newyorker--2020-12-28--Is Substack the Media Future We Want?

Is Substack the Media Future We Want?

The subscription-based news industry , the founders speculated , could someday “ be much larger than the newspaper business ever was , much like the ride-hailing industry in San Francisco is bigger than the taxi industry was before Lyft and Uber.
” These days , Substack ’ s founders , investors , and marketing materials all have different ways of describing the startup ’ s mission .
Depending on which source you consult , Substack might be “ reinventing publishing , ” “ pioneering a new ‘ business model for culture , ’ ” or “ attempting to build an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” It is “ writers firing their old business model ” or “ a better future for news.
” Substack ’ s C.E.O.
, Chris Best , has said that the company ’ s intention is “ to make it so that you could type into this box , and if the things you type are good , you ’ re going to get rich.
” Hamish McKenzie , one of Substack ’ s co-founders , told me that he sees the company as an alternative to social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were fed up about the effects of the social-media diet , ” McKenzie said .
Substack ’ s home page now reads , “ Take back your mind.
” Substack , like Facebook , insists that it is not a media company ; it is , instead , “ a platform that enables writers and readers.
” But other newsletter platforms , such as Revue , Lede , or TinyLetter ( a service owned by Mailchimp , the e-mail-marketing company ) , have never offered incentives to attract writers .
By piloting programs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ re-create some of the value provided by newsrooms , ” as McKenzie put it , Substack has made itself difficult to categorize : it ’ s a software company with the trappings of a digital-media concern .
The company , which currently has twenty employees , has a lightweight content-moderation policy , which prohibits harassment , threats , spam , pornography , and calls for violence ; moderation decisions are made by the founders , and , McKenzie told me , the company does not comment on them .
Best has suggested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the form of the Unsubscribe button .
It ’ s an interesting time for such a hands-off , free-market approach .
The Internet is flooded with disinformation and conspiracy theories .
Amazon ’ s self-publishing arm has become a haven for extremist content .
The flattening effect of digital platforms has led to confusion among readers about what is reporting and what is opinion .
Newsrooms at the Times and the Wall Street Journal have taken pains to distinguish their work from that found in the op-ed sections .
Substack has advertised @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but few of its newsletters publish original reporting ; the majority offer personal writing , opinion pieces , research , and analysis .
A Substack newsletter is both a product and a portfolio : a way to make money , but also a venue for displaying personality , intelligence , and taste .
Read enough of them and certain patterns begin to emerge .
Newsletters in the business and tech categories tend to adopt para-LinkedIn tics .
They are often studded with Twitter screenshots and lists of links .
Single-sentence paragraphs appear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( “ Imagine a world where you had a personal board of advisors—the people you most admire and respect—and you gave them upside in your future earnings in exchange for helping you .
.
.
.
Imagine if you could diversify by pooling 1 % of your future income with your ten smartest friends.
” ) Just as there is “ podcast voice ” —that inquisitive , staccato bedtime-story cadence—there is Substack tone , a semi-professional quality suited to mass e-mail .
Some newsletters convey intimacy , in the language of psychotherapy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more polished and structured than that of the looser , rangier blogs of the early two-thousands .
“ Maybe Baby , ” for all its vulnerability , is also aware of itself as a commodity , dialled in to its audience .
Still , it ’ s nice , from time to time , to receive a chatty , engaging , personable e-mail from someone who doesn ’ t expect a response .
Newsletters have existed since time immemorial .
As Silicon Valley came into being , newsletters were among the earliest trade @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a former business reporter and Wall Street securities analyst in her thirties , purchased a nine-year-old newsletter about semiconductors and personal computing , the “ Rosen Electronics Letter , ” from her boss , Ben Rosen , who was selling it to focus on his work at a venture-capital firm .
Dyson , who wrote for the newsletter and had a reputation as a confident , quotable technology expert , renamed the publication “ Release 1.0.
” The design was unadorned , formatted in a single column , and printed on white @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that November , offered twenty-nine pages of her research and opinions on hot topics of the day , from end-user training to newly public tech companies .
“ Normally we don ’ t like to be nasty : we ’ d rather simply be silent , ” she wrote , in a section on vaporware .
“ But the current rash of purported revolutions , breakthroughs and new generations requires some comment.
” The subscriber base included two thousand people , most of whom paid three hundred and ninety-five dollars a year to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail .
This readership was modest by mass-media standards , but it included an enviable A-list of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and executives , bolstering Dyson ’ s nascent image as one of the most powerful women in computing .
In 1985 , Aldus , a small startup in Seattle , began working on a software program called PageMaker , to design and organize newspaper layouts .
( Paul Brainerd , an Aldus co-founder , who coined the term “ desktop publishing , ” had previously worked as a journalist . )
The company @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who encouraged the founders to adapt the software for a broader business environment .
That year , Apple released its first mass-market laser printer , the LaserWriter—a seven-thousand-dollar beige machine that produced professional-grade text and images—and promoted it alongside PageMaker , an early desktop-publishing program for Macintosh .
A corporate office or a carpeted den could now become a bespoke printshop .
PageMaker ’ s layout elements mimicked those of a newspaper .
The software , with its suggestive columns , seemed to say : Circulate !
Almost immediately , newsletters—on personal finance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plants , surfing , bluegrass , numismatics , farming , and , of course , computing—proliferated .
Independent publications had long circulated in the finance and technology sectors , offering data and analysis not easily found elsewhere .
( Charles Schwab , the financial-services company , began as “ Investment Indicator , ” a newsletter first published in 1963 . )
But , for the most part , newsletters had been the province of civic groups , religious congregations , cultural and educational institutions , and corporations—as well as some restaurant enthusiasts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ began printing “ The Zagat Survey , ” a collection of crowdsourced restaurant reviews , in 1979 .
“ Desktop Publishing , ” a guidebook released in 1986 , included a chapter on newsletters ’ “ golden opportunity , ” and emphasized the value of a unique , voice-driven editorial style .
A small galaxy of adjacent companies , such as digital-font foundries and clip-art production outfits , emerged to satisfy the desire for customization .
“ One of the unfortunate side effects of the desktop publishing craze is that we are being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they had been created by a drunken committee under a full moon , ” a 1987 Times article read .
“ The ease of cutting , pasting and assembling a publication in no way guarantees the merit of the end product in either content or visual appeal.
” In the nineties , as desktop computers and printers became more affordable , some subscription newsletters began serving groups whose needs were unmet by larger media outlets , in a sort of professionalized parallel to zine culture .
“ Out & About , ” a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ chains and travel agencies on their “ gay-friendliness , ” and recommended companies such as Eco-Explorations , a lesbian-owned scuba-and-sea-kayak concern , and Gay ’ n ’ Gray Partners in Travel , for men over forty .
“ Bully Pulpit , ” launched in 1998 by the Welfare Reform Network , published rebuttals to misinformation in the media about poverty and government assistance .
Newsletters also provided a forum for fringe political views : the medium was popular among violent anti-abortion activists and members of militias .
At the height of the nineties @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( “ The Limbaugh Letter ” ) and Paul Weyrich ( “ The Weyrich Report ” ) also found an additional revenue stream in newsletters .
The rise of the commercial Internet upended newsletters , along with everything else .
Publications offering restaurant listings or information about frequent-flier deals were usurped by message boards , forums , search engines , and free public databases .
Communities found blogs , and bloggers found new sources of income in advertisements , sponsors , and affiliate links .
Some newsletters went digital , or folded ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The Hideaway Report , ” a luxury-vacation newsletter launched in 1979 , became a boutique travel agency ; “ Dr .
Andrew Weil ’ s Self Healing Newsletter , ” first published in 1995 , spawned a small empire .
( The newsletter was later purchased , together with Body & Soul Magazine , by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia , for six million dollars . )
“ In many ways , I see the example of how I work as representative of the way things are going for creators , ” Dyson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an article about PC Forum , a conference held for “ Release 1.0 ” subscribers , which brought in $ 1.5 million a year .
“ The money-making part of my business is really an offshoot of the content production .
Also , I do other things : consulting , speeches , which come to me because of my writing .
In other words , I get paid for my activity rather than my products.
” In 2018 , Substack raised fifteen million dollars in funding , primarily from the venture-capital firm Andreessen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lyft , Caviar , and Instacart .
Substack operates in what Andreessen Horowitz has taken to calling the “ creator economy ” or the “ passion economy.
” In 2019 , in a blog post titled “ The Passion Economy and the Future of Work , ” Li Jin , a partner at the time , discussed the opportunity for “ monetizing individuality.
” Drawing on the example of the gig-work economy , Jin suggested that everyone could be an independent contractor .
She pointed to Outschool—a Web site where teachers and coaches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mindfulness , and English as a second language—and to Cameo , the surreal online marketplace where celebrities can be hired to record customized video messages .
“ Gig work isn ’ t going anywhere—but there are now more ways to capitalize on creativity , ” she wrote .
“ This has huge implications for entrepreneurship and what we ’ ll think of as a ‘ job ’ in the future.
” When I spoke to Dyson recently , she told me that she was intrigued by applications like OnlyFans , in which she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and influencers , one that did not depend on advertising : “ People who receive attention , kind of for free , then give attention back to people and charge for it—the attention they ’ ve garnered has become a genuine commodity that they can sell.
” Nahman ’ s income from “ Maybe Baby ” well exceeds the full-time salary she made at Man Repeller ; Yglesias ’ s newsletter , “ Slow Boring , ” has a readership that includes more than six thousand paid subscribers , and he is making @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yglesias opted to receive a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar advance from Substack , which , in return , will take eighty-five per cent of the subscription revenue from his first year .
In his second year , Substack ’ s commission will revert to ten per cent . )
But Substack ’ s founders have acknowledged that , for the majority of writers , a newsletter will be a side hustle .
In most cases , subscription fees will generate not a salary but something closer to tips .
In a recent blog post on Medium @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , compared a newsletter to a stock-keeping unit , or SKU , a term of art in inventory management .
“ The biggest impact of someone like Casey [ Newton ] unbundling himself ” from the Verge , Walk wrote , “ is that he is now an entrepreneur with a product called Casey .
His beachhead may very well be a paid newsletter .
.
.
but the newsletter is just one SKU .
.
.
.
There could be a podcast SKU .
A speaking fee SKU .
A book deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ guest columnist SKU .
And so on.
” Lisa Gitelman , a media historian and professor at New York University , said , of Substack , “ They obviously want to call it a democratizing gesture , which I find a little bit specious .
It ’ s the democracy of neoliberal self-empowerment .
The message to users is that you can empower yourself by creating.
” The “ passion economy ” thesis assumes that an audience will want everything a creator brings to market , the way viewers of the “ Rachael @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ray cookbooks and cookware .
But starting a newsletter does not immediately lead to speaking engagements , and not all writers can generate multiple distinct products .
Yglesias told me that he considered Twitter to be “ an incredible acquisition funnel for customers , ” but said that “ the interplay between Twitter , which is obviously free , and the newsletter , which is mostly paid , is the trickiest thing to get right in the business .
”

