The New Yorker - June 3 2024

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JUNE 3, 2024
6 GOINGS ON
9 THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Joshua Yaffa on a crucial moment in Ukraine;
a Trump rally; Columbia’s counter-commencement;
band practice; Congress’s investors.
ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS
Rachel Syme 14 Showstoppers
What makes a Broadway musical—or breaks it.
SHOUTS & MURMURS
Jay Katsir 21 Notice of Security Incident
PERSONAL HISTORY
Molly McCloskey 22 My Father’s Court
A parent’s life with the Detroit Pistons.
ANNALS OF CRIME
Evan Osnos 26 Land of Make-Believe
How a Hollywood aspirant became a fraudster.
LETTER FROM BERLIN
Burkhard Bilger 36 The Stasi Files
Piecing records together by hand.
FICTION
Olga Tokarczuk 46 “Woman, Frog, and Devil”
THE CRITICS
THE CURRENT CINEMA
Justin Chang 53 “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
BOOKS
Idrees Kahloon 57 What is growth good for?
59 Briefly Noted
ON AND OFF THE MENU
Hannah Goldfield 62 Hawaiian food in Nevada.
THE ART WORLD
Jackson Arn 64 A Brancusi retrospective, at the Centre Pompidou.
MUSICAL EVENTS
Alex Ross 66 The pianist Yuja Wang.
THE THEATRE
Helen Shaw 68 “Player Kings,” “The Cherry Orchard,” and “London Tide.”
POEMS
Mary Jo Bang 42 “Marigold”
Marianne Boruch 50 “The Bath”
COVER
Sergio García Sánchez “Scoot”
DRAWINGS Bruce Eric Kaplan, Emily Bernstein, Michael Crawford,

Jared Nangle, Frank Cotham, Colin Tom, Jimmy Craig, Roz Chast, Emily Flake, Tom Chitty,
David Borchart, Paul Noth, Amanda Chung SPOTS Antonio Giovanni Pinna
Sunrise, oil on canvas, 36 x 48
An Art Exhibit by
Janet Hennessey Dilenschneider
Only at The Sheen Center for
Thought and Culture
18 Bleecker Street,
New York, New York
(212) 219-3132
info@sheencenter.org
MAY 16 – JUNE 15, 2024 www.jandilenschneider.com
Light on the Water, oil on canvas, 30 x 30

CONTRIBUTORS
Evan Osnos (“Land of Make-Believe,” Rachel Syme (“Showstoppers,” p. 14), a
p. 26) writes about politics and foreign staff writer, has covered style, the arts,
affairs for the magazine. His latest and Hollywood for The New Yorker
book is “Wildland: The Making of since 2012.
America’s Fury.”
Burkhard Bilger (“The Stasi Files,”
Molly McCloskey (“My Father’s Court,” p. 36) has been a staff writer since 2001.
p. 22) is the author of five books, includ- His book “Fatherland: A Memoir of
ing, most recently, the novel “Straying.” War, Conscience, and Family Secrets”
was released last year.
Sergio García Sánchez (Cover) is a car-
toonist, an illustrator, and a professor Helen Shaw (The Theatre, p. 68) became
of fine arts at the University of Granada. a theatre critic for the magazine in 2022.
He collaborated on this cover with his She received the 2017-18 George Jean
wife, the artist Lola Moral. Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism.
Olga Tokarczuk (Fiction, p. 46) won Idrees Kahloon (Books, p. 57) is the Wash-
the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature. Her ington bureau chief for The Economist.
novel “The Empusium” will be pub-
lished in English in September. Marianne Boruch (Poem, p. 50) was re-
cently an artist-in-residence at the In-
Hannah Goldfield (On and Off the Menu, stitute for Advanced Study at Central
p. 62) is a staff writer covering food European University. Her most recent
culture for the magazine. She has con- book of poems is “Bestiary Dark.”
tributed to The New Yorker since 2010.
Jackson Arn (The Art World, p. 64) is
Alex Ross (Musical Events, p. 66) has the magazine’s art critic. Previously, he
been the magazine’s music critic since wrote for Art in America and The Drift,
1996. His latest book is “Wagnerism.” among other publications.
THIS WEEK IN THE NEW YORKER APP
Bill McKibben on climate change,

Kyle Chayka on the Internet’s “new curators,”
Ruby Tandoh on home cooking,
Inkoo Kang on Aasif Mandvi, 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
ATTENTION SEEKING harking back to a pre-social-media era
of attentive contemplation, the Birds
The unexpected turn in Nathan Hell- embody the narcissistic gaze of the
er’s piece—from an exploration of the front-facing camera.
science behind our dwindling atten- Rachel Federman
tion spans to an account of the Order White Plains, N.Y.
of the Third Bird, an enigmatic com- 1
munity of people who practice collec- EATING ANIMALS
tive attention—was a delightful one
(“The Battle for Attention,” May 6th). In his review of several recent books
Also delightful was my recognition on animal rights, Kelefa Sanneh ex-
that the four movements of the Or- plores the question of whether spe-
der’s Standard Protocol—Encounter, ciesism and anthropocentrism are world
Attending, Negation, and Realizing— views that contribute to the suffering
echo the phases of the Benedictine of animals at the hands of human be-
monastic practice of Lectio Divina, or ings (Books, May 6th). Of note is the
Divine Reading: Lectio, Meditatio, fact that some extreme animal-rights
Oratio, and Contemplatio. The sus- advocates believe that an anthropocen-
pension of interpretation and judg- tric viewpoint is actually necessary to
ment during a Third Bird “action” is reduce animal suffering. Brian Toma-
similar to the approach of Lectio Div- sik, for example, lays out a manifesto
ina, in which one encounters a scrip- of sorts for a small but vocal commu-
tural text and experiences it without nity of animal-rights activists who be-
attempting to draw meaning from it. lieve that humans have an obligation
It is only during the third and fourth to reduce what he calls “wild animal
movements of Lectio Divina that one suffering” or “suffering in nature.” To-
shifts into possible action (such as masik argues that the experience of
prayer), similar to the Birds’ Realizing prey species (such as small fish, rodents,
phase, in which, say, members deter- and insects) is primarily one of anguish,
mine that a painting should be moved and that ending their suffering should
to another wall. I wondered if the Or- be a central goal of animal-rights move-
der’s founders were inspired by Lectio ments. Furthermore, this community
Divina, or if this four-movement prac- posits that the end of predation in the
tice is something so essentially human wild should be accomplished by human
that it finds expression in various tra- intervention; their proposed solutions
ditions across the centuries. include air-dropping vegan meat sub-
Jamie Quatro stitutes to predators like lions.
Chattanooga, Tenn. Personally, I try to distance myself
from anthropocentric thought (even if
I thought it was unfortunate that Heller I frequently fail). Humans, like all an-
chose to focus his story about over- imals, are part of a larger ecosystem that
coming the churn of the attention econ- is built upon predation and death. I
omy on the Order of the Third Bird. think we can acknowledge this reality
Although one “Bird” he interviews in- while also advocating for the well-being
sists, without evidence, that the group of the animals whose lives we impact.
is “really old,” its paper trail only be- Josie Wakerobin
gins in 2010, as Heller notes. I found Deerfield, Mass.
the group’s initiation rites and choreo-
graphed actions to be mostly silly, if •
not cringeworthy. As an art historian, Letters should be sent with the writer’s name,
I struggle to achieve and maintain the address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to
quality of attention that each work of themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited
for length and clarity, and may be published in
art demands; I try not to mistake my- any medium. We regret that owing to the volume
self for the object of study. Far from of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.
INDIE POP| The Athens, Georgia-born band of
Montreal has experienced many iterations, all
GOINGS ON of which revolve around the singer-songwriter
and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Barnes. Across
MAY 29 – JUNE 4, 2024 nineteen albums, starting in the mid-nineties,
the band’s mercurial indie-pop sound has shifted
from the zippy psychedelia of such LPs as “The
Gay Parade” and “Satanic Panic in the Attic” to
the electronic-forward synth pop of its recent
outings, particularly “UR FUN” (2020). Its
latest album, “Lady on the Cusp,” marks the end
What we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. of an era: it’s the last record that Barnes made
while living in Georgia. Fittingly, the record’s
wheezing tunes are a disorienting jumble of
This summer, the programming at Little Island, the floating park on the many previous modes. The band plays from the
Hudson, is showing more ambition, with nine high-profile premières. The entire catalogue at shows, but Barnes has said
that they prefer doing new songs—only then are
first, kicking off on June 1, comes courtesy of Twyla Tharp, whose recent the crowd’s reactions truly a surprise.—Sheldon
work has leaned to the jokey side, though she retains a nearly supernatural Pearce (Elsewhere; June 4.)
ability to draw the best from dancers. “How Long Blues” has a live score, DANCE | Like so many institutions founded by
by the roots-music experts T Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, and a towering cultural figures, Alvin Ailey American
cast that mixes Tharp regulars with the likes of the Broadway leading man Dance Theatre now has a split personality. On
Michael Cerveris. Other than that, all Tharp will share of the work is that it’s the one hand, it serves as a repository for Ailey’s
beloved dances, first among them the always
an epic narrative about resilience and is inspired by Camus.—Brian Seibert thrilling “Revelations.” But a company can’t live
on its past alone, and that’s where commissions
come in. A weeklong run at BAM offers both
facets. In one of two programs, the impressive,
generous Ailey dancers take on the poetic “Ode,”
by Jamar Roberts, a meditation on death and
transfiguration from 2019, and Alonzo King’s
fluid, meditative 2000 work “Following the Sub-
tle Current Upstream.” The other is all Ailey,
including the powerful hymn to womanhood
“Cry” and, yes, “Revelations.”—Marina Harss
(Howard Gilman Opera House; June 4-9.)
OFF BROADWAY | In Raja Feather Kelly’s melan-

choly “The Fires,” three generations of Black men
occupy the same apartment at three different
times: we see them in 1974, when Jay (Phillip
James Brannon) composes an allegorical text
about Aphrodite, as his lover, George (Ronald
Peet), tends to him; in 1998, when Sam (Sheldon
Best) searches Jay’s and George’s notebooks for
clues about his own father’s recent suicide; and
in 2021, when Eli (Beau Badu) sequesters himself
in the apartment during the pandemic, reading
the notebooks as a friend (Jason Veasey) badgers
him into attempting a meaningful connection.
Feather Kelly’s long experience as a choreogra-
pher has made him comfortable with iteration,
and this shapes his deliberately repetitive, loop-
ing dialogues about sorrow and sex. Strangely,
ABOUT TOWN his direction of actors, rather than language, is
less controlled—though his interest in physical
languor does create a certain hypnotic, aching las-
PODCASTS | “White Devil,” a provocative new se- OFF BROADWAY | Dave Malloy’s pandemic-iso- situde onstage.—H.S. (Soho Rep; through June 16.)
ries from Campside Media, hosted by Josh Dean, lation-era sad-cabaret “Three Houses” takes the
explores the aftermath of a 2021 killing in Belize form of three monodramas, sung by participants MOVIES | Nanni Moretti, a master of cinematic
which made international headlines: the shoot- at a kind of supernatural open-mike night, the autofiction, returns boldly to the form with “A
ing of a senior police officer, Henry Jemmott, by songs delivered in a quasi-operatic oom-pah-pah Brighter Tomorrow,” in Film at Lincoln Cen-
Jasmine Hartin, a Canadian property developer recitative. Each section starts the same way: ter’s “Open Roads” series of new Italian films.
connected to one of the most powerful families a breakup, then lockdown and a retreat to an Moretti, now seventy, builds his political and
in the country. The series isn’t true crime; if otherwise empty refuge, where mental cohesion artistic passions into his role as Giovanni, an
anything, the shooting itself, apparently an ac- frays. A small ensemble expands on the soloists’ Italian director who is making a historical drama,
ILLUSTRATION BY MANDDY WYCKENS
cident, gets short shrift. Where “White Devil” fantasies, bringing to life a dead grandma’s ghost set in 1956, about a Hungarian circus troupe
excels is in using Hartin’s overnight reversal (Ching Valdes-Aran), or a spider (Margo Seib- stranded in Rome among Italian Communist
of fortune to examine power and corruption ert) that harasses an increasingly paranoid man hosts. Meanwhile, Giovanni’s marriage to a pro-
in postcolonial Belize, whose status as getaway (J. D. Mollison), or the metaphorical wolf (Scott ducer (Margherita Buy) is coming apart. Moretti
and tax haven for wealthy foreigners makes life Stangland) who tries to blow all the little houses gleefully unleashes intricate narrative maneuvers
perilous for everybody else. The show zooms in down. The director, Annie Tippe, emphasizes while scathingly satirizing the movie business.
on Hartin’s former de-facto father-in-law, the these whimsical elements to warm the evening, Giovanni’s film coalesces both with his intimate
British Belizean business magnate Lord Michael but Malloy’s existential horror—and a drumbeat life and with his romantic vision, which is put
Ashcroft, a Tory-supporting, heroism-medal- of self-accusation—chills every second of the on scintillating display when he sees a young
collecting billionaire, whose local nickname show’s hundred difficult minutes.—Helen Shaw couple in the street and directs their lovers’
gives the series its title.—Sarah Larson (Pershing Square Signature Theatre; through June 9.) dialogue.—Richard Brody (June 1 and June 5.)
6 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024

1
PICK THREE
The staff writer Inkoo Kang on
what to watch.
1. THE PRESTIGE SHOW: With its third season,
“Hacks” (Max) makes a feast out of beef. The
boomer-meets-zoomer dramedy—about a once
legendary comic, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart),
attempting a comeback and her scrappy joke
writer, Ava (Hannah Einbinder), coaxing her
into uncomfortable new places—has skillfully
guided its central duo to a slow but delicious
face-off. As Deborah schemes to, finally, host
a late-night show, the question of whether she
can mature enough to see her protégée as an
equal builds toward some of the series’ best
1
TABLES FOR TWO
tangle of vividly pink cocktail shrimp.
Most thrilling were two shot-glass-
moments yet.
size portions of vichyssoise dolloped 2. THE COMFORT SHOW: In “Elsbeth” (CBS), a sec-
Penny upon arrival with voluptuous portions ond spinoff of “The Good Wife,” Carrie Preston
90 E. 10th St. of caviar, green-gold and sublime. It’s
reprises her role as a ditzy legal savant, who
moves from Chicago to Manhattan ostensibly to
I love to watch an oyster get shucked— not cheap eats, by any stretch, but it’s monitor the N.Y.P.D. But Elsbeth spends most
the heft of a calciferous shell in a steady the sort of thing that makes money feel of her time solving homicides, which, taken
together, depict a glittery metropolis teeming
hand, the sweep and pop of the knife, well spent. with entitled, well-heeled killers, played by a
the liquor-slick shine of the reveal—and At Claud, Pinsky has displayed an murderer’s row of character actors, who satis-
Penny, a stylish new seafood bar in the aptitude for applying heat to marine fyingly get their comeuppance.
East Village, has a polished, understated creatures (the barely cooked shrimp in 3. THE WHAT-THE-HELL-AM-I-WATCHING SHOW: On
swagger that somehow seems to make his gambas al ajillo are fantastic), and at Paramount+, the “Good Wife” creators, Robert
the oysters even better. It’s the same sort Penny an all-seafood conceit gives him and Michelle King, let their freak flag fly with
“Evil,” a case-of-the-week procedural that has
of alchemy that made late restaurants even more room to explore. Oysters perfected Catholic horror-camp. A priest (Mike
like the John Dory Oyster Bar and Pearl are confited in chicken fat until sump- Colter), a psychologist (Katja Herbers), and a de-
Oyster Bar such perfect places to slip tuously rich. Squid stuffed with tuna bunker (Aasif Mandvi) walk into, well, usually a
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTOPH NIEMANN (TOP); HILARY BRONWYN GAYLE / COURTESY MAX (BOTTOM)
house in need of an exorcism. The show is riotous,

in after work, or for a lingering lunch, and Swiss chard is charred to a tender, but its greatest strengths are its knowing out-
to slurp down a dozen and feel a little near-caramel sweetness. Dover sole ar- landishness and its tech-centric story lines. What
bit more alive. Penny is owned by the rives in a thick hunk topped with wob- better way for a demon to crush one’s soul than by
urging a person to spend too much time online?
restaurateur Chase Sinzer and the chef bly bits of bone marrow and drizzled in
Joshua Pinsky, and is situated just up- Bordelaise sauce. A considerable portion
stairs from Claud, its sister restaurant, a of the room is reserved for walk-ins,
slinky little bistro that’s been a hit since which gives the well-orchestrated op-
its opening, in 2022. Where Claud is eration a glittering edge of spontaneity.
warm and sexy, Penny is sleek and sharp, It might be tempting to try to have ap-
all white and steel and marble. petizers at Penny and finish the eve-
PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL FORERO FOR THE NEW YORKER;
The mood, though, is welcoming ning downstairs at Claud, but it would

and casual; there are no tables, just a be something of a miracle to get into
long row of seats set before the room’s both in the same evening—and, more
infinite-seeming raw bar, behind which to the point, why would you want to
an army of shuckers and slicers reach leave? Just as Claud has its showstopper
into shapely wall-mounted troughs for a dessert—a gargantuan slice of choco-
needed mollusk or crustacean. The best late cake—so, too, does Penny. A tidy
way to take in the bounty is by order- serving of chocolate mousse, splashed
ing the Ice Box Plus ($98), a gloriously with grassy olive oil and crowned with
over-the-top tray of seafood that, on my hazelnuts, it’s dense and smooth, deep
visits, bore brawny oysters, scallop crudo, and sweet—a plate of pure, relaxed lux- NEWYORKER.COM/NEWSLETTERS
plump smoked mussels, tiny periwin- ury. (Dishes $8-$98.) Get expanded versions of Helen Rosner’s reviews,
kles, a huge scoop of Jonah crab, and a —Helen Rosner plus Goings On, delivered early in your in-box.
THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 7

THE TALK OF THE TOWN
COMMENT military has adapted. The Kremlin has Congress blocked the passage of a new
TURNING POINTS replenished the armed forces by way of aid package, and Ukrainian stocks of ev-
a military draft and financial incen- erything from anti-aircraft missiles to
ovchansk is a small Ukrainian town tives, recruiting as many as thirty thou- artillery shells grew scarce. Ukrainian
V that sits just three miles from the
border with Russia. Dotted with farm-
sand new soldiers every month, and is
spending a third of the national bud-
commanders estimate that Russian forces
now have a ten-to-one advantage in ar-
land and Soviet-era factories, it carries get on defense and security. According tillery rounds. With air defenses de-
the memory of successive invasions and to nato estimates, Russia produces pleted, Ukrainian cities—Kharkiv most
occupations. During the Second World three million artillery shells per year— of all—endured the most sustained as-
War, as the Wehrmacht and the Red more than double the number that all saults since the war began. Missile strikes
Army fought relentlessly in and around nato member states combined can knocked out power grids across the coun-
nearby Kharkiv—control of that city provide Ukraine. The Russian Army try. In late April, Congress finally ap-
changed hands four times—Vovchansk has become adept at using drones and proved a sixty-one-billion-dollar arms
was occupied by Nazi forces for more electronic countermeasures to stymie package, but the war’s momentum had
than a year. Today, two years into Rus- Ukraine’s own battlefield innovations, already turned, and, in any case, heavy-
sia’s war in Ukraine, as the Russian mil- and the Air Force has retrofitted So- weapons systems and armaments can’t
itary has managed to shift momentum viet-era one-and-a-half-ton unguided reach the battlefield overnight. Last week,
in its favor, the town is again at the cen- “dumb” bombs with wings and G.P.S. for the first time, the government in
ter of decisive battles. navigation to create “glide bombs,” Kyiv ordered nationwide blackouts.
The story of Vovchansk’s present-day which are used to level troop forma- But a lack of arms is only one of
occupation began on the first day of the tions and entire city blocks alike. Ukraine’s problems; the military is also
invasion, in February, 2022, when Rus- Meanwhile, Ukraine is facing per- short on soldiers. In the early days of
sian units streamed across the border. haps its toughest moment yet in the war. the war, there was no shortage of peo-
They took the town without much of For months, recalcitrant Republicans in ple looking to sign up to fight, but find-
a fight, but they were eventually worn ing eager recruits has become far more
down by insufficient troop numbers, difficult. Discontent is rising as the draft
disorganized command, and a lack of affects mostly those who tend to bear
air and artillery power. That Septem- the brunt of fighting in any war: people
ber, Ukraine mounted a surprise counter- from more rural regions, the less edu-
offensive, leading Russian forces to re- cated, the relatively less well off. Presi-
treat from Vovchansk and dozens of dent Volodymyr Zelensky had no ready
other towns in the Kharkiv region. solution to this dilemma, and the par-
On May 10th of this year, with the liament failed to pass a mobilization
war in a very different phase, Russia law for more than a year. Last month,
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOÃO FAZENDA
attacked again. The so-called “meat Zelensky finally signed a series of laws
storm,” in which wave after wave of expanding the draft and, his administra-
foot soldiers are sent into the line of tion argues, making it more transparent
fire—Western intelligence services es- and efficient. But there is still no pro-
timate that the total number of Rus- cess for demobilizing troops, so those
sian dead and wounded has surpassed who are called up fear that they are
half a million—remains a grim hall- being handed a one-way ticket—not an
mark of Russian operations, but the attractive prospect in a grinding war of
attrition that, according to U.S. intel- Zelensky—failed in the invasion’s early clear posturing is essentially just that,
ligence, has killed seventy thousand days, it seemed as if a prolonged war and in a recent interview with the Times
Ukrainian soldiers. And, as with the long- would favor Ukraine. Zelensky didn’t he said that Russian forces “proceed
delayed influx of U.S. arms, the new laws flee. The Russian Army was in disarray. calmly, understanding that our partners
will take time to change the reality on The West proved more united than Putin do not give us permission” to use West-
the battlefield. imagined. But that logic reversed long ern weapons to hit back.
It was within this window of oppor- ago. Even with a year’s worth of U.S. If Vovchansk falls, Russian artillery
tunity that Russia launched its current weapons on the way, Ukraine cannot will again be within firing distance of
offensive. Fighting continues in the count on future aid packages, particu- Kharkiv. The campaign to render
streets of Vovchansk, as Ukrainian com- larly if Donald Trump becomes Presi- Ukraine’s second-largest city—with a
manders speak euphemistically of units dent again. And for all the talk in Wash- prewar population of 1.5 million peo-
that have “moved to more advantageous ington and in European capitals of the ple, the size of Amsterdam—function-
positions, as a consequence of enemy existential nature of the fight, they have ally uninhabitable would gain force.
fire and storming action,” and less eu- not used the past two years to seriously Putin has indicated he believes that if
phemistically of a Russian “tactical suc- upgrade or expand arms production. Russia applies enough pressure, destruc-
cess.” Russia’s incursion is what’s known The Biden Administration, out of tion, and misery, the West will end its
in military parlance as a “fixing” opera- fear of escalation, prohibits U.S. weap- support of Ukraine, which would lead
tion—a way to tie down forces in one ons from being used against targets in to political change in Kyiv, with Zel-
area of fighting to create advantage in sovereign Russian territory. (Last week, ensky replaced by figures sympathetic
another. Vladimir Putin’s immediate pri- Russia staged drills near the border, sim- to Moscow. But that outcome is not in-
ority remains the capture of the entirety ulating the use of tactical nuclear weap- evitable. As the story of Vovchansk
of the Donbas region, in eastern Ukraine. ons.) But, Ukrainian officials argue, that shows, the trajectories of wars can
When Putin’s initial war aims—the is where Russia is now launching its change many times.
sacking of Kyiv and the overthrow of strikes. Zelensky thinks that Putin’s nu- —Joshua Yaffa
IN THE STREETS Trump supporters. Wearing less Trump is screaming at you from the grave!”
AMONG THE HATS regalia were Asian men in jackets and A paved lane divided the pro-Trump
ties, a few women in hijabs, and scores overflow from a knot of anti-Trump,
of Hasidic men in white shirts, black anti-Biden, pro-Palestinian protesters.
trousers, and black yarmulkes. A beetle- Standing on the lane, a man named
browed guy in a pullover said to two Milton Perez asked another man if he
young Hasidim, “You guys gotta tell was for Trump. The man replied that
the Hasidim to get together!” They he was a reporter. Perez said that he
t former President Donald Trump’s listened, nodding. was nonpolitical, but found it insult-
A rally in Crotona Park, in the Bronx,
last week—his first rally in the city in
Pollen blew through the balmy air,
the sun declined through the trees.
ing that Trump had come here. “I was
born in the Bronx, but I live in Brook-
eight years—his fans seemed to have Six o’clock, the hour when Trump was lyn and I’m an advocate for the home-
a wonderful time. So many flags! Some supposed to speak, approached. At the less. I was invited to the State of the
supporters were so bedecked in them, park’s edges, cops hooked their thumbs Union address, and when I looked out
they almost trailed on the ground. And in the armholes of their fluorescent at the Republicans all sitting together
such dreadful T-shirts referring to Pres- vests and stood back on their heels. A
ident Joe Biden and Vice-President helicopter made its thwapping noise
Kamala Harris—what a thrill to wear as it held, unmoving, at eagle altitude
them in public for all to see! Two hours overhead. The line began to move.
before the event, the line waiting to The speaking venue quickly filled up
get into the speaking venue in the and overflowed, spilling into a large
southeast corner of the park stretched area of grass and rock outcroppings.
far down Crotona Park East; it didn’t A group appeared near the overflow
move for more than an hour. The hats area carrying a banner that called both
waited, chatting, laughing, sometimes Trump and Biden fascists. Behind it,
shouting, while venders working the a speaker with a bullhorn shouted,
line yelled, “Don’t be a Democrat—get “‘Make America Great Again’? When
you a Trump hat!” was America ever great?” On one of
Under the hats were people of many the knolls, another group chanted
kinds: blond Trump fans, more than “Fuck. Trump! Fuck. Biden! They.
a few huge white guys (“Hey, bro— Don’t. Care-about-you!” A red hat
you got that T-shirt in XXL?”), and shouted at them: “My father fought
many red-hatted Black and brown for this country! My father’s corpse
they were ninety-five per cent white through the historical archives for inspi-
men in suits. Across the aisle, the Dem-
1
ON CAMPUS
ration,” Manu Karuka, a professor of
THE PEOPLE’S GRADUATION
ocrats looked more diverse. They American studies at Barnard, said. “We
looked like they might at least listen even used a font reminiscent of the ’68
to you.” Dinick Martinez, his friend, program.” The 2024 program featured a
pointed at the pro-Palestinian group drawing of a red poppy, a symbol of Pal-
and said, “I feel sorry for the trans kids estinian resistance, above the words “The
on that side. They don’t know that People’s Graduation: A Gathering for
Hamas would kill them, too. I’m un- Peace and Justice.” A supplementary
restricted, myself, and honestly I feel
more comfortable with them,” gestur-
ing to the bigger crowd on the Trump
Iraidnantiwar
the spring of 1968, after a series of
demonstrations and a police
on Columbia’s campus, protesters
handout included a list of Barnard’s “dis-
trustees,” along with top Columbia ad-
ministrators and their e-mail addresses,
side of the lane. ended the semester with a “counter-com- and an acknowledgment in fine print:
Ever since the line started forming, mencement.” “WHILE COLUMBIA “This shitshow would not have been
a woman with a sign that said “Warn- DANCES ITS OBSCENE CEREMONY,” a possible without these cruel and incom-
ing: Trump Hates You” and (on the flyer read, “WE WILL OPEN A LIBERA- petent people.”
other side) “Warning: Trump Is a Nazi,” TION SCHOOL FOR ALL PEOPLE.” At The locations were flipped this year.
accented with a red swastika, had stood the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, The counter-commencement was held
among the Trump fans and tried to the historian Richard Hofstadter gave at St. John the Divine, whose clergy had
tell them why she thinks Trump is cor- the official commencement address; offered it to the university community
rupt. She had medium-length brown hundreds of students walked out in pro- as a sanctuary. (Columbia’s main grad-
hair and wore glasses and a dress dec- test and marched a few blocks north to uation was supposed to take place in the
orated with pink and black flowers. an alternative graduation ceremony, middle of campus, until, at the last min-
Trump fans yelled at her and somewhere the writer Dwight Macdonald ute, it was cancelled.) Ilan Cohen, who
times shook their fingers in her face. and others delivered remarks on the li- was graduating with a dual degree from
One kept shouting, “Arrest her! Arrest brary steps. “While I find your strike Columbia and the Jewish Theological
her!” She smiled pleasantly and lis- and your sit-ins productive, I don’t think Seminary, started the day at a small J.T.S.
tened, offering counter-arguments. these tactics can be used indefinitely ceremony, where attendees sang both
After Trump had been speaking (mostly without doing more damage than good the American and the Israeli national
inaudibly, at this distance) for an hour, to the university,” Macdonald said. anthems and Wolf Blitzer gave the
she left the overflow area, putting her This spring, during another series of commencement speech (“You stand at
sign, in pieces, into a large plastic bag. antiwar demonstrations and student ar- a crossroads in American history, and
The reporter approached her and said, rests at Columbia, a group of sympa- Jewish history”). Afterward, Cohen,
“Your sign broke.” thetic faculty and staff organized another who had participated in the student en-
“Somebody punched it,” she said. counter-commencement. “We looked campment, walked briskly toward the
“There were some not-nice people
today. But some people were nice, and
willing to talk. I’ve been doing this at
Trump rallies since 2016, ever since he
came down the escalator. I don’t know
how many people I’ve persuaded—
today, probably nobody. What surprises
me is how many people say they would
never vote for Biden because he is a
pedophile. A good fifty per cent of the
Trump supporters I’ve talked to say
that. I think that as a country we have
become unable to tell good from evil.”
She continued, “I do feel bad about
the ‘Trump Is a Nazi’ sign, and the
swastika. I thought I needed a strong
statement to get people’s attention, but
some Jewish Trump supporters today
told me that I don’t know anything
about the Nazis or the Holocaust.
Looking back, I felt it was wrong when
I was drawing the swastika. Next time,
I’ll tone it down.” “First it was an Instagram account, then a
—Ian Frazier book, then a TV show, then a dictator.”
cathedral, wearing a robin’seggblue We will not stop, we will not rest”). A fect mediator. Two sound engineers, Gro
robe and a beetred yarmulke. He car Barnard professor invited Cohen to join ver (Eli Gelb) and Charlie (Andrew R.
ried three pins—“Columbia Jews for her protest singing group, Voices of Wit Butler), act as referees, hype men, and,
Ceasefire,” “JTS Jews for Ceasefire,” and ness. Cohen had been part of a “plural occasionally, therapists.
“Not in My Name”—and deliberated istic Jewish acappella group,” he said, Adjmi set the story in 1976 and en
over which to wear. “No pins, I’m sorry,” “and this was the year we really had to listed Will Butler, lately of Arcade Fire,
a volunteer usher said. “Church rules.” figure out what pluralism meant.” to write the music. It wasn’t enough for
The rules did not extend to posters, ban “How’d that go?” the professor asked. it to be periodappropriate; it had to be
ners, or slogans on mortarboards (“Free “Well,” Cohen said, “we just had to narratively apt, too—composed with an
Palestine”; “Student Intifada”; “Glory to appoint two students to be mediators ear for the guitar riff that could expose a
the Class of 2024 of Gaza”). Someone next year, if that gives you an idea.” guy’s ego or the high note that pushes a
handed Cohen a parody newspaper called —Andrew Marantz soloist to her breaking point. Butler and
the New York War Crimes—the “Nabka 1 Adjmi spent nearly a decade tinkering
Day Edition” (“All the Consent That’s THE BOARDS before “Stereophonic” premièred, in 2023.
Fit to Manufacture”). As Cohen looked NOODLING This spring, it transferred to Broadway,
for a seat, he ran into Frank Guridy, a where it earned thirteen Tony nominations.
history professor with whom he had Recently, the actors met up at a stu
taken a course called Columbia 1968. dio in Brooklyn to record the cast album.
They posed for a photo, and Guridy Their process was less fraught than their
asked about Cohen’s plans. “Haven’t had fictional counterparts’. “That was really
a second to think about it,” he said. vibey,” Will Butler said, encouragingly,
The actress and comedian Amanda usic history is full of object les at the end of a take. He tapped his san
Seales, a Columbia alum, was the m.c.
“Today, in the spirit of 1968, we gather
M sons in the perils—and the neces
sity—of perfectionism. The 1977 album
daled feet, instructed the cast to “noo
dle,” and took notes on the results. When
in what gentrifiers call Morningside “Rumours” was both Fleetwood Mac’s Pecinka apologized for a wobbly per
Heights but the real ones know is Har- magnum opus and its undoing. The rec formance, Butler said, “Some of the
lem,” she began. A full cathedral—a few ord was an inspiration for David Adjmi, stuff where you fucked up sounds like
dozen faculty and special guests onstage, the playwright behind “Stereophonic,” fuckin’ Tom Petty!”
a few hundred students in the pews— which follows a rock band over a full year Gelb, who has dark, curly hair, sat on
cheered. Seales introduced Randa Jarrar, spent finetuning the songs that will ce a couch. “It’s helpful to be here—you’ll
a Palestinian American writer and activ ment their fame and decimate their re get little nuggets,” he said. He’d picked
ist. “In 1799, Napoleon invaded Pales lationships. Peter (Tom Pecinka) is the up tiny gestures and terms of art that
tine,” Jarrar said, then led the audience headstrong guitarist; Diana (Sarah Pid informed his character by watching But
in a chant: “We defeated Napoleon!” geon), his onagain, offagain girlfriend, ler and the show’s music director, Jus
“We are defeating Israel!” “We defeated is a singer coming into her own. The tin Craig, at work. “It’s also just good to
Columbia!” “We are dismantling this keyboardist, Holly ( Juliana Canfield), be part of the hangage.”
empire!” A Palestinian American poet and the bassist, Reg (Will Brill), are in Andrew Butler chimed in: “We’re
named Fady Joudah read a poem called a tempestuous marriage, with the drum the fictional band’s engineers, but the
“Dedication,” fighting back tears; Noura mer, Simon (Chris Stack), as an imper real band’s entourage.”
Erakat, a humanrights lawyer, told the Someone mentioned “D.I.,” and Gelb
students, “You have taught us well—in rushed to demonstrate his new knowl
your sacrifice, in your courage, in your edge. “That stands for ‘direct injection,’ ”
ingenuity.” A few backpackwearing ca he said. “Straight signal from the gui
thedral tourists took photos in chastened tar. The amp has a different quality.”
silence, then quickly left. None of the actors are professional
To close out the ceremony, Seales in musicians. Before the show opened at
troduced a band called the Liberated Playwrights Horizons, they had just
Zone, “a ragtag collective of musically seven weeks of rehearsal to get to grips
inclined radicals, scholars, and truth with their instruments. The first half of
tellers who met while jamming at the each day was devoted to band practice.
Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” Six mu The engineers would arrive in the af
sicians, half of them barefoot, performed ternoon to find the cast midjam ses
a twochord folk song based on a verse sion, disco lights on, the composer leap
from the Book of Ruth. Then the grads ing up and down in excitement.
marched out, applauded by faculty wait The energy in the studio was simi
ing on the steps. Clumps of students larly jovial, even when a debate broke
stood chatting about summer plans and out over the distinction between “ohh”
upcoming disciplinary hearings, or break Justin Craig, Will Butler, and “ooh.” Later, mirroring Pidgeon’s
ing into brief chants (“Disclose! Divest! and Sarah Pidgeon “vowel sounds” became a challenge.
“‘Disappea-yuh’—why did I say it like inside info isn’t, but prosecutions are which has six hundred thousand follow-
that?” she asked. rare.) Some have demonstrated exqui- ers. “Raytheon is literally the company
“Is that a Michigan thing?” site timing. Just before the pandemic, that builds the Iron Dome,” he said.
“I don’t know what it is.” Richard Burr, the chairman of the Sen- Mullin was up thirty-three per cent. (A
After a break, Craig turned to Pid- ate Intelligence Committee at the time, spokesperson for Mullin said that he
geon, who had on layered T-shirts and sold off as much as $1.7 million in stocks. uses an “independent third-party” firm
wide-legged trousers. Like the others, Two weeks later, the market tanked. to manage his portfolio.)
she was in her socks, to minimize er- Not long afterward, Chris Josephs At the office, Josephs pitched the
rant noise. The night before, Craig had and a few friends started a social-media Mullin portfolio to his co-founder Brian
stitched together his favorite takes of app called Iris, focussed on stock-market Schardt. “I would say we add another
“Bright,” her character’s breakout song, transactions for the casual investor. But Republican, another Democrat,” Schardt
and he wanted to play it for her. its users weren’t impressed with one an- said. “We gotta keep it even.”
“This might be it,” Will Butler said. other’s returns. “Everyone kept demand- “We just want to follow the money,”
“If it’s not, we could do it at, like, 9 P.M., ing, ‘I want to trade what Nancy Pelosi Josephs said. He perused his notifica-
and you could lie on a carpet.” trades,’” Josephs said recently. The Iris tions. Tens of thousands of people had
“I like that vibe,” Pidgeon said. She team came up with Autopilot, a choose- seen the Mullin video. “You’re a mod-
closed her eyes as she listened to her own your-own-money-manager app. One ern patriot, thank you,” one commented.
performance: “You’ve been singing / In of the most popular features is the Pe- Josephs played a clip of Tucker Carl-
your sleep again / But the words come losi Tracker, which allows users to copy son talking with Tulsi Gabbard, who
out all cluttered.” the top ten stock picks made by Nancy praised the Pelosi Tracker. “I’ve got to
“I sound a little timid,” she said. “I Pelosi’s husband, Paul. Your portfolio reach out to Tulsi’s team,” he said.
kind of want to—I don’t know . . . ” buys when he buys and sells when he According to Josephs, the point of
“Go full witch?” Butler offered. sells—as soon as she reports the trades, the app isn’t solely profit—the Autopi-
“Yeah!” she said. “Maybe it’s the ver- within the forty-five days required by lot motto: “If you can’t beat ’em, join
sion on the ground. Like she’s had two law. The tracker was up forty-five per ’em”—but also getting politicians banned
glasses of wine and she’s trying to sing.” cent last year. (A spokesman for Pelosi from trading stocks. “I’d be very fine with
“It’s a work in progress,” Craig said. said that she doesn’t own any stocks this going away tomorrow,” he said. “We’d
Canfield headed to the booth to re- and isn’t involved in any of her hus- just figure out the next thing to do.” Is
cord backing vocals. “Lady Di, let me band’s transactions.) Other portfolios change on the way? Josephs brought up
know what you think!” offered by Autopilot: Buffett (up ten Matt Gaetz, the grandstanding Repub-
Pidgeon smiled. “I’m gonna love it.” per cent), Bill Ackman (up eighteen), lican congressman from Florida. “He has
Canfield whooped, then burst out and Representative Dan Crenshaw, of a bill with A.O.C. to ban it.”
laughing. “Fuck! I got excited, but I Texas (up forty-one). Around noon, Josephs met his part-
fucked it up.” She slipped into charac- On a recent morning, Josephs, who ners in a conference room to discuss the
ter. “I’ll do it right this time,” she said. is twenty-eight, was stuck in Los An- next launch. “This man, Markwayne
“Where’s the Courvoisier?” geles traffic in a black Lexus, on his way Mullin, is making a ton of trades,” he
—Alex Barasch to the Autopilot offices, in Irvine. He said. A TV screen showed his filings—
1 had on an Autopilot-branded trucker fifty thousand dollars here, a hundred
FOLLOW THE MONEY hat, a sea-green crewneck, cargo pants, thousand there. “See, this guy’s perfect,”
DEMOCRATIZED and white Pumas. He considered whose Josephs said. “Makes headlines, pretty
portfolio to launch next. “People are controversial, Republican, so it’s not full
asking for Tuberville,” he said, referring Democrat.” He played a clip of Mullin
to the Republican senator from Ala- at a hearing in November, challenging
bama. “We could do Markwayne Mul- the Teamsters’ boss to a fight (“Well,
lin, because he’s an interesting guy.” stand your butt up, then”). “So we use
At a standstill, Josephs pulled up a that video to drop it, put some music
T he old adage about investing is that,

