newyorker--2020-06-01--How Iceland Beat the Coronavirus

How Iceland Beat the Coronavirus

On the morning of Friday , February 28th , Ævar Pálmi Pálmason , a detective with the Reykjavík police department , was summoned by his boss .
Iceland did not yet have a confirmed case of COVID-19 , but the country ’ s Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management wanted to be prepared .
Suppose somebody tested positive ?
A team would be needed to track down everyone with whom that person had been in contact .
Pálmason ’ s supervisor told him he was going to lead that team .
“ We were just talking : ‘ If @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be this week , we just don ’ t know , ’ ” Pálmason recalled .
“ And then , two hours later , we got the call.
” A man who ’ d recently been skiing in the Dolomites had become the country ’ s first known coronavirus patient .
Two other cops , two nurses , and a criminologist had been assigned to Pálmason ’ s team .
“ With our detective techniques to find people , we began to gather some information from the case , ” Pálmason told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , had been back in Iceland for several days before he ’ d been diagnosed .
During that time , he ’ d done all the things people normally do—gone to work , met with colleagues , run errands .
Anyone who ’ d spent more than fifteen minutes near the man in the days before he ’ d experienced his first symptoms was considered potentially infected .
( “ Near ” was defined as within a radius of two metres , or just over six feet . )
The team came up @ @ @ @ @ @ @ By midnight , all fifty-six contacts had been located and ordered to quarantine themselves for fourteen days .
The first case was followed by three more cases , then by six , and then by an onslaught .
By mid-March , confirmed COVID cases in Iceland were increasing at a rate of sixty , seventy , even a hundred a day .
As a proportion of the country ’ s population , this was far faster than the rate at which cases in the United States were growing .
The number of people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ meanwhile , was rising even more quickly .
An infected person might have been near five other people , or fifty-six , or more .
One young woman was so active before she tested positive—going to classes , rehearsing a play , attending choir practice—that her contacts numbered close to two hundred .
All were sent into quarantine .
The tracing team , too , kept growing , until it had fifty-two members .
They worked in shifts out of conference rooms in a Reykjavík hotel that had closed for lack of tourists @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exposed , team members scanned airplane manifests and security-camera footage .
They tried to pinpoint who was sitting next to whom on buses and in lecture halls .
One man who fell ill had recently attended a concert .
The only person he remembered having had contact with while there was his wife .
But the tracing team did some sleuthing and found that after the concert there had been a reception .
“ In this gathering , people were hugging , and eating from the same trays , ” Pálmason told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of them go into quarantine.
” If you were returning to Iceland from overseas , you also got a call : put yourself in quarantine .
At the same time , the country was aggressively testing for the virus—on a per-capita basis , at the highest rate in the world .
Iceland never imposed a lockdown .
Only a few types of businesses—night clubs and hair salons , for example—were ever ordered closed .
Hardly anyone in Reykjavík wears a mask .
And yet , by mid-May , when I went to talk @ @ @ @ @ @ @ almost no one left to track .
During the previous week , in all of Iceland , only two new coronavirus cases had been confirmed .
The country hadn ’ t just managed to flatten the curve ; it had , it seemed , virtually eliminated it .
I had initially planned to go to Iceland in March , for a story unconnected to the coronavirus .
Suddenly , the trip was called off .
The European Union was barring Americans from entering , and the United States was barring Europeans .
Flights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t seem any way to resurrect the trip , until it occurred to me : what if I wrote about Iceland ’ s response to COVID-19 ?
I looked online and learned that all those entering the country were required to submit a form outlining how they planned to quarantine for two weeks .
I applied to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs for an exemption as a journalist .
The answer came back : no .
I did some e-mailing and phoning around .
Iceland , which has three hundred and sixty-five thousand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ famously tight-knit country .
Almost everyone , quite literally , is related to everyone else , and if two people want to know how exactly their families are intertwined they can consult a genealogy database run by an Icelandic biotech firm called deCODE Genetics .
Iceland was able to test so many people because , at the height of the outbreak , deCODE turned its state-of-the-art facilities over to screening for the virus .
I got in touch with the head of the firm , Kári Stefánsson , a neurologist and a national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would work things out .
A few days later , the no became a yes , with qualifications .
I ’ d have to enter a “ modified ” quarantine for journalists .
The list of rules ran four single-spaced pages and included provisos on how to use—or , really , not use—public rest rooms .
It laid out a half-dozen scenarios— “ interview of a public figure in a private company setting , ” “ interview of any person in a private setting out of doors ” —with detailed instructions for how @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ interview of a public servant in the workplace ” was allowed , but with numerous conditions .