The subscription-based news industry, the founders speculated, could someday “be much larger than the newspaper business ever was, much like the ride-hailing industry in San Francisco is bigger than the taxi industry was before Lyft and Uber.” These days, Substack’s founders, investors, and marketing materials all have different ways of describing the startup’s mission. Depending on which source you consult, Substack might be “reinventing publishing,” “pioneering a new ‘business model for culture,’ ” or “attempting to build an alternative media economy that gives journalists autonomy.” It is “writers firing their old business model” or “a better future for news.” Substack’s C.E.O., Chris Best, has said that the company’s intention is “to make it so that you could type into this box, and if the things you type are good, you’re going to get rich.” Hamish McKenzie, one of Substack’s co-founders, told me that he sees the company as an alternative to social-media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. “We started Substack because we were fed up about the effects of the social-media diet,” McKenzie said. Substack’s home page now reads, “Take back your mind.”
“I have to go—it’s time to feed the cat.” Cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Substack, like Facebook, insists that it is not a media company; it is, instead, “a platform that enables writers and readers.” But other newsletter platforms, such as Revue, Lede, or TinyLetter (a service owned by Mailchimp, the e-mail-marketing company), have never offered incentives to attract writers. By piloting programs, like the legal-defense fund, that “re-create some of the value provided by newsrooms,” as McKenzie put it, Substack has made itself difficult to categorize: it’s a software company with the trappings of a digital-media concern. The company, which currently has twenty employees, has a lightweight content-moderation policy, which prohibits harassment, threats, spam, pornography, and calls for violence; moderation decisions are made by the founders, and, McKenzie told me, the company does not comment on them. Best has suggested that Substack contains a built-in moderation mechanism in the form of the Unsubscribe button.
It’s an interesting time for such a hands-off, free-market approach. The Internet is flooded with disinformation and conspiracy theories. Amazon’s self-publishing arm has become a haven for extremist content. The flattening effect of digital platforms has led to confusion among readers about what is reporting and what is opinion. Newsrooms at the Times and the Wall Street Journal have taken pains to distinguish their work from that found in the op-ed sections. Substack has advertised itself as a friendly home for journalism, but few of its newsletters publish original reporting; the majority offer personal writing, opinion pieces, research, and analysis.
A Substack newsletter is both a product and a portfolio: a way to make money, but also a venue for displaying personality, intelligence, and taste. Read enough of them and certain patterns begin to emerge. Newsletters in the business and tech categories tend to adopt para-LinkedIn tics. They are often studded with Twitter screenshots and lists of links. Single-sentence paragraphs appear frequently, as do uplifting rhetorical devices. (“Imagine a world where you had a personal board of advisors—the people you most admire and respect—and you gave them upside in your future earnings in exchange for helping you. . . . Imagine if you could diversify by pooling 1% of your future income with your ten smartest friends.”) Just as there is “podcast voice”—that inquisitive, staccato bedtime-story cadence—there is Substack tone, a semi-professional quality suited to mass e-mail. Some newsletters convey intimacy, in the language of psychotherapy and self-help, but their style is more polished and structured than that of the looser, rangier blogs of the early two-thousands. “Maybe Baby,” for all its vulnerability, is also aware of itself as a commodity, dialled in to its audience. Still, it’s nice, from time to time, to receive a chatty, engaging, personable e-mail from someone who doesn’t expect a response.
Newsletters have existed since time immemorial. As Silicon Valley came into being, newsletters were among the earliest trade publications. In 1983, Esther Dyson, a former business reporter and Wall Street securities analyst in her thirties, purchased a nine-year-old newsletter about semiconductors and personal computing, the “Rosen Electronics Letter,” from her boss, Ben Rosen, who was selling it to focus on his work at a venture-capital firm. Dyson, who wrote for the newsletter and had a reputation as a confident, quotable technology expert, renamed the publication “Release 1.0.” The design was unadorned, formatted in a single column, and printed on white paper; an early issue, published that November, offered twenty-nine pages of her research and opinions on hot topics of the day, from end-user training to newly public tech companies. “Normally we don’t like to be nasty: we’d rather simply be silent,” she wrote, in a section on vaporware. “But the current rash of purported revolutions, breakthroughs and new generations requires some comment.” The subscriber base included two thousand people, most of whom paid three hundred and ninety-five dollars a year to receive the newsletter monthly, through the mail. This readership was modest by mass-media standards, but it included an enviable A-list of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and executives, bolstering Dyson’s nascent image as one of the most powerful women in computing.
In 1985, Aldus, a small startup in Seattle, began working on a software program called PageMaker, to design and organize newspaper layouts. (Paul Brainerd, an Aldus co-founder, who coined the term “desktop publishing,” had previously worked as a journalist.) The company caught the attention of Steve Jobs, who encouraged the founders to adapt the software for a broader business environment. That year, Apple released its first mass-market laser printer, the LaserWriter—a seven-thousand-dollar beige machine that produced professional-grade text and images—and promoted it alongside PageMaker, an early desktop-publishing program for Macintosh. A corporate office or a carpeted den could now become a bespoke printshop. PageMaker’s layout elements mimicked those of a newspaper. The software, with its suggestive columns, seemed to say: Circulate!
Almost immediately, newsletters—on personal finance, high-end travel, U.F.O.s, carnivorous plants, surfing, bluegrass, numismatics, farming, and, of course, computing—proliferated. Independent publications had long circulated in the finance and technology sectors, offering data and analysis not easily found elsewhere. (Charles Schwab, the financial-services company, began as “Investment Indicator,” a newsletter first published in 1963.) But, for the most part, newsletters had been the province of civic groups, religious congregations, cultural and educational institutions, and corporations—as well as some restaurant enthusiasts, including Tim and Nina Zagat, who began printing “The Zagat Survey,” a collection of crowdsourced restaurant reviews, in 1979. “Desktop Publishing,” a guidebook released in 1986, included a chapter on newsletters’ “golden opportunity,” and emphasized the value of a unique, voice-driven editorial style. A small galaxy of adjacent companies, such as digital-font foundries and clip-art production outfits, emerged to satisfy the desire for customization. “One of the unfortunate side effects of the desktop publishing craze is that we are being flooded with publications that look as if they had been created by a drunken committee under a full moon,” a 1987 Times article read. “The ease of cutting, pasting and assembling a publication in no way guarantees the merit of the end product in either content or visual appeal.”
“Maybe make this one a little less true to life.” Cartoon by Suerynn Lee Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
In the nineties, as desktop computers and printers became more affordable, some subscription newsletters began serving groups whose needs were unmet by larger media outlets, in a sort of professionalized parallel to zine culture. “Out & About,” a newsletter founded in 1992, rated hotel chains and travel agencies on their “gay-friendliness,” and recommended companies such as Eco-Explorations, a lesbian-owned scuba-and-sea-kayak concern, and Gay’n’Gray Partners in Travel, for men over forty. “Bully Pulpit,” launched in 1998 by the Welfare Reform Network, published rebuttals to misinformation in the media about poverty and government assistance. Newsletters also provided a forum for fringe political views: the medium was popular among violent anti-abortion activists and members of militias. At the height of the nineties culture wars, figures like Rush Limbaugh (“The Limbaugh Letter”) and Paul Weyrich (“The Weyrich Report”) also found an additional revenue stream in newsletters.
The rise of the commercial Internet upended newsletters, along with everything else. Publications offering restaurant listings or information about frequent-flier deals were usurped by message boards, forums, search engines, and free public databases. Communities found blogs, and bloggers found new sources of income in advertisements, sponsors, and affiliate links. Some newsletters went digital, or folded; others morphed into more traditional enterprises. “The Hideaway Report,” a luxury-vacation newsletter launched in 1979, became a boutique travel agency; “Dr. Andrew Weil’s Self Healing Newsletter,” first published in 1995, spawned a small empire. (The newsletter was later purchased, together with Body & Soul Magazine, by Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, for six million dollars.) “In many ways, I see the example of how I work as representative of the way things are going for creators,” Dyson told the Times in 1996, in an article about PC Forum, a conference held for “Release 1.0” subscribers, which brought in $1.5 million a year. “The money-making part of my business is really an offshoot of the content production. Also, I do other things: consulting, speeches, which come to me because of my writing. In other words, I get paid for my activity rather than my products.”
Dyson was once again prescient: today’s “creators” often split their activity across a range of platforms. They use multiple social-media accounts to craft and maintain their personal brands; to monetize them, they offer exclusive content or privileges. In recent years, companies like Patreon and OnlyFans have made it easier for people to support, via subscriptions and micropayments, writers, artists, podcasters, comedians, fitness instructors, photographers, musicians, singers, sex workers, gamers, dancers, educators, and influencers. Substack allows writers to collect subscription income without leaving the Web site, through an integration with the payment processor Stripe. (Stripe takes about three per cent of every subscription charge, as well as thirty cents per transaction; this comes out of the writer’s revenue share.)
In 2019, Substack raised fifteen million dollars in funding, primarily from the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, whose portfolio companies also include Lyft, Caviar, and Instacart. Substack operates in what Andreessen Horowitz has taken to calling the “creator economy” or the “passion economy.” In 2019, in a blog post titled “The Passion Economy and the Future of Work,” Li Jin, a partner at the time, discussed the opportunity for “monetizing individuality.” Drawing on the example of the gig-work economy, Jin suggested that everyone could be an independent contractor. She pointed to Outschool—a Web site where teachers and coaches offer instruction on topics like playwriting, mindfulness, and English as a second language—and to Cameo, the surreal online marketplace where celebrities can be hired to record customized video messages. “Gig work isn’t going anywhere—but there are now more ways to capitalize on creativity,” she wrote. “This has huge implications for entrepreneurship and what we’ll think of as a ‘job’ in the future.” When I spoke to Dyson recently, she told me that she was intrigued by applications like OnlyFans, in which she saw a new business model for celebrities and influencers, one that did not depend on advertising: “People who receive attention, kind of for free, then give attention back to people and charge for it—the attention they’ve garnered has become a genuine commodity that they can sell.”
Nahman’s income from “Maybe Baby” well exceeds the full-time salary she made at Man Repeller; Yglesias’s newsletter, “Slow Boring,” has a readership that includes more than six thousand paid subscribers, and he is making twenty-seven thousand dollars a month. (Yglesias opted to receive a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar advance from Substack, which, in return, will take eighty-five per cent of the subscription revenue from his first year. In his second year, Substack’s commission will revert to ten per cent.) But Substack’s founders have acknowledged that, for the majority of writers, a newsletter will be a side hustle. In most cases, subscription fees will generate not a salary but something closer to tips. In a recent blog post on Medium, Hunter Walk, a venture capitalist, compared a newsletter to a stock-keeping unit, or SKU, a term of art in inventory management. “The biggest impact of someone like Casey [Newton] unbundling himself” from the Verge, Walk wrote, “is that he is now an entrepreneur with a product called Casey. His beachhead may very well be a paid newsletter . . . but the newsletter is just one SKU. . . . There could be a podcast SKU. A speaking fee SKU. A book deal SKU. A consulting SKU. A guest columnist SKU. And so on.” Lisa Gitelman, a media historian and professor at New York University, said, of Substack, “They obviously want to call it a democratizing gesture, which I find a little bit specious. It’s the democracy of neoliberal self-empowerment. The message to users is that you can empower yourself by creating.”