unless you are, say, Warren Buffett,
you can’t beat the market. But that’s not
video he’d edited the night before. Mul-
lin, a Republican senator from Okla-
homa, had bought as much as fifty thou-
behind it, like Avicii,” Josephs said.
Lawyers had advised the Autopilot
team to explain how they chose the
strictly true. Many members of Con- sand dollars’ worth of Raytheon stock stocks; they picked Mullin’s fifteen larg-
gress post excellent earnings. Consider in September, Josephs says in the video: est holdings by value, then by market
Brian Higgins, the former Democratic “And it was suspicious, because not only cap. Josephs typed his positions—semi-
congressman from New York, who quit does he sit on the Senate Armed Ser- conductors, pharma, Big Tech—into a
in February: his portfolio went up 238.9 vices Committee but also because his spreadsheet. “He seems to be well di-
per cent in 2023. Three Republicans— buy was literally just two weeks before versified,” Josephs said. Then he noticed
Mark Green, Garret Graves, and David Hamas launched their deadly terrorist shares of Palo Alto Networks, a cyber-
Rouzer—more than doubled their attack.” (It was slightly more than three.) security company with several federal
money. (Trading individual stocks is He posted the video on the company’s contracts. He laughed: “Same as Pelosi!”
legal for Congress members; trading on Instagram, @politiciantradetracker, —Jack Truesdale
last moment, never losing faith that it
ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS will find an audience. Instead of crash-
ing and burning, it opens and sputters.
Some diehard fans adore it, but it be-
SHOWSTOPPERS comes apparent—after the first reviews
appear and then, more clearly, after the
A Tony-winning musical director faces her first Broadway miss. Tony nominations—that the show cannot
sustain itself. Maybe it was bad timing.
BY RACHEL SYME Maybe it was bad advertising. Maybe it
was the whims of the marketplace. Maybe,
if the show had only had a few more
weeks of rehearsals, its admirable but un-
honed elements might have slid into place.
“Lempicka,” which opened on Broad-
way on April 14th and closed on May
19th, after forty-one performances, was
one of that type. Created by the play-
wright Carson Kreitzer and the composer
Matt Gould, both Broadway first-timers,
it opened during one of the most crowded
theatre seasons in recent memory, among
adaptations of popular I.P. (“Back to the
Future,”“The Notebook”), jukebox musi-
cals (“Hell’s Kitchen”), and splashy reviv-
als (“Cabaret”; “Merrily We Roll Along,”
a onetime Stephen Sondheim flop turned
posthumous Broadway hit). “Lempicka”
was one of an increasingly rare species
in Times Square—a work conceived en-
tirely from scratch. A propulsive, poppy
“bio-musical” in the tradition of “Evita,”
it chronicled the life story of Tamara de
Lempicka, a bisexual Art Deco painter
who was famous in her heyday, in nine-
teen-twenties Paris, but who subsequently
fell into obscurity. That it got to Broadway
at all was due in significant part to the
reputation of its director, the forty-three-
year-old Tony winner Rachel Chavkin,
who with two previous musicals—“Na-
t Joe Allen, a restaurant on Forty- fire stands alone; failure is its own kind tasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812”
A sixth Street where denizens of the
theatre world have been convening for
of rite of passage, to be commemorated
along with success. The first poster that
and “Hadestown”—had established a
track record of turning offbeat projects
nearly six decades, the walls are lined with the restaurant ever hung, in 1965, was for into hits on the Broadway stage.
posters of Broadway’s legendary duds. In “Kelly,” about a man who jumps off the Chavkin is by her own description a
the early days, for a show to make the Brooklyn Bridge and survives. The show “devourer of outside information,” includ-
display, it had to close in less than a week. was such a fiasco that the writers sued ing feedback about her work. In the weeks
Qualifying flops included such produc- the producers even before it premièred; before a show’s première, she invites
tions as “Drat! The Cat!,” a sex farce about it opened and closed on the same day. friends and former collaborators to see it
a Victorian cat burglar (eight perfor- Not all unsuccessful shows, however, and asks them to text her “one good thing
mances), and “Via Galactica,” a seventies are spectacular implosions or paragons of and one bad thing.” She told me, “I am
rock opera about a trash collector who bad taste. There is another, more com- trying to always be listening to where my
lives on an asteroid (seven performances). mon, type of Broadway misfire that is own taste comes into contact with the
Joe Allen specializes in comfort food— less dramatic but perhaps more disap- room’s taste. An audience is so good at
burgers, banana cream pie—and there is pointing—a production that has many teaching you, What’s this moment about?”
something oddly comforting, too, about things going for it, with a closely collab- The night of “Lempicka” ’s “final
its morbid choice of décor. No single mis- orative team working furiously until the dress”—the first performance before an
audience—Chavkin was standing near
Rachel Chavkin directed the hit “Hadestown” and the short-lived “Lempicka.” the stage door of the Longacre Theatre,
14 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 PHOTOGRAPH BY PARI DUKOVIC
wearing an oversized patchwork coat. She U.S. tour. “Lempicka”’s publicists had or- rights lawyers. The culture in the house-
has a decidedly Gen X sense of personal chestrated a publicity stunt for later in the hold was intense, intellectual, and ob-
style (baggy flannel shirts, combat boots, week to capitalize on her shows’ proxim- sessed with social justice. “When I was
chunky black glasses) and most days pulls ity: in front of the two theatres, the city very, very young, I was taught that Ron-
her long brown hair into a girlish style: would hold a ceremony to temporarily re- ald Reagan was stealing food from poor
pigtail buns, Heidi braids. She is rarely christen the street Chavkin Way. children,” Chavkin told me. Her parents
without a giant backpack full of scripts, “Hadestown” arrived on Broadway waged long legal battles over children’s
reference books, a battered Nalgene bottle, shortly after a run in London, where, welfare and health-care access and in-
Tupperware tubs of leftovers, and an iPad as Chavkin put it, “the show really became stilled in Chavkin the value of profes-
featuring a sticker that reads “You Are on itself.”“Lempicka” had a more halting tra- sional grit. (Her mother, Sara Rosen-
Native Land.” In conversation, her favor- jectory. In 2017, Chavkin had planned to baum, recalls advising her daughter, “If
ite words include “fuck” and “yummy,” an stage a revival of a different bio-musical you can’t do the fight anymore, you
adjective she uses to describe a particu- about an artist, the Sondheim classic shouldn’t be in it. It should never feel
larly satisfying idea or dramatic moment. “Sunday in the Park with George,” about old or dispassionate.”) They also gave
“Lempicka” was about to begin a the Pointillist painter Georges Seurat, at Chavkin an early introduction to sophis-
month of previews, when the show would the Williamstown Theatre Festival. But ticated art. She recalled one performance
be open to the general public but not yet then she found out that another version, of Bertolt Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera”
officially “locked” for reviewers. Chavkin starring Jake Gyllenhaal, was on its way to at the National Theatre: the ballad singer
said that this is “when the real work be- Broadway. Years before, she’d met Gould “came out and was showering spit all over
gins,” as the clock starts ticking down to and Kreitzer when they were developing the audience. I can remember being just
opening night. She is not someone who “Lempicka” at the Yale Repertory Theatre. magnetized—the wet and the chaos and
gets easily stressed. At a recent checkup, Now she called them and proposed tak- the organicness.”
the doctor told her that she had the blood ing it to Williamstown. “I was, like, ‘Hi, For six summers, beginning in mid-
pressure of a twelve-year-old. Her hus- remember me?’” she said. The Williams- dle school, Chavkin attended Stagedoor
band, Jake Heinrichs, a theatrical-lighting town production, in 2018, got a warm re- Manor, a sleepaway theatre camp in the
supervisor, said that, even during inten- view in the Times from Ben Brantley, who Catskills, whose notable alumni include
sive work periods, “Rachel always falls called Chavkin a “miracle worker,” and the Lea Michele, Beanie Feldstein, and Ben
asleep in five minutes.” But she’d experi- producers scheduled a pre-Broadway run Platt. (“I still have mixed feelings about
enced a moment of anxiety after the first in California.Then the plan was disrupted it, because it cost so much money and
full run-through, two nights before. “I by the pandemic. When “Lempicka” fi- was such a status game,” Chavkin told
came home and was, like, ‘It’s a mess, it’s nally made it to the La Jolla Playhouse, me, of the camp. “It is also probably the
a mess!’” she said. Heinrichs had handed in 2022, reviews were mixed. A critic at reason I do what I do today.”) But she
her a beer and told her, reassuringly, “Re- the Times of San Diego wrote that “the was more of a brooding stoner than a
member, it’s just a play.” show could use more revising, condens- show-tunes-obsessed theatre kid, and
Outside the theatre, an old colleague ing—and heart.” The version coming to she was wary of art that she perceived
of Chavkin’s, a costume designer who Broadway—with a generous $19.2 million as inauthentic. After high school, she
goes by Machine Dazzle, approached, capitalization—would be shorter, with re- enrolled at the Playwrights Horizons
wearing a rainbow-colored sweater. tooled choreography and a brand-new set. Theatre School, an interdisciplinary
“Machine!” Chavkin called out. Chavkin is unshy about asking what wing of N.Y.U.’s Tisch School of the
Chavkin’s professional roots are in the she calls “earthquake questions” about Arts. Her favorite class there was an un-
weirder reaches of the downtown theatre a project, even late in the development graded seminar called Creating Origi-
scene. She and Dazzle had worked to- process. She often notes that a theatre nal Work, taught by the modern dancer
gether years before, on a five-hour theatre director’s capacity for problem-solving and choreographer Marleen Pennison,
piece written by and starring the avant- rests in part on a simple equation: “Time which had only one assignment: to be
garde performance artist Taylor Mac. equals the number of choices you get “interesting alone onstage for ten min-
“You have to send me one bad thing to make.” If there’s time left, then one utes.” Chavkin became so addicted to
and one good thing,” Chavkin said. can still change one’s mind, rethink, the challenge that she took the course
“I’ll send you two good things and correct course. She told me, “It’s not three semesters in a row, crafting “hi-
two bad things!” Dazzle said. magic how something looks onstage. lariously ambitious” pieces such as a
Chavkin glanced across the street at Someone—a lot of people, actually— character study inspired by a line from
the marquee of the Walter Kerr Theatre. made a fuckin’ series of choices, that the Great Depression tome “Let Us
For the past five years, the Kerr has been were based on a million bad choices Now Praise Famous Men.” Her idols
home to “Hadestown,” Chavkin’s biggest that then got slightly better.” were experimental theatre companies
commercial success. The show, a retell- like the Wooster Group; she considered
ing of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice efore becoming a Broadway direc- most Broadway “cheesy.” She told me,
written by the singer-songwriter Anaïs
Mitchell, often plays to sold-out Broad-
B tor, Chavkin had what she describes
as “zero relationship to Broadway.” She
“I didn’t want to think about plays that
had already been written. I wanted to
way audiences, and has spawned both a grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, as think about big ideas.”
West End production and an ongoing the only child of two prominent civil- Playwrights Horizons emphasized
teractivity, in part by seating more than a
hundred audience members on the stage.
The director Brian Kulick, one of
Chavkin’s mentors at Columbia, told me
that there are “forest directors and tree
directors”—big-picture people and de-
tail people—and that when he first met
Chavkin she was “the best tree director
I had ever met. So detailed, so specific,
so alive.” She tends to create her most
showstopping moments through what
she calls “simple gestures.” At the end of
“Comet,” a forlorn Pierre (originally
played on Broadway by Josh Groban)
takes a slow walk on a winter’s night,
singing in a single beam of light. But
soon the ensemble members, who have
scattered throughout the theatre in the
“Everything is farm-to-fief-to-lord-to-duchy-to-table.” dark, begin a chorale underneath his
words, and Pierre looks heavenward as
a huge, Sputnik-inspired chandelier—
• • the titular great comet—starts to glow,
brighter and brighter, until the entire
the collaborative aspects of theatre- Festival and won an award for up-and- theatre is illuminated. Every member of
making. After college, while Chavkin coming companies; they earned the same both the cast and the audience gazes up,
was in graduate school for directing, prize again in 2006 and 2008. The Brit- too, creating a startling sense of commu-
at Columbia, she and five friends from ish stage director John Tiffany recalled, nion between performer and viewer. The
N.Y.U. co-founded a theatre company, “It was so different to any other theatre director Lear deBessonet told me, “When
the TEAM, with a staunchly anti- that I saw coming out of New York. It I go to see one of Rachel’s pieces, I know
hierarchical, consensus-driven process, felt almost more connected to indie that I’m going to feel electricity in my
such that no work could be credited to filmmaking.” body, during these moments of liftoff.”
a single author. Her friend and fellow Chavkin also began collaborating with Charles Isherwood, in the Times, called
Playwrights alumnus Jay Sterkel recalled artists outside the TEAM, including Dave “Comet” “the most innovative and the
that from early on Chavkin “saw her- Malloy, the writer and composer of “Na- best new musical to open on Broadway
self as the manager of the people, the tasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812.” since ‘Hamilton,’ ” and added, with a
keeper of the story. She specifically That musical, based on an excerpt of “War “heresy alert,” that of the two he pre-
wanted to occupy that role.” He added, and Peace,” was an immersive “electropop ferred “Comet.”The show earned twelve
“This group began to coalesce that was opera” about a naïve socialite (Natasha) Tony nominations, the most for any pro-
like the Rachel Chavkin Players.” But and a lonely intellectual (Pierre, originally duction that season, including one for
Chavkin took issue with this character- played by Malloy) in nineteenth-century Best Direction. Chavkin said, “We felt
ization, which has been a lasting source Moscow on the eve of a looming astro- like these kids storming the castle.”
of tension within the company, she said. nomical event. For the show’s first stag-
She always considered herself an equal ing, at the nonprofit theatre Ars Nova, or better or worse, the Broadway mu-
in the creative process, she told me, even
if, as a director, she was perceived as
in 2012, Chavkin and her creative team
transformed the tiny venue into a Rus-
F sical is a genre that favors legibility.
Both “Comet” and “Hadestown” feature
having a certain “positional power.” (Per- sian night club, with the walls swathed in opening numbers that introduce the cast
haps tellingly, the name the TEAM— red velvet and audience members seated of characters one by one. (“Gonna have
the Theatre of the Emerging American at café tables; as the story unfolded, the to study up a little bit if you want to keep
Moment—was both a nod to the group’s performers whirled through the crowd with the plot,” the “Comet” ensemble
collective mind-set and a reference to a delivering bottles of vodka and plates of sings.) During the first week of “Lem-
college nickname for Chavkin, who liked pierogi. “Comet” became a cult phenom- picka” previews, Chavkin told me, of its
to wear an old T-shirt from a family fun enon and attracted a group of ambitious opening scene, “We’ve heard from peo-
run that read “Team Chavkin.”) The producers. In 2013, to scale up the produc- ple who are kind of confused.” Tamara
TEAM’s pieces featured a gleeful cascade tion without losing its communal atmo- de Lempicka’s life spanned nearly the
of pop-culture references, historical re- sphere, they paid to put up a giant tent entire twentieth century. A half-Jewish
search, and heady tangents about polit- to house two runs in vacant Manhat- upper-class Polish woman, she married
ical and social issues: reality TV, teen tan lots. When “Comet” finally reached into a wealthy Christian family, survived
pregnancy. In 2005, the group brought Broadway, in 2016, Chavkin and her team the Bolshevik Revolution, went on to
two shows to the Edinburgh Fringe retained an unusual degree of rowdy in- make her name in Paris, painting sen-
sual but hard-edged nudes of women, weren’t quite sure whose perspective we’re “All she ever wanted was everything.”
and then fled the Nazi occupation for watching,” Chavkin told me. “Obviously, Owing to union rules, rehearsal had
Los Angeles, where she lived well into I, for one, really feel for the Bolsheviks, to wrap at four-thirty. Chavkin sang a
old age. The heart of “Lempicka” was a but it’s not their story, and if you don’t little ditty to herself: “There’s never
bisexual love triangle between Tamara; know firmly whose story to be oriented enough tiiime.” Espinosa looked weary.
her husband, Tadeusz; and a fictional- toward then the opening is not doing its “Lempicka,” which she’d joined early in
ized prostitute named Rafaela, based job.” The prologue wouldn’t exactly re- its development, was her first Broad-
on one of Lempicka’s regular portrait solve the awkward class politics, and it way role in more than a decade and was,
subjects. The opening number churned had a whiff of the overfamiliar (the old as Chavkin put it, “fucking unforgiv-
through years of backstory in less than lady from “Titanic,” the bench scene from ing.” Espinosa had to sing big and belty
ten minutes: Tamara marries Tadeusz “Forrest Gump”), but it would at least in nearly every scene. Now, after rehears-
and has a baby in tsarist Russia, and Ta- help center Tamara in the tale. ing some new choreography with the
deusz is arrested during the 1917 Revo- Onstage, Eden Espinosa, the forty- whole cast, she walked to the front of
lution. After Tamara barters her jewels six-year-old actor playing Tamara, was the stage shaking her head. “I’m sorry,”
(and, eventually, her body) for Tadeusz’s sitting on the hotly debated park bench, she said, softly. “But this is a lot, because
freedom, the pair decide to flee together clutching a cane and wearing a wide- everyone’s on different beats, and on
to France. To aid the audience on this brimmed hat. On a scrim behind her different words.”
hectic sprint through history, the show were hazy palm trees and the words “Los Chavkin nodded warmly, taking this
relied on explanatory text projections: Angeles, 1975.” The costume designer, in. “Ensemble, how are you feeling?” she
“Russia, 1916”; “Night train to Paris.” Paloma Young, and two associates fid- asked over the mike. One chorus mem-
There’d been a back-and-forth about dled with Espinosa’s satin swing coat. To ber suggested that just the dancers do
whether to slow down the action by in- finesse the transition from the new first the new steps for the next performance,
cluding a prologue in which Tamara sits scene to the old first scene, Chavkin and Chavkin seemed pleased by the
on a park bench in old age and outlines wanted to execute a dramatic onstage temporary solution.
her past. Chavkin had cut the scene in costume change that involved stripping With five minutes left, the stage man-
rehearsals, preferring to toss audiences off Tamara’s old-lady outfit onstage to ager asked if she wanted to run the num-
directly into the maelstrom. Now, at the reveal a wedding gown beneath. Chavkin ber one more time. “Yeah, baby!” Chavkin
request of Kreitzer, the playwright, a asked, via the “God mike”—a handheld said, triumphantly kicking out one leg.
soft-spoken woman with purple hair, microphone used to communicate with As others were flagging, she seemed to
Chavkin was considering putting the the stage—if they were ready to carry be gaining steam. A few days later, she
scene back in, but with a new song—ac- out the quick transformation. “Oh, yeah!” texted me that they were pulling the
tually an old one, from the La Jolla pro- Young said, flashing a thumbs-up. opening scene apart all over again.
duction. A few days into previews, she The new-old number was a wistful
texted me, “Girl, we’re totally gonna put song, laced with bitterness. Tamara may hen I first met Chavkin, in 2019,
back in the old lady top of the show.”
The next Monday, with three weeks
look like an “old, eccentric bat,” but she
was once an art-world star who “painted
W “Hadestown” had just won eight
Tonys, including Best Direction of a
to go before the première, Chavkin was what a woman could be.” Chavkin Musical, and Chavkin had become
at the theatre for a “massive day” of imple- grinned when Espinosa got to the lyric something of a theatre-world cause
menting the changes. The auditorium, célèbre after using her acceptance speech
full of tech equipment, had the look of to point out that no other Broadway
a NASA control room; by night, it would musical that season had been directed
be cleared out to accommodate audi- by a woman. (“This is not a pipeline
ences. Chavkin was calmly sitting in the issue,” she said. “It is a failure of imag-
center of it all on a “butt board,” a long ination.”) Like “Comet,” “Hadestown”
cushion that lies on top of the theatre managed to maintain the scrappy feel
seats (“the only way to get through tech,” of downtown theatre in an uptown space.
she said), but she’s an energetic physical Anaïs Mitchell’s poetic score, which was
presence on set, regularly leaping up to previously released as a folk concept
demonstrate her staging ideas. Another “History’s a bitch, but so am I!” She told album, is far earthier than standard
day, I saw her take a running jump onto me, “I’m so glad we got it back in, be- Broadway fare; the boisterous band plays
a wooden platform to act out a transi- cause I want it to be on all the merch. directly onstage. The show opens with
tion she had in mind, only to trip and Can’t you just see it on a mug?” The ex- the narrator, the messenger god Her-
fall. Without missing a beat, she laughed isting merchandise featured a minimal- mes, initiating a call-and-response with
and told the performers, “Don’t do that.” ist outline of Lempicka’s face. “It is so the audience to invoke a myth-making
Among Chavkin’s challenges with the conservative!” Chavkin said. “They should space: “All right?” “All right!” (Chavkin
opening was a matter of audience alle- be selling fucking garter belts that say said, “I generally don’t believe in the
giances: Tamara’s story invited the audi- ‘Lempicka’ on them.” A tagline that the fourth wall.”) The playwright Bess Wohl,
ence to root for the aristocrats over the marketing team was using to promote one of Chavkin’s regular collaborators,
revolutionaries. “Some friends said they the show was so broad as to be opaque: told me, “I so often see women directors’
work being compared to the theatrical the musical ultimately argues, means let- Chavkin and I spoke by phone. She
equivalent of needlepoint—small and ting one’s brushstrokes show. Chavkin seemed to be anticipating, perhaps a bit
delicate.” Chavkin, she went on, favors told me, “Mess is queerness. Mess is defensively, all the reasons that critics
the “brash and huge and messy.” anti-establishment. Mess is truth.” might dismiss “Lempicka” out of
In one conversation, Chavkin men- Perhaps accordingly, the musical fa- hand—“ ‘Too big.’ ‘Another bio-pic.’
tioned that Guggenheim fellowships are vored a clash of visual styles that some- ‘Too queer.’ ” She added, “I think the
not awarded to theatre directors, on the times left the production feeling disjointed show is quite profound, and there’s the
ground that their work is to interpret, and overstuffed. The choreography, by terror of, Will that be seen? Will it be
not generate. “Interpretive art is gener- Raja Feather Kelly, leaned on refer- seen for the wonder that I think it is?”
ative,” she said, adding, “You change the ences to Madonna, who is a collector of
meaning of something de- Lempicka’s art and projects havkin and Heinrichs bought a
pending on how you deliver
it.” Still, directors, like edi-
her paintings during arena
concerts. Ensemble mem-
C two-bedroom apartment in Crown
Heights, Brooklyn, seventeen years ago,
tors of written stories, must bers in cone bustiers vogued when they earned less than sixty thou-
work with the raw material across the stage. A synth- sand dollars a year combined. They still
they’re given, and the raw heavy number about futur- live there today, although the commute
material of “Lempicka” was ism was wildly entertain- to Times Square is long, and as a Broad-
in some ways an unnatural ing but felt ported in from a way director she is now well compen-
match for Chavkin. Struc- Depeche Mode music video. sated. (For the sake of pay transparency,
turally and sonically, the mu- My favorite parts of the pro- she told me that the year “Hadestown”
sical hewed to Broadway duction traded such wink- opened and became a hit she made more
convention. Gould, the coming anachronisms for louche than eight hundred thousand dollars. “I
poser, told me that he wrote the score in prewar glamour. In one stand-out scene, want this to be very much on the record,”
the spirit of sprawling eighties block- Tamara and Rafaela visit a clandestine she told me, “because no one talks enough
buster musicals. “I’ve been calling this lesbian bar and lounge among tuxedoed about money.”) When I went over to her
show ‘Lez Miz,’” he joked. The set, de- women. A pink velvet banquette emerges apartment for dinner one night in Feb-
signed by Riccardo Hernández, was sleek out of a clamshell-shaped trapdoor that ruary, she pulled a tub of soup out of the
and mechanical, with what Chavkin calls Chavkin described as a “vagina in the fridge and asked me to sniff it to make
“whizbangs,” including fly-in triangular floor.” As “Comet” had done with a sliver sure it “hadn’t gone funky,” then tasked
screens and an Eiffel Toweresque jungle of “War and Peace,” the scene made its me with heating it up in the microwave.
gym of light-up staircases. Chavkin, how- esoteric particulars feel wholly enveloping. In the dining room, Chavkin’s Tony Award
ever, told me that she saw the produc- Chavkin is not usually inclined to- for “Hadestown” was wedged on the
tion’s traditional elements as “drag,” under ward sentimental story lines. “Unsenti- cluttered top of a tall wooden cabinet. A
cover of which to “smuggle a nuanced, mentality is the real beauty,” she told me. spindly chandelier—one of a number of
queer narrative onto Broadway.” But “Lempicka” promised to be, among smaller lights used on the set of “Comet”—
“Lempicka” places itself in dialogue everything else, a big, tragic romance. hovered elegantly, but the table beneath
with “Sunday in the Park with George”— Throughout the development process, was nearly invisible under a sea of papers
“Woman is plane, color, light,” Tamara Chavkin and her team struggled to build and books. Rather than try to make space,
sings, echoing Sondheim’s famous song an emotional armature that could sup- Chavkin asked if I would mind sitting
“Color and Light.” But the two musi- port Tamara’s two competing love sto- on the living-room floor.
cals take very different approaches to ries. A triangle needs three strong sides, Chavkin conducts her personal life
the art at their center. “Sunday,” cerebral and it was hard to believe that Tadeusz, with the same collaborative ethos that
and meticulous, makes a case for Seu- who is jobless and adrift in Paris, could she brings to the theatre. In 2019, she
rat’s rigorous and somewhat chilly com- hold Tamara’s affection as powerfully as agreed to serve as a surrogate for her
positions; the subject and the form of the charismatic Rafaela, played by the best friends, a gay artist couple who live
the show align, bringing, as Sondheim scene-stealing alto Amber Iman. They’d in Texas. At the time, she and Heinrichs
puts it in George’s first song, “order to tried to make Tadeusz more appealing, were leaning toward not having children,
the whole.” In “Lempicka,” the art and removing a scene of him striking Tamara in part because Heinrichs’s father died
the animating ideas are at odds. The and adding dialogue in which he admits of hereditary Alzheimer’s. In an essay
women in Tamara’s portraits look in- he’s been “a bit of a shit” about her paint- for Vogue, she recalled that getting preg-
scrutable and machinelike, as if they’ve ing career. One day, during rehearsals, An- nant involved some “ferrying of sperm-
been slicked over by a Zamboni. Her drew Samonsky, the actor playing Tade- filled syringes around my flat” during
mantra in the show is “Never let them usz, told Chavkin, “I’m feeling a bit lost, the London run of “Hadestown.” When
see your brushstrokes,” a principle that just because of all the versions. I’m trying the baby was born—also on Chavkin’s
she applies both to her paintings and to to calibrate who he is.” Chavkin came up floor—the daddies, as she calls them,
her personal life. But the story’s goal is with the idea of having Tadeusz don a temporarily relocated to an apartment
to expose a crosshatching of experiences three-piece suit as he sang his solo num- upstairs that Chavkin rents. They moved
beneath the varnish—aging, trauma, per- ber—“putting on armor,” she called it. back to Texas a year later, and Chavkin
secution, dislocation. Living honestly, A few days before the première, realized that she wanted a child of her
own. She and Heinrichs had a son, Sam, royalties; as an actor, Gray does not. Sara Holdren, of New York, a former the-
in 2021, and she considers the children Chavkin told me that she plans to share atre director herself, wrote, “The show
long-distance family. Heinrichs’s sister, her royalties with the show’s original pushes and poses—it doesn’t let us in.”
Liz, now lives in the upstairs apartment Broadway leads, but that she has faced Chavkin said that she spent the end of
and helps to care for Sam, an arrangement bureaucratic hurdles in doing so. Gray the after-party sitting with Gould, going
that allows Chavkin to work marathon said, “I think some of her morals and “down the spiral.” Dave Malloy and Anaïs
rehearsal days and late nights at the the- ethics—there’s not space for them in Mitchell were there, and they attempted
atre. “It all sounds complicated, but it re- those commercial machines.” Still, she to cheer Chavkin up by belting “Thun-
ally isn’t,” Chavkin told me. “Or maybe it gave Chavkin credit for trying to put her der Road” with her on the building’s
is just the kind of complicated that I like.” ideals into practice in a “yucky, antiquated” marble steps. By the next week, the fate
“Lempicka” is not Chavkin’s first system. “Commercial theatre is not about of “Lempicka” was uncertain. Chavkin
Broadway production to meet a difficult camaraderie. It’s not about the art. It is told me, “Now I just live with a low-level
end. “Comet” struggled to sustain itself about making money,” Gray said, add- sense of doom.” She was quick to note
commercially despite its critical acclaim. ing, “That eats people alive.” that, if “Lempicka” closed, the worst ef-
The cast was among the largest on Broad- fects would be felt among the cast and
way at the time, and the show was expen- here are feast and famine years crew, who would suddenly be out of a
sive to maintain. After the better part of
a year, Josh Groban left the cast and sales
T on Broadway. The glut of new
productions this season—thirty-nine, in-
job. Her next directing project, a musi-
cal adaptation of “The Great Gatsby,”
plummeted. In July of 2017, the “Hamil- cluding twenty-one musicals—belies with a score co-written by the British
ton” alum Okieriete Onaodowan assumed the fact that audiences’ appetite for the rock star Florence Welch, had already
the role of Pierre, but the producers cut theatre has yet to recover from the pan- started rehearsals for an out-of-town pre-
his run short to allow the veteran the- demic; as of March, Broadway atten- mière in Boston.
atre actor Mandy Patinkin to do a special dance is down seventeen per cent from One night in late April, I went with
engagement, hoping that his star power pre-Covid levels. According to Forbes, Chavkin to see “The Outsiders,” a new
would revive sales. Instead, the change only about a quarter of Broadway shows Broadway musical based on S. E. Hin-
caused a scandal when an organization become commercial hits even in a good ton’s young-adult novel, which Francis
called Broadway Black criticized the de- year. Jack Viertel, a theatre producer and Ford Coppola adapted into a film in 1983.
cision, prompting a wave of social-media the author of “The Secret Life of the The show had opened three days before
outrage, and Patinkin promptly backed American Musical,” told me that, given “Lempicka,” also to mixed reviews, but was
out. Weathering what Chavkin called the competitive current conditions, “Lem-
a “shitstorm” of bad publicity, “Comet” picka,” lacking instant name recognition
abruptly announced a closing date. or celebrity stunt casting, “couldn’t have
Chavkin has learned, in other public opened at a worse time.” From the first
ways, that the hazards of working in the week of previews, its financial outlook
commercial theatre are political as well was dire. Tickets were priced modestly,
as artistic. She is known for casting di- and, though the theatre was mostly full
versely and for recruiting new talent, but each night, it was bringing in only in the
she has also faced complaints about work- ballpark of four hundred thousand dol-
place equity. During the reckonings of lars a week, nowhere near what it needed
summer, 2020, a Black costume designer to recoup its costs.The show badly needed
who’d worked on “Lempicka” in Wil- the buy-in of critics, or a sudden surge
liamstown but wasn’t kept on posted an in word-of-mouth fandom.
Instagram video (later deleted) alleging On opening night, April 14th, Chavkin
unfair treatment. Chavkin publicly apol- walked the red carpet wearing silk Ra-
ogized, and afterward hired an “anti-op- chel Comey pants in the same shade of
pressionist” leadership coach with whom emerald as Lempicka used in her self-
she continues to work. (Last year, a per- portrait “Tamara in the Green Bugatti.”
former from “Hadestown” sued the pro- There was an after-party at the ritzy
duction for racial discrimination and re- Metropolitan Club, which was “fun, until
taliation.The racial-discrimination claims it was less fun,” Chavkin told me. Re-
were dismissed on First Amendment views had started to appear shortly after
grounds, but the retaliation claims are curtain call. Jesse Green, of the Times,
still pending.) Amber Gray, a mixed-race praised Espinosa and Iman’s vocal acro-
actress and TEAM member who played batics but likened the Bolsheviks scene
the original Persephone in Chavkin’s to “an anemic ‘Les Miz’” and wrote that
“Hadestown,” told me that her relation- the show lacked “subtlety, complexity
ship with Chavkin has grown strained and historical precision.” (The review’s
over time owing to issues of compensa- headline twisted the knife: “It’s No Sun-
tion. As the director, Chavkin receives day in the Park with ‘Lempicka.’”)
faring well in ticket sales. Its thirty-five- and Zhailon Levingston, is scheduled to Madonna slipped into the penulti-
year-old director, Chavkin’s friend Danya finish workshopping at BAM in the fall. mate performance, wearing huge black
Taymor—the niece of Julie Taymor, the At the same time, Chavkin is develop- sunglasses. A crowd of mostly young
director of “The Lion King” and one of ing her first Hollywood project—a pe- and queer fans—Lempeople, they’d
Chavkin’s early heroes—was making riod film about a punk band—with the taken to calling themselves—camped
her Broadway-musical directorial début. encouragement of Steven Spielberg, who, out in long lines for rush tickets. On
“The Outsiders,” about warring gangs after seeing “Hadestown,” told her that closing day, outside the Longacre, a
of teen-age boys in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is she thinks like a filmmaker. Lemperson named Lauren Cagnetta
a crowd-pleaser, with a breezy, if forget- The “Gatsby” closing number features was dressed in a pink T-shirt embla-
table, score and a cast full of peppy (and the character of Nick Carraway singing zoned with Espinosa’s face. Cagnetta
in one case shirtless) youths. But its stage- Fitzgerald’s famous final line: “So we was seeing the show for the thirty-
craft is inventive and mature. During in- beat on, boats against the current, borne third time. A twentysomething named
termission, Chavkin noted that one cli- back ceaselessly into the past.” Like Sam Bash sported a fanny pack cov-
mactic maneuver, featuring two boys “Gatsby,” all three of Chavkin’s Broad- ered in homemade “Lempicka” but-
leaping onto a moving train with swing- way musicals end tragically, but with a tons. “Shows are short,” Bash said,
ing flashlights lighting their way, had sense that something vital has been tearily. “But art is long.”
echoes of a stunning moment in “Ha- gleaned from the heartache. In “Ha- Inside the theatre, the mood was
destown” when Orpheus travels to the destown,” after Orpheus fails to rescue raucous. When Espinosa took her
underworld and five large, low-hanging Eurydice from Hades—and she falls back place on the bench, the audience
lamps sway out over the audience in per- into the underworld, via a mechanism erupted. Several numbers got a stand-
fect unison. “Not in a derivative way,” she that descends beneath the stage—Her- ing ovation, causing the show to run
hastened to add. “They are talking to each mes starts the story over from the top, overtime. The cast, feeding off the
other.” She walked over to Taymor, who saying that they will “sing it again.” The energy in the room, seemed newly
was standing near the front of the stage. cast then performs an epilogue, down- confident, their performances rawer
“It’s so fucking good,” Chavkin said, stage and without microphones, after and more lived in. At intermission, a
squeezing Taymor on the shoulder. they’ve taken their bows. In a book about man sitting behind me, who identi-
Afterward, on a car ride back to the making of the show, Anaïs Mitch- fied himself as a stage director, de-
Brooklyn, Chavkin stared out the win- ell writes that Chavkin “felt that the au- scribed “Lempicka” as the “tragedy
dow. “I often felt, with the Team, that dience needed a final moment together, of this Broadway season.” He went
we were too warm or emotional or what- with the Company, to fully process.” In on, “If you don’t have original shows,
not for downtown,” she said. “And then, “Lempicka,” Tamara’s art is rediscovered you can’t have revivals in twenty years.
uptown, I feel very welcomed, but also late in her life, but she is still haunted by Nobody revives jukebox musicals.”
often have felt like my taste doesn’t align her personal losses. For most of the mu- After the final bows, the cast and the
with a lot of what gets celebrated or sus- sical, Lempicka’s paintings are depicted core creative team lingered onstage
tained.” She went on, “I won’t speak to only as digital projections or as empty to deliver speeches. Their tone was
this season at all, for a number of rea- frames onstage. But, in the final min- defiant, their narrative neat: the show
sons, but in previous seasons I will see utes, huge reproductions lower from the had simply been misunderstood.
stuff and I will just be, like, I don’t un- ceiling and fill the stage with their jewel Kreitzer, noting that a cast album
derstand. I am genuinely confused by tones. “We do not control the world. We would be out shortly, quoted Tennes-
what ‘good’ is. It’s something about the control one flat rectangle of canvas at a see Williams from “Orpheus De-
comfort of the familiar, when what I’ve time,” Tamara sings, and—in a lovely scending”: “Wild things leave skins
always been most exhilarated by is, I’ve “simple gesture”—a “blue-out” of milky behind them.”
never seen that before.” sapphire light swallows the stage. Once the audience had shuff led
All the great Broadway directors swing The day after we saw “The Outsid- out of the theatre, the crew strung
and miss. Julie Taymor’s “Spider-Man” ers,” the Boston run of “Gatsby” was ex- caution tape across the stage. The next
musical was a notorious disaster. Hal tended owing to advance demand. The day, demolition of the set would begin.
Prince had seven flops in a row, beginning following week, the Tony nominations Chavkin sat alone in the orchestra
with “Merrily We Roll Along,” then made were announced. “Lempicka” got three section until the house went dark and
“The Phantom of the Opera.” “Gatsby” is nods, including one for Espinosa as Best only a single ghost light illuminated
expected to eventually transfer to Broad- Actress, but it didn’t get Best Musical, the stage. “It was different tonight,”
way, but Chavkin said that she’s eager to and Chavkin was passed over for Best she said. In its final moments, “Lem-
get back to making “weird shit” down- Direction. On May 2nd, Chavkin texted picka” had acquired the kind of aban-
town, and that her financial security from me, “We’re about to post a closing notice.” don that Chavkin’s best work is known
“Hadestown” has given her the privilege for. “The cast found more space. It
of being choosy. She continues to con- he surge of attention that “Lem- got more complicated, and craggy.
sider the TEAM a “spiritual home base.”
A project the ensemble has been working
T picka” needed did arrive, too late.
In its last weeks, Lin-Manuel Mi-
You know, when you’re first making
the machine of a show, it can feel very
on for many years, about the interpersonal randa and Rosie O’Donnell went to polished. But my favorite part has al-
legacy of slavery, co-directed by Chavkin see it and posted praise on social media. ways been the cracks.” 
seen this thing about “plastistone” rocks?
SHOUTS & MURMURS It’s a new form of sedimentary geol-
ogy; stones fused with plastic garbage
have been found on multiple conti-
nents, the same plastics that lurk inside
your cells, and within your kids, prog-
ress and negligence intertwined on the
downslope of history.
All of your defining uncertainty
was stolen and is being used by crim-
inals to buy ruff le-hem Capris on
strawberryfashion.com.
What Are We Doing?

