, at Cambridge University, in
espite these headwinds, in April, 1965, and one with Gore Vidal, at the
D 1966, Buckley launched “Firing
Line.” One of his first guests was Nor-
1968 Democratic National Convention.
In the first, he was outclassed; in the
man Thomas, probably the best-known second, he lost his cool.
socialist in America. He had run for Buckley had stated his position on
President six times. (Thomas was civil rights in 1957, in a National Re-
eighty-one, and Buckley was aggres- view editorial headlined “Why the
sive and belittling—not a great start.) South Must Prevail” (“South” mean-
The show would remain on the air for ing, of course, white people). The ques-
thirty-three years, a television record tion, he wrote,
for a program of its kind. is whether the White community in the
“Firing Line” never made a profit. South is entitled to take such measures as are
(Neither did National Review.) The necessary to prevail, politically and culturally,
audience was small, and for a portion in areas where it does not predominate numer-
of its run the show was carried on ically? The sobering answer is Yes—the White
community is so entitled because, for the time
PBS—awkward, since its host was gen- being, it is the advanced race.
erally an opponent of government
spending. But it is fair, if a little oxy- In 1963, when Baldwin’s “The Fire
moronic, to call “Firing Line” a seri- Next Time” came out (much of it was
ous effort at political entertainment. serialized in The New Yorker), Buckley
Much of success in life is owed to published a column titled “A Call to
quickness, and Buckley was quick. Lynch the White God,” in which he
Debate was his preferred medium of called Baldwin “an eloquent menace,”
exposition, and he would take on any- a revolutionary, and an America-hater.
one who could talk back to him. Peo- And, in December, 1964, five months
ple who could not bored him. The after the passage of the Civil Rights
liberal activist Allard Lowenstein was Act, National Review ran a cover story
on his show nine times. Eldridge entitled “Negroes, Intelligence and
Cleaver, Huey Newton, Muhammad Prejudice.” It concluded that, whatever
Ali, and Jesse Jackson were all guests. the reasons for racial differences, bio-
So was George Wallace, although logical or environmental, “the needs of
Buckley hated Wallace and refused Negro children would be met best . . .
to shake his hand. You did not see by separate education.”
people like that on television very Buckley disapproved of civil dis-
often in the days before cable. The obedience and regarded Martin Lu-
commercial networks would have ther King, Jr., as a criminal. “Word
pulled the plug on Eldridge Cleaver should be gently got to the non-vio-
very fast. lent avenger Dr. King,” he once wrote,
And the rumpled, rubber-faced “that in the unlikely event that he suc-
manner, the popping eyes, the lan- ceeds in mobilizing his legions, they
guorous drawl, the charmingly wicked will be most efficiently, indeed most
grin he flashed when he thought he zestfully repressed.”
had scored a kill—Buckley was a show At Cambridge, Buckley vastly un-
unto himself. Tanenhaus calls him a derrated Baldwin’s skills in debate.
“performing ideologue.” He was com- Baldwin had been a child preacher in
pared to Andy Warhol, and some ob- Harlem; like his friend Dr. King, he
servers detected an element of camp. knew how to read a room. The topic
What other conservative intellectual of the debate was “The American dream
in those years had telegenic powers is at the expense of the American
like that? Heather Hendershot, in Negro,” a subject custom-made for
“Open to Debate” (2016), a smart book Baldwin. He used a rhetorical device
with a light touch, calls “Firing Line” that many members of subordinated
groups have used: he made himself into luck. They were contracted to do one ald Ford in the primaries in 1976, which
the personification of a people. “I picked more night on the air; ABC separated put his name on the political map. In
the cotton,” he declared at the climax them with a curtain. 1980, he cruised to the nomination and
of his speech. “I carried it to the mar- defeated Jimmy Carter in the general
ket, and I built the railroads under n 1968, the Republican Party was still election, carrying forty-four states.
someone else’s whip for nothing. For
nothing.” Baldwin spoke for twenty-
IRockefeller
dominated by liberals like Nelson
and John Lindsay. Buckley
Over the rainbow?
Not exactly. Tanenhaus’s book de-
four minutes and was given a two- loathed Lindsay, a fellow-Yalie. One of votes eight hundred and thirty-five
minute standing ovation from an over- the reasons—possibly the main reason— pages to Buckley’s life up to Reagan’s
flow audience. he ran for mayor of New York City on first term and just thirty pages to the
Buckley was on next, and he was the Conservative Party ticket was to rest. Buckley died in 2008. Some twenty-
clearly shaken. He plainly did not throw the race to the Democrat, Abe five years are nearly missing. ( Judis’s
know what to do with an opponent Beame. (Lindsay won anyway.) Mean- biography has the same lopsided shape,
who had transformed himself into an while, the civil-rights movement split but he wrote it when Buckley was still
entire race, and much of his response the Democratic coalition—its South- alive.) It wasn’t as though Buckley was
was an attack on Baldwin (who had ern wing peeled off, never to return— inactive, but he was no longer at the
completely ignored Buckley)—as and Vietnam fractured the liberals. It center of American political life. He
though the history of slavery and Jim was just enough for Richard Nixon to was no longer interesting.
Crow could be addressed by finding win the Presidency in an election where This may be because, once he iden-
things to criticize in Baldwin’s books. George Wallace carried five states. tified with the establishment, Buckley
As was the custom, a vote was taken Buckley was involved in the Nixon lost his outsider’s edge. It may be be-
after the debate: Baldwin 544, Buck- campaign and, after Nixon was elected, cause the New Right that was associ-
ley 164. Buckley never let it go. He consorted with Nixon’s national-secu- ated with Reaganism looked on Buck-
always claimed that the debate was a rity adviser, Henry Kissinger, whom he ley with suspicion. It may be because
setup by anti-Americans. He may had known since 1954. Buckley sensed the liberal punching bags of the nine-
have lost the vote, he told Garry Wills that Nixon was playing him, that he teen-fifties and sixties were gone, re-
a few years later, but “I never gave one only pretended to listen to his advice. placed by neoliberals like Bill Clinton,
goddam inch.” Kissinger certainly played him, as he who made for a more elusive target.
The Buckley-Vidal f iasco came played everybody. He kept Buckley on But somehow Buckley seemed to have
about because ABC, in those days the board by convincing him that getting found himself on the shelf.
poorest network, could not afford com- out of Vietnam and opening relations Buckley’s political philosophy was
plete coverage of the Democratic Na- with China weren’t betrayals of the always simple. He stated it in the pref-
tional Convention, and so it enlisted anti-Communist cause. Kissinger, too, ace to “God and Man at Yale”:
Buckley and Vidal as rival commen- knew how to perform. I myself believe that the duel between
tators on the proceedings. The gim- Besides, Buckley counted Kissinger Christianity and atheism is the most impor-
mick worked as a ratings booster; a friend, and he was loyal to friends. tant in the world. I further believe that the
Tanenhaus says that ABC drew as many This would become a problem for him struggle between individualism and collectiv-
as ten million viewers a night. Other- with Watergate. After graduating from ism is the same struggle reproduced on an-
other level.
wise, it was poor casting. Neither man Yale, Buckley had served briefly in the
cared about the reputation of ABC, C.I.A. with Howard Hunt, who ran That was what he meant by conser-
and they already hated each other. the White House’s dirty-tricks opera- vatism. He did not develop his views
They’d had a run-in on Jack Paar’s “To- tion, and he knew more about the af- much from there. He was very good at
night Show” in 1962 that left Buckley fair than he let on. Nixon’s resignation, picking apart other people’s political
bitter. He felt that Vidal and Paar had in 1974, must have come as something programs, but he did not have a pro-
ganged up on him. of a relief. gram of his own.