newyorker--2020-12-28--Is Every Ambitious Teen-ager a “Founder and C.E.O.”?

One striking innovation of modern meritocracy is the teen-age executive .
High-school students used to spiff up their college applications with extracurriculars like Model U.N. and student council .
Today ’ s overachievers want to grace their résumés with the words “ founder and C.E.O.
” When schools in Fremont , California , shut down in March , Jagannath Prabhakaran , a sixteen-year-old , seized the opportunity to join the ranks .
He and three friends began writing a curriculum for what he dubbed CELLS Academy , an organization devoted to getting kids excited about science .
In June , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beginners and Intro to Genetics , on a digital learning platform called Udemy .
More than two thousand students signed up .
In the next couple of months , CELLS added to its programming : a virtual camp in the U.S. ; a tutoring program in Malaysia .
Prabhakaran and his friends weren ’ t the only students in their highly competitive school district who decided to change the world during quarantine .
At least sixteen other ventures were launched in the months after learning went remote .
Arav Tewari founded ShareNext , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Uber for donations.
” Nihar Duvvuri started Project SD , a nonprofit that creates and funds debate clubs at schools in low-income areas .
When classes resumed , in the fall , it seemed like every other teen-ager was running a company .
“ It ’ s not just test scores and G.P.A .
that get you into a top school , ” Christopher Rim , a college-admissions consultant in New York City , said over the phone .
“ You need really great extracurricular activities.
” Rim is twenty-five years old @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in New Jersey , he founded an anti-bullying organization called It Ends Today , which put him on Lady Gaga ’ s radar .
Rim credits the nonprofit with helping him get into Yale .
( He dissolved the group when he was in college . )
After graduating , in 2017 , he founded an admissions-counselling firm , Command Education , where his services start at around a thousand dollars an hour .
Command Education specializes in “ activity development , ” which turns the company ’ s teen-age clients into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ holders by connecting them with lawyers , accountants , engineers , event planners , and designers who can help them realize their adolescent ambitions .
During lockdown , Rim saw a four-hundred-per-cent spike in inquiries .
“ With school being remote , how are you supposed to participate in the school musical ?
” he asked .
Student founders who don ’ t hire consultants can find starting a company without adult supervision difficult .
Aditi Morumganti , the sixteen-year-old secretary of Project SD , got tangled up in legal paperwork : “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down , and then you ’ re looking at a form , and you ’ re , like , Oh , my God , I need to file for this thing as well ?
” The young founders of Fremont are an especially scrappy and well-credentialled bunch .
Their Web sites have tasteful fonts , well-lit head shots , and graphics that slide like automatic doors .
Many of them enunciate like high-ranking debaters—because they are high-ranking debaters .
Some of them sit on one another ’ s executive boards .
Although the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be other young people , some kids are skeptical .
Aditya Prerepa , a junior at the district ’ s Mission San Jose High School , has a cynical take .
“ How do you know you started junior year ?
” Prerepa tweeted a few months ago .
“ Every student and their mother are creating a nonprofit for ‘ social good ’ for college apps.
” Attached to the post was a screenshot of Prerepa ’ s Facebook notifications , filled with invitations to support his peers ’ ventures .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ effective for them to join existing organizations than to start new ones .
“ But no , ” he wrote .
“ We all have to be founders.
” Prerepa eventually deleted the tweet , at the request of a school administrator .
He later clarified that he ’ d meant to criticize the admissions rat race , not his classmates .
“ Everybody ’ s trying to get into a good college , ” he said .
An amateur computer programmer , he spends much of his time working on open-source software @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of some of his peers .
“ I don ’ t blame the kids themselves , ” he said .
“ I blame the system that ’ s been created.
” The teen-age Fremont execs are ambivalent about the high-pressure environment .
“ It ’ s intense , but in a good way , ” Asavari Gowda , who co-founded a science-and-technology blog called STEAM Engine , said .
“ It ’ s just that everyone here has a lot of goals.
” As for the glut of student-run companies , she said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these things are run by kids .
Well , not better , but good in the sense that we ’ re more idealistic .
Right ?
” ♦