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result that said “Real Rapid Passport a wild place on the street where you - Set up fraud alerts by contacting
Renewal Easy Online.” grew up (behind a mailbox!). one of the three major credit bu-
Please know that we take your pri- reaus (Experiman, Snarlax, Trans-
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ness is why you have no idea who we are You seem to be asking a lot of ques- your credit report will receive a
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placed it under maximum encryption, Circle: Y/N. Approach with caution; he hasn’t
separating your home address from MRI seen you yet. There, that ’s it.
images of your most vulnerable bones. What Constitutes Your “Identity”? And . . . aha! Never mind. Just that
Regrettably, an incident occurred involv- You’re pretty far into life and you still clumsy footman, cleaning up a spill.
ing the part of our network that stores don’t know. Most days, you’re not much Seems to have dropped his saucer
digital replicas of your nude abdomen more than the sum of your insecurities. of private data.
after you’ve eaten beef pad Thai. If left alone for more than a few min- - For California residents: Must
This notice describes the data-breach utes without the structure of routine, be nice to live out there in the sun
incident, the steps we have taken in re- you begin to cry. You can’t identify what and surf.
sponse, and what you can do next. it means to be yourself, let alone a
human being. In the end, did you choose Is There More Information You Should
LUCI GUTIÉRREZ
What Happened? your career simply to better understand Know?

In or around November or February, your parents? How is it that, when they Yes, but we’re not just going to put
2018/24, we detected suspicious activity were your age, they moved so naturally it here where anyone can steal it. See?
within our system. It was not like in the through the adult world? And have you We’re already rebuilding your trust. 
named my imaginary friend Walker, after
PERSONAL HISTORY the co-captain Dickie Walker.
There was a feeling of fun, of constant
tumult, in our house, but my father could
MY FATHER’S COURT be a hard-ass, too. He’d grown up in east-
ern Pennsylvania—his father and grand-
The Detroit Pistons became his second family. father were coal miners—and in the Sec-
ond World War he had skippered a
BY MOLLY MCCLOSKEY landing craft off Okinawa, a vessel that
transported troops and tanks between
larger ships and the shore. He had no tol-
erance for the spoiled, the entitled, the
soft. His pitiless code of masculinity meant
that my brothers got the worst of it; he
might call them “Mary Jane” if he thought
that they seemed weak or inclined to quit
when things got challenging. Above all,
he hated attitude. What finally brought
him to the pros—in 1972, he got a job
coaching the Portland Trail Blazers, and
my family moved across the country—
was an inability to keep sucking up to
high-school recruits. One day, he went
to see a star senior in New York. The kid
was spinning the ball, acting cocky. “Hey,
Coach Jack,” he said, “what’s Wake For-
est gonna do for me?” My father pondered
this. “You know what we’re gonna do?”
he replied. “We’re gonna stick that ball
right up your ass.” Then he walked out.
Things got off to a bad start in Port-
land. The Blazers had the No. 1 pick in
the 1972 draft. My father wanted Bob
McAdoo, but the Blazers’ owner chose
LaRue Martin. McAdoo went on to win
Rookie of the Year at Buffalo en route
to the Hall of Fame, while Martin is still
The author (left), with her father, Jack McCloskey, and siblings. widely regarded as the worst first pick
in N.B.A. history. My father clashed
ne night, when I was a sophomore even minor significance. Something else with the star forward Sidney Wicks.
O in college, my father came to see
me play basketball in Philadelphia. It
was at stake, and I think we knew that,
too.The game was the language he spoke,
Losses piled up. At my new school, boys
taunted me: “Your dad sucks!” I never
was 1984. I was on the team at St. Joseph’s, and I was losing my fluency. said a word about the teasing at home.
and he was the general manager of the I grew up the youngest of six, all of I somehow knew that my job was to
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES, WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
Detroit Pistons. He and my mother were us obsessed with basketball. My oldest bear the ridicule on my father’s behalf.
long divorced, and I saw him only two brother, Mike, was on the freshman team After two years with Portland, my fa-
or three times a year, when he came to at Duke; my first team was called the ther was fired. By 1976, he was flounder-
town for a Pistons game or to scout a California Fancies. I was four, my brother ing, trying to sell time-shares in Hawai-
player. I had lost my starting spot at the Roman was six, and our basket was an ian condos from a rickety desk in our
beginning of the season, and that night iron pot set on the coffee table in the den. And then, that spring, my parents
I didn’t play much or particularly well. rec room of our house in Winston-Salem. got divorced. My father had fallen in love
My father waited for me after the As “Kip Reynolds” and “Mike Jetson,” with someone else. He rented a grim lit-
game, and as soon as I saw him I burst we routed a series of make-believe op- tle apartment in a Portland exurb, where
into tears. I can still see his expression, ponents. My father was then the head my brother Roman and I, still young
tender and somehow unsurprised, even coach at Wake Forest. Every fall, the enough to be living at home, visited him.
though we both knew that my perfor- team came for brunch, and our house I remember depressing Friday evenings
mance was irrelevant. I had landed a full would fill with his other family, giants with takeout burgers, limned, for me,
scholarship, but it was clear that I wasn’t who scooped me up and set me on their with the frightening realization that the
going to develop into a college player of shoulders. I was captivated by them, and bottom could drop right out of the most
solid-seeming things. But within months games. Once we were outside, my father, 1981. Isiah wanted to play in Chicago,
my father was gone from Oregon alto- who’d been serious throughout the meet- his home town. He told my father, “You
gether, having returned to the N.B.A. ing, laughed and elbowed me, as though don’t have anybody I can pass to.” My
fold when the Los Angeles Lakers’ coach, we’d pulled off a caper. I was relieved— father said he’d bench him before he’d
Jerry West, hired him to be his assistant. no sign of the hard-ass—then disap- trade him, and promised to get him some
My mother got a part-time job at a pointed: what became of me seemed of better teammates. My father had a knack
weekly newspaper, and we moved to a little consequence to him. for spotting overlooked talent, and he
house in a cheaper part of town. Then By my senior year, my team was head- wanted players as obsessed with winning
we set about what she called “raising ing for the state tournament and I had as he was. The center Bill Laimbeer,
each other”—trying to navigate our new begun attracting attention from small whom he plucked from Cleveland, had
reality without the ballast of my father. Division I schools. I sent my father news- been drafted a lowly sixty-fifth. Accord-
His first year in L.A., he got remar- paper clippings from our games. I wasn’t ing to the coach Chuck Daly, who would
ried, making a new home with the playing basketball to win his attention; soon join the Pistons, Laimbeer couldn’t
woman for whom he’d left my mother. I played because I loved it and I was jump over a piece of paper, but my fa-
Roman and I visited them twice. I don’t good, but I wanted him to know that I ther had seen him battling to the final
remember much of those stays, apart was good. I don’t remember him ever buzzer in hopeless games, and knew he
from sunshine, palm trees, and Jack Nich- coming to any of my high-school games. wanted him. My father drafted the fu-
olson at courtside. It felt to me as though (He must’ve seen me play sometime, be- ture Hall of Famers Joe Dumars and
my father had stolen away to a glamor- cause I can still hear him scolding me: Dennis Rodman as Detroit’s eighteenth
ous new life; to my continuing shame, “You’re yanking the chain.” He meant and twenty-seventh picks. Even the own-
I told my mother I wanted to live with that I was pulling back on the jump-shot ers of the Pistons were mystified by Du-
him, an idea that no one but me found follow-through—the extended arm and mars: “Who is he?” My father loved him
appealing. Indeed, for reasons that were flexed wrist that are the mark of proper from Day One, inviting him home for
never articulated, my father would not form.) It never occurred to me that he Thanksgiving his rookie year. Dumars
invite me to visit him again for another might go out of his way to see me play, told me recently that, as the new guy,
twenty-five years, by which time we were or that I might be entitled to ask him he’d been holding back on the court. One
as good as strangers. to—that I might be entitled to ask him day, my father said, “You don’t have to
His job in L.A. was short-lived. When for anything at all. Within the world of wait to be great. You’re ready. Go ahead
West moved to the front office after three sports, he was becoming famous and im- and do it.” That night, Dumars put in
seasons, my father was passed over for portant. A couple of times a year, he an explosive performance: “He cleared
the head job. He went to un-glam Indi- breezed into town. He was more dash- the way for me with that conversation.”
ana, to be an assistant with the Pacers, ing and elusive than the bland, plod- Rounding out the front court were
and finally to Detroit, which was then dingly present fathers of my friends, but the power forwards John Salley and Rick
home to the worst team in the league. the thrill was fleeting. I made do with a Mahorn. Salley was charismatic and all
kind of phantom, those moments he smiles, while Mahorn was an enforcer,
was a sophomore in high school, in manifested on the television or in the known as McNasty when he’d played for
Igraying,
1979, when my father—a “rumpled,
mostly unknown . . . old bas-
excited chatter of boys and men I knew,
and it would be years before I admitted
Washington. Vinnie Johnson, dubbed
the Microwave because he heated up so
ketball man,” as one sports blogger has to myself just how much I had needed fast, was the third guard. When my father
described him—took the Pistons job. from him, and how little I got. traded Adrian Dantley, beloved in De-
Throughout high school, Roman and I One night, I played against the daugh- troit, for Mark Aguirre, who had a rep-
would meet him at his hotel when he ter of Jimmy Lynam, who had left the utation for being selfish and spoiled, Pis-
was in town for a game against the Blaz- head job at St. Joseph’s to be an assis- tons fans were angry. But Aguirre blended
ers, and he would take us to dinner, awk- tant with the Blazers. Jimmy was at the in beautifully, and all the shuffling finally
ward outings that only underscored our game, and afterward he told the wom- paid off. In 1989, my father’s tenth year
growing estrangement from him. We en’s coach at St. Joseph’s that he ought with the team, the Pistons swept the
would go to the game, feeling briefly to have a look at me. The school was Lakers for their first championship. They
like V.I.P.s with our complimentary tick- nearly three thousand miles away, but won the title again the next year in Port-
ets, and then he would be gone again. my parents were from Pennsylvania, my land, on a sweet jumper by the Micro-
One of my father’s visits to Portland siblings and I had all been born in Phil- wave with .7 seconds on the clock. Both
coincided with a meeting I had during adelphia, and my father had coached at championships were won against teams
my junior year with my high-school coach Penn. Philadelphia basketball felt like that had let my father go, which must
and the principal after I had been caught family, a return to the unsundered past. have been particularly gratifying.
drinking. My mother, weary from par- By then, the Bad Boys were legend-
enting two teen-agers alone, insisted that eanwhile, my father was building ary. The moniker had gained traction
my father go with me. I was nervous.
The coach, after reminding me of every-
M his team in Detroit. He made
thirty-eight trades in ten years, earning
after CBS used it during a 1988 halftime
feature about the Pistons and it got picked
thing I stood to lose if this sort of be- him the nickname Trader Jack. He started up by the league for its end-of-season
havior continued, benched me for four with Isiah Thomas, whom he drafted in video on the team. The players embraced
it. Detroiters loved the Bad Boys with a In an e-mail to me, he wrote, “The com- feel as though I were underfoot, and that
crazy love, but just about everywhere else missioner did not like our team for being he was waiting to get back to whatever
they were reviled. I still meet men who, so rough—I call it competitive so he also it was I’d interrupted. There were mo-
when they learn of my connection, hiss, did not care for me.” Jerry West, with ments of a3nity, though. One day, he
“I hated that team.” The Bad Boys were whom he’d coached in L.A., would later drove Roman and me around Skidaway
extremely physical—some say dirty, not observe that my father assembled a team in his convertible blasting “Spirit in the
averse to hard fouls or provoking brawls— that reflected his character. He meant it Sky,” and you never saw three people
and were viewed by many as undeserv- as a compliment. “We embodied his damn sing so joyfully about dying.
ing upstarts who brought something ugly personality,” Mahorn told me. “A bunch Not long after I reëntered his life, my
to the sport. It wasn’t just the will to win of average kinda dudes that just had badass father began to drift away again, but in
but the way they won, the emphasis on attitudes.” Dumars agreed: “We were a different manner. In the summer of
grind over dazzle. The sportswriter Keith take-no-prisoners, and that was Jack.” 2012, I went to Portland for a family
Langlois compared the players to “a Just how good the team was can get wedding that he was also attending. I
bunch of hard hats swinging picks and obscured by all the Bad Boys mythol- had just published a book, and, as it hap-
wielding shovels.” My father’s truculence ogy. Isiah was one of the most talented pened, would be reading from it at an
and competitiveness clearly set a tone. point guards in N.B.A. history, and Mi- event the following day. At the recep-
Years earlier, when Pat Riley accidentally chael Jordan would call Dumars the best tion, my father and I were chatting, and
broke the coach Stan Albeck’s nose during defender he ever faced. Laimbeer, a star he mentioned that he’d be going to his
a casual three-on-three game in L.A., rebounder, was one of the first big men daughter’s reading. He was clearly proud.
my father had wanted to fight him over who could consistently hit the three. And then he said, quite sweetly, “Now,
it. At sixty-two, my father went one-on- Rodman had a contained maniacal en- who are you?”
one with Mahorn, to see if Mahorn was ergy that made him a stunning defender
ready to come back after an injury. “I and rebounder. And they were deep— ne night, soon after I moved back
was, like, this old motherfucker? I kicked
his ass,” Mahorn told me recently, laugh-
during both championship seasons, no
player averaged more than nineteen
O to the U.S., in 2014, I settled in to
watch “Bad Boys,” a recent installment
ing. “But he was out there playing hard.” points per game. in ESPN’s sports documentary series
Sports Illustrated ranked the Bad Boys “30 for 30,” which began as a look at the
among the most hated N.B.A. teams of missed a lot of that era. In 1989, two biggest stories from the network’s first
all time, describing them in apocalyptic
tones: “Between the joy of Magic and
Ipionship,
months before the Pistons’ first cham-
I moved to Ireland. I was twen-
thirty years on the air. I wasn’t prepared
for what I saw. While the segment was
the majesty of Michael was the dark and ty-three. I’d gone for what I thought was ostensibly about basketball and winning
frightening rise of the Bad Boys.” The a few weeks’ visit but had instantly loved and being the baddest boys ever, the word
Chicago Tribune writer Sam Smith called it and ended up staying twenty-five years. “family” came up repeatedly. John Salley
them “as cunning as Satan.” Laimbeer For a few of those years, I played on a said he’d thought it was a crock talking
was the most despised Bad Boy of all. local club team, practicing in cold, rural about family in the context of profes-
Once, at halftime of a playoff game in gyms, the game being the only thread sional sports until he joined the Pistons.
Atlanta, a fan went on court with a chain- of connection I still felt to my father. He “And then I had to readjust myself,” he
saw and a cardboard replica of Laim- visited me the first summer I was in Ire- said, “because we were a family.” When
beer’s jersey and sawed it to pieces. (Those land, and never again. Five years passed Rodman wept at the podium after win-
were the days when you could bring a in which I didn’t see him at all. ning Defensive Player of the Year, my fa-
chainsaw to an N.B.A. game.) Laimbeer But, in the early two-thousands, he ther put a hand on his back to steady
welcomed the animosity. They all did, to started urging me to visit him. Every him. Isiah explained, “That type of fam-
varying degrees, using it to throw oppo- other summer, I would go for a few days ily unit that we had was ideal for [Den-
nents off their game. My father believed to Skidaway Island, off the coast of Sa- nis] at a time he really needed it.” Dumars
that a lot of other G.M.s, not to mention vannah, where he’d retired with his wife. remembered, “It was us against the world.”
the N.B.A. commissioner David Stern, For the first hour or so, he seemed de- The moment that struck me most
blamed him for the Pistons’ style of play. lighted to see me, but by evening I would was the Hug. It took place in 1991, after
the team’s loss to the Chicago Bulls in
the Conference Finals. Technically, it
wasn’t after the loss, because there were
still about eight seconds on the game
clock when most of the Pistons walked
off the court, right past a stupefied Mi-
chael Jordan, their final act as champs a
refusal to pass the torch graciously.
As they headed for the tunnel, my
father emerged from the opposite direc-
tion. He hugged Laimbeer, then Isiah.
The camera zoomed in on his face. He
was crying, holding Isiah tight. I’ve rerun would like a do-over,” he said softly. was, a man you could count on—I would
that moment a dozen times. I even found Then he added, “How many happy love think of the day he walked out on us,
a longer version of it that shows my fa- songs are there?” the years I wasn’t welcome in his home,
ther pulling away in the direction of the I asked if I could call him sometime my mother getting by on her own.
court and Isiah steering him back to- to talk about my father, and he gave me During the height of Covid, I bought
ward the locker room, talking in his ear, his number. When we spoke, not long myself a blue basketball, and went shoot-
consoling him. afterward, I mentioned the Hug. “I’ve ing in the park near my house on a few
Eventually, I realized why the image had three great hugs in my life—my quiet mornings. I hadn’t played in years,
hit me so hard. It wasn’t just that this mom, Jack McCloskey, and my wife,” he but it came back easily. Elbow in. Fol-
was my father at his very best: loyal, vul- said. “That’s an embrace I’ll never forget. low through. Don’t yank the chain. I didn’t
nerable, utterly invested. It was because We had given all that we could possibly learn much from my father about the
it made clear that there were two things fundamentals of the game, or about life,
I needed to forgive him for: not having really. But he modelled one thing I did
been there for me, and having been there have to admire: the art of keeping going.
for others. Last year, I gathered all my father’s
letters and e-mails to me and read them
efore my father succumbed fully to through. I had begun wondering if there
B dementia, he apologized to me. We
were sitting at his breakfast table, and he
were dimensions to him that my resent-
ment, or the vagaries of memory, had
said quietly and with no preamble, “I’m obscured. One note from 2002 came
sorry we weren’t closer when you were with the clippings I had sent him from
growing up.” I could tell that he had re- give. There was nothing more to do with my high-school games. “It is not that I
hearsed this declaration, and I can’t say that team than watch it die and be a part don’t want them, but you never know
I was unmoved. But he made our es- of that.” I envied the two of them, the how long one is gg to be here, so I felt
trangement sound like a mutual failing. bond on display in that moment. But you would like to have them,” he wrote,
I was also dismayed by what came next. there was also something unexpectedly then added, “You did not get everything.”
I had always believed that he kept his reassuring about seeing my father in a He was referring to the fact that he had
distance from me when I was young be- better light, through someone else’s eyes. held on to a sketch I’d made, as a child,
cause going in and out of my life was too I began seeking out other people who of Charlie Davis, who was my father’s
painful. But it wasn’t that. “I was just so had known my father, tracking down star guard at Wake Forest, the first player
wrapped up in basketball,” he said. Bad Boys, rival coaches, a former Sports who really stole his heart.
I mumbled something about also Illustrated journalist who once inter- Finally, I dug out an envelope of photos
being sorry—as in, Yeah, it’s too bad. viewed him. I was greedy for details, as and letters I had collected the spring after
Then I took my dishes to the kitchen, though my father were a cold case I his death. A few of my siblings and I had
leaving him there alone. might yet crack. gone to the house on Skidaway to claim
As the Alzheimer’s progressed, my I phoned the ex-Piston William Bed- mementos, and the envelope had sat in
father began phoning me. His vocabu- ford at the car dealership where he was my closet ever since. I thought I knew
lary was ransacked by dementia, but his working. He let out a low whistle when what it contained—hadn’t I filled it my-
utterances rang strangely true. I identified myself, and said, “Oh. My. self?—but there were surprises. A photo
Once, he said, “It’s so cold on this ship.” God,” as though I were a long-lost sis- of my grandfather, shockingly handsome,
Another day, he told me, “I’ll be leav- ter. Bedford had been drafted sixth in before black lung and Camel cigarettes
ing the area soon.” 1986 by Phoenix; by the time my father ravaged him. A pocket diary my father
He died at ninety-one, on the open- traded for him, the following year, he kept while on Okinawa after the war: fuel
ing day of the 2017 Finals. Isiah Thomas was known to be struggling with a drug dumps, bomb disposal, the names and
was providing commentary on NBA TV problem. He told me my father had Stateside addresses of his men. And a
and paid tribute. “He fought for us in a gone to twelve-step meetings with him. photograph of me. I am four years old,
league and in a time where it was all “It was unbelievable to have a G.M. like standing in the back yard wearing shorts,
about the Lakers and the Celtics,” he that,” he said. “Jack was in my corner a no shirt, and a baseball cap and glove. A
said. “We never would’ve been the type hundred per cent.” few years later, I became embarrassed by
of team or people that we became had I was glad to hear that my father had my tomboyishness and ripped the photo
we not met [him] . . . I can sincerely say come through for him, but I was also up. But here it was. Scored this way and
that we loved Jack McCloskey.” well aware that this was during a pe- that, like a cracked mirror. On the back,
A month later, after the memorial riod when two of my siblings and I were written in my father’s hand: “Molly—she
service, I sat in my father’s kitchen talking dealing with alcoholism. It wasn’t the tore this pic, but I saved the pieces & had
to Isiah. I mentioned the apology. “If first time during my investigations that it restored as well as they could.”
you could change one thing,” he asked, I’d been conscious of an ignoble im- Like that moment at the wedding—
“what would it be?” I said that I wished pulse: the desire to set someone straight. Now, who are you?—it was us all over,
my father would have allowed me into When people waxed rhapsodic about a string of botched attempts that, in the
his life when I was young. “Everybody my father—what a straight-up guy he end, maybe did amount to something. 
ANNALS OF CRIME
LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE
Zach Horwitz was a mystifying presence on the big screen, until the F.B.I. showed up.
BY EVAN OSNOS
A
nyone who visited Zach and praised Cox for “taking me under his Still, many people who encountered
Mallory Horwitz in 2019 would wing,” and marvelled, with self-flatter- Zach thought that he seemed like just
have said that they had made ing deference, “When you’re sitting across another lucky beneficiary of the capri-
it in Hollywood. They lived in a six- the table from him, doing scenes, you cious entertainment business. Gina Dick-
million-dollar home on Bolton Road, almost have to pinch yourself and say, erson, a real-estate agent who met with
within walking distance of Beverly Hills; ‘How is this real?’” him and Mallory, said, “In L.A. more
there was a screening room, a thousand- Like many young stars, Zach dabbled than anywhere else, nobody really ever
bottle wine cellar, and a cabana laced in tech investments and started compa- knows where the money is coming from.”
with flowering vines by the pool. The nies to produce and distribute films; he Her colleague Tracy Tutor told me, “In
Horwitzes had hired a celebrity deco- named his enterprises 1inMM, after his Hollywood, the more you fake it, the
rator and installed a baby grand piano favorite saying, “When odds are one in more people actually buy it. You have
and framed photographs of Brigitte a million, be that one.” Eventually, he the right car? You’re wearing the right
Bardot and Jack Nicholson. On social encouraged Mallory to stop working at suit? You know the right people? No
media, Zach posted pictures of himself the salon. They had forty million dollars one does the diligence.”
courtside at Lakers games; Mallory in the bank, he told her. Why go to work? If anything, Zach struck people as too
shared images of their toddler playing All the while, Zach kept in touch with blandly genial to be anything other than
in the California sun. For Mallory’s the friends who’d been with him during what he appeared. Civetta, the director,
thirtieth birthday, Zach paid the R. & B. his rise. He took them to parties by pri- noticed that he seemed determined to
artist Miguel to perform for friends at vate plane and always paid their way; he project wholesome simplicity—“milk and
the Nice Guy, a voguish restaurant in even made some of them rich, by deal- apple pie, his wife, his kids.” Tutor, the
West Hollywood. ing them into his businesses. In 2018, real-estate agent, who often appears with
The couple, college sweethearts from during a dinner in Montreal with three her clients on a reality show called “Mil-
Indiana University, had arrived in Cali- old friends from Indiana, one of them lion Dollar Listing Los Angeles,” con-
fornia seven years earlier, in search of a proposed a toast to Zach: “You’ve changed sidered casting Zach but concluded that
new life.They had started the cross-coun- my life, my wife’s life, my children’s lives.” he was too undistinguished to put on
try drive with their dog, Lucy, on New But even in Hollywood, where pro- TV: “I said to the show, ‘This is the most
Year’s Eve. In L.A., Mallory trained to fessional envy is as ubiquitous as dental boring, vanilla person.’”
be a hair stylist, like her mother and veneers, people around Zach were un-
grandmother back home in Santa Claus, usually puzzled by the divide between his s a teen-ager on the outskirts of
Indiana. Zach, who had secretly wanted
to act ever since he saw his first Broad-
success and his talent. “He is the worst
actor I’ve ever worked with,” a former
A Fort Wayne, where subdivisions
give way to farmland, Zach Horwitz was
way play as a child, landed a few tiny colleague told me. Sharing a scene with an athlete, not a theatre kid. The Car-
parts: he played Demon 3 in one film, Zach, he said, was like interacting with roll High School yearbook featured a
an unnamed basketball player in another. a banana. The director Michele Civetta, picture of him shirtless in the gym, under
He was not quite movie-star handsome, who worked with Zach, told me that he the headline “Best Bodies.” He was pop-
but he had gleaming teeth, an aquiline was forced to invent ways to help him ular, but prone to telling fanciful stories
nose, imposing biceps, and turquoise eyes. unlock emotion; otherwise, it was like that seemed engineered to draw atten-
For a stage name, he chose Zach Avery. “dealing with a dead horse.” Audiences tion. According to a classmate named
Although Zach was not an overnight reached a similar conclusion. After Zach Steve Clark, Horwitz once told peers
success, bigger roles came soon enough. appeared with Cox, in “Last Moment that he had met the baseball star Derek
In 2017, he flew to Serbia for a film di- of Clarity,” one reviewer wrote that he Jeter at a mall in Florida, and that Jeter
rected by Ralph Fiennes, then he was delivered “such a dull, unappealing per- had invited him to dinner. The story
off to Virginia to shoot a movie with formance that the movie has a void at seemed ludicrous, but Horwitz was be-
the Hollywood veteran Bruce Dern, in the center.” A viewer of another of his yond reproach. “He was handsome, and
which he played opposite Olivia Munn. films declared, “Zach Avery’s acting was he was a football player, which is to say
Before long, he starred in a thriller fea- like a cancer to this movie. Every time he was high-school royalty,” Clark said.
turing Brian Cox, who played the pa- he was on screen it died a little more. Horwitz’s parents, Susan and How-
triarch Logan Roy on “Succession.” In Good god, how did he make it past ard, had divorced when he was young.
an interview after the production, Zach the auditions?” For a time, he lived with his mother and
Horwitz thrived in Hollywood—where, as one acquaintance said, “the more you fake it, the more people actually buy it.”
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTIANA COUCEIRO THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 27
sister in Tampa. During a visit to New questions that generated moments of attention of venture capitalists backed by
York City when he was in grade school, self-revelation. He once asked a circle of Howard Schultz, the founder and C.E.O.
he thrilled to a performance of “Annie friends, “How much money is enough? of Starbucks, who had a sideline as an
Get Your Gun.” He asked his mother How much would it take in your life to investor in food startups. (Not long be-
about the actors, and she explained that do whatever you want?” fore, a V.C. firm that Schultz co-founded
they were professionals, paid to enter- Mallory met Zach at a tailgate party had put almost thirty million dollars into
tain the crowd. Back home, he took to in 2008, just before her twentieth birth- Pinkberry frozen yogurt.) Schultz himself
memorizing lines from movies like “For- day, and was taken with his attentive had expressed interest, Horwitz told him.
rest Gump” and “Jerry Maguire,” and he manner. “Everyone loved him,” she re- “He said, ‘I have a meeting with How-
talked of quitting school to become an called. “If there was a homeless person ard,’” Wunderlin recalled.
actor, but his mother insisted on the street, he’d say, ‘Let’s Days later, Horwitz reported back that
that he get an education. By give some money.’ I felt like the meeting had gone well; if he could
his sophomore year of high I had an extremely deep, rare get a restaurant built, Schultz would con-
school, they had moved to connection with this per- sider an investment. Horwitz invited his
Indiana; his mother had son.” After graduating, she friend to join the venture, saying, “I need
married Robert Kozlowski, followed Zach to Chicago. to build a team.” Wunderlin wasn’t about
a prosperous manufacturing She walked him to classes to leave J. P. Morgan for a juice bar, but
executive. The family lived at the Chicago School of then Horwitz put him in contact with
comfortably, with a vacation Professional Psychology; Schultz directly. In March, 2011, Wun-
house on a lake. when he told her that he derlin got a long e-mail from Schultz’s
In 2005, Horwitz started was dropping out, after less account, reflecting on the lessons of build-
college in Bloomington, ma- than a year, she strove to be ing Starbucks and declaring, “I have faith
joring in psychology. One day at the gym, supportive. He harbored fantasies of in you. Your team has faith in you.” It
he met Jake Wunderlin, who, like him, getting into the Chicago improv scene, ended on a note of inspiration: “Be the
was a brawny former athlete from Fort but kept them to himself. Instead, he person that you have always dreamed of
Wayne. Unlike Horwitz, though, Wun- talked enthusiastically about a job as a becoming, Jake, and all the rest will fall
derlin did not come from money. He was salesman, providing accounting soft- into place.” Elated, Wunderlin showed
a scholarship kid—a tall, reserved hon- ware to small businesses. the e-mail to his parents, quit his job, and
ors student in finance who worked at the Wunderlin was working in the In- moved to Chicago.
campus food court to help pay expenses. dianapolis office of the wealth-manage- The restaurant, called FÜL, opened
PREVIOUS PAGE: SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ALAMY; GETTY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION,
They grew close, and Wunderlin joined ment division at J. P. Morgan, and Hor- that summer. Mallory, who got her own
him on visits to his mother and stepfa- witz called periodically to compare notes. galvanizing e-mail from Schultz, had
ther, who had a big house near Zions- Among friends, he let it be known that signed on, and Horwitz recruited other
ville, the richest town in Indiana. Hor- he had inherited money—as much as friends. In the next six weeks, he shared
PHOTOGRAPH BY CAROL M. HIGHSMITH [REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-DIG-HIGHSM-24135]; SHUTTERSTOCK