The 1968 Convention was, of course, Buckley had first met Ronald Rea- Buckley was suave, and he mellowed
the scene of the Chicago police clash gan in 1961, and saw him again in 1965— somewhat in his later years, but at heart
with antiwar protesters, and the riots the year Buckley lost the mayoral race he was a zealot. Many of his political
became a subject for Vidal and Buck- and the year before Reagan was elected positions align today not with Reagan
ley’s debate. At one point, Vidal called governor of California. Unlike Gold- but with Trump. You might think he
Buckley a “crypto-Nazi,” and got the water and Nixon, Reagan was a polit- would be offended by the bullying and
reaction he hoped for. “Now listen, you ical novice, and, when he began plan- thuggishness of the Trump Adminis-
queer,” Buckley shouted. “Stop calling ning to run for the White House, he tration, but McCarthy was a bully and
me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in sought Buckley out. Like most of us, a thug, and Buckley never repudiated
your goddam face and you’ll stay plas- Buckley liked being sought out. A re- him. He was opposed to government
tered.” Vidal stared at Buckley during lationship began. Unlike Nixon and programs and, in theory, at least, he
this outburst with the expression of a Goldwater, Reagan had telegenic pow- would have taken pleasure in watch-
cat that has just swallowed a very large ers, too. He looked to be a bandwagon ing the federal bureaucracy destroyed.
canary. He could barely believe his worth boarding. He ran against Ger- (Reagan, for all his “the government is
58 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025
the problem” talk, did not eliminate a
single major federal program in his
eight years in office.) Buckley would BRIEFLY NOTED
certainly have approved of putting uni-
versities into government receivership When It All Burns, by Jordan Thomas (Riverhead). Centered
and purging the leftists. That’s what on the author’s experience with an élite team of firefighters,
he had urged in “God and Man at Yale.” this analysis of California’s wildfires entwines an account of
In foreign affairs, Buckley was es- the state’s 2021 fire season with an appraisal of its record of
sentially an isolationist, except where fire suppression. Thomas, who is also an anthropologist, con-
Communism was involved, in which tends that flawed environmental policy, climate-change de-
cases he was a military maximalist: he nial, corporate profiteering, and the genocide of Indigenous
advocated using nuclear weapons in people—who, through controlled burning, nurtured a biodi-
Vietnam and wanted the government verse landscape largely protected from destruction—estab-
to declare war on Cuba. He thought lished the conditions for today’s calamitous “megafires.” Wed-
that Black people complained too much, ding anthropological research and elegant descriptions of the
that the federal government should stay natural world, Thomas builds an argument for a clear solu-
out of race relations, and that Black tion: “igniting more of the land.”
leaders were tearing down America.
He supported South African apartheid, William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love, by Philip Hoare
and thought that opposition to it, which (Pegasus). The artist, poet, and printmaker William Blake,
he termed “black racism,” was being who fused word and image in such visionary works as “Songs
fomented by Communists. Asked when of Innocence and of Experience,” lived through the French,
he thought Africans would be ready American, and industrial revolutions. Though Hoare’s book
for independence from colonial rule, takes up the events of Blake’s life—including his marriage
he said, only semi-facetiously, “When and his lack of commercial success—it is not so much a cra-
they stop eating each other.” dle-to-grave account as it is a compendium of his influence
He tried for years to write a serious on other artists and thinkers, from Derek Jarman to Iris Mur-
work of political thought, but eventu- doch to James Joyce to the pre-Raphaelites. Hoare celebrates
ally he realized that he was a pit bull, Blake and his “fantastical ideas,” and relates his own awe as
not a poodle. He did start writing such he seeks out the artist’s surviving prints and looks through
a book, but he seems to have completed a pair of the man’s spectacles.
only about ten thousand words before
giving up. It was to be called “The Re- The Emperor of Gladness, by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press).
volt Against the Masses,” and its ar- In this novel, a Vietnamese American writer best known for
gument was that the vote should be his poetry draws on his own experiences as a fast-food worker.
restricted to the educated classes—gov- Vuong’s protagonist, Hai, is a drug-addicted college dropout
ernment by an élite. living in the fictional town of East Gladness, Connecticut.
Buckley believed that the great threat After he forms an unlikely bond with an elderly widow from
to civilization was egalitarianism. He Lithuania, whose house he moves into, he begins working at
once said that the suffering of the man a fast-food restaurant, HomeMarket, where all of the em-
who lost his “Mona Lisa” was no less ployees are, like him, searching for some kind of home. The
than the suffering of the man who has novel brims with feeling for these figures, who, though scorned
to sleep under a bridge. He was per- by society, belong to it nonetheless. As Hai tells another char-
sonally generous to the underprivileged. acter, being flawed “is actually what’s most common. It’s the
He just thought that they should not majority of who we are, what everybody is.”
be allowed to participate in the polit-
ical process. Since democracy is pretty The Words of Dr. L, by Karen E. Bender (Counterpoint). These
much the essence of the American ex- often speculative stories take place in worlds in which trou-
periment, it seems fair to say that Buck- bling features of our own are amplified. In one, a young
ley was, at bottom, anti-American. woman living under laws “enforcing motherhood” searches
This is often the case with people for incantatory words that will end her pregnancy. In another,
who make a big show of patriotism. We people “unduly burdened” by feelings of shame have those
can “make America great again”—if feelings excised by “noninvasive laser technology” and trans-
we only get rid of due process, or judi- ferred to shameless government officials, in a societal gam-
cial review, or the separation of powers, bit to improve governance. Beyond the collection’s interest
or birthright citizenship, or the freedom in political commentary, what most animates it is familial
of the press. We might be great if we got heartache. In a particularly affecting tale, the protagonist sees
rid of some or all of those things. But her ailing father and truly grasps that parents and children
we would no longer be America.  are “together just temporarily.”
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 59
 beef, shredded lettuce, and cheese pow-
ON AND OFF THE MENU der. “I kept getting farther away from
the border and the tortillas kept get-
ting worse,” Leal told me recently,
NO PLACE LIKE HOME standing in the Lawrence headquar-
ters of his company, Caramelo, which
The self-taught Kansas cook who mastered the flour tortilla. has lately emerged as one of the best
producers of tortillas in the U.S.
BY HANNAH GOLDFIELD In the center of a cavernous room,
an employee was loading dozens of
golf-ball-size mounds of dough into an
enormous machine reminiscent of an
early printing press, outfitted with hot
steel plates that flattened and cooked
them, then spat the finished products
onto a long mesh conveyor belt. A floor
fan cooled the tortillas—Caramelo pro-
duces some fifteen thousand flour tor-
tillas a day—as they were ferried to a
packaging station. Leal, who is forty,
tall, and broad-shouldered, with a pair
of delicate nose rings and a low pony-
tail, plucked one off the belt and handed
it to me. It steamed gently as I bit into
it—stretchy, supple, and gossamer-thin,
pocked with bubbles and rich with the
creamy tang of animal fat.
The night before, I’d eaten a burrito,
made with a Caramelo tortilla, at a Kansas
City restaurant called Tacos Valentina. I
told Leal that the tortilla—which was
charred and filled with beans and chile-
colorado-stewed pork—was almost as
flaky as a laminated French pastry. Leal,
laughing, said, “Yeah, some people call
them the croissants of tortillas.” His ma-
chinery is customized to allow for exact-
ing temperature control. “Because our
tortillas are very specific, a lot of ma-
chines don’t like them,” he said. “They