One striking innovation of modern meritocracy is the teen-age executive. High-school students used to spiff up their college applications with extracurriculars like Model U.N. and student council. Today’s overachievers want to grace their résumés with the words “founder and C.E.O.” When schools in Fremont, California, shut down in March, Jagannath Prabhakaran, a sixteen-year-old, seized the opportunity to join the ranks. He and three friends began writing a curriculum for what he dubbed CELLS Academy, an organization devoted to getting kids excited about science. In June, it launched two courses, Python for Beginners and Intro to Genetics, on a digital learning platform called Udemy. More than two thousand students signed up. In the next couple of months, CELLS added to its programming: a virtual camp in the U.S.; a tutoring program in Malaysia.
Prabhakaran and his friends weren’t the only students in their highly competitive school district who decided to change the world during quarantine. At least sixteen other ventures were launched in the months after learning went remote. Arav Tewari founded ShareNext, a food-drive group that describes itself as “Uber for donations.” Nihar Duvvuri started Project SD, a nonprofit that creates and funds debate clubs at schools in low-income areas. When classes resumed, in the fall, it seemed like every other teen-ager was running a company.
“It’s not just test scores and G.P.A. that get you into a top school,” Christopher Rim, a college-admissions consultant in New York City, said over the phone. “You need really great extracurricular activities.” Rim is twenty-five years old. When he was in high school, in New Jersey, he founded an anti-bullying organization called It Ends Today, which put him on Lady Gaga’s radar. Rim credits the nonprofit with helping him get into Yale. (He dissolved the group when he was in college.) After graduating, in 2017, he founded an admissions-counselling firm, Command Education, where his services start at around a thousand dollars an hour.
Command Education specializes in “activity development,” which turns the company’s teen-age clients into founders, executive directors, and patent holders by connecting them with lawyers, accountants, engineers, event planners, and designers who can help them realize their adolescent ambitions. During lockdown, Rim saw a four-hundred-per-cent spike in inquiries. “With school being remote, how are you supposed to participate in the school musical?” he asked.
Student founders who don’t hire consultants can find starting a company without adult supervision difficult. Aditi Morumganti, the sixteen-year-old secretary of Project SD, got tangled up in legal paperwork: “You’ll think you have everything down, and then you’re looking at a form, and you’re, like, Oh, my God, I need to file for this thing as well?”
“Oh . . . a picture frame . . . how nice . . .” Cartoon by Zachary Kanin Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
The young founders of Fremont are an especially scrappy and well-credentialled bunch. Their Web sites have tasteful fonts, well-lit head shots, and graphics that slide like automatic doors. Many of them enunciate like high-ranking debaters—because they are high-ranking debaters. Some of them sit on one another’s executive boards.
Although the intended beneficiaries of these student-founded organizations tend to be other young people, some kids are skeptical. Aditya Prerepa, a junior at the district’s Mission San Jose High School, has a cynical take. “How do you know you started junior year?” Prerepa tweeted a few months ago. “Every student and their mother are creating a nonprofit for ‘social good’ for college apps.” Attached to the post was a screenshot of Prerepa’s Facebook notifications, filled with invitations to support his peers’ ventures. He argued that it would be more effective for them to join existing organizations than to start new ones. “But no,” he wrote. “We all have to be founders.”
Prerepa eventually deleted the tweet, at the request of a school administrator. He later clarified that he’d meant to criticize the admissions rat race, not his classmates. “Everybody’s trying to get into a good college,” he said. An amateur computer programmer, he spends much of his time working on open-source software, but he lacks the TED-talk affect of some of his peers. “I don’t blame the kids themselves,” he said. “I blame the system that’s been created.”
The teen-age Fremont execs are ambivalent about the high-pressure environment. “It’s intense, but in a good way,” Asavari Gowda, who co-founded a science-and-technology blog called STEAM Engine, said. “It’s just that everyone here has a lot of goals.” As for the glut of student-run companies, she said, “It’s better when these things are run by kids. Well, not better, but good in the sense that we’re more idealistic. Right?” ♦


newyorker--2020-12-28--Cancel New Year’s Eve Forever

Cancel New Year’s Eve Forever

Everyone says that 2020 sucked , and I am not going to argue with that , mostly because I have lost the ability to argue with anyone but myself .
( I live with someone , but we have decided that there ’ s no point in arguing anymore , because if it escalated we wouldn ’ t be able to break up until March at the earliest . )
But I will say one thing in this year ’ s defense .
You know that part of the year between the last of the holiday paper going in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Later Part of the Holiday food , that moment when everyone—in the canned-tomato aisle at the grocery store , in the slushy Michael ’ s parking lot as people stuff plastic bags full of streamers and magenta glitter into their trunks—is asking one another , “ Are you doing anything for New Year ’ s Eve ?
” This year , nobody ’ s asking .
Before we get into how pleased I am about that , let ’ s go back to last year , and all the years before it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the holiday play .
If the askee says , “ I ’ m not doing anything .
What are you doing ?
” and the asker is doing something amazing—taking a fur-lined helicopter to Cornwall , learning how to make steak au poivre from a hologram of James Beard , winkingly “ staying in ” with someone they haven ’ t already fucked fifty billion times—then the askee knows that they are just a prop in the asker ’ s game .
And yet the person with no plans , or basically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have graciously offered to help us eat the panettone that Janet ’ s mom sent us , and we might play Settlers of Catan , a game that allows everyone to realize their dream of being the chief estimator for a medium-sized construction firm ” ) , might at least walk away feeling grateful for the glimmer of jealousy—for feeling anything at the end of December other than cold , mildly useless , and in need of some larger clothes .
The more likely scenario , though , is that neither asker nor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a relief but which also , perhaps , sends off a little current of mutual resentment , because in this exchange neither person has offered the other anything to aspire to .
This year , we will not be running into one another to ask what we ’ re doing on New Year ’ s Eve , and , in any case , if we did run into one another we would likely have little to report .
In getting rid of New Year ’ s Eve for 2020-21 , I suggest we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it altogether .
The following story might help illustrate why .
Four or five New Year ’ s Eves ago , my boyfriend and I got into an argument about what we should do—go to a big party , go to a small one , stay in .
It wasn ’ t a heated argument ; it was just listless and petty .
We went to bed at 9 P.M. , both of us thinking that it might be time to split up .
I only recall it so well because it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I ’ ve ever had .
I can think of a bunch of worse ones .
The time I was hanging out with a different boyfriend and several friends , none of whom liked my boyfriend , and realizing , when we kissed and one friend looked at me and mouthed “ Eww ” and I didn ’ t feel mad , that I didn ’ t like my boyfriend , either .
Watching a lot of people high on Molly hug one another while I drank two gin and tonics and reread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on my phone .
Two visits to an emergency room , one with a friend who was having a panic attack , the other because I got drunk and did a backflip off a bed and onto a vase and cut open my thigh .
On some New Year ’ s Eves , I have simply wandered around—on the subway , in a car , on foot—just looking for my New Year ’ s purpose .
Whether I was twenty-two or thirty-four or forty-five , every wandering New Year ’ s had the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I not just at home doing nothing ?
” But , then again , if you did go home to do nothing , the empty , quiet house would be screaming at you that life is meaningless , and maybe it ’ s better to get that message someplace else .
Feeling bad on New Year ’ s feels importantly bad .
You know that a shitty New Year ’ s is not a referendum on your life , because anyone who thinks that is an idiot—but you do think that , you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so now you ’ re feeling bad for feeling bad .
You idiot .
There ’ s already a longstanding discourse about getting rid of New Year ’ s parties—how it ’ s “ amateur night , ” how you need to “ stay in to avoid the crazies.
” But I ’ m saying get rid of all of it : the cozy let ’ s-eat-lobster/snuggle-on-the-bear-rug/have-unusual-sex New Year ’ s Eves , the game nights , the Twitter discourse about how lame the ball drop is .
Obviously , we can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three hundred and sixty-five days to go around the sun .
Nor can we date our checks “ June 3 , ?
lol ?
.
” But what if our acknowledgment of every new year was merely clerical , like with most any other day ?
I know what you ’ re thinking—maybe I ’ m onto something , but couldn ’ t we do New Year ’ s Eve one more time , even if we are just at home playing Catan , a game so awful I ’ ll make two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more boring is building a popsicle-stick log cabin in your imagination ) ?
Can ’ t we ring in 2021 ?
We have vaccines .
We have a new President , who is merely the devil we know and not the actual devil .
“ Conversations with Friends ” will première on Hulu in the spring , and we are very likely to see thin , sexy Irish people smoking and cheating on one another .
That ’ s all true .
But 2021 is going to be bad .
Unless they invent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the sky , like dirt from a plant that your cat knocked over , and unless they figure out how to refreeze the ice caps , as if they were pints of ice cream you left in the car , each year is going to get worse in ways that we can ’ t comprehend .
If , next year , a friendly stranger in the post office wishes me a happy New Year , I will not respond , “ There is nothing about the passage of time that fills me with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will smile and say , “ Thanks .
You , too.
” But I won ’ t be the one to say it first .
Time is not only passing .
Time is running out .
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• Ian Crouch recounts the best jokes of the year .
• Sheldon Pearce on the albums that helped him navigate a lost plague year .
• New Yorker writers on the best books they @ @ @ @