witz gained a reputation for spending ten million dollars, some said—and exciting news: undercover test shoppers
freely on friends, covering late-night Wunderlin got used to hearing him talk had visited and approved the restau-
drinks and pizza. “He was the one that about the “crazy returns” that his moth- rant; Schultz was preparing a thirty-
would pay for everything,” Wunderlin er’s financial team had achieved. In fact, million-dollar offer. Better yet, they had
told me recently. “He loved it. He never the family’s money was contested. Hor- received a rival offer from a private-
was mad about it, like, ‘Are you going to witz’s stepbrother Steven had filed suit equity firm in Florida.
pitch in?’” Joe deAlteris, a business stu- against several relatives, alleging that Though the business consisted of a
dent who had been friends with Wun- they had shortchanged him on his in- single storefront, Horwitz gave out gran-
derlin since kindergarten, grew close with heritance. He accused Horwitz’s mother, diose titles, naming himself the C.E.O.
Horwitz, too. “I knew him as the guy Susan, of fraud and manipulation, sug- and Wunderlin the C.F.O., with a start-
who had a ton of family money,” he told gesting that she may have forged his fa- ing salary of two hundred and fifty thou-
me. “It felt like every semester he came ther’s signature on a will while he was sand dollars. He leased an office capa-
back with a new car.” sick, in order to secure most of an es- cious enough for each of them to have a
Horwitz also had a knack for identi- tate that totalled more than eleven mil- suite. While Mallory ran the restaurant
fying a need in another person, a point lion dollars. Lawyers for Susan called and Wunderlin plotted its growth, Hor-
of emotional access. DeAlteris was out- the allegations “false and distorted” and witz spent most days in his office, with
going, a wide receiver on the Indiana fought the case; in 2011, they reached a the door closed. One afternoon, he in-
team and a member of the Beta Theta confidential settlement. vited Wunderlin to join him at the bank,
Pi fraternity, but in 2009 his stepfather As the case was nearing resolution, but had him wait in the lobby while he
died, and he was overwhelmed with grief. Horwitz called Wunderlin and told him signed documents to prepare for a deal.
It was not a subject that he discussed about an enticing opportunity: he had at- Then, all of a sudden, it was gone. The
easily with the college-gym crowd, but tended a small-business convention, where private-equity offer had collapsed, Hor-
Horwitz lost his own stepfather around he’d pitched a chain of fast-casual healthy witz said, for complex reasons involving
the same time, and the two bonded. At restaurants—in effect, juice bars with sup- his inheritance, his private investments,
social occasions, Horwitz liked to pose plements. He said that he’d caught the and the Securities and Exchange Com-
mission. Worse, he added, when FÜL plished actors to develop movies and In March, 2013, Horwitz announced
looked unavailable, Schultz had moved then star in them. Horwitz wondered, a partnership to buy the rights to cheap
on to another health-food chain. Wun- Why can’t I produce, too? He befriended movies and distribute them to the Latin
derlin was devastated. Without new in- two brothers, Julio and Diego Hallivis, American divisions of Netflix, HBO, and
vestments, the restaurant would be fin- who were looking to establish themselves other platforms. His new partner, Gus-
ished by the end of the year. “We were in the film industry. Diego, who wore tavo Montaudon, was well suited to the
left to fend for ourselves,” he said. He his hair in a tall black pompadour, was endeavor: he had spent decades at Twen-
began looking for other work. a fledgling director. Julio, wiry and in- tieth Century Fox, distributing content
The only good news, Horwitz said, tense, ran the business side. Horwitz re- across Latin America. The deal was cov-
was that Schultz had offered him a job cruited them for 1inMM Productions to ered in the trade press, helping to secure
at Maveron, his venture-capital firm. make low-budget independent films— a transformation of Horwitz’s image. The
Mallory later recalled that he showed essentially B movies in which he might struggling actor with a failed juice bar
her a contract for a position at the firm’s star. He leased office space in Culver City was identified, in Variety, as “the entre-
“Entrepreneur Outreach Program,” based and three black Mercedes coupes for preneur behind fitness-driven lifestyle
in Los Angeles. It would be perfect, he them to drive to meetings. When Hor- brand FÜL.” (Some of his marketing
told her: he would visit campuses and witz wasn’t around, Julio spoke scath- materials went further, describing FÜL
small-business conventions, cultivating ingly about him. An associate recalled as a “multi-million dollar, multi-pronged
young strivers. He did not mention that that he often said, “He’s such a terrible fitness brand” with “seven locations” and
the move would also allow him to pur- actor. But he’s the money guy. He has “apparel sold in Target, Dick’s Sporting
sue his dream of being a star. family money, and he knows rich people.” Goods and Sports Authority.”)
Horwitz had arrived in L.A. at a time One of the first people Horwitz ap-
A cting is a discouraging business,

but Hollywood aspirants have sus-
tained themselves for decades with tales
of unusual opportunity. Five years before,
Netflix had started streaming films and
television shows, and, as Amazon worked
proached with his venture was Jake Wun-
derlin. By the spring of 2014, Wunderlin
was in Chicago, working as a trader. He
of predecessors who outhustled the com- to keep up, the two companies competed had just received a bonus of thirty-five
petition. Dick Van Dyke danced to star- for talent and content. By 2019, Netflix thousand dollars, and he was engaged to
dom in “Bye Bye Birdie” despite hav- would be spending more than twelve bil- be married. He and Horwitz remained
ing never before taken a class. Eddie lion dollars a year on programming. friends, but they rarely talked business
Redmayne got cast in “Les Misérables” Disney launched Disney+, and Warner- anymore, until Horwitz started drop-
by claiming that he was a seasoned Media created HBO Max. All told, there ping hints that Schultz was backing his
equestrian, even though he hadn’t been were more than two hundred and fifty work in the movie business. “Zach said,
on a horse since childhood. Making it online video services in America, feed- ‘I can let you in on a deal,’” Wunderlin
through an audition often requires bluffing a seemingly inexhaustible demand. told me. It was small by his usual stan-
ing not just the casting director but also Money was coursing through the indus- dards, Horwitz said, but, if Wunder-
yourself. It’s a mentality that Ryan Gos- try, the Times reported: “Florists, cater- lin could put up thirty-seven thousand
ling once called “self-mythologizing”— ers, set decorators, chauffeurs, hair styl- dollars, he could make nine thousand dol-
the ability to face a “hundred other peo- ists, headhunters—it’s gravy train time.” lars in ninety days. The contract showed
ple that are better-looking and more
talented and somehow think that you
should get the job.”
When Horwitz got to Los Angeles,
he set about bluffing two audiences: his
old friends at home and his potential
new friends in Hollywood. Soon after
arriving, he wrote on Twitter, “I nor-
mally wouldn’t name drop BUT I asked
H. Schultz this AM what his goal is for
me in my role, he simply says, ‘Just be
good. Don’t stink.’” Before long, though,
he started telling Mallory that he was
bored with his job and talking about
shifting his attention to acting. “I’m, like,
‘O.K., if this is going to make you happy,
do what you want to do—as a hobby,’”
she recalled. He tried acting classes and
auditions. Then, when he struggled to
get parts, he changed tack. Ever since
Warren Beatty produced “Bonnie and
Clyde,” it has been common for accom- “Would you like for me to talk to the posse when they get here?”
thousand dollars. “She came back out
in tears,” Wunderlin recalled. At night
clubs, Horwitz might pick up a forty-
thousand-dollar check and leave another
thirty thousand for a tip. As the party
swirled around him, he would lean back
in silence, with a blissfully satisfied look.
His friends felt a tinge of satisfaction,
too; they were proud of the money that
they made for their parents and friends.
None of them knew much about the en-
tertainment business, but they thought
they knew due diligence. “I would pep-
per him with questions, and he would
come back with answers to everything,”
deAlteris said. They showed the con-
tracts to industry experts, and Horwitz
arranged for a member of their team to
speak by phone with his main contact at
HBO. Horwitz was always available to
answer questions, but he told investors
never to contact the streaming platforms
directly, because he had signed nondis-
closure agreements. “I’ve got basically
“My five-year-old would never do that.” three relationships—HBO, Netflix, and
Sony,” he’d say. “If you guys go around
me, you’re going to blow up my business.”
• • In fact, there was no business. Horwitz
was not buying or selling movie rights.
that Horwitz was selling Sony the rights to figure out how to be successful.” They He had got his hands on a few distri-
to a Mexican rom-com called “Deseo,” agreed to buy into a series of deals, and bution contracts, then copy-and-pasted
described in the official summary as “A got lucrative returns, often twenty per them in Microsoft Word to make hun-
succession of erotic encounters weaved cent or higher. Soon, they started taking dreds of fakes, forging signatures of ex-
into a daisy chain of delightful sensuality.” out loans to fund more of Horwitz’s in- ecutives that he found on LinkedIn. As
Wunderlin had recovered from the fail- vestments, and thought of quitting their new investors bought in, he paid off ear-
ure of the juice bar, but he was still wary: jobs to do it full time. DeAlteris said, lier investors with the proceeds—a Ponzi
“I said, ‘I can’t lose this money. This is ev- “We’re getting paid on time. Real cash. scheme. (Montaudon, his partner, has
erything that I’ve ever saved.’” Horwitz Without fail.” not been charged with any wrongdo-
persuaded him by pledging his own assets Before long, they were encouraging ing.) He sent out fake bank statements
in case anything went wrong. The deal their parents to put money in. DeAl- and ginned up bogus e-mails and text
went through as promised; Wunderlin got teris’s mother, a widow and a retired messages from HBO and Netflix, often
his money, which he put toward a down physician’s assistant, invested forty thou- using apps to send fake messages to him-
payment on a house. He was hooked. sand dollars. Wunderlin’s parents put self at predetermined times. He arranged
That fall, he flew to Los Angeles to up half their retirement savings. Within for a female accomplice, who has never
be a groomsman at Zach and Mallory’s two years, the college friends had prof- been identified, to impersonate the con-
wedding, at the Four Seasons. Wunder- ited on twenty-seven of Horwitz’s movie tact at HBO. This kind of deception re-
lin was awed by his friend’s new life: deals. To handle the business, four of quires relentless discipline; Bernie Mad-
“He was doing three-hundred-thousand- them formed a company—called JJMT off insisted that every screw he might see
dollar deals.” Capital, for the initials of their first on his yacht have its head turned in the
Back in Chicago, Wunderlin sat on a names—and started bringing in money same direction. Horwitz, too, had a fas-
roof deck one night with some of their from outsiders, including wealthy in- tidious streak. He held to a rigid schedule,
other college friends, including deAlteris, vestors on Chicago’s North Shore. “Peo- growing upset if he couldn’t fit in a work-
who was working in private equity. He ple were banging down our door—‘I out before noon, and he calmed himself
asked if they wanted to pool their money hear you guys have this great opportu- by insuring that everything around him
on a larger film deal. “None of us had the nity. Do you have any room for me?’” was in the proper place. He never went
gift of inheritance or anything like that,” deAlteris said. more than two weeks between haircuts.
he told me. “All of us were focussed on When Horwitz visited Chicago, he His fraud rested on perceptions of
what’s next in banking or private wealth resumed his old conspicuous generosity. Hollywood as a money factory—an idea
or sales and trading. We were all trying At a pizza parlor, he tipped the server two that reached back to the nineteen-
thirties, when Louis Mayer, the co- a movie called “Trespassers.” But, after five Johnny Football turns to acting, rags
founder of M-G-M, was the highest- years in Hollywood, he seemed to be con- to riches.”
paid executive in the country. (Nineteen fined to B movies, until he devised a way The outlets that Soltani persuaded to
of the next twenty-five highest-paid to get closer to real stardom. feature her client were mostly obscure
execs also ran Hollywood studios.) The In June, 2017, Horwitz co-founded online venues—the kind, she said, that
reality is that hits are unpredictable and a company called Rogue Black, with people solicit articles in “just to post them
the business is clannish and opaque—“a Andrew Levitas, a filmmaker and a on their Instagram stories and say, ‘Look
closed world,” as one longtime indus- sculptor who had directed Amy Adams, at me.’” But investors researching Hor-
try executive told me recently, “with its Jennifer Hudson, and other prominent witz could now find unquestioning rec-
own language, own rules, own econom- actors. (Levitas, who is not alleged to itations of his story. In an interview on
ics and caste system.” The finances are have been aware of Horwitz’s scheme, AfterBuzz TV, a YouTube channel fo-
obscured by “Hollywood accounting,” declined to comment.) In the next four cussed on “Hollywood’s rising talent,”
invented by studios to shield revenues years, according to court documents, the host mentioned his “burgeoning ca-
from inspection by stars, writers, and Horwitz poured about twenty million reer in football, which was derailed,” and
others who want a cut. (The screen- dollars into Rogue Black, and Levitas asked about his association with Fiennes.
writer for “Men in Black” has said that arranged investments in eight movies, Horwitz warmly recalled showing up for
the film earned more than half a bil- including “The White Crow,” directed filming in Belgrade. “Walk on set, he’s
lion dollars, but that the studio refuses by Ralph Fiennes, and “Last Moment in the back of this auditorium, and he
to declare it profitable.) And yet, for all of Clarity,” with Brian Cox. Horwitz says, ‘Zach!’ ” He described Fiennes’s
that volatility, movies have a charismatic received parts in four of them. avuncular instructions: “I loved what you
appeal for the distant investor—the pro- Some were so small that he was did there. Bring exactly the same thing,
verbial dentist from Omaha, lured by barely visible onscreen, but still he could but, if you turn just a little bit to the right,
the unspoken prospect that he will some- claim proximity to famous actors. In the light is going to hit you in a way
how end up clinking glasses with Tom 2018, he hired a publicist, Nedda Sol- that’s going to look amazing.” (Fiennes’s
Hanks. “People try to buy their way in,” tani, who had represented cast mem- publicist said that she was unable to reach
the executive said, “and what happens bers of “Breaking Bad” and the “Real her client for comment.)
is they lose a lot of money and still get Housewives” franchise. He gave her Hollywood has long had an ambiv-
kicked to the curb.” pictures of himself on the red carpet at alent relationship with facts. The screen-
It’s tempting to wonder why Hor- the Golden Globes. (He had never at- writer William Goldman once described
witz’s friends in Chicago thought they tended the awards ceremony, but a overhearing a producer tout so many
had found a vast source of revenue photo outside an after-party made it bogus figures while working the phone
that people in Hollywood had some- appear that he had. Soltani told me, that he finally had to cover the mouth-
how overlooked. But they didn’t think “No one talks about that, but you could piece and ask, “Which lie did I tell?” In
they had beaten the insiders; they get a hotel room and wear your tux and time, Horwitz had deceived so many
thought their friend had become an just sort of be in the mix.”) When she friends and investors that he had to dis-
insider. DeAlteris said, “It’s an old asked for a biography, he conjured a courage them from talking to one an-
boys’ club, and it seemed like we just story of humble Midwestern roots: an other; he was always “building moats,”
so happened to be old boys with some- injury had kept him out of the N.F.L., as one put it. He told an associate that
body who knew some of the old boys.” so he supported himself as a door-to- he had sold FÜL for eleven million dol-
As their partnership flourished, their lars but warned him not to mention it
personal lives became more entwined; to Mallory, claiming that she had a
they attended one another’s weddings small-town discomfort with people
and took joint vacations. In 2016, Hor- knowing their business.
witz flew Wunderlin by chartered jet to Yet Horwitz never stopped stoking
Miami for a mutual friend’s bachelor belief. Late one night at a club, he
party that stretched for a week. Late showed an investor named Craig Cole
one night, the two set off from shore on a string of text messages, telling him
paddleboards, pausing in the water to that Ted Sarandos, the C.E.O. of Net-
reflect on their good fortune. Wunder- flix, was seeking long-term rights to the
lin recalls that Horwitz said, “I have door salesman before making his way full library of films that he distributed.
more money than I know what to do to Hollywood. (In truth, Horwitz had When the fake Sarandos asked what
with. It’s like Monopoly money.” played intramural football in college.) would secure the deal, Horwitz replied,
Soltani’s boyfriend was from Indiana, “The zeros.” Moments later, a text came
B y funnelling cash into his production

company, Horwitz had provided him-
self with a string of minor roles, includ-
so Horwitz felt instantly relatable.
“There was something about his eyes.
He smelled good, his haircut was nice,
back with an offer in the hundreds of
millions. Horwitz slumped to the floor,
in a pantomime of triumph and grati-
ing that of a murderous psychopath in a he had a nice watch. He made you be- tude. In “Bad Actor,” a forthcoming
short film made in homage to the Joker, lieve,” she said. “We built this little bio documentary about the case, Cole re-
and that of a victim of a home invasion in on him, and that became my pitch: calls that Horwitz started crying: “He
says, ‘Craig, we made it! We did it!’ ” and being searched and fingerprinted. that money was piling up at Freeway
Cole wept, too; when he got home that When he returned, he showed a new Entertainment, an account-manage-
night, he told his girlfriend that they ability to “change tonalities,” Civetta ment firm, and would soon be distrib-
were set for life. said. “He could go places relatively uted. But the delays were becoming un-
Like other accomplished swindlers, quickly in terms of diabolical rage.” tenable for his friends in Chicago.
Horwitz excelled by knowing his au- When the movie came out, Variety ob- People who had given them money to
dience. In Chicago, he was a wealthy served, “Probably the best turn is by invest were threatening to sue. One was
heir who f lew private jets to movie Avery,” who “makes potentially card- Marty Kaplan, a financier who, along
shoots. In L.A., he was a plucky foot- board villain Mike into a frighteningly with partners and family members, had
ball talent selling door-to-door. (A sur- credible sociopath.” ten million dollars at risk. According
prising number of people he dealt with to Kaplan’s lawyer, deAlteris had reas-
in California mentioned how good he s the end of 2019 approached, Hor- sured him by citing his friendship with
smelled.) His difficulty showing emo-
tion, a detriment onscreen, turned out
A witz had raised three hundred and
fifty-eight million dollars in the past year.
Horwitz, adding, “I wouldn’t be able to
pay rent if something went wrong.”
to be useful in pitch meetings. Edgar He was running what scholars of confi- In all, Horwitz owed the Chicago
Allan Poe, in an essay on swindling, dence games call an “affinity fraud,” built group a hundred and sixty-five million
noted the power of nonchalance—the around trust and personal connections. dollars. He had got his lawyer at the
kind of take-it-or-leave-it indifference He found wealthy investors—in Napa prominent firm K&L Gates to send a
that conveys credibility—and Horwitz Valley, Orange County, Las Vegas, and letter warning them that the details of
often succeeded by convincing inves- Chicago—who then spread the word on the deals were “strictly confidential,” but
tors that he didn’t much care whether the tennis court and the charity circuit. on February 23rd Wunderlin and deAl-
they bought in. “Remember Zach does But every network has limits, and the teris decided to call Freeway to check
not need any money from us,” one wrote arithmetic of a Ponzi scheme is unfor- the account balance. Wunderlin made
to another in 2017. giving. When you run out of new inves- the call from his home in Chicago; he
That June, Horwitz met investors tors, the mechanism begins to collapse. patched in deAlteris, at his kitchen table
at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. After Thanksgiving, Horwitz fell behind across town. Horwitz had given them
Over dinner, he sat beside Jim Russell, on his payments for the first time. a copy of his contract with Freeway, as
a Las Vegas steel executive, and, ac- To fend off concerns, Horwitz blamed well as statements showing a growing
cording to court documents, said that the delay on the big media platforms balance. DeAlteris flipped through the
he had made some twenty million dol- and promised a speedy resolution. On paperwork to find the account number,
lars the previous year. Russell was con- January 4th, though, Wunderlin and then read it aloud. The representative
cerned when Horwitz insisted that his deAlteris arrived at his house on Bolton paused and asked to hear the name again.
business records were too confidential Road to figure out what was happen- The firm had no record of a Zach Hor-
to share, and later sent an e-mail to one ing. For three days, Horwitz walked witz, he said. DeAlteris grew impatient:
of his partners describing the evasion them through documents; he had thou- “I’m looking at the fucking bank state-
as a “Red Flag!!” But the partner dis- sands of pages of fake contracts and ment! You clearly misheard me.”
missed the concern, writing, “This is e-mails and bank statements, which he By the time they hung up, they could
the goose that lays the golden egg.” presented calmly. “Cool as a cucumber,” see an impending catastrophe. “All the
Russell relented, and his group put in deAlteris recalled. The possibility of dominoes fell after that one,” deAlteris
another five million. fraud never occurred to him, deAlteris said. Wunderlin, who had been pacing
By 2019, Horwitz even seemed to be said: “I thought it was wild disorgani- during the call, dropped to his knees.
improving his acting. In May, he showed zation that he had so much money com- He had been the first of the friends to
up in Norfolk, Virginia, to shoot a movie ing into his bank account.” The friends put money into Horwitz’s scheme, fol-
called “The Gateway.” It was under- went back to Chicago feeling relieved. lowed by his family and then by out-
stood that his financial support guar- But Horwitz fell further behind, and siders who contributed a harrowing sum.
anteed him a place onscreen. “This is he gave more excuses. Covid-19 was When I asked him about it more than
truly not uncommon,” Civetta, the di- disrupting business; HBO was reorga- two years later, he fell silent and strug-
rector, told me. “I’ve heard countless sto- nizing its operation; Netflix was audit- gled not to cry. “I still can’t really talk
ries from friends who’ve made films. It’s, ing its distribution deals. He needed about it without doing this,” he said.
like, ‘Oh, yeah, if you want half a mil- time with his family, he said—Mallory That afternoon, their lawyer contacted
lion dollars, this wealthy industrialist’s had recently given birth to their second the F.B.I. to report a suspected fraud.
daughter has to have a secondary role.’” child. All the while, he kept up his pat- Other investors were reaching similar
Horwitz was assigned the role of a ter. In October, he texted an investor, conclusions. On March 15th, F.B.I. agents
volatile ex-con named Mike, but in re- “just heard from HBO,” and then passed came to deAlteris’s house to record a call
hearsals he got timid and self-conscious; along a fake e-mail from executives ask- with Horwitz. Wunderlin was there, too.
his voice went high and his manner- ing for a “week grace period.” He com- On the phone, Horwitz ran through his
isms grew labored. So Civetta contacted miserated: “always something w them.” usual reassurances, until Wunderlin cut
a nearby jail and arranged for Horwitz Near the end of 2020, Horwitz in: “Here’s the problem with that. That’s
to spend the night, talking to inmates bought one last bit of time by saying not fucking true. We spoke to Freeway.
There’s no money in that account. Where ities; the only money in her name was most often was disbelief that he was
in the fuck is our money?” a checking account with a balance of bright enough to manage such a scheme.
There was a long pause—long enough $100.75. Horwitz was charged with thir- “I don’t know how the fuck he was ca-
that they had to ask Horwitz if he was teen counts of fraud, in the service of pable of it,” one of his closest friends
still on the line. Finally, he said, “I think what prosecutors called an “intricate il- told me. Another associate said, “If you
the lawyers should do the talking.” Wun- lusion”—the largest Ponzi scheme in had asked me if this man even had Pho-
derlin couldn’t restrain himself: “You’re Hollywood history. He had raised more toshop downloaded to his computer, I
not going to tell me where any of the than six hundred and ninety million would’ve told you, ‘Absolutely not.’”
money is? What did you do with it?” dollars by deceiving hundreds of inves- More than a few surmised that his Latin
He talked about his mother’s savings, tors, beginning with his closest friends. American distribution network must
his father’s savings, but Horwitz stayed A woeful actor onscreen turned out to have been a front for a drug cartel.
silent. Wunderlin sensed that he might have been an astonishingly convincing The government didn’t agree. The
have realized he was being recorded. “It performer in life. S.E.C. named him as the sole defen-
was like talking to the wall,” he said. The extent of the lie was almost too dant, noting that he alone had controlled
In L.A., Horwitz’s friends noticed great for Mallory to grasp. Her husband the bank accounts at 1inMM. When I
that he seemed paranoid, worrying that never had any deals with HBO or Net- told Verrastro, the F.B.I. agent, that many
he was being monitored through their flix. He had never even met Howard people were perplexed nobody else was
phones. When they asked what was Schultz. When Zach left for late-night charged, he said he couldn’t go into de-
going on, he evaded the question, say- meetings, there were no meetings. The tail about that decision. But he hastened
ing that he didn’t want to expose them only thing real was his slender imprint to add, “The one thing that’s clear in
to trouble. on the screen. In her filings, she wrote, this case is there was no one above him.
According to court documents, Hor- “I loved him. I idolized him. Zach is a He is the main guy.”
witz had been using Adderall and Xanax masterful manipulator and liar and As with many frauds, the prosecution
and drinking heavily, sometimes stay- brainwashed and gaslit me into believ- triggered a series of lawsuits, as investors
ing up most of the night. Mallory was ing he was this perfect man, something fought over the remaining assets and ac-
worried about his behavior, but she be- he made everyone around him feel. Only cused one another, as well as various banks
lieved that he had just been having a sociopath can live the sort of decep- and law firms, of failing to spot the crime.
trouble recouping money that HBO tive life Zach lived for nearly ten years.” Alexander Loftus, a lawyer representing
and Netflix owed him. They had begun Mallory’s father bought her and the some of the investors, filed suits against
to talk about a simpler life—maybe children one-way tickets to Indiana. On Horwitz’s friends in Chicago. “When
somewhere quieter, like Nashville or May 1st, she flew home. you’re acting like a broker, it’s your job
Austin. By spring, they had put their to see if this is good or not before you
house on the market and found a buyer. orwitz got out on bail: a million sell it,” he told me. Ultimately, Loftus
The offer was set to be officially ac-
cepted on April 6th.
H dollars, posted by his mother. For
a week or two, the case made headlines
said, the friends in Chicago agreed to
give up more than nine million dollars—
That morning, before dawn, Mallory worldwide, but he stayed out of sight, though they maintain that they acted in
was asleep beside Zach and their three- telling his kids that he was working as good faith. “My family members who
year-old when she awoke to banging on a dog-walker. Among people who knew trusted me, they’re not savvy,” deAlteris
the front door. From down the hall, she him, the reaction that I encountered said. “I thought that I was being fairly
could hear their baby crying, and she
ran to soothe him. Looking through the
window, she saw F.B.I. agents, guns
drawn, and heard them shouting Zach’s
name. Mallory rushed downstairs with
the baby in her arms and opened the
door. Agents streamed in. Zach, now
on the stairs, asked if he could put on a
shirt. The agents refused, and walked
him out onto Bolton Road. John Ver-
rastro, the agent in charge, was startled
by Horwitz’s behavior. He had come to
expect defendants in white-collar cases
to express something during their ar-
rests—bewilderment, outrage, despair—
but Horwitz showed none of that. “He
didn’t seem surprised,” Verrastro said.
Mallory quickly filed for divorce. Ac-
cording to her filings, their joint ac-
counts had been frozen by the author- “Save the empty cardboard boxes in case I need them one day!”
objective with how I approached it. My known for years would unflinchingly harm that I have caused others.” He
family members weren’t. One chip be- swindle them and their families out of asked the judge for a lenient sentence,
came two chips, which became all their their life savings.” one that would allow him to “return to
chips.” Their lawyer, Brian Michael, told Victims had been invited to submit my young boys when they are still boys.”
me, “It’s inconceivable that they would’ve descriptions of the impact on their lives. The judge, Mark C. Scarsi, was un-
questioned a fraud that was rooted in a One investor, identified as a sixty-four- moved. He applied the maximum sen-
friendship long before Zach went to Hol- year-old who lost $1.4 million, described tence that prosecutors had requested:
lywood, that they allowed their own fam- coming out of retirement to pay for twenty years in prison. (Elizabeth
ilies to participate in.” food and shelter: “I cry every day and Holmes, the founder of the disgraced
In the end, there was surprisingly lit- have stopped seeing friends or family biotech startup Theranos, was sentenced
tle money to recoup. A receiver, appointed because of the shame of this financial to eleven years; Sam Bankman-Fried,
by the court to hunt for assets, reported loss and have a now severe distrust of the billionaire founder of FTX, is serv-
that an “unknown” sum might be “hid- other human beings. If it was not for ing twenty-five.) As the sentence was
den.” But lawyers involved in the case my spiritual beliefs, I would have com- announced, Horwitz stared into the dis-
told me that Horwitz expended most mitted suicide.” Another wrote, “I am tance and then up at the ceiling.
of the money keeping the scheme going. the mother of a 46-year-old special needs After the courtroom emptied out,
The rest he used to pay for jets and yachts daughter. . . . I will never be able to earn Henny stopped at the bathroom. As he
and the pursuit of stardom: prosecutors what has been taken from me and my was preparing to leave, the door opened
listed $605,000 to Mercedes-Benz and daughter but the emotional damage . . . and Horwitz walked in. “We look at
Audi, $174,000 to party planners, $54,600 is even greater.” each other,” Henny recalled. “And he
for a “luxury watch subscription” service. Some victims chose to speak in per- goes, ‘Hey, I just want to tell you, I’m
Six months after his arrest, confronted son. Robert Henny, a lanky screenwriter so sorry.’” Henny, who is six feet four,
by extensive evidence of his deceptions, with two young children, stepped to the towered over him. “You took everything
Horwitz pleaded guilty. microphone. “I don’t live an extravagant from us,” he said.
On the afternoon of February 14, life style,” he said. “My career could hit One of Horwitz’s relatives poked his
2022, I attended the sentencing in a fed- bumps and we’d be O.K. Even after my head in the door and said, “Hey, are we
eral courtroom in L.A. Horwitz arrived wife’s cancer diagnosis, we were O.K. all good here?”
early, in a tailored blue suit and brown For fifteen years, we lived frugally.”They Horwitz reassured him, “Yeah, we’re
wingtips. His mother and other rela- had lost $1.8 million in the scheme. “For O.K.,” and the door closed again.
tives filled the rows behind the defense the first time, we are not O.K. I don’t Henny could have asked him why
table. Prosecutors declared, in a written know if we ever will be,” he said. he did it, or how he lived with himself.
argument to the judge, “It is difficult to When it was Horwitz’s turn to speak, But, as a writer, he was interested in
conceive a white-collar crime more egre- he stood before the judge, his shoulders only one thing: “How did you think you
gious.” They noted that Horwitz had hunched and hands clasped. “I became were going to get out of this? What was
begun his scheme by “betraying the trust the exact opposite person from who I your endgame?”
of his own friends, people who lowered wanted to be,” he said. He wept and Horwitz paused, and then said, “I
their guard because they could not pos- paused to collect himself. “I am destroyed didn’t have one.”
sibly imagine that someone they had and haunted every day and night by the Until the end, Horwitz seemed to
have believed that one of his identities
was going to save him—actor, producer,
investor. Something had to work. Fake
it till you make it.
ne morning last November, I took

O a cab out to the Federal Correc-
tional Institute at Terminal Island. It
sits on a peninsula at the far end of an
industrial strip, south of Los Angeles,
jutting into the waters of the harbor.
The facility is surrounded by barbed
wire and gun towers, but tauntingly close
to the city. Walking inside, I could hear
seagulls and the distant rumble of cranes
on the docks.
I had exchanged letters and e-mails
with Horwitz since his sentencing, in
which he agreed to keep the “lines of
communication open” but wouldn’t say
“anything specific.” He seemed more
interested in projecting a narrative of life after prison. “I think he wants to be parts of a life he desired—the chosen
rehabilitation. He described a shift in the next version of that guy from ‘Wolf protégé, the coveted talent, the loyal
his mind-set and said, “I am healthier of Wall Street,’” Mallory told me. “He friend. He needed applause, from the
for it every single day.” He imagined loved that movie and watched it over server at a pizza restaurant and from
teaching a class to fellow-inmates, called and over again.” his friends toasting him at dinner.
“Emotional Intelligence Through Act- Even from prison, Horwitz couldn’t In the end, Horwitz got fame only
ing,” that would give them a “safe space seem to control his instinct for impos- where most people would want it least:
to express vulnerability.” ture and assimilation. Reading his blog, from the true-crime audience. After
I had stopped by the prison hoping the producers of the documentary “Bad his arrest, a commenter on Reddit
to get Horwitz to speak more frankly Actor” came upon lines that sounded wrote, “This is 100% going to be a
about his crimes. In the visiting room, out of place; they turned out to be cop- movie.” Another agreed: “I’d watch the
he wore a khaki shirt tucked into khaki ied from “Never Finished,” a self-help shit out of this.” Before long, Horwitz’s
pants, his hair cropped. He was relaxed scheme was the focus of podcasts with
and unfailingly polite. But, for all his names like “Scamfluencers,” “Crime
talk of expressing vulnerability, he was and Wine,” and “Oh My Fraud.” His
still unwilling to answer questions on story was re-created for episodes of
the record. In an e-mail later, he told “The Con,” on ABC, and “American
me that publicity doesn’t help, because Greed,” on CNBC.
“all the wounds keep getting ripped open But most of the people who had
and additional salt being poured on top.” worked with him were eager to forget
I was wary of whatever he might tell him. When I wrote to a Hollywood
me, in any case. He had always been con- veteran, asking about the experience,
scious of his ability to persuade. At fam- book by David Goggins, a former Navy the response was “Your e-mail is some-
ily Thanksgivings, when relatives went SEAL. Goggins wrote that “humility is thing that I have dreaded in the back
around the table saying what made them the antidote to self-pity. It keeps you of my head for a long time.” The traces
grateful, he treated it as a “performance,” rooted in reality and your emotions in of his Hollywood life have been scat-
he wrote later, prepping an answer and check.” Horwitz had published that pas- tered or effaced. The house on Bolton
“artificially manufacturing it in order to sage in his own voice, changing only Road was sold and the contents auc-
get the sought after result.” “you” and “your” to “me” and “my.” tioned off. A poster with the slogan
In prison, Horwitz had access to a that inspired the name of his scheme
computer for fifteen minutes at a time.
He used it to start a blog, which he called
Be That 1, a new variation on his favor-
Itifice:nofHorwitz’s fantasies, you hear echoes
the long tradition of American ar-
of Napoleon Hill, who wrote in
went for forty-five dollars. And, de-
spite all that Horwitz risked to make
it on the big screen, his acting is hard
ite slogan about beating the odds. He “Think and Grow Rich” that “whatever to find. In “The White Crow,” his ap-
offered occasional glimpses of his think- the mind of men can conceive and be- pearance was edited down to half a sec-
ing during the scam—how he’d been lieve, it can achieve,” and of the clergy- ond. When “The Gateway” came out,
“obsessed with belief in a superior life man Norman Vincent Peale, who de- in 2021, he was nowhere on the post-
that existed just beyond my grasp”; how clared, “As you act and persevere in ers, and Olivia Munn never mentioned
he had “put on the smile” despite “liv- acting, so you tend to become”—a prin- him on the press tour. When Brian
ing an absolute hell,” with the knowl- ciple impressed on a young real-estate Cox published a memoir, the movie he
edge that his life was “all bullsh*t ”; how scion named Donald Trump when his made with Zach Avery did not even
he had portrayed “utmost confidence to family attended Peale’s sermons. At make the index.
everyone” to mask “deep, unresolved in- times, this tendency still seems strong Looking back through his hours of
ternal insecurities.” He recalled the feel- enough to overwhelm the systems that effortful acting, there is one scene that
ing of living a “fabricated life that I had we’ve developed to punish it. Even after stands out. It’s in “Trespassers,” the
forced myself to believe was reality.” To Elizabeth Holmes was convicted, she home-invasion movie, when his char-
sustain the delusion, he developed voiced a belief that lies are just a stop acter admits to his wife that he has
self-protective habits—“avoiding phone on the way to truth. Asked what she cheated on her. On set, the director, frus-
calls . . . avoid opening mail . . . avoid thought would’ve happened if she had trated with his attempts to get Horwitz
checking e-mails”—even though “on not courted so much attention, she told to perform, finally told him to ignore
some level it was simply denial of what an interviewer, “We would’ve seen the script and let himself go: “Just strip
was inevitably coming.” through our vision.” it away. Throw away the line. Just tell
He also indulged in the language of In my conversations with people who her.” After a pause, Horwitz gave him-
self-help. Prison, he wrote, was a “jour- knew Horwitz, many wondered why he self over to a few seconds of uncon-
ney” of “mending the wounds” and find- risked so much. If it was all for money cealed feeling. “I fucked up,” he said.
ing “genuine emotion.” People he had and fame, why not get out before it be- “I’m a piece of shit!” He sounded pres-
tricked were infuriated by the blog; it came so destructive? I concluded that ent and broken and strangely relieved.
seemed glib or, perhaps, strategic—a way he was seeking something harder to at- For a moment, you could almost forget
assembling material for a relaunch of his tain. He spent years performing the that Horwitz was acting. 
LETTER FROM BERLIN
THE STASI FILES