s a kid growing up in Hermosillo, carne asada—but they were also deli- puff up really easily, because of the water
A the biggest city in the arid north-
ern Mexican state of Sonora, Ruben
cious enough to eat plain.
In 2002, Leal moved to Tucson,
and fat content.” Containing the heat
means that the tortillas keep their struc-
Leal took the region’s signature flour where he studied marketing at the Uni- tural integrity, though, to Leal’s chagrin,
tortillas for granted. You could find versity of Arizona and met the woman it sacrifices the burnished freckles you’d
them not only in tortillerias—where he would marry. They moved to Aus- see on a handmade version.
veteran makers would flip them, some- tin, where Leal got his tortilla fix at Leal decided to try making his own
times bare-handed, on a ripping-hot the Texas grocery chain H-E-B, which tortillas in 2014, on a day when he felt
comal—but also at any of the city’s ab- makes them fresh. A few years later, particularly homesick and bored by his
barotes, or corner stores, where “they the couple moved again, this time to job, as an administrator in the chemis-
have fresh ones that the tortilla lady Lawrence, Kansas, a college town some try department at the University of
dropped off early in the morning,” Leal forty miles west of Kansas City, not far Kansas. His first attempt, guided by a
told me. Tortillas de harina, made with from where Leal’s wife grew up. The YouTube video, missed the mark on
freshly milled wheat and pork fat or area’s Mexican population is relatively both flavor and texture, but he got the
vegetable shortening, were essential for small, and the dish known as the “Kan- general idea: mix, roll, flatten, cook. “I
staples like tacos, burritos, and carame- sas City taco” is a mid-century relic: a didn’t know I liked working with food
los—a Sonoran quesadilla made with deep-fried, hard corn shell with ground until I moved to Kansas,” he told me.
As he experimented with different pro-
Sonoran tortillas are soft, fatty, and thin enough to “see the sun through them.” portions of flour, water, salt, and fat, he
60 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JASON FULFORD AND TAMARA SHOPSIN
became obsessed. After his mother died, might get at a street cart, with just a ascendance of the flour tortilla. Across
in 2016, he claimed an old tabletop elec- scattering of carnitas, onions, and ci- the border in Texas, and in other parts
tric tortilla press from her kitchen in lantro. I associated flour tortillas with of the Southwest, flour tortillas bear
Hermosillo; the tool gave his tortillas maximalist dishes at middling Tex- a range of regional quirks. Ralat de-
the uniform shape and texture he’d been Mex restaurants, and with the “eth- scribed “the equally beautiful, thick,
looking for, and also allowed him to nic” aisle at the grocery store, where chewy, futon-like San Antonio torti-
dramatically increase his output. He the offerings are mostly pale and lla,” which he likened, affectionately,
began to wonder if he could sell them. doughy, packed with preservatives that to warm laundry.
Before he had bags or a logo, Leal rob them of texture and flavor. That As it happens, Leal is not the only
met with buyers at the Merc, Lawrence’s changed when I visited a taqueria in producer of Sonoran-style tortillas in
coöperative grocery store, toting a tor- L.A. called Sonoratown, opened in the Kansas City area. By coincidence,
tilla warmer full of freshly cooked sam- 2016 by Jennifer Feltham and her hus- Marissa Gencarelli, who was born and
ples. The buyers immediately agreed to band, Teodoro Diaz-Rodriguez, Jr., a raised in Obregón, the second-big-
start carrying them. Not long afterward, native of Sonora. (The name also re- gest city in Sonora, started a tortille-
he offered samples to Alejandra de la fers to the bygone L.A. neighborhood ria in 2016, called Yoli, with her hus-
Fuente, a native of Mexico City and the of Sonoratown, where a community band, Mark, a Kansas City native. The
chef and owner of a Kansas City restau- of Mexican immigrants settled after two companies seem to enjoy a healthy
rant called Red Kitchen. She had been the Gold Rush.) The tortillas there, sense of competition, on which both
hunting as far as Denver for a fresh flour made with f lour that Feltham was founders, in Midwestern form, po-
tortilla that met her standards, and was commuting to Mexico every week or litely declined to comment. The Gen-
on the verge of giving up. “As soon as so to buy, redefined the form for me: carellis started with corn. After they
he pulled out the tortilla, I was, like, chewy and pliable, so thin they were added flour to their repertoire, Leal
‘That’s exactly what I was looking for,’” nearly transparent, salty and shiny added corn to his. Both companies
she told me. Soon, Leal was on the hook with luscious pork fat. To eat only one recently began offering totopos, or corn
for dozens of tortillas a week. After would have felt like torture. chips, which share shelf space at the
clocking out from his day job, he would Feltham and Diaz-Rodriguez have Merc. Last fall, the Gencarellis, who
spend hours at a rented commercial bonded with Leal over their shared won a James Beard award in 2023, in-
kitchen, and then continue making tor- passion. “I’m drawn to people that are troduced a café and shop called Yoli
tillas at home, sometimes until 2 a.m. obsessed with one thing, like the guy Loncheria; Leal is preparing to open
“My wife was, like, ‘Why is it so smoky who does our chorizo,” Feltham told his own burrito counter, called Igna-
in here?’” he recalled. (They’re now am- me. “When we first met, he was, like, cio, after his Mexican hairless dog.
icably divorced.) ‘I’d love to have a girlfriend, but I have Gencarelli told me that she sees
Today, Leal supplies tortillas to so much chorizo drying in my apart- similarities between Kansas City and
restaurants, specialty shops, and home ment right now that I wouldn’t have Obregón, both of which have “a lit-
cooks around the country, in a range of anywhere to bring her.’” As tacos have tle burr in their belly” from being in
sizes and made with a variety of fats, become central to U.S. food culture, the shadows of bigger cities, and
including avocado oil and duck fat. they’ve come to inspire the kind of are known for agriculture, especially
Many of his clients are in New York, connoisseurship once reserved for wheat. “The temperament is very sim-
including the Mexican master chef En- wine and cheese. José Ralat, who serves ilar, confident but understated,” she
rique Olvera, who uses them at Esse as Texas Monthly’s taco editor, is one said. “Like, yeah—laugh about us, tell
Taco, his Brooklyn taqueria, for burri- such expert. He told me that a defin- us that we’re flyover country, but it’s
tos stuffed with grilled rib eye or smoked ing quality of a Sonoran tortilla is O.K. We know what we got.” Leal
mushrooms. When I asked Olvera what “gauziness—I can see the sun through has remained in Lawrence for prac-
he liked about the Caramelo tortilla, he them.” Recounting a recent visit to tical reasons—he and his ex have two
shrugged as if it were obvious. “It’s like Hermosillo, he said, “The tortillas children, and it’s cheaper to keep up
getting a warm hug from your grand- there are an amazing vessel, because with mounting demand for his torti-
mother,” he said. Leal told me proudly, they’re so thin yet so strong. They llas than it would be in Austin or New
“One of the most flattering things is bear so much weight, not only with York—but he’s come to see it as home.
that restaurants from Mexico are set- the food but with the history.” During my visit, Leal and I drove in
ting up businesses in the U.S., and they’re In pre-colonial Mexico, corn was his vintage Jeep to 1900 Barker, a cof-
reaching out to us for tortillas. And they beloved by, and even sacred to, Indig- fee shop on Lawrence’s main drag.
even tell us that ours are better than enous populations, including the Az- Leal got what he described as “a Mc-
what they’re getting down there.” tecs. But Spanish settlers favored Donald’s breakfast sandwich on ste-
wheat, which was native to the Fer- roids.” I tried to order a breakfast bur-
or much of my life, I was a corn- tile Crescent, and which they associ- rito, made with a Caramelo tortilla,
F tortilla partisan. All the excep-
tional tortillas I’d eaten were made
ated with the Eucharist. In northern
Mexico, this bias, combined with a
but they were sold out. Leal confessed
that he “very rarely” eats tortillas these
from sweet, nutty masa, the base for climate that was better suited to grow- days. “They’re here now,” he said,