( “ The director of the public entity must be informed and assent to the interview even if they are not the interviewee .
.
.
.
The journalist should not explore the site , even with a guide , but only visit the space designated for the interview.
” ) Icelandair had , by this time , suspended service from the United States , except for sporadic flights out of Boston .
The day @ @ @ @ @ @ @ international terminal at Logan was as solemn and silent as a mausoleum .
Not a single ticket desk was open .
On the plane , I counted fourteen seats occupied , out of nearly two hundred .
I spoke briefly with a woman seated a few rows in front of me .
She was going to visit her fiancé , an Icelandic soccer player , and was unhappy that they would be spending the first two weeks of her stay in separate apartments .
The in-flight magazine , which apparently hadn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filled with pictures of vacationers in the snow .
It read like an illuminated manuscript—a relic from another era .
One of the crew members told me that he and almost all of his colleagues , including the pilots , had been given three months ’ notice ; they were working only occasional flights .
Despite the generalized gloom , it was thrilling to be going somewhere ; for the previous eight weeks , the farthest I ’ d travelled was to the liquor store .
When we landed at Keflavík , Iceland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my first crisis of conscience .
Among the many proscribed activities for me , I knew , was shopping .
But it was nearly 10 p.m. , and Icelandair had cancelled the flight ’ s meal service .
Was I allowed into the duty-free store ?
I decided that I was .
Dinner that night was beer and licorice .

When we landed at Keflavík, Iceland’s international airport, I faced my first crisis of conscience. Among the many proscribed activities for me, I knew, was shopping. But it was nearly 10 p.m., and Icelandair had cancelled the flight’s meal service. Was I allowed into the duty-free store? I decided that I was. Dinner that night was beer and licorice.
The next day, Stefánsson offered to pick me up at my hotel. (Crisis No. 2: “Even those being interviewed should maintain 2 metres distance from the journalist in quarantine as much as possible.”) As soon as I got into his Porsche, he asked me where I was from. I said western Massachusetts. “Massachusetts is probably the most boring place on earth,” he declared.
Stefánsson, who is seventy-one, is tall and broad-shouldered, with white hair and a white, Hemingwayesque beard. For most of the eighties and nineties, he lived in the U.S., teaching first at the University of Chicago and then at Harvard. He returned to Iceland with the notion of using the country’s small, inbred population to study the connection between disease and genetic variation. This was before the human genome had been fully sequenced, and Stefánsson was sailing into uncharted waters. He founded deCODE, and it grew into a large company, which, like much of the rest of Iceland, went bankrupt following the financial crisis of 2008. DeCODE is now owned by an American biotech company, Amgen; its offices are in a sleek, metal-clad building not far from Reykjavík’s municipal airport. Refrigerated storage rooms in the basement hold blood samples from a hundred and eighty thousand Icelanders—roughly one of every two people in the country.
Stefánsson told me that he’d decided to get involved in COVID-19 research a few days after Iceland’s first case was announced. He was driving to his office one morning when he heard on the radio an estimate of the virus’s fatality rate. “They predicted that 3.4 per cent of those who were infected would die,” Stefánsson recalled. “And I couldn’t understand how they could calculate the death rate, not knowing the distribution of the virus in society. So when I came to work I sat down with my colleagues. And I told them we should offer to screen the general population in Iceland.”
Iceland’s university hospital was already testing people who had symptoms of COVID-19. But by testing people who had no symptoms, or only very mild ones, deCODE picked up many cases that otherwise would have been missed. These cases, too, were referred to the tracing team. By May 17th, Iceland had tested 15.5 per cent of its population for the virus. In the U.S., the figure was 3.4 per cent.
Meanwhile, deCODE was also sequencing the virus from every Icelander whose test had come back positive. As the virus is passed from person to person, it picks up random mutations. By analyzing these, geneticists can map the disease’s spread. At the beginning of the outbreak, travellers returning to Iceland from the Italian Alps seemed to be the primary source of infections. But researchers at deCODE found that, while attention had been focussed on Italy, the virus had been quietly slipping into the country from several other nations, including Britain. Travellers from the West Coast of the U.S. had brought in one strain, and travellers from the East Coast another. The East Coast strain had been imported to America from Italy or Austria, then exported back to Europe.
By sequencing the virus from every person infected, researchers at deCODE could also make inferences about how it had spread. “One of the very interesting things is that, in all our data, there are only two examples where a child infected a parent,” Stefánsson told me. “But there are lots of examples where parents infected children.”