Piecing together the secrets of East Germany’s past.
BY BURKHARD BILGER
T
he man who stopped Salomea her sister Renia let her tag along to a
Genin on the street in West Ber- Communist-youth-group meeting, that
lin, on that August morning in Salomea began to feel at home. The
1961, smiled as if he knew her. He was a Party was antifascist, pro-union, and rad-
“rather handsome gentleman,” she re- ically egalitarian. Its meetings were fired
calls, though he would have been hard with optimism and a fierce sense of be-
to pick out in a crowd. He brought her longing—everything Salomea had been
greetings from East Berlin, from a woman missing at home. Soon, she was hand-
whom Genin had met on a recent visit ing out leaflets and selling copies of Youth
there—a secretary in one of the Arab Voice in downtown Melbourne, reading
embassies. He wondered if Genin would Lenin (“Marx is too complicated,” she
like to join him for coffee the next day. was told), and giving speeches on the
Genin was quite sure that she had never steps of the Commonwealth Bank.
seen the man before in her life. Given “Genin is a security risk,” the Austra-
her history, there was a good chance that lian Security Intelligence Organization
he was an East German spy. She agreed concluded in 1951. It was the first entry
to the meeting without hesitation. in what grew to be a voluminous file.
Genin longed to live in East Berlin. Later reports would describe her as an
She was born in Berlin in 1932, before “unscrupulous and a fanatical Commu-
the city was divided, but was forced to nist” and her mother and her as “a cou-
flee with her family at the age of six. The ple of mean, contemptible witches.” Genin
Genins were Jewish. One night in 1937, was working as a secretary at a govern-
a boarder who was living with Salomea ment-owned aircraft factory, the first re-
and her two sisters and her mother— port noted, but that could be easily rem-
her parents were divorced—denounced edied: “Her dismissal should not entail
them to the local police. Salomea’s sis- great administrative difficulties.” Three
ter Franziska was sleeping with an Aryan, years later, having been sacked from a
the boarder said, in violation of race or- succession of jobs, Genin came to a dra-
dinances. Franziska left for Australia two matic conclusion. She had been to East
weeks later, but the rest of the family had Berlin a few years earlier, for the World
to stay back. Salomea’s father had been Festival of Youth and Students for Peace,
imprisoned at Buchenwald as an arbeits and had been exhilarated by the stirring
scheuer Jude—an indolent Jew—after rhetoric she’d heard. This was where she
being hospitalized with syphilis. When belonged, she thought: at the forefront
he was finally released, after the Jewish of the Communist struggle, fighting to
community helped Salomea’s mother pay keep her birthplace free from fascism. On
a hundred marks in bail, he escaped to April 15, 1954, she boarded the passenger
Shanghai. The rest of the family made ship Otranto in Melbourne and returned
their way to Melbourne in May of 1939, to the country that had nearly killed her.
four months before the war began. Or so she hoped. When Genin ar-
Salomea was a solitary, rootless child. rived in West Berlin and applied for
Her mother had never shown much in- residency in the German Democratic
terest in her—she only got pregnant Republic her request was ignored. The
with Salomea to try to save her mar- East Germans thought she might be a
riage, she later admitted—and her moth- Western spy—“They didn’t believe all
er’s boyfriend showed even less. When my enthusiasm,” Genin recalls.The West
Salomea was eleven, she was shipped off Germans thought she was spying for
to a boarding school for seven months. the East. Each side sent agents to fol-
It wasn’t until the following year, when low her. “At 10.00 a.m. surveillance was Sacks filled with rippedup Stasi records, held
in an archive in Germany. Destroying the files was exhausting work; reassembling them has been even more challenging.
PHOTOGRAPH BY INGMAR BJÖRN NOLTING THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 37
interrupted because two suspicious rising, marching on more than fifty cit- art galleries, an Apple store, and a pur-
persons, presumably counter-observers, ies and arresting some fifteen thousand veyor of Swedish electric cars. Genin is
were in the vicinity,” the East German protesters. In East Berlin, Soviet tanks ninety-one—no longer the stocky, hard-
Staatssicherheitsdienst, or Stasi, reported charged into unarmed crowds and troops charging Stomper of her Stasi file but
on December 18, 1254. Genin was twenty- fired on civilians. remarkably clear-minded for her age. She
two years old, her file noted. She had “a Genin didn’t believe any of it. Those has thick gray hair, a blunt nose, and eyes
stocky, powerful build, conspicuously stories were just capitalist lies, she that peer skeptically through oversized
strong haunches, a full round face, long thought. Like the American socialists glasses. She speaks English with a mild
nose, and dark blond hair.” She wore who admired Stalin in the nineteen- accent—her bright Australian vowels
secondhand clothes, could seem shy and thirties, or the Russians who support the cross-grained by grumbly German con-
unsettled, and rarely made eye contact. sonants—and tells stories with method-
Yet she had a “pronounced sex drive” ical precision, ticking off names and dates
and was “not averse to men.” All of this like items in a safe-deposit box. “There
seems, in retrospect, unremarkable for is only one way to live with my life,” she
a woman in her early twenties, alone in said. “And that’s to be open about the
a foreign country and well aware that facts.” In 2002, she published an autobi-
she might be under surveillance. But it ography entitled “Ich Folgte den Falschen
worried the Stasi. They gave her the Göttern” (“I Followed the Wrong Gods”).
code name Stomper. East Germans all seem to know a few
Genin spent the next seven years try- stories like Genin’s. They tell them about
ing to gain their trust. “The way I’m war in Ukraine today, she accepted the their neighbors and co-workers and best
built, the higher the barrier, the more government’s version of events.The Army friend’s cousins. They watch “The Lives
I’m convinced that I belong there,” she wasn’t attacking innocent civilians in of Others”—the 2006 film about a Stasi
says. She moved to London for three Berlin; it was protecting them from to- agent who spies on a playwright and his
years and joined the British Communist talitarianism. The workers’ uprising was girlfriend—and shake their heads, say-
Party. She returned to West Berlin and really a fascist coup. By 1254, when Genin ing, “They should have made it about
wrote articles for the Democratic Ger- arrived in West Berlin, more than thirty my Tante Hilda.” The sheer number and
man Report, a socialist newsletter pub- thousand East Germans were fleeing surreal specificity of Stasi stories are proof
lished by John Peet, a former Reuters across the border into the West each of the agency’s insidious reach, of how
bureau chief who had defected to East month. According to Genin, this was deeply it infiltrated every corner of East
Germany from the United Kingdom. another example of the West bleeding German society. But they also show how
Finally, in 1261, after having coffee with the East dry—luring its citizens with thoroughly its secrets were later exposed.
the rather handsome gentleman who’d false hopes of wealth and ease. When In January, 1222, the newly unified Ger-
stopped her on the street, Genin got the Wall went up across Berlin, seven man government made almost the en-
her wish: she became a Stasi informant, years later, she was all for it. The East tire archive of Stasi reports available to
and later a citizen of the G.D.R. Germans had to protect themselves from the public: a hundred and eleven kilo-
The agent’s report after the meeting bad influences, she thought. The Wall metres of files, divided into some nine
left one question unanswered, though wasn’t meant to keep them in; it was thousand index headings, covering half
even some of the Stasi must have asked meant to keep their enemies out. a century of surveillance. It was the most
it: Why would anyone want to move to When Genin finally moved to East radical release of state secrets in history:
East Germany? Berlin, on May 16, 1263, her first thought WikiLeaks on a vast scale.
was “Home at last.” She stayed in a dor- The Stasi files offer an astonishingly
ictatorships depend on the willing. mitory for eight weeks, while her pa- granular picture of life in a dictatorship—
D They can’t rule by compulsion alone.
People support them to gain power or
perwork was processed. Then the Stasi
found her an apartment in the Treptow
how ordinary people act under suspi-
cious eyes. Nearly three hundred thou-
advance their careers, because they like district—a fifth-floor walkup with a sand East Germans were working for
giving orders or take comfort in receiv- sink for a bathtub and a coal-fired stove the Stasi by the time the Wall fell, in
ing them. They act on their prejudice or for heat—and a job as a typist at an 1282, including some two hundred thou-
pocketbook, religious beliefs or political electronics factory. They kept their dis- sand inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, or unofficial
ideals at first, then on their fear. They tance for the first year, as she settled in. collaborators, like Genin. In a popula-
may not realize what they’re supporting Then, one day, a man in a gray suit came tion of sixteen million, that was one spy
until it’s too late. In 1253, less than a year to her door and rang the bell. “He said, for every fifty to sixty people. In the years
before Genin came to Germany, more ‘Hello, I’m from State Security,’ ” she since the files were made public, their
than a million East Germans took part recalled last September, when I visited revelations have derailed political cam-
in strikes and demonstrations across the her in Germany. “And I breathed a sigh paigns, tarnished artistic legacies, and
country. They were protesting low wages of relief and let him in.” exonerated countless citizens who were
and inhuman production quotas, fuel We were sitting in her small, sunlit wrongly accused or imprisoned. Yet some
shortages and rising food prices. Within apartment in Berlin’s Mitte district, once of the files that the Stasi most wanted
days, Soviet forces had crushed the up- the heart of East Berlin, now home to to hide were never released. In the weeks
before the Wall fell, agents destroyed as some fifteen hundred protesters had been walked by. So few places were safe from
many documents as they could. Many served with lengthy prison sentences, the Stasi eyes and ears that some people are
were pulped, shredded, or burned, and ruling Socialist Unity Party resolved never said to have saved their most sensitive
lost forever. But between forty and fifty- to be caught off guard again. It needed conversations for Ping-Pong games in
five million pages were just torn up, and an early-warning system—a way to know the city parks. When the Stasi found out,
later stuffed in paper sacks. what East Germans were thinking be- it was later rumored, they hung micro-
The Germans have spent the past fore those thoughts coalesced into action. phones from the trees.
thirty years piecing them back together. The Stasi had been focussing on foreign On the evening of January 15, 1990,
The work is done by hand at Stasi Cen- agents and other threats from abroad. two months after the Wall fell, more
tral, in Berlin, the former headquarters The real danger was at home. than ten thousand protesters gathered
of the State Security Service, and is often Nothing was too trivial for the Sta- outside the main gate of Stasi Central,
touted as a symbol of the country’s un- si’s scrutiny. One facility in Berlin was carrying bricks and shouting, “If you
wavering commitment to transparency. devoted solely to steaming open and don’t let us in, we’ll wall you in!” It was
Yet progress has been excruciatingly reading several thousand private letters a long time coming. Most Stasi offices
slow. Creating the files took hundreds a day. Another was full of engineers de- elsewhere in the country had been seized
of thousands of spies and informants, vising fiendishly miniaturized surveil- a few weeks earlier. The East German
but reconstructing them has been left lance devices: pinhole cameras that could parliament had officially ended the rule
to only a dozen or so archival workers— hide behind a buttonhole; pea-size mi- of the Socialist Unity Party on the first
jigsaw puzzlers of a sort. In the decades crophones inserted into fountain pens, of December, and the politburo had re-
since the Wall fell, they’ve reassembled table legs, or fake sugar cubes. To spy on signed two days later. By then, in the city
less than five per cent of the torn pages. a private residence, an agent might set of Erfurt, three hours southwest of Ber-
At this pace, finishing the job will take up in the apartment next door, drill a lin, there were reports of smoke billow-
more than six hundred years. hole through the wall, and slip in a flex- ing above the local Stasi headquarters.
Last fall, the Stasi archive launched ible tube with an eyepiece on one end Were the agents burning files? Within
a new effort to automate the project, in and a lens on the other. To take surveil- a day, activists from a group called Women
the hope that the latest scanners and lance pictures at night, the agent might for Change had rallied citizens to oc-
artificial-intelligence programs could trigger an array of infrared flashes, con- cupy the building; other citizens’ groups
accelerate the process. The files have cealed inside a car door, when the target across East Germany followed suit. The
never seemed more relevant. One in five
Germans now supports the far-right
party Alternative für Deutschland, and
authoritarian parties have been on the
rise across Europe. Yet the archive has
always faced opposition from two sides:
politicians threatened by what its files
might contain, and former East Ger-
mans who say that the files offer only
a narrow, twisted view of their history—
one that the West has been all too eager
to promote. The Stasi files are like an
endless police blotter: a meticulous, be-
wilderingly detailed account of an en-
tire society’s deceptions and betrayals.
tasi Central sits on the desolate out-

Sground,
skirts of eastern Berlin. From the
it has the dingy, dispirited look
of an abandoned factory: dozens of pre-
fabricated concrete buildings hunkered
around a courtyard, with their backs to
the city. From the sky, it looks like a hedge
maze. In 1950, when the Stasi first moved
into a former finance office here, the Ger-
man Democratic Republic had just been
founded. Three years later, it was in a
state of fear. During the workers’ upris-
ing, protesters nearly seized the govern-
ment’s headquarters, in Berlin, before the
Soviet Army intervened. Afterward, when “Not it!”
takeovers were swift and mostly by the such fear? “But, compared with the rest of the Stasi files were a point of bitter dis-
book. The activists worked with local East Germany, this was luxury,” he said. pute. One faction of the citizens’ commit-
police and brought in newly deputized Gill is now the German consul-gen- tee wanted to preserve them; the other
state prosecutors to secure the files. They eral of New York, a seasoned diplomat wanted to destroy them. East Germans
wanted to be as clear and lawful as their with plump cheeks, impish eyes, and a feared that the records could still be used
predecessors had been treacherous. calm, knowing manner. After reunifica- against them. West Germans worried that
Stasi Central was a more daunting tion, he earned a law degree and served the files would expose some of their own
target. The compound had as many as as chief of staff for Joachim Gauck, the intelligence agents. Only the Stasi knew
seven thousand employees and a record President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. what was in the files, and they warned
of ruthless brutality. It was a place of im- But in 1990 he was just a former plumber that the information could destroy all of
mense, forbidding power. “Nobody ex- who was studying to be a Protestant min- East German society. “They said, ‘These
pected to be killed immediately, but it ister like his father. He joined the citi- files are social dynamite—the whole coun-
was intimidating,” David Gill, the head zens’ committee by chance, after talking try will blow up,’ ” Gill told me. “ ‘People
of the citizens’ committee that was formed to a fellow-protester who took him to will be killing their neighbors because
after the complex was seized, told me. meet the leaders of the occupation, and they worked for the Stasi.’”
The agents at Stasi Central were soak- was soon elected to be its president. He Those in favor of destruction were in
ing pages and turning them to pulp, so was one of the few committee members the majority at first, Roland Jahn, an East
there was no telltale smoke above the fa- with any political experience. After tenth German dissident who went on to direct
cility. Still, Gill said, “everyone knew.” grade, he had attended a parochial school the Stasi archive, told me. “Many West
When I asked him why they waited two not recognized by the state, where the Germans, including Helmut Kohl, were
months to save the files, he said, “That’s curriculum wasn’t dictated by Marxist- also of the opinion that these files are
a question that I often ask myself.” Leninist principles. “I was unideolo- poison,” he said. At a minimum, the re-
gized,” he told me. “We had a student cords of the foreign-intelligence service
ill and I were standing at the heart parliament, so I was used to debating should be destroyed, the Stasi insisted.
G of the compound. Across the court-
yard stood the hulking administrative
and giving speeches—nothing you would
have learned in regular school.”
The Round Table and the citizens’ com-
mittee eventually consented. But the in-
building once ruled over by Erich Mielke, After the Wall fell, a group of opposi- formation wasn’t entirely lost. The C.I.A.
the agency’s shadowy chairman. On the tion leaders and East German politicians later admitted that it had a microfilm of
first night of the protests in 1990, some formed the Central Round Table, mod- the foreign service’s central index sys-
Stasi workers opened the gate eventu- erated by clergy, to oversee the transition tem—obtained through a K.G.B. agent,
ally, but they diverted the crowd to a to a new government. The citizens’ com- some said. The index, code-named Ro-
nearby cultural building. Mielke’s offices mittee, meanwhile, was put in charge of senholz, listed more than a hundred and
weren’t occupied until the following deciding what to do about the Stasi and fifty thousand Stasi operatives and other
night, when Gill joined the protesters. their files. There is a photograph of Gill persons of interest in West Germany, and
“It still smells and looks the same,” he at a press conference not long after Stasi nearly sixty thousand spying operations.
said, as we stepped into the lobby. When Central was taken. His shirt is rumpled But the specifics behind it were gone.
he and the others first rushed in, he re- and his sleeves rolled up; his hair nearly “That was one of our biggest mis-
called, he looked around at all the oak covers his eyes. He leans over his micro- takes,” Gill told me. “We shouldn’t have
panelling and the banal middle manag- phone with a look of vexed intensity, as followed the fearmongers.” Stasi espio-
er’s desk in Mielke’s office and thought, if preparing to cut off some thickheaded nage in the West was often used against
Was für ein Spießbürger! What a philistine. questioner. Even in the giddy months of citizens in the East, he explained: “They
How could this place have filled them with the Peaceful Revolution, as it was called, wanted to inform themselves about the
East German opposition via their West
German supporters, and to know when
people planned to escape.” Still, Gill and
the others drew the line at destroying the
rest of the files. They knew how quickly
a country could forget its past. After the
Second World War, the Allies tried to
“de-Nazify” the West German popula-
tion, insisting that former Nazi Party
members compile lengthy dossiers to
prove their innocence or their contrition.
But most of the evidence was buried or
whitewashed: fewer than seven thousand
West Germans were convicted of crimes
that they had committed as Party mem-
bers. Twenty years later, during the stu-
dent protests of the late sixties, the West
German government and military were Sometimes, he said, he concentrates so pers, apple cores, and other garbage. It
found to be riddled with former Nazis. hard that he goes home with a head- was exhausting. The agents’ hands
“I think this is deep-seated in the cul- ache at the end of the day. Yet he loves cramped and fingers swelled and skin
ture—the idea that our history teaches his job. It’s a combination of gaming got covered in paper cuts, and, in their
us something,” Dagmar Hovestädt, the and detective work. “You have to have haste, they left an inadvertent record of
former head of research and outreach for fun doing it,” he said. “I have found many their work. Each sack was like a min-
the Stasi archive, told me. “We messed things that have made my eyes go wide.” iature archeological site: the scraps were
up twice—once horrifically. Never again Puzzlers are a peculiar breed. They layered inside like potsherds. If Tietze
should that happen.” care more about pattern than content, lifted them out in careful handfuls, a
Days before East Germany’s first free composition than meaning. The shapes few strata at a time, the adjacent pieces
elections, in March of 1990, word spread often fit together.
that Wolfgang Schnur, a longtime civil- Tietze pulled two scraps off the table
rights lawyer and the leading candidate and laid them alongside each other.
for Prime Minister, had been a Stasi in- Their torn edges matched, but not the
formant. The news was hard for most typed words along the tear. He shook
East Germans to believe, but activists in his head and tried another pair. Same
the port city of Rostock, where Schnur problem. “Sometimes you say, ‘Wunder-
practiced law, had uncovered thousands bar! I can do this quickly,’ ” he said.
of pages of Stasi files on him. Schnur had “Other times, you work on the same
not only worked as an informant; he had pieces for ten or twelve days.” Tietze
infiltrated the Protestant Church. “He was they arrange could be pieces of a tat- spoke in a low, muttering Berlin dia-
a mole,” Gill said. “And that changed the tered Rembrandt or a lost Gospel, but lect. He was born and raised in the city
discussion.” When the new parliament the whole matters less than the con- but considers himself neither East Ger-
was elected, one of its first acts was to pre- nection of its parts. Tietze is sixty-five man nor West German. In 1961, his fa-
serve the files. From then on, every civil and has been working in the archive for ther stood on the border just before the
servant and member of government was half his life. Short and round, with thick Wall went up and debated which side
to be screened for possible involvement fingers and a bald head stubbled with to be on. He chose the East. When the
with the Stasi. A year and a half later, the gray, he moves with a stiff-jointed de- Wall came down, nearly thirty years
files were opened to the general public: liberation, never taking his eyes off the later, Tietze watched on TV. “I couldn’t
anyone could now see his own Stasi file. pieces. He transferred to this job three have imagined it,” he told me. “The next
“We let the darkness out into the light,” and a half years ago, for health rea- day, I went to work but nobody was
Hovestädt said. In addition to the hun- sons—most archival work requires too there. Everyone was in West Berlin.”
dred and eleven kilometres of files, there much filing and walking around—and In the years since, the reconstructed
were more than two million photographs has found that it suits him. He has a files have helped trace an alternate his-
and slides, more than twenty thousand patient mind and an eye for shape and tory of Germany. They span all four
audio recordings, nearly three thousand line. “The room may look chaotic, but decades of the G.D.R., Hovestädt says,
videos and films, and forty-six million developing a theme takes a while,” he and cover everything from the Stasi’s
index cards. It was too much for one ar- said. “You think the corner is missing, investigation of a Nazi war criminal
chive to hold. Materials that were intact and then you see, Oh, it’s there! It’s an to agents’ infiltration of East and West
were shelved at Stasi Central and twelve ‘Aha!’ experience.” German peace movements. They de-
regional archives. Half the torn pages The scraps on the table had been scribe the persecution of prominent
were also stored in the regional archives; pulled from a brown paper sack the size dissidents like Robert Havemann and
the rest were tossed in the “copper ket- of a large trash can. They were of vary- Stefan Heym, and doping practices
tle”—a basement room at Stasi Central ing colors, weaves, and thicknesses; some among East German athletes. They re-
which had been lined with copper, to were printed on one side, others on port on the activities of the West Ger-
block radio transmissions. There were both. Stasi agents probably tried to de- man terrorist Silke Maier-Witt, a mem-
sixteen thousand sacks in all—roughly stroy files that were especially incrim- ber of the Baader-Meinhof gang who
five hundred million bits of paper. The inating, but they didn’t have time to be went into hiding in East Germany, and
question now was what to do with them. too selective; they often just cleared the on an informant known as Schäfer,
pages off their desks. Some documents who infiltrated dissident groups in the
ieter Tietze stood in an empty of- were shredded, but the machines G.D.R. The extent of Stasi spying came
D fice and stared at some scraps of
paper on a table. He and the other puz-
jammed one by one—they weren’t meant
for mass destruction. Other documents
as a shock to Tietze at first, though he
had lived in its midst most of his life.
zlers are housed in a restricted area on were ripped into small pieces in order Yet he radiates no sense of impassioned
the third floor of the Stasi archive, be- to be pulped, but that took too long. purpose. He just comes to the office
hind beige doors that run down the hall Eventually, the agents just tore pages day after day, like the Stasi before him,
in identical rows. Like most of his colin half or in quarters and threw them and methodically reassembles what
leagues, Tietze prefers to work alone. “I into whatever containers they could they destroyed.
need peace to do this well,” he told me. find, sometimes mixed with candy wrap- As we talked, Tietze laid the matching
halves of a page on a plastic mat cross-
hatched with graph lines. The page was
from the Stasi division in charge of sur- MARIGOLD
veillance devices. Tietze is careful not
to divulge information from the recon- I have the sun’s eye one minute—
structed pages to anyone, not even his the next, I’m going to bed with it.
family. A document might mention some- Last night, I dreamed of rosemary,
one whom the Stasi spied on, and he has for remembrance and for a baby
no right to that information. “These files
are contaminated,” Dagmar Hovestädt born to a woman who lived
told me. “They were compiled with con- in an apartment building. In the dream,
stant violations of human rights. No- the dead and I said goodbye
body ever gave consent.” When the files at the door. I tried to buy a magazine
were opened to the public, careful limits
were put on how they could be accessed. in a drugstore, but nothing was easy.
People can request to see what the Stasi Nothing is easy when you’re shopping
wrote about them, but not about any- for the dead. Maybe toys, I thought,
one else. Every name in the file has to as I passed some boys playing
be redacted, save for the reader’s own and
those of Stasi agents. The only exceptions by the side of a road. Maybe a gold key
are public figures, people who have con- with which to open a coffin lid.
sented to have their files released, and I woke to find none of the bodies inside
those who have been dead for more than were alive outside the dream.
thirty years. “The moral point is this: the
Stasi don’t get to decide what we read,” —Mary Jo Bang
Hovestädt said. “We decide.”
Tietze joined the torn halves with a
thin strip of clear archival tape—the word terrogation Records”). Political prison- “So I thought, This is a very interest-
Mittag came together along the tear— ers like Fuchs were strip-searched, iso- ing field for machine vision.” At the
then flipped the page over and taped the lated, and kept awake for days at a time. time, Nickolay was a lead engineer at a
other side. Working steadily like this for Some were locked in rubber cells, out- member institute of the Fraunhofer-Ge-
a year, he could piece together two or door cages, or basement lockers so damp sellschaft, the German technology giant
three thousand pages. All told, the puz- that their skin began to rot. The end goal that helped invent the MP3. With the
zlers at the archive have reconstructed for Stasi interrogators, Fuchs wrote, was right scanner and software, he reckoned,
more than 1.7 million pages—both an as- the “disintegration of the soul.” a computer could identify the fragments
tonishing feat and an undeniable failure. When Fuchs was finally released, in of a page and piece them together dig-
More than fifteen thousand sacks of torn 1977, after international protests, he was itally. The human puzzlers at the ar-
files remain. In 1995, when the project deported to West Berlin, where Nicko- chive could work only with documents
was launched, it had a team of about fifty lay first met him. But the threats on torn into fewer than eight parts. They
puzzlers. By 2006, the number had dwin- Fuchs’s life continued. In 1986, a bomb lifted out the biggest scraps and left the
dled to a handful, as members retired or exploded by his front door as he was small ones behind—often more than
were reassigned to other agencies. It was about to walk his daughter to school. half the contents of a sack. A computer
clear, by then, that reconstructing files by (They were both unscathed but could could do better, Nickolay believed. It
hand was a fool’s errand. What was needed have been killed if the timing were dif- could reconstruct pages from even the
was a puzzling machine. ferent.) When Fuchs died, in 1999, of a smallest fragments, and search for im-
rare blood cancer, some East Germans ages of missing pieces from other sacks.
ertram Nickolay, a Berlin-based en- suspected that the Stasi had deliberately You just had to scan the fragments and
B gineer and expert in machine vision,
remembers hearing about the puzzlers
exposed him to radiation while he was
in prison. Two other dissidents from the
save the images in a database.
The reality proved more frustrating.
when the project began. He thought of same era, Rudolph Bahro and Gerulf It took five years for the Stasi archive
his friend Jürgen Fuchs, an East Ger- Pannach, had also been imprisoned by just to respond to Nickolay’s proposal.
man writer and dissident. Fuchs was ar- the Stasi and died of rare cancers. Nick- By 2003, the Fraunhofer team had per-
rested for “anti-state agitation” in 1976 olay wondered if the Stasi archive had formed a feasibility study and created a
and imprisoned for nine months at the records of the plot against Fuchs. Could prototype program, later dubbed the
infamous Hohenschönhausen compound, they be among the documents that were e-Puzzler, that could reconstruct pages
in Berlin. He had been trained as a so- torn apart before the Wall fell? torn into as many as ten pieces. But it
cial psychologist, and later wrote a de- “There were reports on television was another three years before the proj-
tailed account of the Stasi methods in about a small team manually recon- ect was funded—a delay that Nickolay
his book “Vernehmungsprotokolle” (“In- structing the files,” Nickolay told me. blames on a change in government.Then
the team’s industrial partner, a subsidi- way undermined it. Ninety per cent of scanning every scrap in the Stasi archive
ary of Lufthansa, which had been tasked the building’s archival contents were bur- will take close to a million hours.
with designing the scanner for the proj- ied beneath the rubble, including medi- New technology could eventually
ect, dropped out. Scanning was sup- eval manuscripts more than a thousand speed up the process. Last year, students
posed to be the easy part—even some years old. The remains were covered in from universities in Germany, Switzer-
home offices had high-resolution scan- dirt and soaked and misshapen by ground- land, and the United States deciphered
ners by then. But the pieces had to be water. Unlike the Stasi documents, they part of an ancient Roman scroll from a
scanned on both sides simultaneously, hadn’t been ripped in half or into quar- villa in Herculaneum. It had been burned
with extreme precision. For images to ters and dropped into sacks one layer at by the heat from Mt. Vesuvius—the
fit together, their color and texture had a time. They were strewn, willy-nilly, same blast that destroyed Pompeii. Using
to match perfectly, their edges align to among the building’s remains. The site a CT scanner and an artificial-intelli-
within a pixel’s width. “Normal scan- wasn’t an archeological dig. It was an gence program, the students virtually
ners can’t do that,” Nickolay said. “And, enormous pit with soggy puzzle pieces unwrapped the scroll and traced the rem-
when we looked around, we realized thrown into it. nants of ink in the papyrus. A similar
that no scanner in the world could.” More than three million fragments method could theoretically be used to
The Fraunhofer team eventually found were eventually sifted from the rubble. digitally unfold the Stasi fragments. But
a scanner that could be retrofitted to do A new archive was built, and for the past for now the work still has to be done
the job. But it couldn’t handle large three years the city has been reconstruct- manually. No mechanical press or roller,
batches of material. By 2014, the team ing the remains with MusterFabrik’s help. no clever prosthesis can do it with the
had reassembled only twenty-three sacks The fragments are scanned and saved on necessary accuracy. “We need a robot
of documents. It was an impressive a server in the archive’s computer center, hand that doesn’t exist,” Schneider said.
achievement in its way—the e-Puzzler where the puzzling software leafs through As long as there are torn files left in
could now reconstruct pages torn into them continuously, looking for matches. sacks, Hovestädt says, the Stasi archive
more than a hundred pieces—but the Jan Schneider, MusterFabrik’s head of will piece them back together. In Sep-
team had expected to reconstruct four project development, pulled up a sample tember, the archive put out a call for pro-
hundred sacks. After the project came of the Cologne database on his laptop posals to relaunch the digital reconstruc-
to a halt, in 2014, Fraunhofer declared it and projected it on an oversized screen. tion project. MusterFabrik was among
“successfully completed.” Others disagree. It showed a constellation of more than the companies that were subsequently
As a Stasi archivist put it, “Fifteen thou- a hundred thousand fragments, clustered invited to present a proposal in person.
sand bags, twenty-three reconstructed— like grains of sand in a Tibetan mandala. The winner has yet to be chosen. Nick-
you can’t call that a success.” He sorted the fragments by size and color, olay once believed that the fifteen thou-
then zoomed in on a few pieces. They sand sacks could be reassembled in ten
ne afternoon, not long after I vis- were from a three-hundred-year-old man- or twenty years, given the proper fund-
O ited the Stasi archive, I went to see
the successor to the e-Puzzler. Nickolay
uscript, handwritten in Latin—you could
see bits of flowing script on the pieces.
ing and personnel. He now doubts that
the government has the stomach for it.
retired from Fraunhofer in 2022. He now It can take years for all the pieces of a “I think they never really wanted this
works with a company called Muster- page to be scanned, Schneider explained, project,” he told me. “We will let our-
Fabrik Berlin, which is housed in an old since the remains are so scattered. But selves be surprised.”
piano factory in the Mitte district. He when the last piece is found the program
turned seventy-one this year but seems combines it with the rest and sends the t has been thirty-five years since the
to have lost little of his drive. His pale
features flushed pink as he led me past
completed page to the archivists for re-
view. He hit a key on his laptop. As we
Iconstructing?
Wall fell. Are the files still worth re-
Most of the leaders from
rows of computer workstations, and stray watched, a few scraps drifted loose from that era have died, and the time of shock-
strands of his white hair dropped across the mass of fragments onscreen and came ing revelations may be over. Screening
his forehead. In the past five years, he together in a neat rectangle. the files of public servants was an act
said, MusterFabrik has used its scanner With a single scanner and a team of of “political hygiene,” David Gill told
and a newly designed puzzler program eight workers, the archive in Cologne me, and opening the archive to the pub-
to help reconstruct fragments of a has pieced together tens of thousands lic brought justice for millions of East
Roman mural, documents from a Jew- of fragments in the past two and a half Germans. But how much can a coun-
ish community center in Buenos Aires years. Yet the scanner and software were try learn from its darkest history alone?
which was destroyed by a bomb in 1994, never really the problem at the Stasi ar- The last time I saw Salomea Genin,
and the papers of the polymath Gottfried chive. The original e-Puzzler was al- she brought out three bulging ring bind-
Wilhelm Leibniz. But its most ambi- ready better than people at reconstruct- ers and plopped them onto a coffee table
tious project, the one likeliest to serve ing files. It just wasn’t much faster. The in front of me. She was just a minor op-
as a model for reconstructing the Stasi fragments still had to be lifted from a erative, she said—the smallest of cogs in
files, is in Cologne. sack, picked apart, unfolded, and flat- the Stasi machine—yet her handlers had
Fifteen years ago, the city’s municipal tened on the glass to be properly scanned. written more than five hundred pages
archive suddenly, catastrophically, col- If the average worker needs five min- about her. “Only about fifty pages are of
lapsed, after excavations for a new sub- utes to place and scan fifty fragments, interest,” she said, waving a hand at the
binders. Yet the edges of many pages were to sniff. They threatened families, ques- wrote in his 2014 book, “Wir Angepassten”
feathered with yellow place markers, the tioned neighbors, and refused travel visas (“We Who Adapted”). Living in the
margins filled with her spidery script. to people with dying loved ones abroad. G.D.R. was an unending Eiertanz—like
Here and there, the paragraphs were If you were deemed especially suspect, dancing on a floor covered with eggs.
flecked with redactions, but Genin didn’t you could be interrogated, deported, or The cost of dissent was so great, the fear
mind. She remembered most of the peo- imprisoned for months without trial. so deep and unconscious, that people
ple she had spied on, so she just scrib- More than once, Genin told me, she learned to unsee the Wall itself. “I can’t
bled their names above the black marks. came close to seeing the Stasi for what remember ever having a serious, detailed
After her Stasi handler’s first visit in they were. In 1964, she recalled, she was conversation about it,” Jahn wrote. “Not
East Berlin, in 1964, the two of them met denounced at a Party meeting for speak- about the Wall, or the order to fire at
in her apartment every two weeks. “It ing critically of the government. After- those who tried to cross it, or those who
wasn’t a question of talking about anything ward, she was demoted from reporter to died doing so. Not in the family, not
suspicious,” she said. “He just wanted to translator at the radio station and forced to among friends. Only occasionally, when
know everything about everyone.” At read out a public confession. “I just stood the Wall appeared on West German tele-
first, Genin told him about her friends there and vomited in myself,” she told me. vision, would we turn to one another and
and neighbors and co-workers at the elec- In 1976, when she was studying philoso- shake our heads. Wasn’t it terrible that
tronics factory. Then her assignments phy at Humboldt University, she almost this existed? As if all of this was happen-
grew more involved. She took a job as a failed a class for noting that some East ing to other people and we weren’t held
reporter at the state radio station and in- German workers seemed just as alien- captive by the Wall ourselves.”
formed on the journalists there. She later ated as their capitalist counterparts. Yet The new Germany would have blind
became an interpreter and a tour guide for she returned to the fold again and again. spots of its own: panhandlers camped
the Ministry of Culture, where she was “You have to understand, this was my outside Mercedes showrooms, drug users
often assigned to visiting foreign dignitar- family,” she told me. “I had lived for this passed out on subway platforms. On the
ies. Genin never married, but she had two wonderful cause all my life, from the age eve of reunification, Helmut Kohl prom-
sons after moving to East Germany, and of twelve. The Party was my Mummy ised East Germans an economic future
her handler would sometimes talk to them and the Stasi were my Daddy.” I asked of blühende Landschaften—blossoming
when they came home from school. “I just if she ever saw the Stasi apprehend some- landscapes. But the West didn’t merge
told them that he was from State Secu- one based on the information she’d given. with the East so much as colonize it, dis-
rity,” she said. “He was a pleasant man.” She shook her head. “If I’d seen that, I mantling its industries and cultural in-
As Genin’s standing with the Stasi im- would have woken up to myself,” she said. stitutions, and drawing away many of its
proved, so did her life style. In 1966, she “But I didn’t. I was simply an informant, best young workers. In areas that were
left her cold-water flat in Treptow for her and they wrote down what I told them.” hardest hit, like Saxony-Anhalt, a sense
first apartment in Mitte. “It was the latest of Ostalgie has taken hold—a nostalgia
of the late,” she told me. “It had a shower, s a Stasi informant, Genin learned for the East. The economy was more eq-
built-in cupboards, and central heating.”
She got a new Trabant after only five years
A to blind herself to the reality around
her. But even ordinary East Germans had
uitable under the G.D.R., some say, com-
munities more tightly woven, women
on the waiting list—most people waited to do the same. From the moment they more empowered. (Ninety per cent of
for a decade or more—and often trav- started school, their actions were freighted women were employed in East Germany,
elled abroad. At first, she attributed these with political consequence. Kindergart- versus only sixty per cent in West Ger-
perks to her Jewish ancestry: as a Verfol- many.) Like the MAGA movement in the
gte des Nazi Regimes—a former target of U.S., far-right groups like Alternative für
the Nazi regime—she was at the front of Deutschland have recently flipped the
the line for housing, early retirement, and script of liberal triumphalism. When
other privileges. But she later learned that lockdowns and mandatory Covid test-
working for the Stasi had probably im- ing were imposed during the pandemic,
proved her status. “They gave it to me be- they said it was like living under the Stasi.
cause I had been an informant,” she said. The Stasi files offer a startling correc-
“I’m sure that I had half a dozen guard- tive to such accounts—like cataract sur-
ian angels looking after me.” gery on a societal scale. “That’s why this
What Genin doesn’t say, and might ners sang Marxist-Leninist anthems. archive is so important,” Elmar Kramer,
not know, is how much harm was done Teen-agers signed petitions denouncing a spokesperson at the archive, told me.
by her duplicity. How many lives were the Prague Spring. Adults voted in every “There was no freedom of the press in
destroyed by her seemingly innocuous election, though only Socialist Unity Party the G.D.R., no freedom of speech. There
words to her handler? The Stasi acted candidates were on the ballot. Everyone was a shoot-at-will order at the Wall. You
in the shadows, undermining lives from marched in parades and hung flags from can see it right there.” Yet the files, in
within. They blocked promotions and their porches, even if their friends or rel- their way, give an equally distorted view
cut off academic studies. They ransacked atives were in a Stasi prison. of German life. Once they were released,
apartments, planted pornography, and “Nobody was just a rebel or conform- every moment was seen through the lens
kept scraps of clothing for search dogs ist,” Roland Jahn, the former dissident, of a surveillance camera, every decision
through a prism of complicity and be-
trayal. If government support for recon-
structing the files has flagged, it may be
because the story they tell is too black-
and-white. With one stroke, the files di-
vided East Germany in two—into vic-
tims and collaborators, when almost
everyone had been a little of both.
“Stasi, Stasi, Stasi, always about the
Stasi,” the historian Rainer Eckert, a for-
mer East German dissident and the au-
thor of the 2023 book “Umkämpfte Ver-
gangenheit” (“Embattled Past”), told me.
“About thirty million lived in East Ger-
many at one time or another, and only a
fraction worked with the Stasi. People
say, ‘Where is my life in all this?’” Eck- “Frenzy? Or simply enthusiasm for a memorable dining experience?”
ert was arrested and interrogated by the
Stasi, accused of espionage, and fired from
jobs and academic positions. Roland Jahn
• •
was expelled from university, sentenced
to twenty-two months in prison (of which that could expose his role in Soviet re- spied on still outnumbered them more
he served six), and then deported to West pression, no surveillance transcripts or than fifty to one. Had East Germans re-
Germany. Yet neither man feels as if the torture records to temper nostalgia for belled en masse, nothing could have saved
dictatorship defined his life. “There were the Communist era. It came as no sur- the system. “Dictatorships need the mid-
rules, yes, and there was the deadly Wall, prise, when the Russian Army invaded dle to function, and the vast majority of
but there was also freedom,” Jahn wrote Ukraine two years ago, that archives people are in the middle,” Hovestädt
in his autobiography. “And if you con- were among its primary targets. More said. “They don’t stick up their heads.”
centrated on that—on the small successes than five hundred libraries have been Salomea Genin did admit to her own
in everyday life—then life in the G.D.R. damaged or demolished, and military complicity eventually, but her awaken-
was bearable. How else could you come police have seized or destroyed K.G.B. ing was slow to come. She was waiting
to terms with your self-image? How else records, Ukrainian archives, and books to watch the West German news on
could you live?” on Ukrainian resistance and indepen- television one night, in the fall of 1982,
No archive can truly capture a na- dence movements. If you want to erase when an ad came on for a documentary
tion’s lived experience, no matter how a country, start by erasing its memory. series on the rise of Hitler. Genin had
many documents it contains. The Stasi always wondered how so many Germans
files are like a history of the United States ore than three million people have could claim that they didn’t know what
told through the annals of the F.B.I. and
the C.I.A.: a succession of wiretaps, in-
M seen their Stasi files since the ar-
chive opened, in 1992, and some thirty
the Nazis were doing to their Jewish
neighbors. How could they have been
terrogations, political coups, and misin- thousand new requests were submitted so schizophrenic? Now it struck her that
formation—an America as real as it is last year. “If you tell the employment she was no different. “My whole life, I
unrecognizable. And yet that dark, dis- bureau, ‘I lost my pension because the had thought about this sentence of
orienting perspective is what makes the Stasi wouldn’t let me work like I wanted George Santayana’s, that those who for-
files essential. They’re the version of our to’—well, anyone can say that,” Elmar get history are doomed to repeat it,” she
history that we can’t admit to ourselves. Kramer told me. “But if you can find a told me. “And suddenly I realized that
After the Arab Spring, in 2011, del- document in the archive that says ‘So- it applied to me, too. That this social-
egations from Tunisia and Egypt vis- and-So must be fired,’ that’s proof. It’s ism was not what it claimed to be. That
ited the Stasi archive, hoping to learn in black-and-white with a stamp on it.” it was, in fact, a police state—and, what’s
how they might contend with their own Those stories, more than any tale of more, I had helped to make it so.”
authoritarian pasts. But few countries double agents or government duplicity, She fell into a “deep, dark hole” after
have followed Germany’s example. Rev- are the heart of the Stasi files. They’re a that, she said. “I didn’t want to live.” Yet
olutionaries tend to keep a government’s reminder that “perfectly normal, decent it was another seven years before she re-
secrets even after they’ve overthrown it. people are capable of this,” as Dagmar signed from the Socialist Unity Party.
When the Soviet Union broke apart, in Hovestädt put it. “By pretending that By then, her sons had left East Germany
1991, activists called for the release of they’re evil, we forgo the lesson. We for- to live in West Berlin, but Genin stayed
the K.G.B. archives, but the Yeltsin gov- get how close we are to being captured where she was. “All my life, I’d been look-
ernment demurred. Seven years later, in the same situation.” The Stasi oper- ing for a place to call my home,” she said.
when Vladimir Putin became Prime ated the largest intelligence network in “And I finally had it.” Six months later,
Minister, there were few public records the world, per capita, yet the people they that country was gone. 
FICTION
WOMAN,
FROG, AND DEVIL
Olga Tokarczuk
46 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 PHOTOGRAPH BY SUZANNE SAROFF