Everyone says that 2020 sucked, and I am not going to argue with that, mostly because I have lost the ability to argue with anyone but myself. (I live with someone, but we have decided that there’s no point in arguing anymore, because if it escalated we wouldn’t be able to break up until March at the earliest.) But I will say one thing in this year’s defense. You know that part of the year between the last of the holiday paper going in the recycling bin and the shopping for the Later Part of the Holiday food, that moment when everyone—in the canned-tomato aisle at the grocery store, in the slushy Michaels parking lot as people stuff plastic bags full of streamers and magenta glitter into their trunks—is asking one another, “Are you doing anything for New Year’s Eve?” This year, nobody’s asking.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
Before we get into how pleased I am about that, let’s go back to last year, and all the years before it, when this question had a starring role in the holiday play. If the askee says, “I’m not doing anything. What are you doing?” and the asker is doing something amazing—taking a fur-lined helicopter to Cornwall, learning how to make steak au poivre from a hologram of James Beard, winkingly “staying in” with someone they haven’t already fucked fifty billion times—then the askee knows that they are just a prop in the asker’s game. And yet the person with no plans, or basically no plans (“Our across-the-street neighbors have graciously offered to help us eat the panettone that Janet’s mom sent us, and we might play Settlers of Catan, a game that allows everyone to realize their dream of being the chief estimator for a medium-sized construction firm”), might at least walk away feeling grateful for the glimmer of jealousy—for feeling anything at the end of December other than cold, mildly useless, and in need of some larger clothes.
The more likely scenario, though, is that neither asker nor askee are doing anything, which is a relief but which also, perhaps, sends off a little current of mutual resentment, because in this exchange neither person has offered the other anything to aspire to.
This year, we will not be running into one another to ask what we’re doing on New Year’s Eve, and, in any case, if we did run into one another we would likely have little to report.
In getting rid of New Year’s Eve for 2020-21, I suggest we take the opportunity to get rid of it altogether. The following story might help illustrate why. Four or five New Year’s Eves ago, my boyfriend and I got into an argument about what we should do—go to a big party, go to a small one, stay in. It wasn’t a heated argument; it was just listless and petty. We went to bed at 9 P.M., both of us thinking that it might be time to split up. I only recall it so well because it was probably the best New Year’s I’ve ever had.
I can think of a bunch of worse ones. The time I was hanging out with a different boyfriend and several friends, none of whom liked my boyfriend, and realizing, when we kissed and one friend looked at me and mouthed “Eww” and I didn’t feel mad, that I didn’t like my boyfriend, either. Watching a lot of people high on Molly hug one another while I drank two gin and tonics and reread “Very Good, Jeeves!” on my phone. Two visits to an emergency room, one with a friend who was having a panic attack, the other because I got drunk and did a backflip off a bed and onto a vase and cut open my thigh.
On some New Year’s Eves, I have simply wandered around—on the subway, in a car, on foot—just looking for my New Year’s purpose. Whether I was twenty-two or thirty-four or forty-five, every wandering New Year’s had the same bad feeling of “Why am I not just at home doing nothing?” But, then again, if you did go home to do nothing, the empty, quiet house would be screaming at you that life is meaningless, and maybe it’s better to get that message someplace else. Feeling bad on New Year’s feels importantly bad. You know that a shitty New Year’s is not a referendum on your life, because anyone who thinks that is an idiot—but you do think that, you can’t help but think that, so now you’re feeling bad for feeling bad. You idiot.
There’s already a longstanding discourse about getting rid of New Year’s parties—how it’s “amateur night,” how you need to “stay in to avoid the crazies.” But I’m saying get rid of all of it: the cozy let’s-eat-lobster/snuggle-on-the-bear-rug/have-unusual-sex New Year’s Eves, the game nights, the Twitter discourse about how lame the ball drop is. Obviously, we can’t stop the Earth from taking three hundred and sixty-five days to go around the sun. Nor can we date our checks “June 3, ?lol?.” But what if our acknowledgment of every new year was merely clerical, like with most any other day?
I know what you’re thinking—maybe I’m onto something, but couldn’t we do New Year’s Eve one more time, even if we are just at home playing Catan, a game so awful I’ll make two jokes about it (the only thing more boring is building a popsicle-stick log cabin in your imagination)? Can’t we ring in 2021? We have vaccines. We have a new President, who is merely the devil we know and not the actual devil. “Conversations with Friends” will première on Hulu in the spring, and we are very likely to see thin, sexy Irish people smoking and cheating on one another. That’s all true. But 2021 is going to be bad. Unless they invent a way to vacuum carbon out of the sky, like dirt from a plant that your cat knocked over, and unless they figure out how to refreeze the ice caps, as if they were pints of ice cream you left in the car, each year is going to get worse in ways that we can’t comprehend. If, next year, a friendly stranger in the post office wishes me a happy New Year, I will not respond, “There is nothing about the passage of time that fills me with anything but dread.” No, I will smile and say, “Thanks. You, too.” But I won’t be the one to say it first. Time is not only passing. Time is running out.
2020 in Review


Cartoon Caption Contest

Each week , we provide a cartoon in need of a caption .
You , the reader , submit your @ @ @ @ @ three finalists , and you vote for your favorite .
Anyone age thirteen or older @ @ @ @ @ To read the complete rules , click here .