the tantalizingly restrained tacos you ing wheat than corn, resulted in the laughing, “so I’m used to it.” 
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 61
 Don Draper’s inverse: he’s the only one
ON TELEVISION among his Connecticut country-club set
who sees through the hype. Once deter-
mined to keep up with the Joneses, Coop
HIGH-LIFE LOWLIFE now delights in pulling one over on them,
snatching their Cartier bracelets and
“ Your Friends and Neighbors,” on Apple TV+. Patek Philippe watches while they’re on
vacation or at their children’s tennis
BY INKOO KANG matches. Not that he’s new to deception;
he’s in a furtive situationship with a
woman named Sam (Olivia Munn), a
friend of Mel’s who’s going through a
divorce. The local cops aren’t too inter-
ested in the mini crime spike—it’s grim
having to track down baubles with price
tags that exceed your annual salary—
until Sam’s husband turns up dead.
Hamm, who had trouble finding a
new groove after “Mad Men,” is perfectly
cast as Coop, who, like Don Draper, con-
stantly looks both imperious and ill at
ease. His performance is the show’s main
asset. Otherwise, “Your Friends and
Neighbors,” created by Jonathan Trop-
per, is more notable for its shortcomings
than its pleasures. Across nine episodes,
it squanders a great premise by shoe-
horning in that most rote of genres, the
murder mystery, and by failing to mean-
ingfully develop its secondary characters.
The sole exception may be a Bronx pawn-
shop owner, Lu (a fantastically weary
Randy Danson), to whom Coop sells his
stolen goods. When Coop tries to nego-
tiate a higher price for one of his pur-
loined Pateks, she calmly dresses him
down: “You’re a man who buys and sells
things he never touches. You assign value
out of your ass. Your skill is in selling that
he first episode of the new Apple learns that he’s on the hook for a new value to other rich schmucks.” No one
T TV+ drama “Your Friends and
Neighbors” takes pains to explain how
drum set (nearly eighteen hundred dol-
lars) for the boy and three sessions of a
knows better than a pawnshop owner
how little value has to do with worth.
one can rake in master-of-the-universe skin treatment (forty-five hundred) for Other recent shows about the ethi-
money yet never feel financially secure. their daughter. A neighbor signs Coop cally challenged rich, such as “Succes-
Jon Hamm stars as Andrew Cooper, up for two tables at a cancer benefit (thirty sion” and “The White Lotus,” have
known as Coop, a hedge-fund guy who grand apiece). Coop could say no. In- emphasized their characters’ elaborate
finds that alimony, child support, a mort- stead, he decides to maintain his life style personality disorders along with the
gage, an apartment rental, and private- by stealing from his social circle, figur- trappings of the high life. “Your Friends
school tuition are draining his bank ac- ing everyone has too much to miss what and Neighbors” f lips the formula, to
counts faster than he can replenish them. he refers to as “piles of forgotten wealth unsatisfying effect. Coop and Mel, de-
And that’s before he loses his job. After just lying around in drawers where they spite their nauseating wealth, are meant
he’s unceremoniously ousted by his firm were doing no one any good.” to be emotionally relatable: former col-
and contractually barred from similar In “Mad Men,” Hamm played a lege sweethearts who can’t admit to them-
employment for two years, each new ex- maestro of bullshit, a silver-tongued Mad- selves that they still love each other. The
pense feels like a punch to the gut. Drop- ison Avenue copywriter who turns slide- show gestures toward a remarriage plot,
ping off his teen-age son at the home of projector trays into carrousels and soda but it’s hard to know how much to in-
his ex-wife, Mel (Amanda Peet), Coop into an elixir for world peace. Coop is vest in the possibility; Mel’s foibles, in-
cluding her anger issues, serve more to
Jon Hamm stars in a new Apple TV+ drama, created by Jonathan Tropper. drive the plot forward than to deepen
62 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 ILLUSTRATION BY LOUISE POMEROY
her as a character. There’s also an anti- nasty” dominated the airwaves during
septic quality to much of the town’s lux- the greed-is-good eighties—but the tone
ury. Coop’s former family home, in a has changed. In shows like “Big Little
neighborhood where houses regularly Lies” and “The Undoing,” the characters
cost eight figures, is a gray monstrosity, are glamorous, in the way we assume the
and parties in the community are occa- rich are, but also unhappy and oblivious.
sions for exhausting one-upmanship. I used to think that the underpinnings
Throughout the season, Coop holds of this world view were rather Protes-
forth in voice-over monologues long on tant: you could be materialistic, but you
faux profundity, mannered phrasings, and had to endure some moralizing about it.
lists. Reluctantly attending a party that Wanting had to be tempered by shame.
Mel’s new boyfriend (Mark Tallman) But it’s equally possible that depicting
throws for his guy friends, Coop cata- opulence is an area where TV, which is
logues the men’s tastes—“Scotch, cigars, steadily losing audience share to You-
smoked meats, custom golf clubs, high- Tube and TikTok, can still outperform
end escorts”—and observes, unnecessar- its competitors. Influencers have made
ily, that these commodities arise from social media a platform for wealth porn,
“entire industries built to cash in on the but their videos still fall short of what
quiet desperation of rich, middle-aged Hollywood budgets and finesse can
men.”The only person there whom Coop offer—an experience that transports in-
actually likes is his financial adviser, Bar- stead of merely tantalizing.
ney (Hoon Lee), who later confides that The inescapability of the genre cer-
his marriage has become so defined by tainly feels symptomatic of our times,
consumerism that spending now feels when oligarchs can buy their way into
like a “bodily function”: “We eat, we drink, power and men like Coop never had to
we buy all this shit. Then we talk about pay for the damage to the economy and
the shit we bought, and then we talk about to the middle class which the financial
the other shit we’re gonna buy, and then crisis wrought. More than that, though,
we go buy that.” such shows pander to our heightened
Inevitably, such expressions of anti- consciousness about these issues. By now,
materialist anomie run up against the when terms like “inequality” and “one-
need to seduce viewers with expensive per-center” have become buzzwords, ex-
objects. Coop drives a sleek black Mase- posing the panoply of ways that money
rati, which at one point is filmed from can warp relationships seems less like
below, with the vehicle rushing toward daring social commentary than like
the camera—a shot that wouldn’t be out preaching to a choir that craves both
of place in a car commercial. (True, the moral superiority and stuff.
trunk pops open at random times, but, Speaking of stuff, “The White Lotus,”
with Hamm behind the wheel, the brand perhaps now the poster child for the rich-
comes out just fine.) Similarly, the spe- people-suck genre, raised eyebrows this
cialness of the items Coop steals—a Bir- spring, when the third season was ac-
kin bag, a Richard Mille timepiece, a companied by branded collaborations
bottle of Domaine d’Auvenay wine, a with a dozen retailers, including Banana
Lichtenstein painting—must be expli- Republic, H&M, Away, and CB2. It
cated at length. Coop purports to disil- might seem like hypocrisy to treat the
lusion viewers, but he is simultaneously show’s noxious characters as aspirational,
creating a list of objects for us to covet— but you can be a cynic and still be a loyal
the kinds of possessions that signal to customer. Coop notes that his country
other affluent people that one has made club, where dues are a hundred thousand
it. The overwhelming reaction that the dollars a year, keeps its membership rolls
series elicits, then, is not sympathy but full not by providing frills but by stok-
cognitive dissonance. ing fear of what it might mean to not be-
long. The club operates by “social extor-
ow to account for the spate of TV tion,” he says, but “seeing it for what it
H series about rich people being ter-
rible? By now, it’s become a genre unto
was never stopped me from falling in line
with all the other suckers.” You might be
itself, all but synonymous with HBO’s able to see through Apple’s marketing,
drama division. Gawping at lavishness too, but the corporation doesn’t mind, as
