Last Week's New Yorker Review: April 17, 2023

the wild optimism that everything will be better if you join the right fraternity, find the right guru, eat the right root vegetables, or read the right book.

Last Week’s New Yorker, week of April 17

Must-Read:

“Oddballs and Odysseys” - Casey Cep surveys the Arkansan antics of Charles Portis, whose outlandish farces “reveal something about moral character and many somethings about the character of this country.” Pairs its own oddball, Portis, with a perfectly concise and clean structure, building to a clear thesis at the end of the first section, moving to biography, and then on to analysis. Yet the tale is not rote, because Cep interlaces cleverly segmented summaries of a few of Portis’ books, so that we always feel we’re unspooling a new yarn. Cep manages to include just enough of Portis’ frenzied superimpositions without totally losing us, and summations like these are subtly masterful: “A little while later, at a bar in San Miguel de Allende called the Cucaracha, he encounters the bus’s owner, Dr. Reo Symes, who wants to hitch a ride in Midge’s borrowed ‘63 Buick Special, because he’s trying to get to Belize to persuade his missionary mother to give him the deed, or at least the development rights, to an island she owns in the Mississippi River.” It’s a feat to tug us through details designed to snare without getting us tangled up. Cep also transfers Portis’ rattletrap wit, and even delineates a compelling point about “the great American nostalgic fallacy” as Portis’ true subject, which he skewers without “scorn.” Even more on his politics would strengthen the piece; then again, more of anything here would strengthen the piece. I’d read Cep’s book on Portis.

Window-Shop:

[A particularly excellent batch of window-shop pieces; any of the first five might have been the must-reads in another issue.]

“Corn Country” - Vinson Cunningham lends an ear to the country-pop corn of Shucked. Well-balanced between three approaches: Trying to match the show’s writers by making as many corn puns as possible, laughing along with the show’s “enjoyably dopey story,” and criticizing its lack of “unitary purpose or polished message.” Each of those impulses could get tiresome, even obnoxious, if not carefully modulated; Cunningham perfectly rotates the crops.

“The Bunker” - Melissa del Bosque exposes the communal journalistic project to uncover the murderers of Mexican reporter Miroslava Breach. Most compelling in its early going, when it documents Breach’s life, her killing, and the twisty web of narcopolitics which entraps parts of Mexico. As one reporter says, “if you look at the majority of the more than one hundred journalists killed in the last decade in Mexico, most of them were working on stories about the collaboration between the political state apparatus and organized crime” specifically, not just on cartel beat reporting. The second half is a feat of meta-reporting, best when focusing on details like the paranoia of the journalistic collective, but the final three sections are muddled by the partial success of a government agency in pursuing the case, something that took the journalists by “genuine surprise” but isn’t adequately explained by the presence of an “ambitious new prosecutor” who isn’t given any meaningful characterization in the piece. Still, a propulsive and cinematic piece.

“Amazing Grace” - Amanda Petrusich chronicles the Ethiopian nun-pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou. While it’s pegged to a new release, this isn’t really a music review but an excuse for a capsule biography, complete with the story of Petrusich’s inability to interview the pianist before she died. While not especially necessary, the diaristic openness of that final segment is charming, and Emahoy’s life story is compelling, too. Petrusich’s final thought that the music is “entirely self-evident” is borne out by her lack of detailed analysis; bringing in an expert who’s writing a dissertation on Emahoy is a smart move, and even more of his thoughts would be welcome. But this is mostly just a letter of recommendation, and the tunes are as plainly gorgeous as Petrusich indicates.

“A Tragic Run” - Alexis Okeowo recounts the domestic-violence murder of a star Kenyan runner, and the patriarchal culture that enables abuse and exploitation. Straightforward and unsurprising in its bleakness and its details; even the blithe quotes from a criminal investigator (“You must be having either a man friend or boyfriend? Do you want to say it is all a bed of roses?”) are expectedly insulting. Deeper characterizations might help, but could also render the story maudlin. In any case, recounting the specifics of gendered violence and economic manipulation (“When female athletes begin to make money, their male partners control their winnings… When women push back, partners lash out”) is a worthy task.