J
anuary Wojnicz, a retired civil ser- succeed in saving his nanny from old kitchen, supplying him with tasty mor-
vant and a landowner, was a splen- age. But he couldn’t. sels, but, as her authority did not ex-
did man, as they said in Lwów, His father believed that the blame tend beyond the thresholds of the other
handsome and dignified. As a man of for both national disasters and educa- rooms, it was only there that little Mie-
fifty-plus, he had dark hair with hardly tional failures lay with a soft upbringing czyś (as he was known to his father and
any gray and thick stubble; he shaved that encouraged girlishness, mawk- his uncle in those days) was pampered.
with great tenacity, leaving only his mag- ishness, and passivity, nowadays fash- She tried to compensate him for the
nificent mustache, which he cared for ionably termed “individualism.” He loss of his mother by pouring a little
and curled with the use of a pomade, did not approve. What counted were buckwheat honey onto his plate, or by
the base ingredient of which was tal- manliness, energy, social work for the cutting the crunchy heel off a loaf of
low. As a result, his son, Mieczysław, public good, rationalism, pragmatism. bread and thickly spreading it with fresh
forever associated the smell of rancid He was especially fond of the word butter. Food always had good associa-
fat with his father; it was his second, “pragmatism.” tions for him.
aromatic skin. In the name of Mieczysław’s edu- He received these manifestations of
January could easily have made a cation and appropriately masculine up- warm feeling with a gratitude that might
good second marriage, but he had lost bringing, January decided to sell some have had a chance of developing into
all interest in women, as though his of the land and property that his wife affection and love, but his father would
wife, who had died several months after had left him and to buy a bright, com- not allow that. January treated Glice-
giving birth, enfeebled by the effort of fortable apartment in Lwów. He took ria as nothing more than a servant, never
producing a child and by some sort of Gliceria with them, to serve as cook, with familiarity, and was full of mis-
inexplicable depression, had perma- maid, and nanny. From then on, as be- trust toward this plump, elderly woman,
nently destroyed his trust in the fairer fitted a respectable, if incomplete, fam- hidden among skirts, flounces, and bon-
sex—as if he felt cheated by this, or ily, they became citizens of Lwów. nets. He despised her corpulence and,
even disgraced. She had given birth and It was a good decision. By investing suspecting her of stealing food, paid
promptly died! What nerve! His mother his money in modernity, January had her less than he should have.
had passed away prematurely, too. There behaved very pragmatically, and in fact
was something wrong with these moth- he gained many advantages from liv- here was always something uneasy
ers; they seemed to do a terribly dan-
gerous job, risking their lives tangled
ing in the city. His new business inter-
ests picked up; it was easier to take care
T about Mieczyś’s childhood baths.
His father would take a long time to
in lace in their boudoirs and bedrooms, of them on the spot than it had been test him on his prayers before reluc-
leading a lethal existence among the from sluggish, provincial Galicia, from tantly handing him over to Gliceria.
bedclothes and the copper pans, among which every trip to the city was like a He would lead the child to her king-
the towels, powders, and stacks of menus voyage across the ocean. dom, the kitchen, where a tin tub full
for every day of the year. In Mieczysław January Wojnicz was an enterpris- of steaming hot water would already
Wojnicz’s family world, the women had ing, courageous man. He put some of be waiting on the floor. Mieczyś could
vague, short, perilous lives, and then the money from the property he had not remember his father ever being
they died, remaining in people’s mem- sold into a small apartment house and present for bath time. The scent of soap
ories as fleeting shapes without con- a brickyard in a village near Brzeżany, and clean towels was a festive smell,
tours. They were reduced to a remote, and he placed the rest in shares in the the fragrance of Saturdays. Gliceria
unclear impulse placed in the universe Galician railway; all together this pro- would receive him in her plump hands,
temporarily, for the sole purpose of its vided him with a tidy income, easily with her sleeves rolled up to the elbows,
biological consequences. enough to support himself and his son ruddy from the heat and smiling, and
Later, Mieczysław’s nanny would in perfectly decent style. He was sensible from that point on little Mieczyś be-
exist in his memory as a blurred figure, and cautious, bordering on stingy. On came a participant in the ritual of un-
always veiled by something, out of focus, the rare occasions when he bought an dressing, being immersed in the water,
on the run, a long, thin streak. But as object, it was always of the best quality. and being scrubbed with a washcloth
a child he played with her, with her Naturally, attempts were made to moistened with the scented soap that
hands and the wrinkled skin on them. marry him off for a second time, but in Gliceria kept specially for his delicate
He would grip that skin between his January Wojnicz’s mind his late wife skin, for his use only.
thumb and forefinger, pretending to be had become such a unique, perfect crea- Throughout the bath, she twittered
a gander (they called it “tweaking”), ture that no woman on earth could be away to him in Polish and Ukrainian
and in doing so he would smooth out more than a poor shadow of her, a fig- as nobody else ever did. He was her
her hands until they became almost ure unworthy of attention, or even an- “little pearl,” her “baby soap bubble,”
young. He used to fantasize that if he noying, as if she were clumsily trying her “buttercup,” her “little gem,” and
could figure out how to smooth out all to imitate that wondrous being. her “wee angel.” The profusion of
of Gliceria (this bizarre name was very As a result, the only woman Mie- names intoxicated the young Mieczyś,
popular in those days among the peas- czysław Wojnicz remembered having who could not absorb all the images
ants in the Lwów region), to tighten seen up close and in detail was Glice- magically revealed by these words:
up her outer form, maybe he would ria. She mothered him a bit in the jewels, churches, forests, gardens—an
in the Austrian Army, frequently quoted,
and this Mieczysław remembered well.
It had to do with Gliceria, or maybe
with a fiancée of his uncle’s, the only
one, who had walked out on him and
married someone else. On these occa
sions, his uncle—who normally had
such impeccable manners—would re
move the spoon from his soup and bran
dish it above his plate.
“Woman, frog, and devil, these are
siblings treble.”
The little Wojnicz did his best to
fathom the meaning of this adage, but
he had no idea what exactly his uni
formed uncle, who usually expressed
himself precisely, was trying to say. Was
there really a connection between a
woman, a frog, and a devil? This damp,
murky threesome removed the woman
from wallpapered, tidy bourgeois bed
rooms and dragged her into the woods
and the marshy zones of peat bogs; ap
• • parently the trio were relatives from the
same abyss in the depths of the forest,
entire world was contained in them, pajamas, Gliceria would fetch a comb where no human voice or eye could
and other worlds, too, that he did not and run it through his fair hair, cut in reach, and where every traveller lost his
know from his own experience but a pageboy, and could never resist try way. Oh, well, there were no such for
the shape of which he could imagine. ing to braid it into little plaits. ests in the vicinity of Lwów, maybe only
The parts of his body were his “han “It’s so strong, so thick,” she would say. somewhere in Volhynia, or on the slopes
dies,” his “tootsies,” his “leglets,” his It was wonderful to find that the of the Carpathian Mountains. He found
“wee chest”; addressed this way, he repertoire of valuable things he had it easier to imagine what Gliceria might
felt pleased with himself and some at his disposal included his hair. Of have in common with a frog than with
how even proud of his existence, a course, she quickly unplaited it, but a devil, though he had never seen a
feeling he never had when communing she would comb it in curls on his brow, devil, and to tell the truth he did not
with his father. As he gazed at his pro which his father instantly ruffled when believe in them. “Folktales,” his father
truding stomach, it was a “tummy,” he came to say good night, as Mie would say. As for the frog, then yes, in
and the hole in it was his “belly but czyś lay in his cold room in newly deed: she was fat and shapeless, and her
ton.” Gliceria would coo over him with starched sheets, with a bed warmer at aprontopped skirts deformed her fig
sweat pouring from her brow, the en his feet, ref lecting on those weekly ure even more. If she were to squat
tire kitchen now a steam bath. bathtime endearments. down on the kitchen floor and raise her
Then she would pull Mieczyś out head the right way—yes, she would
and onto the table, where a towel was is father had often repeated to look like a frog.
spread, and rub the boy dry, tickling
him under the arms or pretending she
H him, though Mieczysław did not
actually remember when and in what liceria grew older. It became harder
wanted to bite off his “wee toes.” Mie
czyś remembered not to laugh too loudly,
situations he had heard him say it—“re
peated” meant that he expressed it some
G and harder for her to carry out her
duties—to launder, cook, iron, and
for fear of alarming his father, who would how, sometimes without even opening clean—and she left when Mieczyś was
probably race in, trailing the cold from his mouth—that women were, by na seven years old, having seen him through
the corridor and halting this delicious ture, treacherous and fickle. Weepy. It to school age. By then, his father had
game, so he just giggled quietly. was impossible to know what to grab decided that she was no longer needed
His freshly laundered flannel paja on to, what to trust in them. They were in any case; a boarding school would
mas were stiff and unpleasant, but Mie elusive, as slippery as snakes or silk (a replace her. Once he had established
czyś knew that the next morning, after peculiar juxtaposition, indeed). It was all the terms with the headmaster, Mr.
the first night, they would be the same hard to catch hold of them; they slith Szuman, he handed the boy over to
as ever—nice and soft. The passage of ered out of your hand and then laughed him. Unfortunately, Mieczyś did not
time smoothed out the creases and at your ineptitude. There was an old stay at this institution for long, for rea
roughness, making the world a friend saying that Uncle Emil, January’s sons that with friends his father re
lier place. Once he was sitting in his younger brother and a cavalry officer ferred to as “sensitivity” and “an inabil
ity to conform,” which for the boy meant would accidentally take hold of it as it sured to perfection, faultlessly effective.
total humiliation and for the father a lurked among the pickles, as if it had Whatever move one of them started,
desperate attempt to make sense of the the power to change into anything others finished. They passed one an-
whole disappointing situation. damp and slimy. Yes, it was a great other hoses and buckets, they reported,
Proving the old saying “There is no school of courage—he earned those leaped up and down, one-two-three,
evil that does not bring good,” Mieczyś badges the hard way. and the fire engine was ready for the
was, from then on, taught at home by On Sundays, father and son went road, ready to fight the element, and
a full-time tutor, first one, then a sec- out to a restaurant on Trybunalska Street, they sat motionless on their seats like
ond, and a third, which cost his father where they had a ritual lunch consist- lead soldiers. Then one of them started
a lot of money and anxiety, because ing of soup, a main course, and des- the siren, which drew the whole world
teachers were the most chimeric spe- sert—and, for the father, an alcoholic into the orbit of their service. Little
cies in existence—nothing pleased them, drink and coffee—to convince them- Mieczyś was so awed that goosebumps
and they were always finding some- selves that one could get by without appeared on his skin. In just two min-
thing to complain about. women and incompetent cooks. utes, the fire engine was prepared for
battle—wrapped in hoses, equipped
liceria was succeeded by Józef. He heir apartment on Pańska Street with pickaxes, crowbars, and hatchets,
G usually made pierogi, and fried fish T in Lwów was cozy and sunny. The
bought at the market. Sometimes he drawing-room and dining-room win-
and encrusted with shining brass hel-
mets—and it moved through the open
sent Mieczyś to the cellar for potatoes dows overlooked the street, quite a noisy gate into the city.
and sauerkraut. This was one of the “In- one, because the cobblestones paving He walked on through the shady
dian brave” tasks his father had devised, it changed every movement into a rum- old trees in the park on the Ramparts
for which the little Wojnicz received ble, a drumroll. But, after a few years, and reached the school, which towered
badges. Going down into the cellar their brains grew so accustomed to the over the city, elevated, like the Dormi-
meant having to conquer a sudden at- noise that January thought of their tion Church with its three cupolas
tack of fear and disgust that made his abode as quiet. standing opposite. In this church—he
fingers tremble as they lit the candles. When Mieczyś reached the age of sometimes looked in there—was a
The cellar was L-shaped, leading first thirteen, he was enrolled at a German- painted angel that made him especially
to the left, then to the right. The pota- language gymnasium on Governor’s joyful. He called it the Four-Fingered
toes lay in the darkest, dampest corner, Ramparts. Twice a day, he walked the Angel, ignoring the name Gabriel,
fenced off behind some boards, in a heap route from home to school and back, which was written next to it, because
that dwindled by the day and in spring passing the Bernardine monastery and the way the artist had depicted its hand,
sprouted white shoots, desperately seek- then looking at the shop displays on extended in a gesture of blessing, made
ing the light. Beside them stood barrels Cłowa Street and Czarnecki Street. it look as if it were missing a thumb,
full of cabbage and gherkins. Then he went past the fire station, feel- and the ring finger was slightly too
Once, he saw a large toad in there, ing decidedly greater respect for this short as well. Little Mieczyś felt a sort
sitting motionless on top of the pota- institution than for the monastery. Sev- of strange relief as he gazed at this im-
toes, staring at him with its bulging eral times he was witness to the fire- perfection in perfection. Thanks to this
yellow eyes. He screamed and raced men mustering to sally forth, whether minor flaw, the angel seemed closer to
upstairs, but, despite his pleading and as an exercise or to attend to a real fire, him, not to say human. Captured in
tears, his father told him to go back motion, standing firmly on the ground
down. Luckily the toad was not there in a green, shimmering robe (yes, there
anymore. Afterward, every time he went were spots of light on it), with one wing
into the cellar, he inevitably had it in visible—not made of feathers, like a
mind; whenever he thought about it, goose’s wing, but as if woven from hun-
it was there, and would remain there dreds of tiny beads, and lined in red—
forever. The idea of killing it, as he at it held a reed and looked busy, some-
first imagined, by taking a large stone how preoccupied. Angels were described
down with him from the sunlit world as “he,” but it seemed obvious that the
and throwing it at the soft, warty body, Four-Fingered Angel was exempt from
gave him a strange thrill that made his and the coördination of these agile men these brutal divisions and had its own
pulse run faster. But he was afraid that in uniform always delighted him. The separate place, its own angel’s sex, its
the consequences of this murder would terse commands, shouts, and gestures own divine gender.
be even more terrible. Crushed by a reminded him of dances he had seen At the gymnasium, Mieczyś was
stone, the toad would contaminate the in the countryside, with foot stamping taught German by Mścisław Baum, a
potatoes, and he would never be able and bizarre figures performed by human large, good-looking Jew with the phy-
to forget about it. From then on, when- bodies. The firemen danced for a pur- sique of a Viking, and although in the
ever he put his hands into the barrel pose—to respond to a blaze, to pre- lessons the students constantly did their
of gherkins, he was afraid that by some vent destruction or even death. Their best to pronounce the words carefully, to
miracle it had got in there, and that he well-practiced movements were mea- speak the German of Goethe, something
always pulled them toward Galicia and
its singsong, slanting, Polonized and Yid-
disher version of the language, in which THE BATH
the words seemed slightly flattened, like
old slippers—one could feel safe and at The spider, like some cave-dweller, so transparent
home in it. she could be a lens.
Mieczyś’s class could be divided into
four groups: Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Look through me, she might lure even
and a mixed crowd including several the smallest creature coming near enough for closure,
Austrians, one Romanian, two Hun- for its own world’s end.
garians, and three Transylvanian Ger-
mans. Mieczyś instinctively kept to the How intimate and shocking to be fooled, to be
sidelines, as if he did not belong to any wrapped snug in the thinnest silver
of these groups, and ethnicity was not for the end of that world
enough for him to define his place in however it lived moments ago having
the jigsaw puzzles they were always
making, changing the vectors of wings or claws or antennas, none
strength, dependence, and advantage. weightier than an eyelash, buzzing
The other children seemed to him too to a mate or against prey
noisy, and he was afraid he might get but here how silent suddenly.
into conflicts. He could not bear vio-
lence, all that rivalry, all the scrimmages For such tiny inhumanity—
and punches. He was friendly—per-
haps that was too big a word—with a The spider comes spooling down
boy named Anatol, or Tolek for short, on its own silk, dropping
whose father, an assimilated Jew, was a far from the overhead light. As if
well-known dentist. The boy clearly the ceiling’s fault or day’s
had artistic talents and a certain deli-
cacy of manner that appealed to Mie-
czysław. Sometimes he let Tolek rum- boy made a mistake, his father came and went off to see to more important
mage in his wooden pencil case. Tolek over to his side, stood behind him, and matters, Mieczyś would move the chess
would carefully arrange the pencils with tried to steer the child’s attention pieces onto the steppes of the rug and
his long fingers, touching the graphite through a cause-and-effect chain of the mountains of the armchair, where
points with a fingertip, and Mieczyś potential next moves. Whenever Mie- they saw to their own business, set off
would feel a shiver of pleasure, from czyś was resistant, or “dull,” his father on journeys, and furnished their kitch-
the skin on his head down to his shoul- let himself be carried away by anger ens, houses, and palaces. His father’s
ders and back. Together they were a and left the room to smoke a cigar, ashtray became a boat, and the pen hold-
couple of outsiders. while his son had to sit over the chess- ers were oars, while the space under-
board until he had thought up a sen- neath a chair turned into a cathedral
is father hoped that learning to sible defense or attack. where the wedding of the two queens,
H play chess would organize Mie-
czyś’s foggy, unruly mind. After all,
Little Mieczysław Wojnicz under-
stood the rules and could foresee a lot,
black and white, was taking place.
Among this race of chess people, he
chess was played at court, and the em- but, to tell the truth, the game did not always identified with the knight, who
peror himself had shown great fond- interest him. Making moves according delivered news, made peace between
ness for it. This was the entertainment to the rules and aiming to defeat your those who were at odds, organized the
of wellborn men, requiring both intel- opponent seemed to him just one of provisions for expeditions, or warned
ligence and an ability to see ahead. The the possible ways to use the pawns. He of dangers (such as Józef ’s entrance,
elder Wojnicz believed that moving preferred to daydream, and to see the carpet cleaning, or being summoned
around the chessboard in keeping with chessboard as a space where the fates for lunch). Then, when chided by his
the rules would introduce an element of the unfortunate pawns and other father, or sent to his room without sup-
of automatism into his son’s life that pieces were played out; he cast them as per as a punishment, he would head off
would make the world safe for him, if characters, linked by all sorts of rela- with the dignity of a knight—two steps
not welcoming. So every day after tionships, weaving complex webs of in- forward and one to the side.
lunch, just as their bodies were digest- trigue, either with or against one an-
ing and a gentle afternoon somnolence other. He thought it a waste to limit ieczyś applied himself most to
was suffusing them, they sat down at
the table and set out the chessboard,
their activity to the checkered board, to
leave them at the mercy of a formal
M mathematics and chemistry, as
his father wanted him to, and in the
and his father would let Mieczysław game played according to strict rules. belief that his father knew better than
make the first move. Whenever the So, as soon as his father lost interest he did. But he was fascinated by Latin,
his rosebush, and that his metamor-
phosis would occur by command of
open window or because there’s the mightiest goddess.
nowhere else to set up shop.
henever Uncle Emil was due to
To be honest, I barely
saw the thread. Or her, for that matter,
W arrive in Lwów, special prepara-
tions were made. Józef would run to the
she is so pale. shops and always return with a duck in
a basket, while a boy from the market
To be astonished and looking up helped to bring in the vegetables and
is to shrink to a nub I once was or will be. apples—apples were a must.
Emil was a tall, handsome, fair-haired
She doubles back so close to the ceiling, young man with a flaxen mustache that
two of her now, the real thing gave his youthful, delicate features grav-
and, right above, her shadow, which overlords ity and manliness. His blue-gray jacket
the dark mission, legs beautifully hugged his slender torso and
thickened, frantic as exclamation points or lent his skin a refined pallor. But finest
a disarray of commas. of all—as Mieczyś saw it—were the red
breeches tucked into knee-high, wonder-
I rattle around beneath. I’m drying off, fully polished boots. Emil would arrive,
a muffled noise paused, still click his heels, and immediately light a
staring up— cigar, in which the boy’s father kept him
company. Mieczyś would receive from
one step out of the bath his uncle a box of cakes from the pâtis-
while an equal looks down. serie and some military trinket or other:
cartridge cases, a penknife or a mess tin.
—Marianne Boruch Then he would have to answer his un-
cle’s questions, which, as he had learned
everything inside out, he did convinc-
and if he could have he would have de- cius’ naïveté, which proved to be a good ingly and with great confidence: “A cav-
voted most of his time to it. The Latin quality that always led to unexpected alry division consists of two brigades with
master, the tiny, rather comical Mr. places, down the alleyways of life, where two regiments each.” Or “A cavalry reg-
Amborski, lent him books, of which one might experience a sudden or even iment includes six troops.” He also had
Mieczyś’s favorite was “The Golden a violent transformation. Where one to add that each division had under it a
Ass,” by Apuleius. It was an old edi- might change and become unrecog- special horse-artillery division and four
tion, in the Bibliotheca Scriptorum nizable, and yet still remain one’s real machine-gun subunits. It was from these
Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneri- self inside. Clearly there was both an guns that the cartridge cases came, though
ana series, but it proved too difficult outer and an inner existence. The “in- Mieczyś was not quite sure what to do
for a beginner to read. So the kind ternal” one was dressed in the “exter- with them. He simply carried them in
Mr. Amborski found and gifted him a nal” one, and from then on was per- his pocket and felt their pleasant weight.
German translation by August Rode, ceived by the world in that form. But, Once, in the night, Mieczyś got up to
and Mieczyś came to know this ver- Mieczyś wondered, why might the “in- pee and, still half asleep, came upon his
sion almost by heart, enjoying the text ternal” feel so uncomfortable inside uncle in the bathroom. Emil had a band
wherever he opened it. It was the only the “external”? Lucius’ adventures were stretched over his mustache which bi-
book he loved, and nothing else had like dreadful torments, because the sected his face, flattening his features and
ever made such a great impression on danger of never managing to return making his handsome countenance look
him. Somehow the picaresque tale of to his own shape was always hanging grotesque and funny, like the face of a
an unlucky man transformed into a over him, the threat that he would die puppet. His trousers were down around
donkey suited him personally. He felt as a donkey, and that his real nature, his ankles, exposing his hairy legs and
a kinship with Lucius, though of course his internal existence, would never be the brownish gherkin hanging between
they differed in terms of courage, sense recognized! Mieczyś was deeply af- them. Somehow it seemed to Mieczyś
of humor, and curiosity about the world. fected by this drama, though of course unfitting for a military man to be carry-
Lucius was the hero, but he smiled he did not confide in anyone about it. ing such a wilted fruit in his trousers.
wryly from the pages of the book, iron- Lucius seemed less upset by his situ-
ically, contesting his own hero status, ation than the boy reader was; with he day before Uncle Emil’s arrival,
conscious of his own absurdity.
Mieczyś wanted to be just like Lu-
his roguish, ironical smirk, Lucius stuck
fast to the horizon of Mieczyś’s world,
T as soon as he had done the shop-
ping, Józef would go down to the cel-
cius: cunning, cheeky, and self-confi- as a donkey and as a person all at once, lar to cut off the duck’s head, and then
dent. He could even have accepted Lu- believing that one day he would find all afternoon the bird would hang tied
to the metal trim above the tile stove, special situation. They would chat away of their eyes. As he took another spoon-
with the stump of its neck downward to each other, usually about business or ful, then another, his father would calm
over a bowl, into which the blood politics, not yet about whether Emil down and start to make jokes.Tears would
dripped slowly, drop by drop. was planning to marry—this question fill the boy’s eyes, but he ignored them,
Mieczyś had already learned from would arise only over liqueurs. Mean- too, making them vanish somewhere far
earlier pain and regret that on no ac- while, Mieczyś would be sitting over down in his body.
count should he befriend the duck the plate of chocolate-colored matter “This is a traditional Polish soup.
brought home from the market; he must full of beads of fat, with his napkin under Only a simpleton won’t try it. And how
not feel sorry for it, so he ignored the his chin, feeling tense, helpless against much brawn it gives you!” his father
pitiful, sometimes indignant quacking the saliva that was gathering in his said jovially.
before it went to the slaughter and mouth and that his constricted throat Uncle Emil smiled, and the tips of his
blocked his ears to avoid witnessing its refused to swallow. flaxen mustache took on a dark-red color.
brief presence in the house. Then his father would cast him a fleet- It’s simple, Mieczyś would be think-
But the bleeding, feathery shred tied ing glance, and, as if sentenced to tor- ing as he swallowed his tears, which
above the stove filled him with despair ture, Mieczyś would pick up his spoon mingled with animal blood inside his
and induced doleful, helpless weeping, and plunge it into the dark goo. At this puny child’s body. Being a man means
which he was obliged to hide from his point, Emil would be rolling his eyes, learning to ignore whatever causes trou-
father, his uncle, and even Józef. They saying, with a sigh, that it was the best ble. That’s the whole mystery.
would have said that he was whining thing he had eaten in all his life. The
like a woman. The horrible sight of the satisfaction expressed in these compli- e was as he was. He couldn’t help
dark-red, almost brown blood congeal-
ing on the stump forced him into a
ments brightened the usually gloomy
countenance of Józef, who would not
H it. He thought of himself as nor-
mal. He once tried to explain this to
painful ambivalence, in which he felt depart for the kitchen, demanding more his father, but he could not find the
afraid, while also feeling a strange, in- praise with his presence. Mieczyś knew right words. Then he thought about
describable fascination close to plea- that the men’s eyes were about to turn the mysteries of yeast cake rising, or
sure, far mightier than picking scabs off to him, so he negotiated with himself about a pigeon that had laid a sad egg
his knees or teasing an already wobbly internally, explaining to himself that he in the recess of a blank window.
milk tooth. His chest was racked by had to do it, that he could not disappoint A vivid image appeared before his
sorrow that could not change into weep- his two favorite people, who wanted the eyes, of the old house in the country,
ing or relief of any kind but just went best for him, and that to be a real man and of underclothes drying in the attic
on pushing from the inside, paralyzing he needed to master himself, because in winter, when it was pouring outside
his lungs. For there was a mysterious they were serving him this dish out of and Gliceria took them up there in
bond between him and the dead, head- love. Then tears would come to his eyes, pails. He could clearly see the attic, al-
less duck as the blood dripped from it, and the spoon, shaking and spilling drops ways full of dust, and the view from its
a physical sensation, a feeling of faint- of soup, would rise to his mouth, which small windows, known as bull’s-eyes—
ness and weakness arising from total could do nothing but open and receive fields and a small park, with the acrid
defenselessness. The horror was com- this offering. He always hoped that his smell of rotting tomato stalks, sweet
pleted by the beauty of the feathers, memory of the taste of czernina from corn, and beans on poles. And by the
sticky with blood but shimmering won- the previous occasions was wrong, and laws of some inexplicable synesthesia
derfully in the light of the kitchen, dark that now it would suddenly turn out to this image changed into a physical sen-
blue and golden, inky and greenish, be surprisingly good. But once again sation: the coarseness of fabric, the stiff-
azure, sapphire—there were no names something uniquely horrible filled his ness of collars, the angularity of freshly
for them, but they unerringly reminded mouth, tinged by the flavors of bay and pressed trousers, and the pinch of a hard
him of the wings of the Four-Fingered marjoram and lacquered by a butter brush, leather belt. And it was there, in the
Angel. So the duck’s death became blas- but nevertheless disgusting and revolt- attic, as soon as he could, whenever he
phemy, an attack on the entire world. ing. It was a taste that screamed, full of was alone and out of reach of his fa-
But the worst was yet to come. violence, steaming, pushing its way be- ther’s discipline, that he undressed en-
Whenever, with Józef ’s help, the blood, tween his tongue and cheeks, sweet and tirely; he would wrap his naked body
vinegar, prunes, and dried cherries, and sickly. His throat tightened, and he felt in a satin tablecloth edged with soft
seasoning such as allspice, bay leaves, the urge to vomit, but was able to con- fringe, and, feeling how blissfully it
marjoram, and pepper, were used to pro- trol it, to ignore it, so that, after a mo- brushed against his thighs and calves,
duce czernina—duck’s-blood soup— ment of hesitation, it retreated deep in- he would think how wonderful it would
Mieczyś knew what torment lay ahead. side his body, disappearing into his be if people could go about in table-
A plate of this soup would be placed in intestines, and the helping of boiled an- cloth tunics, like the ancient Greeks. 
front of him, as yet another test of ma- imal blood flowed down into his stom- (Translated, from the Polish,
turity to be conducted in the presence ach. His father and uncle pretended not by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.)
of his uncle, the officer. But his father to be watching him, but he knew that it
and Emil would not betray any aware- was a test and that they were observing NEWYORKER.COM/FICTION
ness that this was an exceptional, very him closely and coldly from the corners Sign up to get author interviews in your in-box.