isn’t new, of course—“Dallas” and “Dy- long as you’re still buying. 
 in “Creditors,” Liev Schreiber faces off
THE THEATRE against Maggie Siff and Justice Smith.
The plays appear in alternating reper-
tory, arranged for their casts’ convenience.
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY ( Jackman, for instance, is simultaneously
in residence at Radio City Music Hall.)
“Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes” and “Creditors.” It’s surely a coincidence that Jackman
and Schreiber, both Tony winners, once
BY HELEN SHAW played the comic-book nemeses Wol-
verine and Sabretooth, but their history
does give the whole big-men-down-
town enterprise a further sense of Strind-
bergian competition.
In Moscovitch’s “Sexual Misconduct
of the Middle Classes,” Jackman plays
Jon, a college professor in the midst of
a marital separation, who finds himself
entranced by a student in a red coat,
Annie (Beatty), who sits in the front row
of his class. As Jon narrates his increas-
ing obsession with her, Rickson has Jack-
man approach the audience, exerting his
familiar self-deprecating charm. He asks
with jovial concern if the people in the
balcony can hear him, and, whenever Jon
takes a wrong step, he assures us, speak-
ing in the third person, of his reluctance
to go further. After Annie shows up on
his porch, Jon ushers the nineteen-year-
old inside, and the audience sucks in its
breath. Jackman holds up his hands in
mock surrender: “Well, this, he recog-
nized, was very bad.”
Jon frequently tells us how bril-
liant and capable Annie is, but in her
breathy pauses she seems more like a
person stunned into incomprehension.
Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber star in plays about toxic masculinity. Jon primarily worries that he is treating
Annie as a figure in a story—her red coat
“ T he new wine has burst the old
bottles,” the playwright August
Earlier this year, the actor Hugh Jack-
man, the producer Sonia Friedman,
certainly suggests that he is a wolf. The
very first anecdote he shares sets us to
Strindberg wrote, in a bullish preface to and the director Ian Rickson returned wondering if, despite his constant self-
his 1888 play “Miss Julie,” setting out a to that hundred-and-forty-year-old ex- questioning, he might not be a good guy.
catalogue of revolutionary theatrical prin- periment—the less-is-more, small-stage “A few weeks ago, the janitor forgot to un-
ciples. Outdated conventions needed to ethic—by forming TOGETHER, a lock the men’s toilet before office hours,”
be cleared away, Strindberg said. To make company whose début offerings are being Jon says. “So he’d had to urinate into his
modern, naturalistic plays, there could be presented by Audible in its compact thermos.” The symbolism isn’t subtle.
no more immense proscenium spaces, Minetta Lane Theatre, Off Broadway. Considered minute by minute, this
painted backdrops, or intermissions. The season consists of Hannah Mosco- “Sexual Misconduct” is a strangely pleas-
The playwright needed intimacy to en- vitch’s Strindbergesque “Sexual Miscon- ant experience, one that dodges discom-
sorcell his audience, and intervals be- duct of the Middle Classes,” from 2020, fort, to its eventual cost. Jackman and
tween acts might allow theatregoers to and Strindberg’s “Creditors,” newly Beatty create little heat between them—
escape the “suggestive influence of the adapted by Jen Silverman. Rickson stages he seems to be working harder to seduce
author-hypnotist.” In this manifesto, and both plays with elegant restraint, arrang- the audience than to entice the girl—
in his spate of character-driven master- ing just a few bits of furniture in front and Beatty, in a drifting and interior
pieces written in 1887 and 1888—“Miss of a bare brick wall. Despite the produc- performance, enacts the script’s many el-
Julie,”“The Father,”“Creditors”—Strind- tions’ aesthetic modesty, these are starry lipses by letting her mouth drop open,
berg essentially invented the small-cast, projects: Jackman performs in “Sexual sometimes pursing it noiselessly, like a
ninety-minute psychosexual slugfest. Misconduct” with Ella Beatty as his foil; fish. Jackman, ever the movie star, never
64 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 ILLUSTRATION BY ALIZ BUZAS
permits Jon so much as a hint of corrup- greater and deeper confidences. Adi
tion, not even when Beatty takes con- (called Adolf in the original) has a wife,
trol of the narration. Jon’s idea of him- Tekla (Siff), who has written a book
self (menschy, bewildered, kind) therefore about her first marriage. As Gustav probes
overwhelms Annie’s picture of him as a Adi about his sex life, we realize that
sinkhole in her life. Gustav is in fact Tekla’s first husband.
Moscovitch, in an interview about This is hardly a spoiler; Gustav’s lies
her play for the CBC, drew parallels be- wouldn’t trick a kitten.
tween the Jon-Annie relationship and
the Clinton-Lewinsky affair—in both,
But Adi, played by Smith with cash-
mere softness, doesn’t figure it out. In-
Conversations
questions abound about the limits of
consensuality when a man sleeps with a
stead, he gives way to the older man’s in-
3uence, taking his advice to mistrust and
that change
young woman who has far less power.
Moscovitch says she chose the word
abuse his wife, as Gustav eavesdrops next
door. Where Silverman radically departs your world.
“misconduct” for the title to skewer the from Strindberg’s bitter play is in their
characterization of such encounters as portrait of Tekla, who is a spikily delight-
sexual peccadilloes, rather than, as she ful self-starter instead of the idiot-monster
believes, episodes of coercion or assault. of the original. Siff—who was one of the
The play is slippery on this point. Mosco- finest Beatrices I’ve ever seen in “Much
vitch uses the structure of Strindbergian Ado About Nothing,” in 2013—strikes
psychodrama—woman versus man—to sparks off both her stage husbands, until
reveal a gap in language itself. In her con- the small theatre almost glows.
struction, nothing Annie says, including The play really belongs to Schreiber,
her statements of desire, indicates whether though. One of his great gifts as an actor
she’s actually able to consent. is the way he manipulates our impres-
Strindberg’s mid-career outpouring sion of his height and his looming, line-
of tragedies about couples in existential backer bulk. Sometimes he uses his size
con3ict emerged during a troubled, vi- for comedy: Gustav spends a lot of his
olent period in his life, when his mar- time hunched in a too-small leather club
riage was falling apart. These often vir- chair, rolling cigarettes—very tiny ciga-
ulently anti-woman plays, which became rettes, Dr. Freud—and peering at his tar-
his most famous and in3uential, revealed gets through the smoke. His voice rumbles
his deranged sense of marital grievance. hypnotically with eerie subharmonics,
(To give a sense of how well adjusted he and it’s only when he gets up and comes Join The New Yorker’s
was, in 1887 he wrote a friend about hav- close to either Adi or Tekla that we see editor, David Remnick,
ing his sexual equipment measured by a how massive the guy is, either to drag
doctor at a brothel, after which he haugh- along as baggage or to climb like a wall. for in-depth interviews
tily informed his wife, “The screw is not Strindberg’s title refers to the debt and thought-provoking
necessarily too small because the nut is he believes Tekla owes Gustav, the man discussions about politics,
too big.”) An obsession with dominance who “shaped” her, but Silverman—whose
carried over into his work. Strindberg plays include last year’s unlikely Broad- culture, and the arts.
used—and popularized—a zero-sum, way romance “The Roommate”—reveals
prosecutorial, winner-take-all approach all such debts to be misogynist rubbish.
to relationships as his dramatic engine. Adi hurts Tekla, and Gustav might be a
More than a century later, you often see sociopath. But Silverman’s version moves
that same mechanism at work, in femi- beyond Strindberg’s toxic blame game to
nist psychodramas, too. Moscovitch’s play explore the erotic vulnerability of each
asks us to reason backward from all the member of the ménage, as well as the
damage done, and it arrives at an awful animal forces that draw them together in
place, one reminiscent of Strindberg’s new configurations. Is that a more honest
own hell, where a woman’s word can’t be portrayal of sexual dynamics than Jon and
trusted, even by the woman herself. Annie’s? It’s certainly a more involving
one. Strindberg would not have enjoyed