“Family Values” - Kathryn Schulz marches with Jeanne Manford, who insisted in accepting her gay son unconditionally, and founded PFLAG, an organization that encourages other parents to do the same. Schultz’s prose always sparkles, with a cordial tone and lovely, subtle double meanings like “her face free of shadow or blur.” And early queer stories are well worth telling. Taking the point-of-view of a parent’s group works best when discussing activist tactics and the need to persuade family members to “make common cause” with queer people. But there’s no particular need for that perspective on the AIDS crisis, for example, and in places this piece becomes rote, repeating a worthy but, by this point, widely covered history. And the rosiness of the piece leaves something out: What might the counterpoint to Schultz’s argument that “too profound a suspicion of political allies is counterproductive” be? Still, this is an accomplished and affirming piece, a quick read that will bring a smile to your face.

“De Minimis” - Alex Ross tunes in to two composers taking Minimalism in new, and not-so-new, directions. This could have been, should have been, a double book review of the books cited on Minimalism and “Ambient Music’s Psychedelic Past.” Ross’ take on Richter might serve as a segment of that longer piece; alone, it’s both expected and underdeveloped. He calls the music “dreamy” and “boutiquey,” the latter a much more precise blow than the conclusion that the music “troubles” Ross due to “its inoffensiveness,” “a numbed acquiescence.” This is very true, but we haven’t been given enough historical or political background to understand whether this is a betrayal of Minimalist music on Richter’s part, or a continuation of its implicit ideology. Anyhow, Ross gets preoccupied by a Cassandra Miller concerto which is animated by “a chaotic humanness” in which “sorrow edges into rage.” It’s an excellent recommendation, and one well suited to soundtracking other articles¹, although the link provided online might confuse; the piece at hand begins one hour and two minutes in and runs twenty-eight minutes.

Skip Without Guilt:

“Upstairs, Downstairs” (Talk of the Town) - Ben McGrath chronicles the non-Trumpians on the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse docket the day of Trump’s arraignment. This feels a bit too breezy for its subject matter; I’m highlighting it because a recent piece in excellent city publication Hell Gate had exactly the same premise and executed it brilliantly. Reading them side by side makes it clear where the brevity and zany tone demanded by Talk of the Town can occasionally be a liability.

“Hell on Wheels” - Inkoo Kang gets spun around by the “wickedly loopy comic drama” Beef. When she tweeted out this review, Kang said she “went more analytical than usual,” but she could go so much further, developing the strongest of her arguments (likely about the resonance of the show’s “centering of the mental-health struggles of Asian Americans”) instead of trying to hit every point. And toward the end the prose gets really rough: “I laughingly winced” is awkward, I don’t know what the review’s ending is trying to say (“the eleventh-hour fuzzies aren’t given enough time for the warmth to sink in”), and this over-explanation, though probably mandated by an editor, is, as Kang might say, “cringey”: “The series takes an I.Y.K.Y.K. approach to many of these cultural details: if you know, you know.”

“Special Sauce” - Charles Bethea eats at Slutty Vegan, Pinky Cole’s “marketing business that just so happens to have a restaurant selling burgers and fries.” There’s a very interesting piece to be written about Black capitalism, one that quotes Jay Z comparing being called a capitalist to the N-slur and saying “we fucking killed ourselves to get to this space, and now it’s like, ‘Eat the rich,’” or actually delves into the Oprah reference Cole keeps making. This piece doesn’t go there, and I can’t help but think it would have been better served by a Black writer. Cole has a very… “girlboss” attitude throughout, and Bethea doesn’t exactly make her look good, but in the absence of a more critical thesis, the overall tenor of the piece is to excuse her as a representative of Black entrepreneurship, and it frequently takes quotes at face value that demand deeper analysis. “Pinky has an opportunity to truly embody the brand and take it maybe much further than any [major fast-food chain] with the charismatic leadership she brings,” says the head of a nonprofit incubator. Basically, the plan is to make Cole the star, to make her “bigger than Oprah.” But she’s just as tone-deaf as any white entrepreneur: “I’ve got a real-estate addiction,” she says at one point, “It’s like tattoos.” That’s representative.