THE CRITICS
THE CURRENT CINEMA
MAXED OUT
“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”
BY JUSTIN CHANG
he last time we saw Imperator nights driving an enormous truck, the ers were erupting in celebration. Amid
T Furiosa, in the dystopian chase
thriller “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015),
War Rig, across miles of open desert,
withstanding fiery assaults, a lethal sand-
the chaos, Furiosa scanned the crowd
for Max and caught him slinking away.
she had just returned from the heat of storm, and the surly company of a re- For a moment, he looked back and gave
battle, her face streaked with blood, one luctant ally named Max (Tom Hardy). her an approving nod—then turned and
eye swollen shut, her body so fatigued But triumph, at last, was hers: the vile vanished into the throng.
and battered that she could hardly stand. warlord Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays- On one level, this is how all the “Mad
Furiosa, played by a stupendous Char- Byrne) lay dead at her feet, and hun- Max” movies have ended: with Max
lize Theron, had spent several days and dreds of newly liberated desert dwell- going it quietly alone, moving on to his
In George Miller’s latest, Anya Taylor-Joy plays a younger version of the heroine memorably introduced by Charlize Theron.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOHNNY DOMBROWSKI THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 53
next infernal adventure. The Australian for-hire nomad, driving across a vaguely in something more than personal sur-
writer and director George Miller con- Australian landscape, where every high- vival. The plot of “Fury Road” was set
ceived the character—played, in the first way was a potential battlefield. He might in motion by her decision to free Im-
three films, by a broodingly effective still join a fight or a noble cause, but mortan Joe’s five young “wives” from sex-
Mel Gibson—as a classic loner anti- only if the price was right, and with no ual bondage, a gesture that turned out
hero in a near-future verging on social promise of loyalty. Now, and in the fol- to be anything but casual or blandly al-
and economic collapse. The original lowing film, “Mad Max Beyond Thun- truistic. Furiosa, we learned, had been
“Mad Max” (1979), Miller’s scrappily derdome” (1985), his only aims were to born into—and kidnapped from—a
potent début feature, introduced Max survive and keep moving. matriarchal society called the Vuvalini,
as a police officer behind the wheel of Why, then, did Max’s exit in “Fury a lost sisterhood to which she desper-
a black muscle car, prized for his skill Road” trigger such an onrush of emo- ately wished to return. For all her battle-
at pursuing lawbreakers at high speeds. tion? The answer is Furiosa. For once, hardened toughness, she was, in Ther-
Personal tragedy brought Max low and Max had met his match in road war- on’s fiercely felt performance, very much
turned him loose; his wife and young riorship—an equally skilled driver, a bet- a child longing for home.
child were murdered by an outlaw biker ter sniper, and a fellow avatar of taciturn She was also a reminder that a life
gang, and, even after he avenged them, grit. There were differences, too: Furi- scarred by tragedy need not be doomed
grief and rage had clearly destroyed any osa had lost her left arm in unexplained to nihilistic solitude, and that made her
lingering hope of human connection. circumstances, and did her driving and a moral counterweight to Max. One of
By the arrival of a sequel, “The Road fighting with the aid of a robotic limb. the thrills of “Fury Road” was its will-
Warrior” (1981), Max had become a gun- Crucially, unlike Max, she was invested ingness to interrogate and even disrupt
the long-standing foundations of the
series. In taking up a new question—
how would women cope with the end
of a world dominated and destroyed by
men?—Miller ingeniously remapped
his own dystopia and tapped into fresh
reserves of audience pleasure. When
Max passed his rifle to Furiosa and in-
vited her to take a difficult shot, con-
ceding her superior marksmanship, we
watched as one hard-bitten hero passed
his baton to the next. Or, because this
asphalt-hungry franchise was built for
vehicular metaphors, we watched as Max
took a back seat in what had looked,
until then, like his story alone.
ow, nine years on from “Fury Road,”

N Miller brings us a “Mad Max” film
in which Max himself is almost entirely
absent. Miller says that he will be back,
likely still played by Hardy, in future se-
quels, but the new movie, “Furiosa: A
Mad Max Saga” is a prequel, filling in
Furiosa’s origin story. (Miller co-wrote
the script, with Nico Lathouris.) Un-
folding like the darkest of fairy tales, it
recounts how a girl, mesmeric of gaze
and flinty of spirit, is stolen from her
home and forever transformed, through
a crucible of unrelenting physical and
psychological brutality. At one point,
the director considered having Theron
reprise the role of Furiosa, using digital
de-aging effects. He ended up casting
two younger actresses instead: Alyla
Browne plays her as a child, and Anya
Taylor-Joy plays her as a young woman.
“If that’s my only option, I’d rather go without.” The tale begins, post-apocalypse, in
the Green Place of the Many Mothers, ers known as War Boys: you may re- that exchange again and see how the
a lush oasis tucked away amid tower- member them from “Fury Road,” scream- tenderness of their marital rapport cor-
ing desert dunes. Here dwell the Vu- ing, “I am awaited in Valhalla!” right responds to the relative lushness of the
valini, who have taken refuge from a before they hurled themselves, like sui- scenery: the ocean waves lapping at the
world ravaged by oil wars, environmen- cide bombers, to a fiery doom. Higher shores, the greenery outside their win-
tal blight, and unceasing violence. One up in the ranks are various unsavories dow. The apocalypse, for now, is still a
of the first things you notice is that with names like Scrotus, Rictus Erec- work in progress. In time, there will be
the young Furiosa (Browne) is already tus, the People Eater, the Organic Me- only dirt and gravel and dust—and Max’s
named Furiosa; it isn’t some moniker chanic, and the Bullet Farmer. Even after aching memories of Jessie and their son.
she acquired after plowing her pickup two viewings of “Furiosa,” I confess that Like a jalopy of jammed-together
truck into the school prom. It’s the name old parts, “Mad Max” was assembled
she was presumably given by her mother, from several influences: classic Westerns,
Mary Jabassa (Charlee Fraser), who Buster Keaton stunts, Chuck Jones’s Road
must have sensed her daughter’s feroc- Runner cartoons, the 1973 oil crisis. An-
ity in the womb—or who knew that, other key inspiration: before Miller be-
whatever the child’s temperament, such came a filmmaker, he was a doctor, and
a name might well armor her against a the horrific injuries he witnessed in the
world defined by rage. emergency room, many the result of car
“Furiosa,” in other words, is both an crashes, did their part to fire his imagi-
end-of-days thriller and an Edenic par- nation. For a newbie director, practicing
able, Revelation and Genesis rolled into I can scarcely tell these grotesques apart, medicine on the side doubtless had its
one. The first thing we see the young let alone make sense of their roles within financial as well as creative uses. Miller’s
Furiosa do is pluck a piece of fruit, sig- Immortan Joe’s fascist circle. It’s of lit- hospital work helped replenish the indie
nalling an imminent fall from grace. tle consequence; one way or another, coffers; Max derives his surname, Rock-
Within moments, she is kidnapped by Furiosa, lusting for freedom and revenge, atansky, from the nineteenth-century
male marauders on motorcycles, who will outwit them all. Austrian physician Carl von Rokitansky,
tie her up and whisk her off into the She will accomplish this, in part, who pioneered a method of examining
burnt-orange desert. Mary valiantly gives by disguising herself as a boy and work- organs at autopsies to determine the
chase, but her pursuit ends in brutal de- ing undercover in Immortan Joe’s hell- cause of death. An appreciation for vis-
feat, and Miller distills the horror of ish garage, where construction of the cera certainly suffuses the series, but what
mother-daughter separation into a sin- War Rig is under way. It’s around this you remember from a “Mad Max” movie
gle devastating shot—a near-crucifixion, time that Anya Taylor-Joy steps into isn’t the extremity of the carnage; it’s the
to continue the religious imagery— the role—in one of the most seamless breathtaking clarity of the action. That
seared, with a diabolical flourish, into actor-to-actor transitions I can remem- quality, too, derives from Miller’s scien-
Furiosa’s ultra-magnified pupil. She will ber—and shows us Furiosa’s way for- tific mind. You sense in all his work a
spend the rest of the film seeking revenge ward: through an apprenticeship of flame continual desire to lay out cause and ef-
against her captors, specifically their and steel, carried out in the company of fect, to ground even his most outlandish
leader, Dementus (Chris Hemsworth), dangerous men. In passing herself off inventions in realism. The violence in his
a swarthy, malevolent warlord whose as one of them, Furiosa buries her fem- movies doesn’t merely convey sensation
most prized and perverse accessory is a ininity and hones her mechanical skills, and impact; it has tremendous integrity.
Teddy bear, usually worn dangling from like an antipodean Mulan. But Mulan, “Mad Max” was a huge success; made
his leather gear. Don’t suffer the little stealth gender bender though she was, for less than five hundred thousand dol-
children to come unto him. ultimately undertook her deception to lars, it grossed more than a hundred mil-
Dementus’s voice, equal parts merri- serve an empire. Furiosa means to sub- lion worldwide. “The Road Warrior”
ment and menace, is recognizably vert one—to escape it and, in the end, proved an even greater triumph, critically
Hemsworth’s, though the actor’s features destroy it from within. and commercially. Miller’s storytelling
have been obscured by a mangy beard was tighter, and his world-building had
and a bulbous prosthetic schnoz; with- omen haven’t always held such a deepened. Society’s descent into flam-
out them, perhaps, he might have looked
a bit too much like his most famous
W powerful or prominent place in
Miller’s films. The sole memorable fe-
ing anarchy was fleshed out in a grimly
expository prologue: in a wasteland where
character, Thor, gone to goth-biker seed. male character in the first “Mad Max” most matters were settled via high-speed
In time, Dementus and his gang will was Max’s wife, Jessie ( Joanne Samuel), car chase, gasoline had become the sin-
forge a most unholy alliance with the who dotes on her cop husband and wor- gle most important resource, so the story
young Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), ries constantly for his safety. Their mo- centered on a besieged oil compound.
who huffs and puffs through a mask of ments together with their son at a sea- Where “Mad Max” announced an excit-
rotted metal that resembles the world’s side retreat are almost sacred in their ing new talent, the sequel confirmed that
grodiest CPAP machine. Immortan Joe sense of domestic contentment: “Crazy Miller was here to stay.
oversees a mighty desert citadel, where about you,” Jessie coos to Max as he heads The next film, “Beyond Thunder-
he is served by fanatical young follow- out on his next perilous mission. Watch dome,”which Miller directed with George
Ogilvie, is less fondly remembered than it is also proof that some of the great- formance is a tough thing for a young
its two predecessors. It’s an unusual “Mad est pictures emerge from adversity and performer to match, even one as skilled,
Max” adventure, sporting less of the se- risk. Released in May, 2015, it drew raves, as assured in her physicality, and as elo-
ries’ signature gonzo vehicular action, a became the highest-grossing “Mad Max” quent in her silence as Taylor-Joy. This
greater focus on young characters, and a movie, and was nominated for ten Acad- isn’t the first time she has played a young
curiously buoyant, optimistic spirit; it emy Awards, ultimately winning six. It woman driven, by a steel-trap mind and
even secured a PG-13 rating. Though remains the zenith of the series, a sand- a cruel orphanhood, to pursue an out-
it was less successful than its progeni- blasted masterwork of viscerally pure sized greatness. To watch her in “The
tors, its pleasures are too eccentric and cinema, made with a coherence, rigor, Queen’s Gambit” is to behold a proto-
manifold to be dismissed. Chief among and imaginative audacity that have all Furiosa of the chess world, brilliantly
them was the gladiatorial arena called but vanished from the C.G.I.-heavy con- strategizing her way to victory. Would
Thunderdome, a steel-cage marvel in tent mill we call Hollywood. Beth Harmon, though, for all her game-
which Max and his opponent dangled Its cultural resonance is no less sig- changing ingenuity, have gone to the
from elastic cables, springing and soar- nificant. “Fury Road” appeared more lengths to which Furiosa is willing to
ing through the air to attack each other than two years before #MeToo took go? (We know that, somewhere along
with whatever weapons—spears, mal- hold in the entertainment industry, and the way in “Furiosa,” our heroine will
lets, chainsaws—came to hand. The its decrying of sexual violence now feels lose her arm, occasioning a grisly image
movie also planted the seed of gender uncannily prescient for Hollywood. So that harks back to a memorable moment
parity that would flower in “Fury Road,” does the figure of Furiosa herself, who, from the first “Mad Max.”) Taylor-Joy’s
by giving us the saga’s first pillar of fe- unlike some of the regulation Strong commitment and ferocity are unimpeach-
male strength, a town leader known as Female Characters that have since rolled able, but her icy sombreness can feel a
Aunty Entity. Wickedly calculating but off the studios’ comic-book-movie as- bit one-note, and it strikes perhaps too
not wholly devoid of heart or mercy, she sembly lines, never seemed like a cyni- stark a contrast with Theron’s vivid
was played, in the film’s greatest coup, cal bid for representational cred. She warmth. Even when the young Furiosa
by a cackling, resplendent Tina Turner. reads like a character who had to exist slices off her hair and smears dark grease
In the thirty years that elapsed be- and who may, in fact, have always ex- across her brow like war paint, only fit-
tween “Beyond Thunderdome” and “Fury isted, just waiting for the right story— fully do you feel a bone-deep connection
Road,” Miller built an eclectic but highly and the right actress—to break her loose. with the Furiosa of old—a sense that we
successful directing career, with an out- are truly beholding an earlier version of
put that includes the supernatural dark s thrilling and beautifully made as the character in the oil-slicked flesh.
comedy “The Witches of Eastwick” (1987),
the wrenching medical drama “Loren-
A it is, “Furiosa” isn’t—and isn’t try-
ing to be—the tightly honed tour de
Where Taylor-Joy convinces, how-
ever, is where it counts most: the action.
zo’s Oil” (1992), and the upbeat, Oscar- force that its immediate forerunner was. In the movie’s finest sequence, which
winning animated feature “Happy Feet” Miller seems to be almost preëmpting at once distills and elaborates on the
(2006). He had hoped to return to “Mad the inevitable comparisons with the pre- Looney-Tunes-on-wheels inventiveness
Max” sooner: “Fury Road” was announced decessor by attempting something con- of “Fury Road,” Furiosa is again in the
in 2002, and Gibson, his body then still spicuously different. Where “Fury Road” War Rig and paired with a male fellow-
in fighting shape and his reputation as travelled from west to east to west, mov- traveller. This one is a stout-hearted fel-
yet undamaged, was expected to reprise ing cleanly along a practically straight low named Praetorian Jack (a terrific
the role of Max. By the time the cameras line, “Furiosa” spills out across the des- Tom Burke), who’s driving the truck
rolled, years later, he had been replaced ert in all directions. And where the pre- when it comes under attack. Suddenly,
by Hardy, and the long-gestating project vious film unfolded a tautly structured, the camera seems to be everywhere: it
had become less a sequel than a reboot— turbocharged story over a few days, “Fu- dives into the truck’s undercarriage, where
an opportunity to resurrect the series for riosa” forsakes speed and momentum for Furiosa has either cleverly or foolishly
a new generation of moviegoers. a discursive two-and-a-half-hour sprawl, stowed away; follows her into the pas-
“Fury Road” was conceived as essen- stretching out across some fifteen years senger seat, where she and Jack join
tially a two-hour chase scene, with only and segmenting its narrative into five forces; and chases her up to the top of
brief interludes of downtime. It features windily titled chapters. The story it tells the rig, just in time to blow up a hang-
the most sustained action and the most is illuminating, but I’m not sure that the gliding enemy. Miller stretches out this
astoundingly acrobatic stunts of the fran- earlier film didn’t already tell it better. delirious set piece to a luxurious length,
chise, and, despite the added layers of One of the triumphs of “Fury Road” was tugging the mayhem in every possible
studio gloss, Miller sought to minimize how fully expressive and persuasively re- direction. The whooshing camera move-
digital manipulations and film with as alized the character of Furiosa was, even ments are impossibly fluid; the score’s
many live-action and in-camera effects with only a few terse dribbles of back- drumbeats have the intensity of a reli-
as possible. That meant a tougher shoot: story: “I was taken as a child” is about gious ritual. The upshot, still, is an al-
made in Namibia and beset by constant the extent of her recap. She doesn’t say most primal exhilaration—a sense of
delays, “Fury Road” ranks among the much, and she doesn’t have to; she comes sheer satisfaction and play that is every
most ambitious and difficult produc- to the movie fully formed. moviegoer’s birthright. For a glorious
tions in recent Hollywood history, but The searing power of Theron’s per- moment, we are all awaited in Valhalla. 
laid out in “The Limits to Growth,” a
BOOKS book that the Club of Rome published
in 1972. World3 glumly predicted that
humanity was despoiling nature so fast
HIGHER AND HIGHER that civilizational collapse would occur
“sometime within the next one hundred
To preserve humanity—and the planet—should we give up growth? years.” In bloodless mathematical terms,
this was the result of an exponential
BY IDREES KAHLOON function outpacing a linear one. In more
vivid biological terms, we were like a
colony of yeast mindlessly feeding on a
pile of grapes, and soon to perish from
the effluvia of our rapid growth (etha-
nol in the case of yeast, environmental
pollution in the case of humans). “De-
liberately limiting growth would be dif-
ficult, but not impossible,” the book
maintained. “A decision to do nothing
is a decision to increase the risk of col-
lapse.” It sold millions of copies in more
than thirty languages.
For all of that, growth continued
rather yeastily. In the fifty years since
this manifesto, the American economy
has increased fourfold, far outstripping
the country’s population, which has in-
creased by sixty per cent. For the rest of
the world, growth during this period has
been even more dramatic. The global
economy has become twenty-six times
bigger—or twelve times higher per per-
son. In 1970, half of humanity lived in
extreme poverty, subsisting on less than
two dollars a day. Today, only a tenth of
the global population lives in extreme
poverty. As astonishing as this growth
engine has been to behold, we do seem
to be choking on its exhaust. When “The
Limits to Growth” was published, hu-
manity had, in its history as a species,
n April, 1968, a consequential meet- lématique,” meaning the interrelated cul- emitted half a trillion tons of carbon di-
Ia stately
ing took place in the Villa Farnesina,
Roman home built for Pope Ju-
tural, political, and environmental con-
flicts that threatened humanity. But the
oxide into the environment. We belched
out triple that amount in the ensuing
lius II’s treasurer and adorned with fres- organization they launched came to years. The world was just 0.4 degrees
coes by Raphael. The conveners were Al- be known, more simply, as the Club of Celsius warmer than the pre-industrial
exander King, a Scottish chemist who Rome. Its mission, in Peccei’s words, was average back then; last year, it was 1.5
SOURCE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM ALAMY; GETTY
directed scientific affairs for the Orga- to “rebel against the suicidal ignorance degrees warmer, and on track to hit three
nization for Economic Co-operation and of the human condition.” degrees by the end of the century, at
Development, and Aurelio Peccei, an Within a couple of years, the club re- which point all kinds of cataclysms are
Italian industrialist who simultaneously cruited a brilliant M.I.T. systems ana- expected—polar ice caps petering out,
held executive positions at the automaker lyst named Jay Forrester, and he and his swollen oceans swallowing the coasts,
Fiat, the typewriter manufacturer Olivetti, colleagues set about building a computer almighty wildfires, famine, and more.
and a large consulting firm. Like many model to capture the linkages between Accordingly, the Club of Rome’s ar-
modern friendships, King and Peccei’s booming resource consumption, popu- guments are being recapitulated today—
was cemented by a shared deep-seated lation growth, and ecological exhaus- with even greater urgency and moral force
anxiety. They gave the object of their tion. The conclusions reached by World3, behind them. “We are in the beginning
concern a grand name: the “world prob- as the whizzy model was called, were of a mass extinction, and all you can talk
about is money and fairy tales of eternal
The pattern of economic growth is, historically, a startlingly recent development. economic growth,” the Swedish climate
ILLUSTRATION BY CARL GODFREY THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 57
activist Greta Thunberg told the United linear series (our capacity to produce ing, among other governmental expen-
Nations in 2019. “The eyes of all future food). These days, “Malthusianism” is ditures, to help with macroeconomic
generations are upon you. And, if you often used pejoratively to refer to a dis- planning, instead of the half-descriptive,
choose to fail us, I say we will never for- credited theory, and yet his was descrip- half-normative measure that Kuznets
give you.” But there is another moral tively correct at the time of its début. favored. The looming World War helped
claim to consider. Idling the great ma- Hunter-gatherers, medieval peasants, and Keynes win the debate.
chinery of the global economy seems eighteenth-century laborers, economic This decisive settlement would set
cruel to the striving masses who have not historians say, had similar living stan- the track for economics as it took up
yet reached comfortable material standards, eking out lives of subsistence. new questions that revolutionized the
dards. Then, there are the realities of dem- “Modern economic growth began field: What causes growth, and how do
ocratic politics. Few members of the af- just two hundred years ago,” Susskind people get more of it? Susskind even
fluent world would selflessly swear off all writes. “If the sum of human history contends that the most important eco-
future growth for the sake of the climate, were an hour long, then this reversal in nomic meeting in 1944 was not the Bret-
let alone for the billions in Asia and Af- fortune took place in the last couple of ton Woods Conference, in which the
rica who are not nearly so prosperous. Is seconds.”The turning point, which some United States and the United Kingdom
there any good way forward? economists call the Great Divergence, thrashed out the system of global capi-
came with the Industrial Revolution, talism that would reign supreme after
he paradox of growth—that we which triggered an explosion in pros- the end of the Second World War, but
T suffer from both too much of it
and too little of it—is the subject of
perity in Europe and North America,
and led to the sustained worldwide
a little-known gathering at which gov-
ernment statisticians standardized the
“Growth: A History and a Reckoning” growth that humans are still enjoying system of national economic accounts.
(Belknap), by Daniel Susskind, an econ- today. Susskind’s narration properly cap- In the ensuing decades, brilliant econ-
omist at King’s College London. A world tures the astonishing triumph of these omists would labor over dazzling mod-
without growth is difficult for modern shifts. Complaining about too much els that tried to compress the enormous
people to comprehend, but it charac- growth is a bit like complaining about social complexity of human beings—our
terized most of human history. An too much democracy: once you consider ability to generate technological inno-
advanced ancient civilization like the a world without it, you might find your vations, our capacity to educate ourselves,
Minoan, on the island of Crete—the feelings tempered. our stabilizing institutions like the rule
legendary home of Daedalus, Icarus, How did we arrive at the contempo- of law and property rights—into the
and the Minotaur—could boast an av- rary fixation on growth? The concept of concise language of mathematics. This
erage life expectancy of a little more gross domestic product (originally gross improved our understanding of how hu-
than thirty years. Leap forward three national product) is less than a century mans prospered, but only along the lines
millennia, to 1770, and you find that the old. It was not until 1933 that Simon of a particular kind of growth that had
average life expectancy on the Euro- Kuznets, a government economist who always been contested.
pean continent had increased only to later won a Nobel Prize, was commis- Indeed, the moral debate over growth
something like thirty-four years. Gene- sioned to create a systematic series of statistics, present at their creation, never
alogical records from the nine centuries national accounts. When Franklin D. abated. You can see this in the disagree-
between 800 and 1700 reveal no life-span Roosevelt was campaigning for reëlec- ment between John F. Kennedy and his
gains even for European noblemen, the tion in 1936 at Forbes Field, where the brother Robert. When J.F.K. was run-
most privileged class, who typically died Pittsburgh Pirates once played, he ex- ning for President, he said that “the first
in their fifties. (Within certain param- plained the task of assessing the national and most comprehensive failure in our
eters, longevity has proved a good proxy economy by analogy: “A baseball park performance has been in our rate of
for affluence.) Remarkably careful rec- is a good place to talk about box scores. economic growth,” particularly in rela-
ords kept by the English on the wages Tonight, I am going to talk to you about tion to the (seemingly) rapidly expand-
of builders show essentially no improve- the box score of the government of the ing Soviet Union. Eight years later, when
ment relative to the cost of living up until United States.” Even from the start, R.F.K. was campaigning for the Presi-
1800—and this in one of the richest so- Kuznets grasped that he was measuring dency, he assailed G.N.P. as a worthless
cieties in the world at the time. the sum total of marketized output, not statistic: “It measures neither our wit nor
These millennia of stagnation are what of human welfare. After publishing his our courage, neither our wisdom nor our
led to the 1798 publication of Thomas proposed metric, he noted the obvious learning, neither our compassion nor our
Malthus’s “An Essay on the Principle of omission of “services of housewives and devotion to our country. It measures ev-
Population,” which claimed that there other members of the family” and ar- erything, in short, except that which
were inescapable limits on human flour- gued for the exclusion of expenditures makes life worthwhile.” Soviet planners,
ishing. Malthus, who did much to give he considered socially unproductive, such for their part, rejected capitalist growth
economics its reputation as the “dismal as military spending, consumer market- statistics in favor of a measure aligned
science,” presaged the thesis of “The Lim- ing, and financial speculation. John May- with their socialist values, the “net ma-
its to Growth”: his arguments relied on nard Keynes disagreed. He maintained terial product,” which excluded activities
the disparity between a naturally expo- that G.N.P. ought to be a descriptive deemed “non-productive,” such as bank-
nential curve (population) and a slower, measure that included military spending, housing, and health care. Analysts
at the C.I.A. spent decades poring over
those alternative statistics to estimate the
actual size of the Soviet economy and BRIEFLY NOTED
especially the scale of its military expen-
ditures. Their failure to do so correctly A Body Made of Glass, by Caroline Crampton (Ecco). The au-
was one reason that the New York sen- thor of this thought-provoking exploration of hypochondria—
ator Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued which counts Marcel Proust and Charles Darwin among its
for the agency’s dismantling in 1991. sufferers—describes it as a difficulty in identifying “that bound-
Criticisms of G.D.P. remain plen- ary between fictional and real illness.” Delving into the med-
tiful, and justly so. It still misses what ical literature, Crampton discovers that the conception of hy-
is priceless about life. Leaving a forest pochondria has shifted greatly during the millennia, from its
alone does nothing for G.D.P., but cut- earliest diagnoses as a liver-and-abdomen complaint to its cur-
ting it down for lumber shows up as a rent unofficial status as a psychological problem (“hypochon-
positive contribution. Heart attacks that driasis” is no longer included in the DSM). What emerges is
result in expensive ambulance trips and a portrait of a condition that, though nearly as old as recorded
intensive-care stays appear immediately human history, continues to elude neat definition, even as it
in consumption statistics; the benefits raises urgent questions about “who is believed when they speak
of heading off heart attacks by statins of their pain, and who is not.”
and preventive care may not leave a mark
for decades. Hurricanes and wildfires Little Seed, by Wei Tchou (Deep Vellum/A Strange Object). A fam-
boost output because of spending on ily story and a natural history of the fern run in parallel through
emergency aid and reconstruction. this memoir, in which chapters alternate between botanical es-
Modern-day acolytes of Kuznets pro- oterica and descriptions of Tchou’s personal life: she grew up
pose various modifications to G.D.P.— in Appalachian Tennessee as the daughter of Chinese immi-
for instance, using “natural capital” ac- grants, and she has a brother who, as an adult, is beset by psy-
counting to capture the cost of depleting chotic episodes. The two narratives initially stay on their sep-
natural resources (something the Biden arate paths, but eventually Tchou finds graceful moments of
Administration is exploring); including glancing association, especially on the vexing topic of identity.
estimates of black-market income gen- “My family is rigid about identification with one another and
erated through organized crime and il- with the whole,” she explains. “We lack the flexibility of taxon-
legal sex work (currently required by the omists, to allow things to break apart and come back together.”
European Union); and incorporating al-
ternative measures that expressly penal- Faraway the Southern Sky, by Joseph Andras, translated from the
ize income inequality (like the so-called French by Simon Leser (Verso). This brief but layered novel follows
Genuine Progress Indicator). a nameless figure wandering around Paris searching for traces
Susskind is impatient with all this of Ho Chi Minh, who lived there as a young revolutionary, near
technocratic tinkering. He agrees that the end of the First World War. Ho is glimpsed through po-
G.D.P. has conceptual failings and that lice files, plaques, and publications on his unlikely path to politi-
the single-minded pursuit of it has been cal power, working as a cook and a photo enlarger while man-
“climate-destroying, inequality-creating, aging his ceaseless political agitation. During the search, scenes
work-threatening, politics-undermin- of contemporary Parisian life are overlaid with memories of
ing, and community-disrupting,” but he past struggle. In Andras’s depiction, the city’s history emerges
dismisses the notion that “there is a Pla- as a deep record of past disruptions—and, perhaps, the stuff of
tonic calculation out there, an ideal form present inspiration (the gilets jaunes make an appearance), if an
of GDP that can do everything and observer is able to draw connections between the eras.
please everyone.”
He has even less sympathy for con- The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley (Avid Reader). In
temporary “degrowthers,” who too quickly this compelling début novel, set in the near future, the Brit-
dismiss the possibility of green growth ish government has created a time machine and used it to re-
and whose counsel of self-induced eco- trieve a handful of people from other periods of history, re-
nomic recession is, Susskind contends, ferred to as “expats.” The book’s narrator is a minder for one
“akin to driving down a road, knocking of them: a nineteenth-century Royal Navy commander and
over an animal, and reversing back over polar explorer. Complications ensue when the narrator, who
the corpse to try to fix the problem.” is Cambodian English, begins to fall in love with her charge,
Yet, as valuable as Susskind’s intellectual while also closing in on the truth of the mysterious extraction
history of growth is, his promised reck- program. Throughout, Bradley meditates on mortality, grief,
oning is unsatisfying. After taking aim and imperialism. “Everything that has ever been could have
at the degrowthers, he recommends, been prevented and none of it was,” she writes. “The only thing
confusingly, something he calls “weak you can mend is the future.”
degrowth.” The idea is that we should hundreds of billions of dollars over the springs of co-operative wealth flow more
have somewhat less regard for economic next decade on green-energy subsidies. abundantly.” Nikita Khrushchev and
growth and more for legitimate concerns The latest estimates suggest that it will other Soviet leaders routinely claimed
like income equality, environmental con- double the pace of carbon-emissions re- that their centrally managed economy
servation, and community preservation. duction from two per cent per year to would inevitably surpass that of the
But he gives little guidance on how pol- four per cent. The Biden Administra- United States. (It never did.) Although
icymakers ought to weigh these com- tion hopes that future growth will be the Chinese economy is much more
peting measures of human flourishing. shared more equitably in the United open than the Soviet one, China’s Com-
He advocates mini-plebiscites that mimic States, which is why it has issued require- munist Party offers a similar proposi-
the ancient Athenian assembly as one ments for community-benefit agreements tion to its citizens: greater material pros-
solution to our political-economy mal- that could include child-care facilities, perity in exchange for restricted political
aise—a curiously utopian proposal. high-wage jobs (preferably of the union- and civil rights.
ized variety), and Buy American provi- As our economy has migrated to-
he degrowth program gains power sions that protect domestic industry. ward the digital over the material and
T from defeatism. When economic
growth and productivity both went slack
The political economy of abundance
is easier to manage than that of auster-
toward services over goods, the limits
to growth have less of a physical basis
after the 2008 global financial crisis, there ity. It is true that growth statistics are than World3 had anticipated. In fact,
was much talk of “secular stagnation”—a biased in their inability to account for the most serious limits to growth in the
term coined by the economist Alvin Han- what economists call negative external- U.S. seem to be self-imposed: the arti-
sen after the Great Depression to de- ities, such as pollution. Fixing this does ficial scarcity in housing; the regulatory
scribe a state of low growth, low infla- not require eradicating growth, though. thickets that tend to asphyxiate clean-en-
tion, and high unemployment that could The most parsimonious and precise ap- ergy projects no matter how well sub-
persist for years. At the same time, prob- proach—one many economists would sidized; the pockets of monopoly that
lems like the anti-globalization backlash, favor—would be to tax carbon emissions crop up everywhere; a tax regime inca-
surging income disparities in the rich by an amount equal to their estimated pable of cycling opportunity to those
world, and a warming planet became social cost. Because such an interven- most in need. The risk of another Mal-
more apparent. In “The Rise and Fall of tion is politically unpalatable, some coun- thusian cap imposing itself on human-
American Growth,” a magisterial book tries, including the United States, have ity appears, fortunately, remote. Mean-
published in 2016, the macroeconomist adopted the second-best option of sub- while, the degrowthers’ iron law—that
Robert J. Gordon identified major head- sidizing domestic green-tech compa- economic growth is intrinsically self-
winds—increasing inequality, a dysfunc- nies, in an attempt to speed decarbon- destructive—has become less and less
tional education system, an aging pop- izing. Last year, the European Union plausible. “One can imagine continued
ulation, rising government debt—and unveiled a $272-billion Green Deal In- growth that is directed against pollu-
forecast long-run stagnation for the com- dustrial Plan to respond to the Ameri- tion, against congestion, against sliced
ing twenty-five years. He thought that can approach; in China, a long-stand- white bread,” Robert Solow, a Nobel
real G.D.P. growth per capita would be ing policy of state sponsorship of climate Prize-winning economist at M.I.T., de-
below one per cent per year, less than industries has made it the undisputed clared in a rebuttal to “The Limits to
half the rate enjoyed by Americans in leader in the manufacture of batteries, Growth” half a century ago.
the preceding century. electric vehicles, and solar panels. What was merely theoretical looks
Since 2020, though, U.S. growth per As a practical matter, countries aren’t more practical now, as the world comes
person has been more than two per cent— going to forswear growth while great- to terms with the immense task of
even after taking high inflation into ac- power competition persists. Neither the decarbonization—and the immense
count, and despite the shock of the pan- U.S. nor China, certainly, would volun- amounts of capital that process will re-
demic. Tight labor markets and low tarily give up growth—and the atten- quire. We have more ability than is com-
unemployment mean that wage growth dant military advantages—for the greater monly imagined to shape the kind of
has been strongest at the bottom of the global good. Even the most formidable growth we will experience in the future.
income ladder—which is why inequality enemies of Western capitalism have un- Public policy does not just influence the
in the U.S. actually seems to be on a down- derstood the imperative of improving magnitude of future growth—it can also
swing. Those of us who are in our twen- living standards. Karl Marx famously influence how green, how equally dis-
ties, despite our notorious angst, are richer wrote, in his “Critique of the Gotha Pro- tributed, and how truly welfare-enhanc-
than prior U.S. generations were at our gram,” that the ideal communist society ing that growth will be. Capitalism, as
age, including millennials, Gen X-ers, would be governed by the maxim “From it has been practiced throughout the past
and boomers. Growth and carbon emis- each according to his ability, to each ac- century, has brought with it plenty of
sions have decoupled: U.S. annual emis- cording to his needs.” It’s easy to over- problems; as with any engine, harnessing
sions are seventeen per cent less than the look the previous sentences, in which it properly requires controlling it properly.
six billion tons emitted in 2007, our all- Marx stipulates that this will happen But the premise that economic expan-
time maximum. Emissions have to be only “after the productive forces have sion is bound to be part of the problem,
cut further, and that’s a goal of the In- also increased with the all-around de- rather than necessary to the solution, is
flation Reduction Act, which will spend velopment of the individual, and all the a myth we’ll have to outgrow. 
tive Hawaiians outside of Hawaii, a sta-
ON AND OFF THE MENU tistic that tells only part of the story. The
word “Hawaiian” typically applies to the
islands’ Indigenous population, descen-
DESERT ISLAND dants of the Polynesians who first set-
tled Hawaii, between 1000 and 1200 A.D.,
Tastes of Hawaii abound in Las Vegas. and who were nearly eradicated by the
arrival of Europeans, in the late eigh-
BY HANNAH GOLDFIELD teenth century. Other people born and
raised on the islands—many of them the
descendants of migrant laborers from
Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines,
Portugal, and Puerto Rico, who came to
work on sugarcane and pineapple plan-
tations—are known as kamaaina (resi-
dents), “Hawaii people,” or “locals.” The
last of these terms applies even in Vegas,
where there are so many Hawaii people
that they’ve given the city an affection-
ate nickname: the Ninth Island.
The California Hotel—the Cal, to
regulars—has played a central role in the
Hawaii-to-Vegas pipeline. Opened in
1975 by Sam Boyd, an Oklahoma-born
entrepreneur, it was the first property in
what would become Boyd Gaming, one
of the largest casino-management cor-
porations in the country. According to
William Boyd, Sam’s son, who wrote the
foreword for a book about the hotel from
2008, the Cal was named for its original
intended audience, gamblers from Cal-
ifornia. But, a year in, “we were strug-
gling,” William wrote. “One day [my
dad] said to me, ‘You know, we’re going
to need a niche market here and that’s
going to be Hawai‘i.’”
After living and working in Hono-
lulu for several years, Sam Boyd had de-
veloped an affinity for the islands and
ate one recent evening at the Cali- me with a large bowl of Hawaii-style ox- their people, whom he found to be “in-
L fornia Hotel and Casino, in down-
town Las Vegas, a few miles north of the
tail soup, a glistening, fragrant broth brim-
ming with carrots, celery, and hunks of
dustrious” and who seemed to love gam-
bling, which has always been illegal there.
Strip, I tried my luck at a slot machine oxtail bone, from which supple shreds The Cal lured guests from Hawaii with
for the very first time. Fifteen minutes of purple meat loosened easily. It came promotions that included discounted
later, I was down by twenty bucks or so— with a scoop of rice and a hefty pinch of airfare, free rooms, and credits for meals
thirty if you count the exorbitant A.T.M. pounded ginger and fresh cilantro. Had at a restaurant called Aloha Specialties,
fee I’d been determined to win back— I been sick—with a head cold or a long- which is still part of the hotel today. The
and feeling defeated. No matter; it was ing for Hawaii, or both—I imagine it answer to where you vacation when you
time for a vastly surer bet, the real rea- would have cured me. live in paradise was, apparently, Las
son I was here. Every night, from 11 P.M. If an oxtail soup from Hawaii seems Vegas. Gamblers from Hawaii were “un-
to 6 A.M., the hotel’s twenty-four-hour an unlikely thing to eat in Las Vegas, like anything the Vegas market had ex-
restaurant, the Market Street Café, serves you have a lot to learn about both places, perienced,” according to one of the 2008
one of Vegas’s most iconic dishes. Min- as I did, and still do. Census data from book’s authors, Dennis M. Ogawa, a pro-
utes after I’d been seated at the counter, 2020 showed that Clark County, Nevada, fessor emeritus of American studies at
next to an eighty-seven-year-old woman which includes Las Vegas, was the U.S. the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Not
in oversized sunglasses, a server presented county with the largest population of na- only did they spend much more money
per day than the average tourist, Ogawa
Spam, introduced to Hawaii during the Second World War, became a local staple. writes, but they’d also “arrive in groups,
62 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JASON FULFORD AND TAMARA SHOPSIN
laden with luggage they had filled line holds up. When I asked Jennifer Ver- known in Hawaii as meat jun, a pan-
with gifts for the staff: fresh pineapples, gara, a forty-two-year-old transplant from cake made of egg-battered beef.
Maui onions, Kona coffee, and boxes of Honolulu, why so many Hawaii people More than one kamaaina described
chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.” of her generation had left home, she re- food as closing the gap between the
When I arrived at the Cal on a sunny plied matter-of-factly: “Gentrification. tropics and the desert. “Poke Express,
Monday afternoon, a down-on-his-luck Developers. Inflation.” In Honolulu, most that tastes like home,” Vergara said, of
man, slumped in a tree bed on the side- of her friends—schoolteachers, police- a takeout place she frequents. Alysa An-
walk outside, looked up at me with a men—were struggling, and in many cases drade, an organizer of Pure Aloha, one
grin and said, “Aloha.” The Cal, and living with their parents, even after having of Vegas’s Hawaii-themed festivals,
downtown Vegas more broadly, has seen kids of their own. Better jobs and plentiful founded in 2004, described a boom in
more glamorous days, but, inside, a real estate beckoned, oasis-like, from the restaurants serving “island food,” as well
wholesome sense of nostalgia hung in Mojave; in Vegas, Vergara and her hus- as other businesses targeting locals: pool
the air, along with the scent of cigarette band, who have two kids, are employed as detailing, tribal-tattoo artists, Hawaiian-
smoke. The carpeted floor of the casino nurses and own a three-bedroom home. language classes. “When I go back home,
was patterned with enormous hibiscus Perhaps nothing so clearly reflects this I want to come back here,” Andrade
flowers; outside the Ohana conference ongoing exodus as the city’s landscape of told me over a slice of guava cake and
room, I met a man wearing a mid- restaurants. It would be easy to define chunks of pineapple sprinkled in pow-
night-blue T-shirt printed with the word the food in Vegas by the offerings at its dered li hing mui (pickled and dried
“SPAM” in the brand’s signature yellow lavish casinos and hotels, many of them plum), at Straight Up Cafe, whose menu
font—a show of support, he explained, pandering to the tastes of high-rolling promises “killah grinds,” pidgin for great
for Spam’s parent company, Hormel tourists, all caviar and king crab and food. “I like Vegas. I feel like everyone’s
Foods, which had helped to rehabilitate Wagyu. But, off the Strip, there are hun- doing the same thing back home.They’re
Maui after the devastating wildfires in dreds of humbler, family-run, counter- just still in the same place where I left
2023. “I thought maybe you were a Spam service establishments, a strip-mall ecosys- them twenty years ago.”
fanatic,” I said. The man, whose name tem reminiscent of greater Los Angeles. Some people visit Las Vegas in order
was Gene, laughed and said, “Well, isn’t From the airport, I drove to a restaurant to feel as though they’re somewhere else
everyone from Hawaii a Spam fanatic?” called 2 Scoops of Aloha, which shares entirely: Venice, Paris, a post-apocalyptic
Gene was at the Cal for the sort of a shopping plaza with two insurance of- Earth imagined by Darren Aronofsky.
event that has become commonplace fices, an acne clinic, and an iPhone re- Eating poke in a strip mall, I couldn’t
there over the years: a reunion for a high pair store. There, I ordered what’s known help but think about how much better
school in Hawaii, in this case Hilo High, in Hawaii as a plate lunch. Born of the it would taste if I were near the ocean, a
class of 1955. (The Maui High class of ’53 hearty appetites of plantation laborers, a salty breeze blowing off the waters where
was meeting on the same dates.) Spam plate lunch usually includes two scoops the fish had been caught. But eating poke
was introduced to the islands when Gene of rice and one of macaroni salad, plus at ‘Ai Pono Cafe, in the high-gloss food
was a child. Originally served to G.I.s meat or fish. I opted for fried chicken court of a brand-new casino called Du-
stationed there during the Second World two ways—one portion smothered in rango, is transportive, an experience that
War, it became a staple of the local diet, a garlicky gravy, the other slicked in a delivers on the city’s promise. Gene Vil-
incorporated into everything from mu- sweet-spicy Korean-style glaze—and a liatora, ‘Ai Pono’s chef and owner, moved
subi—Hawaii’s version of onigiri—to side of poi, a Polynesian dish of boiled to Vegas from Hawaii in 1993, “the same
saimin, a dashi-based noodle soup. In taro, pounded into a viscous paste. night as the grand opening of the MGM
general, the Cal’s clientele seemed to skew The meal illustrated the fusion in- Grand,” he told me, and worked as a
elderly; at check-in, the young woman herent in the islands’ cuisine, a collision dishwasher at Aloha Specialties, in the
behind the front desk greeted guests in of cultures that don’t cohere so much as Cal, before bouncing around some of
line ahead of me as Auntie and Uncle. happily coexist. Johnathan Wright, a the Strip’s toniest kitchens and then
Beyond the hotel, I found a vibrant, restaurant reporter for the Las Vegas competing on “Top Chef,” in 2008. At
multigenerational world of Hawaii Review-Journal who was raised in Ho- Durango, ‘Ai Pono’s storefront mimics
people. In the decades after the casino nolulu, defined the cuisine as “whatever a cartoonish beach shack. Inside, Villi-
opened, the appeal of Vegas grew as not I grew up eating”: galbi (Korean short atora serves what he calls “Hawaii street
only a place to vacation but also a place ribs), Cantonese roast duck, manapuas food”: a refined spin on a Korean-in-
to live. In 1992, the Hawaii-born play- (Hawaii’s take on baos), Spam. Jeremy spired plate lunch, featuring a strip of
wright Edward Sakamoto published a Cho, a Korean American professor at tender galbi and a meat jun, griddled
play called “Aloha Las Vegas,” about a the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, golden and crisp; a spectacular fried
widower named Wally who is weighing who was born in Hawaii, told me that chicken thigh shellacked in a chili-
a move from Honolulu. An old friend he’d been surprised by the city’s abun- pepper-guava glaze that tastes strikingly
named Harry, who has already relocated, dance of Hawaii-style Korean food, dis- of the juicy fruit. A dozen yards away,
urges him to do the same. “Aeh, it’s a mass tinct from the Korean food you’d enon the casino floor, animated bison stam-
exodus to Vegas,” Harry says, in Hawaii counter in L.A. or Fort Lee, New Jersey. pede across the screens of digital slot
pidgin. “Lodda people in Hawai‘i house- In Vegas, as in his home state, it was machines, a game called Buffalo Ascen-
rich and cash-poor.”Thirty years later, the easy to find a plate lunch featuring what’s sion promising gold. 
the last big Brancusi show—his works
THE ART WORLD are so fragile and scattered that only
the craftiest negotiations can bring
them together. “Brancusi,” curated by
THE PERFECTIONIST Ariane Coulondre, has managed a hun-
dred and twenty sculptures, plus a
Why we’re still catching up to Brancusi. slightly cheesy reconstruction of the
artist’s studio, which he bequeathed to
BY JACKSON ARN the French state before his death, in
1957. Like most of the show’s histori-
cal contextualizing, the studio comes
early and doesn’t linger, allowing the
pieces to speak with minimal interrup-
tions. Theme trumps chronology, so
we get a sampling of his woodwork, an
ark’s worth of animals, a vitrine of heads,
some androgynous blobs. Why did he
sculpt blobs? Why did he sculpt any-
thing? Just savor it, already.
Brancusi was born in 1876, in a Ro-
manian village, and he grew up carv-
ing wood when he wasn’t herding sheep.
In his late twenties, armed with a flute
and a few years’ training from the Bu-
charest School of Fine Arts, he set off
for Paris, nearly dying of pneumonia
along the way. Life in his new city was,
at first, only slightly less miserable than
the trip that brought him there, but
you wouldn’t know it from this show—
quintessential modernist though he is,
there isn’t much modernist snarl in his
art. A painting by Picasso, to name an-
other provincial who moved to Paris
in the early nineteen-hundreds, still
stings, but a Brancusi has the tranquil-
PHOTOGRAPH FROM CENTRE POMPIDOU / MNAM-CCI / GEORGES MEGUERDITCHIAN / DIST. RMN-GP