ItainnJenStrindberg’s
the more vividly acted “Creditors,”
Silverman at first seems to main-
dramatic pattern. At an
Silverman’s scuppering of the hetero-
masculine prerogative, but he might have
responded to the ecstatic surrender of it.
isolated hotel, a charismatic older man, When Strindberg invented this form,
Gustav (Schreiber), talks to a young he didn’t just expect us to drink the new
artist, Adi (Smith), luring him toward wine—he wanted us to get drunk. 
 “The Final Reckoning” is Cruise’s eighth
THE CURRENT CINEMA “Mission: Impossible” outing and—
assuming the title isn’t wearing a rub-
ber mask—perhaps his last. The script,
ENTITY CRISIS which the director, Christopher Mc-
Quarrie, co-wrote with Erik Jendresen,
“Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning.” too often sags under the weight of end-
times portents; even for a series that
BY JUSTIN CHANG treats global destruction as an occupa-
tional hazard, the mood has never been
“M ission: Impossible—The Final
Reckoning” has a running time
needs defusing; a beloved teammate,
Luther (Ving Rhames), who needs res-
quite this oppressively doomy. The En-
tity, which McQuarrie introduced in
of just under three hours. Within those cuing; and an artificially intelligent nem- “Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckon-
three hours, alas, I’d say that Tom Cruise esis, the Entity, to banish to the pits of ing Part One” (2023), has now conquered
has a running time of only a minute or cyberhell. But for Cruise the actor, who all of cyberspace, and thus become more
two. For those of us who’ve grown fond turns sixty-three in July, running has be- pernicious, more deadly, and more te-
of Cruise the cardio demon, this is dispir- come more than a means to a narrative dious to summarize than ever. It has en-
iting news: what a letdown after “Mis- end. He does it for the same reasons he dangered world economies, unleashed
sion: Impossible—Ghost Protocol” (2011), scales skyscrapers, plunges into watery plagues of misinformation, and even
spawned a powerful cult that seeks to
hasten humanity’s end. Paris (Pom Kle-
mentieff), herself a former servant of
the Entity who has since joined Ethan’s
team, murmurs, “It is written,” as if the
techno-apocalypse had been foretold,
eons ago, in the e-book of Revelation.
Is the Entity a metaphorical variant
of Trumpism? At least one of Ethan’s
lines—“It wants us divided”—presum-
ably means to make us wonder. Yet the
“Mission: Impossible” movies, for all their
invocations of statecraft, terrorism, and
impending nuclear catastrophe, have gen-
erally danced nimbly around real-world
geopolitics. You’d have to go back to J. J.
Abrams’s “Mission: Impossible III” (2006)
and its implicit critique of George W.
Bush-era torture tactics, to find the last
Tom Cruise stars in Christopher McQuarrie’s film. Cruise missile that made contact with a
real-world target. Still, “The Final Reck-
in which he raced heroically through the depths, and dangles from renegade air- oning,” unwittingly or not, pushes back
blinding fury of a Dubai sandstorm. And craft: to cast aside any hint of creeping against a few Trumpist idiocies. For start-
who could forget the blissful London senescence, and to remind us what an ers, the President of the United States is
chase sequence from “Mission: Impos- honest-to-God movie star is willing to a Black woman, Erika Sloane (Angela
sible—Fallout” (2018), in which Cruise risk for our entertainment. And that Bassett), and her poised, empathetic lead-
spent a whole seven minutes tearing up means something in a Hollywood that ership strikes a utopian chord even under
the geometric staircase at St. Paul’s, then now caters to puny screens and punier dystopian circumstances. If anyone cracks
sprinting, like an unusually stiff-backed visions, outsourcing the finer mechan- a nasty D.E.I. joke, I didn’t hear it above
cheetah, across one rooftop after another? ics of action filmmaking to the visual- the din of propellers, gunfire, and earnest
Cruise does go for another brisk Lon- effects department. (Is it any wonder war-room speechifying.
don jog in “The Final Reckoning,” and, that A.I. is this movie’s supervillain?) And then there’s the itinerary. Like
although he’s had tougher workouts, he Cruise means to turn back the clock in most of its predecessors, “The Final Reck-
seems intent, as ever, on outrunning more than one sense. He may be older oning” was shot outside the U.S.—loca-
time itself—an idea literalized by the and puffier around the eyes than in 1996, tions include the U.K., Malta, Norway,
sight of Big Ben glowing in the dis- when the first “Mission: Impossible” film and South Africa—and thus represents
tance, ticking away the seconds until was released. But he still dives headlong exactly the kind of Hollywood-branded,
doomsday. Cruise’s character, the Im- into each adventure as if it were his per- internationally filmed mega-production
possible Mission Force agent extraor- sonal fountain of youth. that would suffer should Trump make
dinaire Ethan Hunt, has a bomb that But has that fountain now run dry? good on his recent promise to impose
66 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 ILLUSTRATION BY HAROL BUSTOS
tariffs on films shot abroad. A movie Hunt, meet shipwrecked submarine. His More than once, McQuarrie splices
needn’t be a work of art—and “The Final aim is to retrieve a chunk of hardware in an indelible image from the 1996
Reckoning,” the baggiest, least satisfying holding lines of digital code (it is writ- film: a knife falling into a top-secret
film of the McQuarrie quartet, falls ten!) with the power to override and per- vault, the blade embedding itself in a
well short of the mark—to lay bare the haps defeat the Entity for good. For a desk. It’s a reminder that the director
anti-art implications of an America First few spellbinding minutes, Cruise does of that movie, Brian De Palma, remains
agenda. There’s a reason we describe great everything he could possibly do under- the series’ most intuitive visual stylist
cinema as transporting. To cut us off from water, short of singing “Eat your heart and most concise storyteller. Not that
the thrill of crossing borders and soar- out, James Cameron” into his oxygen I craved concision from McQuarrie’s
ing over distant landscapes would deny tube. He sloshes his way through water- film; God knows he and Cruise have
us a fundamental pleasure of moviegoing. logged chambers, juggles unexploded earned their double-decker climax. But,
Russian torpedoes, and, in a delightful amid the brooding sprawl, I wanted
bout halfway through “The Final and probably unintended homage to less big-screen doomscrolling, less self-
A Reckoning,” as Ethan descends into
the frigid depths of the Bering Sea, some-
“Risky Business” (1983), briefly swim-
dances in his underwear. It’s action cin-
indulgent gravitas, and less of the un-
speakably boring villain Gabriel (Esai
thing overdue and wonderful happens: ema at its purest and most existential: Morales), who bears the name of an
the movie falls silent. Until now, there “The Ethan Hunt for Red October.” archangel but never achieves the stature
has been a chatty overabundance of micro- For all the dangerous missions that of an archenemy. There are also far too
logistics, even for a “Mission: Impossible” Hunt has embarked on solo, I can’t re- many repetitions of the I.M.F. creed—
movie: there are aircraft carriers to be call one that has conveyed such a pri- “We live and die in the shadows, for
commandeered, secret coördinates to be mordial sense of abandonment. For a those we hold close and for those we
transmitted, and laws of physics to be moment, Lalo Schifrin’s irresistible never meet”—which soon starts to sound
preposterously circumvented. (Also, fine theme is a distant memory, and the fate like greeting-card John le Carré.
actors playing top government and mil- of humanity really does seem to rest on I also wanted more from the team-
itary leaders to be acknowledged, in- the shoulders of the most unreachable mates whom Ethan professes to care
cluding Nick Offerman, Janet McTeer, man on the planet. Such loneliness is about so much—particularly the women,
Hannah Waddingham, and, most im- another I.M.F. occupational hazard, but with no shade intended to Luther or
pressively, as a submarine captain, Tra- a self-imposed one: again and again, Benji (Simon Pegg). I suspect that the
mell Tillman.) So much information is both “Reckoning” movies emphasize apocalypse will rob more than a few of
laid out—and so much emphasis placed that Ethan’s most heroic virtue—his re- us of our wits and personalities, but must
on risks, stakes, and disastrous potential fusal to sacrifice his teammates for the our movies be so willing to prove the
outcomes—that you strongly suspect greater good—is simultaneously his point? As Grace, the wily pickpocket
only a fraction of it will matter in the gravest weakness. It explains why, be- who joined Ethan’s team in “Dead Reck-
end, and you’re right. For perhaps the yond a valedictory sense of full-circle oning,” Hayley Atwell has been stripped
first time in McQuarrie’s assured han- symmetry, McQuarrie piles on so many of humor and playfulness. And I missed
dling of these movies—for my money, callbacks to the first “Mission: Impos- the vicious verve of the still formidable,
“Rogue Nation” (2015) remains the un- sible” film, in which Ethan’s teammates now reformed Paris, although I suspect
derappreciated best of the lot—he makes were murdered before his very eyes—a that Klementieff’s days as an action star
the mistake of detailing the action so formative trauma that he seemed to for- are just beginning. What new adven-
thoroughly in advance that actually dra- get for long stretches of the series, but tures could bring out—and deepen—
matizing it becomes almost superfluous. which has been selectively retrieved, like her combustible mix of vulnerability and
But, finally, the expository blather dies sublimated source code, for this mov- ferocity? Finding that out will be her
away, and the mission is upon us: Ethan ie’s narrative purposes. mission, and I choose to expect it. 
THE NEW YORKER IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ADVANCE MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS INC. COPYRIGHT ©2025 CONDÉ NAST. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