Stefánsson is a frequent critic of the Icelandic government. He often fires off opinion pieces to newspapers, on subjects ranging from the management of fisheries to hospital financing. (A few years ago, he circulated a petition demanding that the government spend more on health care, and a third of the country’s adult population signed it.) At any given moment, he’s almost sure to be wrangling with one ministry or another; in March, when the Icelandic Data Protection Authority said that it couldn’t rule immediately on a request from deCODE, Stefánsson issued a lengthy denunciation on Facebook. But, when I asked Stefánsson about the Icelandic government’s response to COVID-19, he had only kind words.
“This was done in an extremely balanced way,” he said at one point. “And I think the authorities did pretty much everything right.” At another point, he told me, “The remarkable thing in this whole affair is that in Iceland it has been run entirely by the public-health authorities. They came up with the plan, and they just instituted it. And we were fortunate that our politicians managed to control themselves.”
In Reykjavík, I stayed at one of the few hotels that were open, in an Art Deco building not far from the parliament. One evening, upon returning to the hotel, I found a film crew and a jumble of equipment blocking the hallway. In front of the cameras stood two middle-aged men and a woman, all dressed in white terry-cloth bathrobes. Though I’d been in Iceland for only two days, I recognized them. They were the team who had guided Iceland’s response to COVID-19: the country’s director of emergency management, Víðir Reynisson; its chief epidemiologist, Þórólfur Guðnason; and its director of health, Alma Möller.
“How much more grass do we have to eat before we get thin?” Cartoon by Liana Finck Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
Reynisson, Guðnason, and Möller worked together out of an improvised COVID command center in the offices of the Icelandic Coast Guard. Through March, April, and much of May, they gave a joint briefing every day at 2 P.M., at which they discussed, matter-of-factly, what they knew and what they didn’t. Sometimes they invited guests, such as a psychologist who spoke about how to talk to kids about the pandemic. On occasion, they warned about misinformation—for instance, the potentially fatal consequences of attempting to fight the virus by drinking bleach. Three-quarters of Icelanders tuned in at some point. Reynisson, Guðnason, and Möller became so well known that they were referred to simply as the “trio,” or the “tripod,” or, as one person put it to me, the “holy trinity.”
That evening, the holy trinity had put on bathrobes to attempt another miraculous rescue. About forty per cent of Iceland’s export revenue comes from tourism. To make up for all the Americans and English and Germans who would be staying home because of COVID-19, the government had commissioned a commercial to encourage Icelanders to travel domestically over the summer. Reynisson, Guðnason, and Möller went into separate rooms—Reynisson on one side of the hall, the two others on the opposite side. At the count of þrír, tveir, einn, they were supposed to open their doors, bedroom-farce style. Then Reynisson was to look into the camera and deliver the punch line: “We’ll come along, just in case.” (Each time he did so, the camera crew cracked up; I had to assume it was funnier in Icelandic.) As one take followed another, I tried to picture the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci; the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield; and the White House coronavirus-response coördinator, Deborah Birx, in terry cloth.
As it happened, I had an appointment the next morning to speak to Möller. She was back in her own office, in a sleek glass tower by the harbor. The first thing she said when I sat down was “I’m so sorry. I knew from early February that the U.S. would be in great trouble.” Möller is an intensive-care physician by training; in 1990, she became the first woman to serve as a helicopter doctor with Iceland’s Coast Guard. The job entailed such tasks as being lowered in a harness onto fishing boats in the North Atlantic to treat sick crew members. In 2018, she became the country’s first female director of health.
Möller pulled up a series of graphs and charts on her laptop. These showed that, per capita, Iceland had had more COVID-19 cases than any other Scandinavian country, and more than even Italy or Britain. There was an outbreak in a nursing home in the town of Bolungarvík, in northwestern Iceland, and one in the Westman Islands, an archipelago off the southern coast, which seemed to have started at a handball game. (In Europe, handball is a team sport that’s sort of a cross between basketball and soccer.)


newyorker--2020-06-01--“Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey,” by Haruki Murakami

I met that elderly monkey in a small Japanese-style inn in a hot-springs town in Gunma Prefecture , some five years ago .
It was a rustic or , more precisely , decrepit inn , barely hanging on , where I just happened to spend a night .
I was travelling around , wherever the spirit led me , and it was already past 7 P.M. when I arrived at the hot-springs town and got off the train .
Autumn was nearly over , the sun had long since set , and the place was enveloped in that special navy-blue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cold , biting wind blew down from the peaks , sending fist-size leaves rustling along the street .
