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What's in This Week's New Yorker: 06.08.09
Filed under: Headline Shooter Tagged: Aleksandar Hemon, Alex Ross, Bruno Schulz, David Denby, David Grossman, Edna O'Brien, Ernest Hemingway, Hilton Als, James Surowiecki, Jeffrey Toobin, Jonathan Franzen, Louis Menand, Nancy Franklin, R. Crumb, Roger Angell, Sasha Frere-Jones, Tea Obreht, Yiyun Li
Martin Schneider writes:
The summer fiction issue of The New Yorker comes out tomorrow. A preview of its contents, adapted from the magazine's press release:
In "Good Neighbors," Jonathan Franzen's first piece of fiction in four years, an upwardly mobile couple, Walter and Patty Berglund, deal with their recalcitrant son while their neighbors gossip and their blighted St. Paul block gentrifies in the nineteen-eighties and nineties.
The issue also features début fiction by Téa Obreht, a previously unpublished writer who graduated from Cornell University's writing program in January, 2009. Obreht was born in Yugoslavia, grew up in Egypt and Cyprus, and moved to the United States in 1997.
In an excerpt from his upcoming book, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, due out this fall from W.W. Norton, R. Crumb illustrates the story of creation and of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Louis Menand explores the rise of university creative-writing programs.
In "Old Wounds," Edna O'Brien chronicles the difficulty that two cousins have in trying to reconnect after a long family feud.
David Grossman writes about the Jewish Polish writer Bruno Schulz, and investigates the circumstances of his death—ostensibly as a victim of a feud between two Nazi officers—in 1942.
In "A Soldier Home," Yiyun Li remembers reading Hemingway and other writers in English as a way to escape from her life during and after her military service in China.
In "Two Emmas," Roger Angell describes the bookshelves at his summer home in Maine and recalls fondly his experience reading The Garrick Year by Margaret Drabble.
In "The Magic Mountain," Aleksandar Hemon reminisces about his long solo summer reading holidays in his family's remote cabin on Jahorina, a mountain in Bosnia.
Jeffrey Toobin, in Comment, examines Sonia Sotomayor's nomination and reflects on diversity on the Supreme Court.
In The Financial Page, James Surowiecki looks at the role that fear has played in the U.S. credit crunch and Buenos Aires's recent coin shortage.
Nancy Franklin watches Nurse Jackie.
Sasha Frere-Jones listens to the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.
Alex Ross attends a musical "marathon" of Gustav Mahler's symphonies.
Hilton Als explores race and desire in Tennessee Williams's Vieux Carré.
David Denby reviews Up, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and Away We Go.
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Dashes, some say, “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like an em dash itself—provides a thoughtful pause amid the hubbub.
Emdashes, founded in 2004, is written and drawn by Emily Gordon, Martin Schneider, Pollux, Jonathan Taylor, and Benjamin Chambers, as well as occasional guest contributors. All posts before October 2008 are by Emily Gordon.
The site was designed by House of Pretty with illustrations by Jesse R. Ewing.
Additional drawings are by Carolita Johnson and Pollux (author of our web comic, "The Wavy Rule"). The Emdashes pencil logo is by Jennifer Hadley, based on a 1943 Dorothy Gray ad.
Other writing by Emily Gordon
- Reviews: theater writing (for Time Out Chicago)
- Profile: Valerie Casey, Designers Accord founder, is spearheading the design of sustainability (for SXSW World)
- Feature: Rea Irvin: visionary art director, bon vivant, New Yorker founding father (for Print)
- Slide show: the Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for NYCgo.com)
- Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
- Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
- Homage: Celebrating lindy-hop legend Frankie Manning (for NYCgo.com)
- Inquiry: Does a New Republic redesign mean a change of tune? (for Print)
- Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
- Interviews: four up-and-coming designers under 30 (for Print)
- Profile: novelist and dance critic Laura Jacobs (for Newsday)
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