VOLUME CI, NO. 14, June 2, 2025. THE NEW YORKER (ISSN 0028792X) is published weekly (except for five planned combined issues, as indicated on the issue’s cover, and other combined
or extra issues) by Condé Nast, a division of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. PRINCIPAL OFFICE: Condé Nast, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Doug Grinspan, chief business
officer; Beth Lusko, chief business officer; Lauren Kamen Macri, vice-president of sales; Westcott Rochette, senior vice-president of finance; Fabio B. Bertoni, general counsel. Condé
Nast Global: Roger Lynch, chief executive officer; Elizabeth Herbst-Brady, chief revenue officer; Anna Wintour, chief content officer; Nick Hotchkin, chief financial officer; Stan Duncan,
chief people officer; Danielle Carrig, chief corporate affairs and communications officer; Samantha Morgan, chief of staff; Sanjay Bhakta, chief product and technology officer. Periodicals postage
paid at New York, NY, and at additional mailing offices. Canadian Goods and Services Tax Registration No. 123242885-RT0001.
POSTMASTER: SEND ADDRESS CHANGES TO THE NEW YORKER, P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037. FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS, ADDRESS CHANGES, ADJUSTMENTS, OR BACK ISSUE
INQUIRIES: Write to The New Yorker, P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037, call (800) 825-2510, or e-mail help@newyorker.com. Give both new and old addresses as printed on most recent label. Subscribers:
If the Post Office alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. If during your subscription term or up to one year after
the magazine becomes undeliverable you are dissatisfied with your subscription, you may receive a full refund on all unmailed issues. First copy of new subscription will be mailed within four weeks after receipt of
order. Address all editorial, business, and production correspondence to The New Yorker, 1 World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. For advertising inquiries, e-mail adinquiries@condenast.com. For submission
guidelines, visit www.newyorker.com. For cover reprints, call (800) 897-8666, or e-mail covers@cartoonbank.com. For permissions and reprint requests, call (212) 630-5656, or e-mail image_licensing@condenast.com.
No part of this periodical may be reproduced without the consent of The New Yorker. The New Yorker’s name and logo, and the various titles and headings herein, are trademarks of Advance Magazine Publishers
Inc. To subscribe to other Condé Nast magazines, visit www.condenast.com. Occasionally, we make our subscriber list available to carefully screened companies that offer products and services that we believe would
interest our readers. If you do not want to receive these offers and/or information, advise us at P.O. Box 37617, Boone, IA 50037, or call (800) 825-2510.
THE NEW YORKER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE RETURN OR LOSS OF, OR FOR DAMAGE OR ANY OTHER INJURY TO, UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS,
UNSOLICITED ART WORK (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DRAWINGS, PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TRANSPARENCIES), OR ANY OTHER UNSOLICITED
MATERIALS. THOSE SUBMITTING MANUSCRIPTS, ART WORK, OR OTHER MATERIALS FOR CONSIDERATION SHOULD NOT SEND ORIGINALS,
UNLESS SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO DO SO BY THE NEW YORKER IN WRITING.