lity of a crescent moon. When his work
shocked people, he claimed to be puz-
zled. I can’t imagine looking at the
CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI / COURTESY © SUCCESSION BRANCUSI / ADAGP, PARIS 2024;

twin globes and arched shaft of “Prin-
am writing about Constantin Bran- this aesthetic in his sculptures. More cess X” (1915-16), his portrait of Marie
Icorners.
cusi on a machine with rounded
Chances are good that you
than a hundred years ago, though, he
perfected a kind of earthy sleekness
Bonaparte, and not seeing a shiny metal
penis, but Brancusi insisted that it was
own such a machine, too. Mine is that still looks embarrassingly contem- “all women, rolled into one.” Hard not
mostly aluminum, but the surface has porary, so fresh that it makes the ac- to read into this some kind of prank,
the faint roughness of ancient stone. tual present taste stale. Its peak, against but I never get the sense that Bran-
The aesthetic, which might be de- strong competition, can be found in cusi needs us enough to mess with our
scribed as austere yet playful, seems the sixteen svelte, polished, ridiculously heads. If he mocks conventions, it’s
right for an object that is both a seri- cool versions of “Bird in Space” that because he glides past them.
ous, grownup device and a toy. At dif- he made between 1923 and 1940. Some
ferent times, it has symbolized human
ingenuity, American pluck, sweatshop
are bronze, some are marble. All could
be tinted air. Their shape is something
“ W hat drove him?” might be too
big a question for any Bran-
barbarism, the glorious future, and between a quill and a cobra, though cusi exhibition, but we can settle for
screen addiction. maybe it’s better to say that they look “What changed him?” The prime sus-
My point isn’t that Brancusi, the the way flight feels, or the way flight pect is Auguste Rodin, whose sculp-
star of a euphoric retrospective at the should feel but never quite does. tures left as deep a dent in the late
Centre Pompidou in Paris, invented It has been almost thirty years since nineteenth century as Brancusi’s did
in the twentieth. For several art-
“Princess X” (1915-16), the phallic-feminine sculpture that shocked Paris. history-shaking weeks in 1907, the
younger man worked as the older one’s zle, the most dazzling Brancusis keep below and what’s above click together
assistant. If you know any Brancusi a few of their warts: the bird’s bent like a setup and a punch line.
quotes, you know “Nothing can grow head in “Maiastra” (1911), say, or the My favorite Brancusi picture shows
in the shade of a great tree,” the tree speed-bump nose on “Prometheus” “The Cock” (1924), maybe the most
being Rodin, and the idea being that (1911), which stops your eyes from delightful thing he ever made, two
Brancusi couldn’t have developed had moving over the shiny bronze head ways at once. Head on, the sculpture
he stuck around any longer. too fast. The ice-cream swirl of hair is tall and cypress-skinny, but a shadow
Probably not. Whatever else it’s that tops his 1928 portrait of Nancy of its profile on the wall has a belly
saying, a Rodin says, “Rodin was here.” Cunard, one of many fancy transat- like a serrated knife. It’s a neat illus-
In his unfinished marble piece “Sleep” lantic types he’d met by then, is the tration of Brancusi’s conception of his
(1894), which appears in this show, prettiest wart you ever did see, all the sculptures as rotating objects, 3ash-
texture and weight advertise an act of vanity and fabulous Jazz Age fizz of ing their fronts and sides and backs
heroic, muscular exertion, which makes this socialite’s life trapped in one shape. at a viewer. Some of them, like the
it a little shocking to recall that Rodin To understand how much it’s doing, twinkling swan “Leda” (1926), actually
wasn’t here in the literal sense; like try covering it up. Hairless, the sculp- do rotate. Others suggest centrifugal
other distinguished sculptors of the ture would look like a belly balanced force as concisely as they suggest roost-
day, he made clay models but left the on a foot—still a body, but no longer ers or women—notice the stairway of
carving and the casting to his team. a person. For Brancusi, the most lux- hair that sends you racing around his
Brancusi had helpers, including Isamu uriant of simplifiers, our useless parts 1933 portrait of Margit Pogany, or the
Noguchi, but he fully embraced the make us who we are. way two spiral steps at the foot of
sweaty side of sculpture, sinking so “The Sorceress” (1916-24) give the rest
many hours of carving and polishing he longer you spend around these of the sculpture a palpable twirl. There
into his creations that all signs of ex-
ertion disappeared. Look at his Ro-
T sculptures, in fact, the more luxu-
riant they get—that’s the gift of visit-
is a dizzying feeling of being turned
toward and away from, addressed only
dinesque take on “Sleep,” from 1908, ing a roomful of Brancusis instead of to be ignored.
and then at the simplified heads and one or two. At MOMA, 3anked by Mirós This, finally, is Brancusi’s gorgeous
orbs he made in the years that fol- or Matisses, a single “Bird in Space” taunt. His sculptures can’t be caught,
lowed. They bid farewell to, in no par- looks sleek. The 3ock at the Pompi- only waved to as they soar grinningly
ticular order, Rodin, representational dou gives you all the subtler effects, by. They are gracious but better than
realism, psychological depth, and so- too—the funny little wiggle in some you, whoever you are. At the Pompi-
lidity, until they almost 3oat away. The of the birds’ lower quarters, for instance, dou, the feeling climaxes in that bright
pale dinosaur egg of “The Beginning which suggests turbulence before cruis- gallery of birds, which rise to greet
of the World” barely touches its plinth. ing altitude. Nearly as revelatory is the museumgoers before settling in for
In these sculptures, Brancusi ap- show’s collection of Brancusi’s photo- their long journey skyward. Emblems
pears to be playing a game called How graphs, many documenting his work, of modernism for close to a century,
Much Can I Take Away from X Be- though what they reveal is still an open they make modernity seem almost
fore It Stops Being X ? Sometimes— question. His friend Man Ray scorned lush in its efficiencies, lofty but still
with his seals, I’d say, or the Tinkertoy them. Peter Campbell, the longtime down-to-earth, A and not-A in the
tubes of “Torso of a Young Man”—he art critic for the London Review of Books, same suave breath. Real modernity
removes too much. But, when he wins, thought them more enduring works can’t measure up to this, of course,
you have the feeling of looking at an than the sculptures themselves. any more than my laptop can rival a
inevitable object; one atom more or For me, they’re great works of art Brancusi’s elegance, but that only
less and the spell would be broken. The criticism, seminars on Brancusi-gaz- makes the fantasy more attractive. It
beauty of this game is that it never ing taught by the world’s leading ex- hasn’t dated because it hasn’t come
ends; iteration, not culmination, is the pert. One photograph, of “The Be- true, and won’t. 
point. Sketches show him practicing ginning of the World,” shows the 1
the ruthless sport of simplification, work’s rough wooden pedestal hog- Constabulary Notes from All Over
hand barely leaving the page. Fingers ging all the attention, so that the tiny From a University of Michigan crime alert.
get melted down into a dagger; an ear egg above gets squashed against the
becomes a quick U-turn on the drive frame’s upper edge. It made me real- The Ann Arbor Police Department is in-
from head to back. In 1912, he and his ize that the sculpture is funny, in a vestigating a Felonious Assault that occurred
at the Target store on 231 S. State Street, on
friend Marcel Duchamp were stunned shaggy-dog way—all that carving for April 1, 2024, at approximately 8:40 p.m. Two
by an enormous airplane propeller, and an egg? Art historians may never agree individuals were walking in the door when they
it shows: only a few years into aviation on whether Brancusi’s bases are sculp- bumped into each other. A verbal altercation
history, Brancusi had pledged himself tures in their own right, but it’s clear occurred, and the suspect brandished a folded
to the aerodynamic. that their solemn, almost deadpan pocket knife and placed it against the victim’s
throat. The victim pushed the suspect away,
He pares down, but he doesn’t pu- heaviness—Rodin, with a wink— and the suspect exposed the blade. They sep-
rify, exactly. Much as movie stars need makes the official sculptures seem arated, and both continued shopping before
a small physical 3aw in order to daz- brighter and airier. At best, what’s they left the store.

letic performance style: “The sense of a
MUSICAL EVENTS body set in urgent motion by musical
imperatives requires that the body not
be distractingly clothed.”
THOROUGHLY MODERN All the same, a number of people
find themselves distracted. “She’d fit
Yuja Wang uses her star power to lead audiences out of their comfort zones. much better in a night club” is one of
the politer complaints to be found on
BY ALEX ROSS Wang’s Facebook page. Ironically, such
concern trolling is symptomatic of the
very superficiality that it purports to
condemn. If you hold music to be a pure,
transcendent, anti-physical medium,
your attention shouldn’t be meandering
to a player’s physique. Fortunately, most
audiences recognize that Wang’s fash-
ions are an honest extension of her per-
sonality. At a recent recital at Disney
Hall, in Los Angeles, each of her en-
sembles elicited giggly applause. (She
customarily changes at intermission, as
opera singers do.) What would happen
if a male pianist chose to highlight his
body in a similar way? Some boundar-
ies have yet to be tested.
The flamboyance ends when Wang
begins to play. At the keyboard, she is
precise, dynamic, purposeful, unsenti-
mental. Although she has drawn atten-
tion for a marathon survey of Rach-
maninoff’s five concertante pieces for
piano and orchestra, sultry Romantic
repertory isn’t her strongest suit. Some
of her most memorable performances
have been of thornier fare: Schoenberg’s
Suite, Opus 25; Bartók’s First Piano Con-
certo; Messiaen’s “Turangalîla” Sym-
Wang, with her cool, analytical manner, plays Scriabin as well as anyone alive. phony; Ligeti’s Études; John Adams’s
“Must the Devil Have All the Good
IbetThe
has never been just about the music.
notion that performers should
faceless butlers of genius, imperson-
ted for Chopin by George Sand. And
so on: the history of the piano is a his-
tory of weirdness.
Tunes?” It’s seldom noticed how she
uses her star power to lead audiences
outside their comfort zones. She’s a mod-
ally conveying sublime messages in Given this gaudy lineage, it is curi- ernist in fashionista gear.
sound, has no basis in tradition. The ous that any controversy should attend
bonkers antics of virtuoso pianists in
the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries prove otherwise. Franz Liszt,
the thirty-seven-year-old pianist Yuja
Wang, who seldom speaks during
performances, presents programs of
Ithefirst encountered Wang in 2004, when
she participated in a master class on
Schubert piano sonatas at Carnegie
SOURCE PHOTOGRAPH BY ILYA S. SAVENOK / GETTY
whose stage costumes ranged from Mag- wide-ranging seriousness, and plays with Hall, under the aegis of the great Leon
yar military garb to priestly robes, would flawless technique. The debate, such as Fleisher. Her command of the often
sometimes stop between pieces to chat it is, is confined to her taste in clothes. fiendishly difficult C-Minor Sonata was
with admirers. The infamously acerbic She favors spangly, skintight ensembles staggering; I would have been even more
Hans von Bülow, while on an Ameri- from high-end designers, such as Hervé awestruck if I’d known that she was only
can tour, became so irritated at the pro- Leger and Akris, and clomps across the seventeen. At times, though, Schubert’s
motional efforts of the Chickering piano stage in Christian Louboutin stilettos. songfulness eluded her. Fleisher felt that
company that he took out a jackknife The late Janet Malcolm, in a 2016 Pro- she was too aggressive in her attack; she
and scraped the brand’s name off the file of Wang for this magazine, devoted was “dive-bombing” the keyboard, he
instrument. Vladimir de Pachmann once considerable space to the pianist’s cou- said. He wanted her to relax and breathe
appeared at a recital holding a pair of ture, arguing that it is less a contradic- with the music. When, a year later, Wang
socks; these, he claimed, had been knit- tion than an accentuation of her ath- played the Grieg Concerto with Neeme
66 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 ILLUSTRATION BY TIANQI CHEN
sullivan + associates
A R C H I T E C T S
Järvi and the New Jersey Symphony, that giving just a twinge of emphasis to its
message had sunk in. The performance bittersweet chromaticism. It trails off
was as lyrically generous as it was rhyth- with a series of A’s that, in Wang’s hands,
mically sharp. rang like a distant bell in a valley—the
martha's vineyard
Two decades on, Wang still has her prelude to a brutal A-minor assault.
dive-bombing moments. On a new The shock of that shift landed even
Deutsche Grammophon disk, titled “The more strongly because Wang chose to
Vienna Recital,” she delivers a swift, play the Second Ballade first. She thus
spiky reading of Beethoven’s Sonata echoed the otherworldly innocence of ADVERTISEMENT
Opus 31, No. 3—one that captures the the Messiaen “Baiser” that opened the
work’s mischievous spirit but short- first half. In recent years, Wang has tried
changes its dreamier moments. At to loosen up concert routines, withhold-
Disney, her rendition of Debussy’s “L’Isle ing program notes and making unan-
Joyeuse” was brilliant to a fault: amid the nounced changes in the order of works.
impeccable swirl of notes, the piece’s big, (That practice occasioned a bizarre pro-
bounding tune remained somewhat hid-
den until the very end. “Regard de l’Es-
test at a 2022 Disney recital: after the
Beethoven, someone shouted, “Did you
WHAT’S THE
prit de Joie,” the second of two excerpts write that? Who wrote that?”) In this BIG IDEA?
from Messiaen’s “Vingt Regards sur case, the reordering changed one’s per- Small space has big rewards.
l’Enfant-Jésus,” hit a peak of intensity spective on the First Ballade: robbed of
too early, so that one felt a little pum- its status as a stand-alone showpiece, it
melled by Messiaen’s storm of ecstasy. became the brooding heart of a larger
My cavils about the Disney recital sonata structure. Wang, far advanced
pretty much end there, though. (Wang from her student days, viscerally inhab-
had played the same program at Car- ited the piece’s conflicting moods and TO FIND OUT MORE, CONTACT
JILLIAN GENET | 305.520.5159
negie two days earlier.) “Le Baiser de smoldering transitions. jgenet@zmedia-inc.com
l’Enfant-Jésus,” the first of the Messi- The Fourth Ballade stages a climac-
aen selections, was an exercise in un- tic collision of extremes. It begins with
hurried bliss, its expectant pauses as tell- seven bucolic bars in C major, which
ing as its sumptuous sighs. Perhaps only turn out to be a prelude to a mournful
Wang could have got away with open- F minor. At the end of the initial pas-
ing a concert in so anti-virtuosic a man- sage comes a solitary, exposed C: Wang
ner. After “L’Isle Joyeuse,” she offered a rendered it with a sudden coldness, sig-
rigorous, vibrant account of the Eighth nalling the transition to the minor. Such
Sonata of Alexander Scriabin—a com- nuances of articulation are essential to Conversations that
poser whose yen for continuous flux can persuasive Chopin playing. The oasis of
easily exhaust the listener. Wang plays C major returns just before the coda,
change your world.
Scriabin as well as anyone alive: her cool, this time reduced to five pianissimo
analytical manner is a perfect comple- chords. Wang struck the first of these
ment to his hothouse mysticism. with a dry, plain tone; then her touch
After intermission came Chopin’s softened, so that the chords subsided
four Ballades—if not the highest sum- into a somnolent haze. After a split-
mit in the piano repertory, then one of second pause, the coda exploded with
its hairier ascents. Mastering the exu- concussive force. These events didn’t feel
berantly moody First Ballade is one of plotted in advance: Wang seemed lost
the age-old tests of conservatory train- in the music, in the best way.
ing: on YouTube, you can find Wang Lest anyone worry that Wang aban-
giving an excellent, if somewhat stud- doned her sense of fun, she traipsed
ied, performance of it at her Curtis In- back with a grab bag of encores: Arturo
stitute graduation recital.The other three Márquez’s Danzón No. 2, Samuel Fein- Join The New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick,
Ballades move beyond the familiar wel- berg’s transcription of the third move- for in-depth interviews and thought-provoking
discussions about politics, culture, and the arts.
ter of Romantic emotion into zones of ment of Tchaikovsky’s “Pathétique,”
volatility and violence. The Second Bal- Chopin’s Nocturne in D-Flat, Glass’s
lade—which may or may not have been Étude No. 6, Shostakovich’s Prelude and
inspired by an Adam Mickiewicz poem Fugue in D-Flat, and Glinka’s “The
about Polish maidens fleeing from Rus- Lark.” Whoops resounded. Someone
sian soldiers—begins with a pastoral si- shouted, “Goddess!” In the end, Wang’s
ciliano in F major. Wang lingered over flair for spectacle doesn’t diminish her
the passage with unaffected tenderness, gifts; it heightens them. 
vous theatrical god—takes up the char-
THE THEATRE acter’s traditional fake belly and air of
ribald delight. To reëxamine him, Icke
places Falstaff and his medieval milieu
OLD ENGLISH in a recognizable now: when Harry (To-
heeb Jimoh) and a backstreet buddy go
“Player Kings,” “The Cherry Orchard,” and “London Tide.” on a spree, they cut apart an A.T.M.,
sending sparks from their metal grinder
BY HELEN SHAW across the dark.
Harry’s father, Henry IV (Richard
Coyle, snapping like a cornered fox),
has come to rather hate his wayward
heir. He not so secretly prefers the rebel
Hotspur (Samuel Edward-Cook), who
is, at least, applying himself. But is Harry
really so debauched, or is he playing
some deep public-relations game? Icke
excels at textual archeology—his “Ham-
let,” from 2017, incorporated a scene
from a corrupted pre-first-folio edition
known, thrillingly, as the “bad quarto”—
and here he has cleverly compressed
Shakespeare’s “Henry IV” dyad, splic-
ing together Elizabethan variants, mak-
ing subtle adjustments, and interpolat-
ing lines from “Henry V.” He has also
shaped the evening around McKellen’s
coward-knight, slowing the action when
unease flickers around the old man’s
mouth, as Harry’s pranks reveal his cruel
nature, then speeding the civil-war plot
along to reveal the self-interested Falstaff
bustling about in the historical margins.
Icke’s ochre-and-shadow production,
a series of shifting brick rooms (designed
by Hildegard Bechtler) warmed by oc-
casional firelight, superimposes two
worlds: Henry IV’s court and Falstaff’s
disreputable tavern, in Eastcheap. De-
spite the constant pleasures of “Player
W hen I was in London recently,

walking down near Cheapside,
north of the Thames, I went into the
for the new: goslings waddle in the parks,
tiny daisies dot the grass. This May,
however, many theatre productions were
Kings,” its spotlight is on Shakespeare’s
cynicism: high or low, everyone’s a crook.
Even Henry IV is a usurper, ashamed
small museum built above the Mi- digging old, sometimes familiar things of his backstabbing path to power. Icke’s
thraeum, an ancient site hidden twenty out of the sediment and reconsidering innovative staging makes the young
feet under Bloomberg’s glassy Euro- them in the city’s changing light. prince’s double inheritance from his two
pean headquarters. You’re often con- Sir John Falstaff is among those father figures explicit. When Harry faces
scious in London of the place’s great resurfaced treasures. He’s one of Shake- Hotspur on the battlefield, he beats the
age, but there’s nothing like visiting the speare’s most beloved characters: a rogu- better warrior with a trick that he must
remnants of a third-century temple de- ish knight and petty brigand, who be- have picked up in Eastcheap. What
voted to Mithras—a bull-killing god friends the young Harry, a prodigal would stop him? Honor? Falstaff knows
popular with Roman centurions—to prince sowing his wild (and criminal) what that’s worth: “Can honor set a leg?
make you appreciate just how many oats. In “Player Kings,” Robert Icke’s no / or an arm? no.” So Harry’s sneaky
cities lie beneath the streets. (A river, nearly four-hour adaptation of Shake- knife goes in (quick quick quick)—and,
the Walbrook, once ran by the temple, speare’s two “Henry IV” history plays, lo, a king draws it out.
though it has since been built over and at the West End’s Noël Coward The- McKellen is eighty-five this month,
lost.) Spring in London feels like a time atre, Ian McKellen—himself a mischie- and he seems to be aging through the
great roles in random order: his rum-
Ian McKellen stars as the coward-knight Falstaff. bustious, knowing Falstaff comes long
68 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 ILLUSTRATION BY KEITH NEGLEY
after the first time McKellen played miliar, slow-burning story of an aristo- his own death, wondering if his ar-
King Lear, as a mere lad of sixty-eight; crat, Liubov Ranevskaya (Nina Hoss), ranged bride, Bella (Bella Maclean),
he played Hamlet in 1971—and also who lets her patrimony drift into the will love him without his money, and
last year. Age has given him bright new hands of her neighbor, the nouveau-riche a Thames riverman’s daughter, Lizzie
tools for performance. At one point, Lopakhin (Adeel Akhtar), has been (Ami Tredrea), who has attracted one
Falstaff kneels before Harry and then changed, on purpose, into something deranged suitor (Scott Karim) and one
staggers upon rising. I saw McKellen more violent, even ugly. sweet ( Jamael Westman), much to the
massage his knee. It was only several Still, this “Cherry Orchard” is grace- amusement of her friend Jenny Wren
scenes later, as the limp developed into ful—if not in its language then in its (Ellie-May Sheridan, giving the pro-
a saucy bit of stage business, that I re- dramatic swiftness. Andrews has his duction’s standout performance).
alized I had been taken in. Our pro- cast sit around the stage with the rest Power’s touch with these stories is
tective feelings for McKellen the actor of us, so that they can fling themselves very tender, the line-by-line writing is
have been put in service of the play’s into scenes without making an entrance. often elegant and tart, and Harvey’s
pity for “sweet Jack Falstaff,” whom The incredible fleetness and proximity, underscoring is beautiful, but the show
Harry will inevitably spurn, breaking more than anything, convey what the would be better off without the songs,
his overtaxed, unworthy, lovable old director has extracted from Chekhov: which can sound lugubrious and in-
heart. It also, in a sly way, makes us the nauseating sensation of watching a terchangeable. So many of Power and
complicit: despite knowing everything, whole society, of which we are a reluc- Harvey’s lyrics are about London—
we forgive a bad man. tant part, stumbling headlong into ruin. first “This is a story about London,”
I hope that “Player Kings” comes then later “London is not England/En-
enedict Andrews, another director to New York with McKellen—it’s a gland is not London,” and later still
B who writes his own adaptations,
has been largely celebrated for his mod-
stunner—and I would love to see this
“Cherry Orchard” unleashed on our
“London is our home”—that it be-
comes a little goofy. The director Ian
ern take on Chekhov’s “Cherry Or- own easily startled audiences. I’m less Rickson, the set designer Bunny Chris-
chard,” which is set, in the round, on eager for “London Tide,” another the- tie, and the lighting designer Jack
russet rugs that extend up the walls of atrical reappraisal of a cultural artifact, Knowles, though, have made a produc-
the relatively tiny Donmar Warehouse. to make the journey. A musical adap- tion so gorgeous that it could almost
Andrews likes an abrasive edge: his tation of Charles Dickens’s serial novel go on tour alone, without the accom-
“Three Sisters,” from 2012, featured a “Our Mutual Friend,” now at the Na- panying musical. The National’s huge
headbanging Nirvana needle drop; tional, the show was written by Ben Lyttelton stage surges, black and shin-
here, characters shout “you’re nuthin’ Power, with goth-folk music and songs ing, tilting and rising under the actors’
but a fuckwit” as an onstage drummer composed by PJ Harvey. Its quality is feet. Above them, long rows of lights
thrashes her cymbals. I loved its Ar- bizarrely variable, including both un- move in ripples; the whole theatre seems
mageddon vibe, but this “Cherry Or- forgettable stage imagery and, occa- to be on a raft, subject to the wakes
chard” is not always crowd-pleasing— sionally, risible awkwardness. and tides of the Thames. This set—
the night I saw it, both of my bench Power, who also adapted Stefano just synchronized light rails and a back-
mates left at intermission. There’s a risk Massini’s “Lehman Trilogy” for the drop of what appears to be cheap plas-
in keeping your audience close and well stage, turns almost completely away tic—creates one of the most impressive
lit. You can see a lot of unconvinced from the novel’s own social dudgeon. stage illusions I’ve ever seen. “I feel a
expressions when, for instance, a char- What remains, once he cuts Dickens’s little seasick,” someone behind me said,
acter once described by Chekhov as “a satirized rich and his dying poor, are as intermission started. But I had been
suave man” reels in chugging vodka two intricate romantic plots: a man, in London for a few days, and I had
straight from the bottle. Chekhov’s fa- John (Tom Mothersdale), who fakes started to feel at home on the river. 
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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 Felipe Galindo,
must be received by Sunday, June 2nd. The finalists in the May 20th contest appear below. We will
announce the winner, and the finalists in this week’s contest, in the June 17th 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
“Well, I’m never picking up loose change again.”

Michael Lord, South Duxbury, Vt.
“Should we tell him about A.T.M.s?” “Oh, sure, now you look at a map.”
Alan Shoemaker, Centerville, Mass. Nick Heer, Calgary, Alberta
“My family used to have one, but we lost interest.”

Bob Shiffrar, Boston, Mass.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
PUZZLES & GAMES DEPT.

13 14 15
THE 16 17
CROSSWORD 18 19 20
21 22 23
A moderately challenging puzzle.
24 25 26
BY BROOKE HUSIC
27 28 29 30 31
32 33 34
ACROSS
1 Snowman’s arm, perhaps
35 36 37
5 Word after small or all
8 Bounces gently on the water 38 39
13 2021 film based on the work of Haruki
Murakami
40 41 42
15 Magazine whose name is a pronoun
16 “Like you wouldn’t believe!” 43 44 45 46 47 48
17 “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”
collaborator Haley 49 50 51
18 “Bessie” co-writer and director Rees
18 Specks in the sea 52 53
20 Momentary sparkle
21 Pre- relative 54 55 56
22 “salt.” poet Nayyirah
24 Round that eliminates two teams
26 Tasks on a list 3 ___ leaf (symbol of the sorority Alpha 40 Number that might be affected by
Kappa Alpha) inflation
27 Meal during which the Four Questions
are asked 4 2022 Steve Lacy album that alludes to 41 Structures that urban skiers grind
28 Zigzagging moves whose popularity his late-May birthday 42 Gray wolves
overseas spread to the N.B.A. 5 Go around and around 43 ___ paradox (thought experiment in
32 Organs with walls 6 Feel longing which a high-speed traveller appears to
33 Inc., in Britain 7 They often contain letters you don’t age differently from someone on Earth)
34 Ordeal want anyone else to read 45 Ready to enter a textile-free sauna
35 Short contests within a larger 8 Full-house initials 46 Escape into a book
competition, as in Mario Party 8 Memphis stretch known for blues music 47 Nourishes oneself
37 Multimedia artist ___ Red Star 10 Basic skateboarding trick 48 Periodic occurrence, for short?
38 Bailey who forms half of an R. & B. duo 11 Mixture
with her sister Halle 50 ___ de la Bandera (February observance
12 Write some fantasy? in Mexico)
38 Coverage
13 VHS replacement 51 School such as Navajo Tech or I.A.I.A.
40 Is rough on the ears
42 Café au ___ 14 Requirements
20 Mystery authors? Solution to the previous puzzle:
43 ___ Day of Visibility (March 31st)
44 Part of a Miss Piggy costume 21 Course that might cover “Paradise” and D O N T S T O P S T R A P
“This Side of Paradise,” for short M I N I A T U R E P E E V E
46 Single exercise
23 “Much ___ About Nothing” S W E L T E R E D A N G E R
48 Emulate a siren
24 Org. that asks if we’re alone N A W A P E S A C O R N S
50 Strategy for guarding a guard, perhaps B L A B P I E R O G I
52 Spongy rice-and-lentil cake sometimes 25 Site of a Biblical eviction
C I T Y P R O P E R S U E S
drizzled with ghee 26 Student who may have a personalized
T E L E P A T H Y P S T
53 Housemates that hardly ever go out? learning plan
S U P E R C O O L
54 What an ovenbird makes on the forest 27 Difference’s opposite P C S S A N T A S U I T
floor 28 “Sesame Street” standard that Lil Nas X R O A M S I S T E R S O N G
55 Forever once co-performed on “The Not-Too- E L L I O T T T O O L
56 Bits of bubbly? Late Show” P O I N T S S S N S L O U
28 It comes before zwei A G E N T C H E A T C O D E
DOWN 30 Nursing-bra inserts I N N I E C E R T A I N L Y
1 The Great Banyan, for one 31 Conniving D E T E R S A B O T A G E
2 What allows some headbands to keep 36 Lager alternative Find more puzzles and this week’s solution at
their shape 38 São ___, Brazil newyorker.com/crossword
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DRAWINGS Bruce Eric Kaplan, Emily Bernstein, Michael Crawford,

Light on the Water, oil on canvas, 30 x 30

THIS WEEK IN THE NEW YORKER APP

Bill McKibben on climate change,

OFF BROADWAY | In Raja Feather Kelly’s melan-

6 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024

house in need of an exorcism. The show is riotous,

The mood, though, is welcoming ning downstairs at Claud, but it would

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 7

T he old adage about investing is that,

What Are We Doing?

What Happened? your career simply to better understand Know?

PHOTOGRAPH BY CAROL M. HIGHSMITH [REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-DIG-HIGHSM-24135]; SHUTTERSTOCK

A cting is a discouraging business,

B y funnelling cash into his production

ne morning last November, I took

THE STASI FILES

tasi Central sits on the desolate out-

46 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 PHOTOGRAPH BY SUZANNE SAROFF

52 THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024

THE CURRENT CINEMA

ow, nine years on from “Fury Road,”

PHOTOGRAPH FROM CENTRE POMPIDOU / MNAM-CCI / GEORGES MEGUERDITCHIAN / DIST. RMN-GP

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI / COURTESY © SUCCESSION BRANCUSI / ADAGP, PARIS 2024;

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 65

W hen I was in London recently,

THE NEW YORKER, JUNE 3, 2024 69

THIS WEEK’S CONTEST

THE FINALISTS THE WINNING CAPTION

“Well, I’m never picking up loose change again.”

“My family used to have one, but we lost interest.”

PUZZLES & GAMES DEPT.

1 The Great Banyan, for one 31 Conniving D E T E R S A B O T A G E

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