Each week, we provide a cartoon in need of a caption. You, the reader, submit your caption here, we choose three finalists, and you vote for your favorite. Anyone age thirteen or older can enter or vote. To read the complete rules, click here.
Carolita Johnson Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop


newyorker--2020-12-28--Andrea Lee on Fictionalizing Madagascar

Andrea Lee on Fictionalizing Madagascar

“ The Rivals ” is part seven of “ Red Island House , ” which is a novel about neocolonialism in the African island nation of Madagascar .
The book centers around an Italian and American couple , Senna and Shay , and their grand house on a paradisiacal Madagascan beach .
This gorgeous part of Madagascar is a borderland between cultures , which attracts a motley cast of international characters : artists pursuing tropical dreams , rapacious developers , sex tourists , and criminals on the run .
Invariably , there is friction between these foreigners and the indigenous @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exotic island fantasies implode .
I long ago dubbed this phenomenon “ paradise twisted , ” and I chose to illustrate it in a series of stories , each of which sheds a different light on the people and the place .
“ The Rivals ” is one of these vignettes , showing how easily obsession takes root in such a climate .
( “ The Children , ” which was published in The New Yorker last year , is another . )
As for the form of the book : I love @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it is short stories that themselves make up a larger story .
This is something I have constantly attempted to produce as a writer , starting with “ Sarah Phillips , ” my first novel .
I see the form as a private challenge , a sort of balancing act : each story must be satisfying on its own but also be a bead on a string that joins it with others .
It is hard , but I can ’ t resist trying .
The story of two old European men competing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , much poorer Malagasy woman would seem to be a meditation on power .
In fact , at the climax of the story , the question is asked : Who won ?
What kinds of power are you thinking about in this story , and who does have the upper hand ?
“ The Rivals ” explores several different types of power—economic , sexual , cultural—and the dynamic between servant and master , between male and female , between youth and age .
By the end of the story , it is very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this odd trio of relationships : Noelline .
She survives her two lovers , who initially had every advantage over her—survives and thrives .
Indeed , perhaps the reason that she is disliked by so many of her own people , including Shay ’ s redoubtable housekeeper , Bertine la Grande , is that she is so enviably brilliant at surviving .
I wanted to turn the literary norm on its head , to disrupt the conventional narrative of the exploited indigenous woman victimized by the colonial man , and its tragic ending @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to overuse tragedy , and I love tales of people who triumph in unexpected ways .
You describe a detailed and vivid Madagascan landscape in “ The Rivals.
” How did you acquire this intimate knowledge of the country , and what research did you do ?
The characters and situations I create in “ The Rivals ” and in “ Red Island House ” as a whole are amalgams of people and situations I have observed in my travels in the country .
I am an American who lives permanently in Italy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ decades , I have spent long periods of time diving and trekking with my husband in Madagascar , which , because of its unique biodiversity and beautiful landscape , has become a popular vacation destination for Europeans .
During that time , I have made friends from the different indigenous groups in the country , and have had ample time to observe the curious contortions of morality that occur when one of the poorest countries in the world becomes an object of the attention of some of the richest .
I ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the development of international resorts , the expansion of industries such as gem mining and oil drilling that threaten the precious natural life of the country .
I have seen politicians rise and fall .
Beyond my own observations , I embarked on an informal but far-ranging research project into the history and culture of the country , and also into the images that people from outside have held of Madagascar through history .
My reading included French and English translations from the extensive corpus of Malagasy literature , from the ancient national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s contemporary novel “ Beyond the Rice Fields.
” I read travellers ’ and naturalists ’ memoirs , the reports of nineteenth-century English and Norwegian missionaries , a Dutch slaver ’ s diary , and , perhaps most interesting , a seventeenth-century English book titled “ A General History of the Pyrates , ” by a certain Captain Charles Johnson , who may or may not have been Daniel Defoe .
I read Sir William Davenant ’ s fulsome patriotic poem “ Madagascar , ” from 1630 , and William S. Burroughs ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Ghost of Chance.
” This reading gave resonance to what I had already seen in this extraordinary country and helped shape my fictional evocation of a real place .
There are several viewpoints in “ The Rivals ” : that of Shay ; those of the lovestruck aging Italian men ; and those of the other islanders , rich and poor , including that of Bertine la Grande , who is the voice of old-fashioned island morality .
The one person whose perspective and interiority we don ’ t access is Noelline @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you think her view of the events in the story would be , and why did you choose not to express it in her voice ?
As I said before , Noelline has great power , but the nature of that power is elusive .
Perhaps it is that she is an enigma , a mystery .
In some ways , she is a symbol of the country itself as it comes into contemporary existence : she is from humble village origins , yet she is powerful , self-reliant , unsentimental , determined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ foreigners using what she has—her sexuality and her head for business .
Yet she doesn ’ t reflect on or speak of her situation unless it somehow serves her , helps her to get ahead or to manipulate others .
Everyone else projects things onto her : she is a servant ; she is a village girl who gives herself airs ; she is a gold-digger ; she is an object of romance ; she is somebody who dares to dramatize herself “ like a white girl ” ; she is a wealthy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But she herself never proclaims what she thinks or wants or how she views herself—she simply keeps moving along .
Her silence , in the end , is part of her strength .

Photograph courtesy Andrea Lee
Your story in this week’s issue, “The Rivals,” stands on its own as a story, but it is also part of a series of stories that join together to make a novel, your forthcoming book, “Red Island House.” How does “The Rivals” fit into the larger narrative? Why did you choose this form for the book?
“The Rivals” is part seven of “Red Island House,” which is a novel about neocolonialism in the African island nation of Madagascar. The book centers around an Italian and American couple, Senna and Shay, and their grand house on a paradisiacal Madagascan beach. This gorgeous part of Madagascar is a borderland between cultures, which attracts a motley cast of international characters: artists pursuing tropical dreams, rapacious developers, sex tourists, and criminals on the run. Invariably, there is friction between these foreigners and the indigenous Malagasy residents, and the foreigners’ exotic island fantasies implode. I long ago dubbed this phenomenon “paradise twisted,” and I chose to illustrate it in a series of stories, each of which sheds a different light on the people and the place. “The Rivals” is one of these vignettes, showing how easily obsession takes root in such a climate. (“The Children,” which was published in The New Yorker last year, is another.) As for the form of the book: I love nothing more than short stories, unless it is short stories that themselves make up a larger story. This is something I have constantly attempted to produce as a writer, starting with “Sarah Phillips,” my first novel. I see the form as a private challenge, a sort of balancing act: each story must be satisfying on its own but also be a bead on a string that joins it with others. It is hard, but I can’t resist trying.
The story of two old European men competing for the affections of a much younger, much poorer Malagasy woman would seem to be a meditation on power. In fact, at the climax of the story, the question is asked: Who won? What kinds of power are you thinking about in this story, and who does have the upper hand?
“The Rivals” explores several different types of power—economic, sexual, cultural—and the dynamic between servant and master, between male and female, between youth and age. By the end of the story, it is very clear who has the most power in this odd trio of relationships: Noelline. She survives her two lovers, who initially had every advantage over her—survives and thrives. Indeed, perhaps the reason that she is disliked by so many of her own people, including Shay’s redoubtable housekeeper, Bertine la Grande, is that she is so enviably brilliant at surviving. I wanted to turn the literary norm on its head, to disrupt the conventional narrative of the exploited indigenous woman victimized by the colonial man, and its tragic ending. I personally don’t like to overuse tragedy, and I love tales of people who triumph in unexpected ways.
You describe a detailed and vivid Madagascan landscape in “The Rivals.” How did you acquire this intimate knowledge of the country, and what research did you do?
The characters and situations I create in “The Rivals” and in “Red Island House” as a whole are amalgams of people and situations I have observed in my travels in the country. I am an American who lives permanently in Italy, but, in the past two decades, I have spent long periods of time diving and trekking with my husband in Madagascar, which, because of its unique biodiversity and beautiful landscape, has become a popular vacation destination for Europeans. During that time, I have made friends from the different indigenous groups in the country, and have had ample time to observe the curious contortions of morality that occur when one of the poorest countries in the world becomes an object of the attention of some of the richest. I’ve seen the growth of sex tourism, the development of international resorts, the expansion of industries such as gem mining and oil drilling that threaten the precious natural life of the country. I have seen politicians rise and fall. Beyond my own observations, I embarked on an informal but far-ranging research project into the history and culture of the country, and also into the images that people from outside have held of Madagascar through history. My reading included French and English translations from the extensive corpus of Malagasy literature, from the ancient national epic “Ibonia” to Naivo’s contemporary novel “Beyond the Rice Fields.” I read travellers’ and naturalists’ memoirs, the reports of nineteenth-century English and Norwegian missionaries, a Dutch slaver’s diary, and, perhaps most interesting, a seventeenth-century English book titled “A General History of the Pyrates,” by a certain Captain Charles Johnson, who may or may not have been Daniel Defoe. I read Sir William Davenant’s fulsome patriotic poem “Madagascar,” from 1630, and William S. Burroughs’s 1991 novella set in Madagascar, “Ghost of Chance.” This reading gave resonance to what I had already seen in this extraordinary country and helped shape my fictional evocation of a real place.
There are several viewpoints in “The Rivals”: that of Shay; those of the lovestruck aging Italian men; and those of the other islanders, rich and poor, including that of Bertine la Grande, who is the voice of old-fashioned island morality. The one person whose perspective and interiority we don’t access is Noelline. Why is that? What do you think her view of the events in the story would be, and why did you choose not to express it in her voice?
As I said before, Noelline has great power, but the nature of that power is elusive. Perhaps it is that she is an enigma, a mystery. In some ways, she is a symbol of the country itself as it comes into contemporary existence: she is from humble village origins, yet she is powerful, self-reliant, unsentimental, determined to make her fortune from the invading foreigners using what she has—her sexuality and her head for business. Yet she doesn’t reflect on or speak of her situation unless it somehow serves her, helps her to get ahead or to manipulate others. Everyone else projects things onto her: she is a servant; she is a village girl who gives herself airs; she is a gold-digger; she is an object of romance; she is somebody who dares to dramatize herself “like a white girl”; she is a wealthy businesswoman with mysterious links to politics. But she herself never proclaims what she thinks or wants or how she views herself—she simply keeps moving along. Her silence, in the end, is part of her strength.