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 2, 2025 67

 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 week’s cartoon, by Lonnie Millsap,
must be received by Sunday, June 1st. The finalists in the May 12th & 19th contest appear below. We
will announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the June 16th issue. Anyone age thirteen
or older can enter or vote. To do so, and to read the complete rules, visit contest.newyorker.com.

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

“ ”
..........................................................................................................................

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

“These things are hard to pin down.”

Ron Korowin, Trenton, Mich.

“Too late. We have to accept ‘caterpillar’ as your first answer.” “I see she got the house.”
Eric Abromson, Woodland Hills, Calif. Gary Gillis, Needham, Mass.

“I promise you, it will never leave this room.”

Brian Nash, Sacramento, Calif.
 A hundred years old never
looked better.
Celebrate the magazine’s first century with
limited-edition apparel, watches, tote bags, and more.
newyorker.com/store
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

PUZZLES & GAMES DEPT.

14 15 16

THE 17 18

CROSSWORD 19 20

21 22 23
A beginner-friendly puzzle.
24 25 26 27 28 29

BY CAITLIN REID
30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39
ACROSS
1 “The West Wing” creator Sorkin 40 41 42
6 Like a not very cushy mattress
10 Knock ’em dead 43 44 45 46

14 It’s a small world!

47 48 49 50 51
15 “Finally!”
16 More than just tickle 52 53 54 55 56 57

18 Reading material for a fortune-teller?

58 59
19 Fizzy drink
20 Reasons for some R or X ratings 60 61
21 Spot for a watch
23 Sound of something landing heavily 62 63 64

24 Empty a suitcase
26 Seattle’s ___ Place Market 6 Destiny 46 Check-___ light (dashboard indicator)
30 Possess 6 Wild Alpine goat 48 Curve-shaped
32 Microscopic shape-shifting organism 8 Event at which the guest of honor is 49 “Same here!”
35 Africa’s longest river made fun of
51 T-bone or rib eye, e.g.
36 “Stay right there!” 9 Gardener’s ground cover
52 Sculpture and painting, for two
40 Picked up a card 10 Actors’ substitutes for determining
lighting and camera movement 53 Folktales, collectively
41 Person on one side of a transaction
11 The “L” in “S.N.L.” 54 Basic unit of heredity
42 Beer barrel
12 City that’s home to Iowa State 55 Poetic tributes
43 Scans performed in a large tube, briefly
University 56 Award such as Best Athlete with
45 Chars a bit a Disability
13 Hoped-for R.S.V.P., usually
46 Word before dunk or poetry Tire-pressure meas.
16 Get ready for a hole of golf 58
50 Flaws in a fender
20 John who reprised his role of Uncle Jesse 59 Little leap
52 Superheroes’ secret identities on “Fuller House”
56 Numbered area in an airport terminal 22 Unwanted e-mails or calls Solution to the previous puzzle:
58 Kept safe 25 Small bay P C P T W I S T S B I C
H O L I R A N L O W E C O
59 Brings aboard, as a new employee 26 Falls (over)
O L A V E S C A P E G Y M
60 First offense, so to speak 28 Gets the ball rolling on B O N E I N H A M A R I S E
61 Served from a 42-Across 29 Fashion magazine with a I N T E N D S T I N T S

62 “Gotcha” palindromic name A S S A M B E E P G N A T

R O M A N T I C H E R O
63 Fawns’ moms 30 Uneven?
D I N N E R T H E A T R E
64 Annoying 31 Reward for the proverbial early bird C O M E O N R E A L L Y
33 Indonesian island east of Java L O A D D E R N L O A C H
DOWN 34 Make ___ (atone) O R G I E S T O U C H E

1 Gets on in years S P I T S H O L Y W A T E R
36 Medical test that measures brain waves:
E O N S O U P U P R U E D
2 Permit Abbr.
U S E A L L E G E E A S E
3 Wile E. Coyote’s nemesis 38 Bread-bag fastener, perhaps P T S Y E L L E D L E D
4 Acquire 39 Powerful desire
Find more puzzles and this week’s solution at
5 French word before a maiden name 44 Smooth and glossy newyorker.com/crossword