The one criticism of Slutty Vegan Bethea does give substantial space to, is the argument that “not great dietary offerings are marketed back to Black people.” I don’t think this argument is wrong, but it’s worth noting that Black veganism has a long cultural history that’s often been political; Cole isn’t just opening restaurants in gentrifying areas, she’s actively working to take a Black history and repaint it as accessible to “people who are Black, white, yellow, blue, Asian, green,” as she puts it.² Her dad, who she idolizes, was the leader of a “large-scale cocaine distribution ring,” and a less hesitant piece would do more with this detail, which has resonances with Cole’s business model. Bethea also glosses past the wage theft accusations against the company, which escalated shortly after the story was published. I want that cultural column on Black capitalist corruption, and how it works to leave well-meaning people like Bethea “a bit bewildered and genuinely charmed.” This isn’t it.

“Tread Softly” - Anthony Lane peers skeptically at two star vehicles. Holier-than-thou in the most literal sense. Lane finds it “profoundly weird” that Michael Jordan is treated as saintly and that his shoe is worshipped; he quotes Guy Debord and declares the movie “kneels at the altar of high capitalism.” Uh, no doy. What did Lane expect? The issue isn’t his political perspective (that’s welcome) but its obviousness and the sneering, sanctimonious tone he assumes. (That tone even infects the capsule review of Paint, which, in fairness, sounds awful.) Plus, he seems to think Ben Affleck directed Gone Girl, which is a weird, big flub.

“Zonked” - Anthony Lane is drained by A History of Fatigue. Sorry to rag on Lane, but this is nearly unreadable. If you think the idea of a review of a book about tiredness which finds the critic exhausted by the book is slightly droll, rest assured Lane finds it gut-busting and motions toward the irony so much it becomes, I’m doubly sorry to say, tiresome. The jokiness extends beyond the premise; everything is laid on thick, even for Lane. The writer, Vigarello, is apparently a bit too concerned with quantitative figures for Lane’s liking. He spins this into a full-on Borscht Belt routine: When Vigarello counts punches: “Talk about crunching the numbers.” When he quotes Tennyson’s “mouse… shriek”: “Vigarello would probably request the decibel rating of the mouse’s shriek.” The thesis of the piece never extends beyond “I didn’t like Vigarello’s book, so I’m going to make fun of it while giving some of my own thoughts on fatigue.” It’s not that Lane’s dunks aren’t valid, it’s that the length and intensity of his complaints is never warranted by the offenses outlined, or the relative importance of the book being critiqued (which is published by an academic press and has gotten little coverage elsewhere.) Eventually, it just feels mean, and it dams up the rest of the piece; Lane can hardly focus on the few points he makes about tiredness, he’s too intent on setting up for the next slam. Give it a rest!

Letters:

Michael agreed with my pick of MacFarquar’s adoption story as a highlight of last week’s issue, writing that “it challenged some of my existing notions about adoption but also didn't necessarily offer easy answers. I'm the type of reader who often skips over the ‘give this story a personal peg’ parts but for this one I think they were necessary and well done.”

M, a faculty member at Rutgers, writes in to say: “Right wing schools like Hillsdale,” profiled in last week’s issue, “aren’t the only ones with conservative practices. Even institutions with seemingly progressive leadership show their true cards when responding to social issues on and off campus. Look at Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway, a scholar of African-American history who speaks in support of affirmative action and reparations yet employs aggressive union-busting tactics and refuses to pay faculty in Newark (a majority-minority campus situated in a largely black city) an equal wage to their counterparts at New Brunswick. This is part of why our faculty unions are officially on strike as of April 10th.” A very worthy note!

A strong edition, no? (Clearly, I had lots to say; I believe this is my longest, and latest, letter so far. But records are made to be broken…) What would you have picked as the must-read this week?

1. Do you listen to music while reading ‘this magazine’? I sometimes do, especially if it’s a piece mentioned and doesn’t set too much of a mood.

2. As a Baltimorean, like Cole, I want to quickly point out that city’s vibrant subculture of Vegan restaurants, including the explicitly Black Vegan ‘Dodah’s Kitchen’ and ‘Land of Kush,’ as well as my former workplace, the incredible worker-owned vegan café and radical bookstore ‘Red Emma’s.’ All three, and many of the other excellent vegan options in the city, have deep community ties and more meaningful resonances with plant-based food culture than Cole can ever hope to.