newyorker--2020-12-28--Song Lyrics About My Teen-Age Years If I Were Taylor Swift

Bagels at Panera , Hazelnut coffee At Panera .
Wishing I was a grownup .
Caffeine makes me feel .
I have a crush on a senior— His rumpled shirt , His Mom doesn ’ t iron it .
It ’ s a love that hurts .
Saturday night at Lindsey ’ s , Watching  “ Save the Last Dance ” with Noah .
I miss you , Noah .
Is cat heaven full of aquariums ?
Full of aquariums ?
Time to go to confession again .
What will I say ?
I hope I get the good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ice on my windshield That I scrape off in the dark mornings , The dark , dark mornings before school .
My uncles are hilarious .
So , so funny .
I don ’ t need to drink at homecoming to have fun , I don ’ t need to go to homecoming to have fun , I didn ’ t get asked to homecoming .
Waking up early on Saturdays , A tired teen-ager .
I ’ m an assistant volleyball coach For my sister ’ s sixth-grade team .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other sister .
Go Lancers .
Dad , Don ’ t come up to my room with the video camera .
You ’ re making memories , I ’ m making a scarf For your Christmas present .

Another Friday night,
Listening to Norah Jones—
Baking cookies,
Wearing basketball shorts.
Bagels at Panera,
Hazelnut coffee
At Panera.
Wishing I was a grownup.
Caffeine makes me feel.
Mom and Dad,
I love you.
I love you,
Mom and Dad.
I have a crush on a senior—
His rumpled shirt,
His Mom doesn’t iron it.
It’s a love that hurts.
Saturday night at Lindsey’s,
Watching “Save the Last Dance” with Noah.
I miss you, Noah.
Is cat heaven full of aquariums?
Full of aquariums?
Time to go to confession again.
What will I say?
I hope I get the good priest.
College applications piling up
Like the ice on my windshield
That I scrape off in the dark mornings,
The dark, dark mornings before school.
My uncles are hilarious.
So, so funny.
I don’t need to drink at homecoming to have fun,
I don’t need to go to homecoming to have fun,
I didn’t get asked to homecoming.
Waking up early on Saturdays,
A tired teen-ager.
I’m an assistant volleyball coach
For my sister’s sixth-grade team.
The other coaches are my Mom
and my other sister.
Go Lancers.
Dad,
Don’t come up to my room with the video camera.
You’re making memories,
I’m making a scarf
For your Christmas present.
Cross-country meets,
French Club treats,
Endless laughs and ponytails,
My Camry’s beats.
Straightening my hair,
For you,
For you.
Sorry, Grandma,
You loved my curls.


newyorker--2020-12-29--A Lifetime of Lessons in “Mrs. Dalloway”

For me , “ Mrs .
Dalloway ” is such a book , one to which I have mapped the twists and turns of my own autobiography over the years .
Each time , I have found shocks of recognition on the page , but they are always new ones , never the ones I was remembering .
Instead , some forgotten facet of the story comes to light , and the feeling is always that of having blurred past something that was right in front of me .
This is because “ Mrs .
Dalloway ” is a remarkably @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nothing you might read in a plot summary prepares you for the multitudes it contains .
In fact , on the surface , it sounds suspiciously dull .
The novel depicts a single day in June from the perspective of a number of characters .
The year is 1923 .
The Great War is over , but the memory of its unprecedented destruction still hangs over England .
In a posh part of London , a middle-aged woman plans a party .
She goes out to get flowers .
A man she almost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She is snubbed by an acquaintance .
She remembers an alluring girl she once kissed .
Later , guests pour into her house for the party .
In the midst of all this , she hears news of a stranger ’ s violent death .
In between these modest plot points , Clarissa Dalloway wanders around London , lies down for a rest , and takes note of Big Ben striking out the hours again and again .
But , wait , I am leaving out everything .
Let me go back to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ read Virginia Woolf , it was for extraliterary reasons .
I knew she had gone mad .
I wanted to know how , exactly .
Some dark wing was crossing over me that fall .
The middle register of experience had abruptly fallen away .
I didn ’ t need to sleep anymore , it seemed .
My brain buzzed and whirred in terrifying ways .
Everything seemed connected to everything else , but in ways I didn ’ t dare try to explain .
I was seventeen , I think , eighteen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a bakery , and I ’ d ride there on my bike before dawn , the whoosh of the darkness soft and creaturely around me .
Why are you crying for no reason ?
I ’ d think , brushing my hands across my face .
I suspected I should tell someone about the buzzing and the whirring and the crying , but I couldn ’ t work up the nerve .
Instead , I went to the university library one night and checked out books I thought might contain clues about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Mrs .
Dalloway ” was one of them .
Before I sat down to read it properly , I opened it at random , and this sentence was given occultly to me : “ The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames.
” I could feel my loneliness recede slightly as I read the words .
I backtracked to the first introduction of Septimus Smith , a shell-shocked soldier , loosely tethered to the world , into whom Woolf had poured many of her own experiences of madness .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ standing on the same street as Mrs. Dalloway .
They do not know each other ( they will never meet ) , but , in this one moment , they are briefly connected , both startled by the sound of a car backfiring .
Here is our first glimpse of him : The world has raised its whip ; where will it descend ?
Yes , this .
Exactly this , I thought .
I started the book over from the beginning and found that the darkness gathering around Septimus was woven into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ less interested in .
All these old people talking about houses and parties and hats—what did they have to do with me ?
I skimmed over these other stories , noting here and there the stunning beauty of the language , then raced ahead to find more Septimus sections .
His thoughts , blazingly sad , seemed beautiful to me .
I wrapped myself in an old blanket and read through the night , hoping it wouldn ’ t end badly for him .
I didn ’ t return to “ Mrs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ my thirties , when I was on a different kind of quest .
I was a wife and the mother of a young child , and , after years of living alone , I found myself suddenly , startlingly mired in the domestic .
My days at home with my daughter were full of emotion yet anecdote-less .
I wanted to write a novel about this feeling , which was one of want amid plenty , but I worried it would not make a good book , that it would be too trivial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before my daughter was born that I would keep a diary during the early years .
I imagined it structured like a kind of ledger .
On one side it would read “ In the House ” and , on the other , “ In the World.
” A poet friend of mine had stamps made up with these phrases imprinted on them and gave them to me just after my daughter was born .
But after only a month , I abandoned the idea .
I hated to see the blank space @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world should have been .
It was February , blizzarding , and I stayed shut inside most days with the baby .
But still I kept wondering how to do it , how to tear down this screen between House and World .
What would a philosophical novel set in a domestic sphere look like ?
Stupidly , I did not think of “ Mrs .
Dalloway , ” which I remembered narrowly as a book about madness .
But then , one day , I reread Woolf ’ s essay “ Modern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a manifesto of sorts , and I found it spoke directly to me .
( Six years later , she would put many of these ideas into play when she wrote “ Mrs .
Dalloway.
” ) I loved this idea of recording the atoms as they fell , of registering each one , however small a moment it appeared to be .
Woolf ’ s insight seemed sneakily mystical to me .
Many mystic traditions teach that the distinctions between the mundane and the sublime are more porous than we imagine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these differences cease to be apparent .
Once I started noticing this idea , I found traces of this collapsing of scale throughout the modernist canon .
Robert Walser wrote about how Cézanne ’ s genius lay in “ placing in the same ‘ temple ’ things both large and small.
” And Picasso said , “ The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place : from the sky , from the earth , from a scrap of paper , from a passing shape , from a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ why we must not discriminate between things.
” But it was in “ Mrs .
Dalloway ” that this radical levelling of high and low found its most thrilling expression for me .
I returned to it as a model for the domestic novel that I hoped to write .
Woolf ’ s brilliant soaring sentences were a far cry from my modest , pared-down ones , but the leaps in consciousness , the insistence on the importance of the half-seen , of the subterranean feeling , of the quicksilver joys and sorrows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ This time around , I cared less for Septimus and his grand soliloquies about human nature and death .
I knew his story moved deathward at a mighty clip .
Instead , I was hungry for signs of life .
This time , I lingered over Clarissa ’ s delight in the incidental things that crossed her path : the laughing girls taking their “ absurd woolly dogs ” for a run ; the aging dowagers in motorcars off on “ errands of mystery ” ; and , on the pond , “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I was interested in the old people talking about houses and parties ( though the hats still left me cold ) .
I started to ask myself , as I pushed my daughter on a swing or bought pork chops or counted out change at the bodega , Wait , what is the exact nature of this moment ?
Or , in short , What would Virginia Woolf do ?

