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The Roman god Janus was possessed of two faces, one pointing toward the future and one looking backward into the past, and it is tempting to imagine that these faces must also have worn contrasting expressions, one brighter and hopeful, the other rueful or even aghast. Supposing you knew such a person, how would you […]
How an Enthusiast of Soviet Socialism Fell Afoul of the Authorities Read More »
In “The Time Being,” your story in this week’s issue, a young man gets entangled with an older man, a distinguished European named Mr. V., whom he thinks of as a survivor, a “subject of history.” What does the young man—our narrator—mean by that? Is it merely a quality of age, or is there something
Joseph O’Neill on Overwhelming Wonder Read More »
Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Wherever You Listen Sign up to receive our weekly cultural-recommendations newsletter. The office has long been a fixture in pop culture—but, in 2024, amid the rise of remote work and the resurgence of organized labor, the way we relate to our jobs is in flux. The stories we
Why We Love an Office Drama Read More »
Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen Sign up to receive our weekly Books & Fiction newsletter. Fiona McFarlane reads her story “Hostel” from the March 11, 2024, issue of the magazine. McFarlane is the author of two novels and a story collection, “The High Places,” which was awarded the
Fiona McFarlane Reads “Hostel” Read More »
This new mono-God is fiercely interventionist, and he seems to possess a plan that his dim-sighted human creations can barely make out. He banishes Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden because, in disobeying his orders not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they become godlike. Of the
When Marilynne Robinson Reads Genesis Read More »
Mayor John Lindsay declared war on New York’s graffiti in 1972. It was a curious move, even in an era known for unwinnable conflicts. Many residents hated graffiti, of course, but it didn’t lack for fans in high places. The previous year, the Times had published an admiring profile of Taki, a teen-ager who scribbled
Keith Haring, the Boy Who Cried Art Read More »
Your story “Hostel” is one in a series of stories—which will be published in your collection “Highway Thirteen” in August—that revolve around a serial killer: each story includes characters whose lives he touched or took. (The New Yorker also published an earlier story, “Demolition,” that will appear in the collection.) How did the idea for
Fiona McFarlane on Murder’s Ripple Effects Read More »
Every villain gets an origin story, but in the case of Thea, the wedding guest from hell in Helen Oyeyemi’s newest novel, “Parasol Against the Axe,” her own mother wrote it. The book flashes back to Prague, in the nineteen-eighties, when Dagmar Dlouhá, Thea’s mother, penned a series of popular children’s books starring her daughter—or
Helen Oyeyemi Thinks We Should Read More and Stay in Touch Less Read More »
Naturally, a moment matters. In this case, a moment that was also, and might be considered still, a place: fixed, discernable, real. A community already dreaming of itself as a site of ferment and change, already wishing to stay the same. The idea was to capture and reflect something of this moment, this place, but
How the Village Voice Met Its Moment Read More »
Listen and subscribe: Apple | Spotify | Google | Wherever You Listen Sign up to receive our weekly Books & Fiction newsletter. Thomas Korsgaard reads his story “The Spit of Him” from the March 4, 2024, issue of the magazine. Korsgaard is the author of three novels and two story collections, as well as several
Thomas Korsgaard Reads “The Spit of Him” Read More »