In 1916, Virginia Woolf wrote about a peculiarity that runs through all real works of art. The books of certain writers (she was speaking of Charlotte Brontë at the time) seem to shape-shift with each reading. The plot might become comfortingly familiar, but the emotional revelations within it change. Scenes once passed over as unimportant begin to prickle with new meaning, as if time itself had been the missing ingredient for understanding them. Woolf went on to describe the works she returned to again and again:
At each fresh reading one notices some change in them, as if the sap of life ran in their leaves, and with skies and plants they had the power to alter their shape and colour from season to season. To write down one’s impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one’s own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know.
For me, “Mrs. Dalloway” is such a book, one to which I have mapped the twists and turns of my own autobiography over the years. Each time, I have found shocks of recognition on the page, but they are always new ones, never the ones I was remembering. Instead, some forgotten facet of the story comes to light, and the feeling is always that of having blurred past something that was right in front of me.
2020 in Review New Yorker writers reflect on the year’s highs and lows.
This is because “Mrs. Dalloway” is a remarkably expansive and an irreducibly strange book. Nothing you might read in a plot summary prepares you for the multitudes it contains. In fact, on the surface, it sounds suspiciously dull. The novel depicts a single day in June from the perspective of a number of characters. The year is 1923. The Great War is over, but the memory of its unprecedented destruction still hangs over England. In a posh part of London, a middle-aged woman plans a party. She goes out to get flowers. A man she almost married drops by for a visit. She is snubbed by an acquaintance. She remembers an alluring girl she once kissed. Later, guests pour into her house for the party. In the midst of all this, she hears news of a stranger’s violent death. In between these modest plot points, Clarissa Dalloway wanders around London, lies down for a rest, and takes note of Big Ben striking out the hours again and again.
But, wait, I am leaving out everything. Let me go back to the beginning.
The first time I read Virginia Woolf, it was for extraliterary reasons. I knew she had gone mad. I wanted to know how, exactly. Some dark wing was crossing over me that fall. The middle register of experience had abruptly fallen away. I didn’t need to sleep anymore, it seemed. My brain buzzed and whirred in terrifying ways. Everything seemed connected to everything else, but in ways I didn’t dare try to explain. I was seventeen, I think, eighteen maybe. I worked an early shift at a bakery, and I’d ride there on my bike before dawn, the whoosh of the darkness soft and creaturely around me. Why are you crying for no reason? I’d think, brushing my hands across my face.
I suspected I should tell someone about the buzzing and the whirring and the crying, but I couldn’t work up the nerve. Instead, I went to the university library one night and checked out books I thought might contain clues about what was in store for me. “Mrs. Dalloway” was one of them. Before I sat down to read it properly, I opened it at random, and this sentence was given occultly to me: “The world wavered and quivered and threatened to burst into flames.”
I could feel my loneliness recede slightly as I read the words.
I backtracked to the first introduction of Septimus Smith, a shell-shocked soldier, loosely tethered to the world, into whom Woolf had poured many of her own experiences of madness. In the first scene, he is standing on the same street as Mrs. Dalloway. They do not know each other (they will never meet), but, in this one moment, they are briefly connected, both startled by the sound of a car backfiring. Here is our first glimpse of him:
Septimus Warren Smith, aged about thirty, pale-faced, beak-nosed, wearing brown shoes and a shabby overcoat, with hazel eyes which had that look of apprehension in them which makes complete strangers apprehensive too. The world has raised its whip; where will it descend?
The world has raised its whip; where will it descend? Yes, this. Exactly this, I thought. I started the book over from the beginning and found that the darkness gathering around Septimus was woven into other narrative threads, ones I was less interested in. All these old people talking about houses and parties and hats—what did they have to do with me? I skimmed over these other stories, noting here and there the stunning beauty of the language, then raced ahead to find more Septimus sections. His thoughts, blazingly sad, seemed beautiful to me. I wrapped myself in an old blanket and read through the night, hoping it wouldn’t end badly for him.
I didn’t return to “Mrs. Dalloway” again until I was in my thirties, when I was on a different kind of quest. I was a wife and the mother of a young child, and, after years of living alone, I found myself suddenly, startlingly mired in the domestic. My days at home with my daughter were full of emotion yet anecdote-less. I wanted to write a novel about this feeling, which was one of want amid plenty, but I worried it would not make a good book, that it would be too trivial. I’d had an idea before my daughter was born that I would keep a diary during the early years. I imagined it structured like a kind of ledger. On one side it would read “In the House” and, on the other, “In the World.”
A poet friend of mine had stamps made up with these phrases imprinted on them and gave them to me just after my daughter was born. But after only a month, I abandoned the idea. I hated to see the blank space where my impressions of life in the world should have been. It was February, blizzarding, and I stayed shut inside most days with the baby. But still I kept wondering how to do it, how to tear down this screen between House and World. What would a philosophical novel set in a domestic sphere look like? Stupidly, I did not think of “Mrs. Dalloway,” which I remembered narrowly as a book about madness. But then, one day, I reread Woolf’s essay “Modern Novels,” from 1919. It is a manifesto of sorts, and I found it spoke directly to me. (Six years later, she would put many of these ideas into play when she wrote “Mrs. Dalloway.”)
Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.
I loved this idea of recording the atoms as they fell, of registering each one, however small a moment it appeared to be. Woolf’s insight seemed sneakily mystical to me. Many mystic traditions teach that the distinctions between the mundane and the sublime are more porous than we imagine: if one is truly awake, these differences cease to be apparent.
Once I started noticing this idea, I found traces of this collapsing of scale throughout the modernist canon. Robert Walser wrote about how Cézanne’s genius lay in “placing in the same ‘temple’ things both large and small.” And Picasso said, “The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web. That is why we must not discriminate between things.”
But it was in “Mrs. Dalloway” that this radical levelling of high and low found its most thrilling expression for me. I returned to it as a model for the domestic novel that I hoped to write. Woolf’s brilliant soaring sentences were a far cry from my modest, pared-down ones, but the leaps in consciousness, the insistence on the importance of the half-seen, of the subterranean feeling, of the quicksilver joys and sorrows of domestic life was a revelation. This time around, I cared less for Septimus and his grand soliloquies about human nature and death. I knew his story moved deathward at a mighty clip. Instead, I was hungry for signs of life. This time, I lingered over Clarissa’s delight in the incidental things that crossed her path: the laughing girls taking their “absurd woolly dogs” for a run; the aging dowagers in motorcars off on “errands of mystery”; and, on the pond, “the slow-swimming happy ducks.” This time, I was interested in the old people talking about houses and parties (though the hats still left me cold). I started to ask myself, as I pushed my daughter on a swing or bought pork chops or counted out change at the bodega, Wait, what is the exact nature of this moment? Or, in short, What would Virginia Woolf do?