I walked through the center of the town in search of a place to stay , but none of the decent inns would take in guests after the dinner hour had passed .
I stopped at five or six places , but they all turned me down flat .
Finally , in a deserted area outside town , I came across an inn that would take me .
It was a desolate-looking , ramshackle place @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seen a lot of years go by , but it had none of the quaint appeal you might expect in an old inn .
Fittings here and there were ever so slightly slanted , as if slapdash repairs had been made that didn ’ t mesh with the rest of the place .
I doubted it would make it through the next earthquake , and I could only hope that no temblor would hit while I was there .
The inn didn ’ t serve dinner , but breakfast was included , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cheap .
Inside the entrance was a plain reception desk , behind which sat a completely hairless old man—devoid of even eyebrows—who took my payment for one night in advance .
The lack of eyebrows made the old man ’ s largish eyes seem to glisten bizarrely , glaringly .
On a cushion on the floor beside him , a big brown cat , equally ancient , was sacked out , sound asleep .
Something must have been wrong with its nose , for it snored louder than any cat I ’ d @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its snores fitfully missed a beat .
Everything in this inn seemed to be old and falling apart .
The room I was shown to was cramped , like the storage area where one keeps futon bedding ; the ceiling light was dim , and the flooring under the tatami creaked ominously with each step .
But it was too late to be particular .
I told myself I should be happy to have a roof over my head and a futon to sleep on .
I put my one piece of luggage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the floor and set off back to town .
( This wasn ’ t exactly the type of room I wanted to lounge around in . )
I went into a nearby soba-noodle shop and had a simple dinner .
It was that or nothing , since there were no other restaurants open .
I had a beer , some bar snacks , and some hot soba .
The soba was mediocre , the soup lukewarm , but , again , I wasn ’ t about to complain .
It beat going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ After I left the soba shop , I thought I ’ d buy some snacks and a small bottle of whiskey , but I couldn ’ t find a convenience store .
It was after eight , and the only places open were the shooting-gallery game centers typically found in hot-springs towns .
So I hoofed it back to the inn , changed into a yukata robe , and went downstairs to take a bath .
Compared with the shabby building and facilities , the hot-springs bath at the inn was surprisingly wonderful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ green color , not diluted , the sulfur odor more pungent than anything I ’ d ever experienced , and I soaked there , warming myself to the bone .
There were no other bathers ( I had no idea if there were even any other guests at the inn ) , and I was able to enjoy a long , leisurely bath .
After a while , I felt a little light-headed and got out to cool off , then got back into the tub .
Maybe this decrepit-looking inn was a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It was certainly more peaceful than bathing with some noisy tour group , the way you do in the larger inns .
I was soaking in the bath for the third time when the monkey slid the glass door open with a clatter and came inside .
“ Excuse me , ” he said in a low voice .
It took me a while to realize that he was a monkey .
All the thick hot water had left me a bit dazed , and I ’ d never expected to hear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t immediately make the connection between what I was seeing and the fact that this was an actual monkey .
The monkey closed the door behind him , straightened out the little buckets that lay strewn about , and stuck a thermometer into the bath to check the temperature .
He gazed intently at the dial on the thermometer , his eyes narrowed , for all the world like a bacteriologist isolating some new strain of pathogen .
“ How is the bath ?
” the monkey asked me .
“ It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” I said .
My voice reverberated densely , softly , in the steam .
It sounded almost mythological , not like my own voice but , rather , like an echo from the past returning from deep in the forest .
And that echo was .
.
.
hold on a second .
What was a monkey doing here ?
And why was he speaking my language ?
“ Shall I scrub your back for you ?
” the monkey asked , his voice still low .
He had the clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a doo-wop group .
Not at all what you would expect .
But nothing was odd about his voice : if you closed your eyes and listened , you ’ d think it was an ordinary person speaking .
“ Yes , thanks , ” I replied .
It wasn ’ t as if I ’ d been sitting there hoping that someone would come and scrub my back , but if I turned him down I was afraid he might think I was opposed to having a monkey do it .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his part , and I certainly didn ’ t want to hurt his feelings .
So I slowly got up out of the tub and plunked myself down on a little wooden platform , with my back to the monkey .
The monkey didn ’ t have any clothes on .
Which , of course , is usually the case for a monkey , so it didn ’ t strike me as odd .
He seemed to be fairly old ; he had a lot of white in his hair .
He brought @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on it , and with a practiced hand gave my back a good scrubbing .
“ It ’ s got very cold these days , hasn ’ t it ?
” the monkey remarked .
“ Before long this place will be covered in snow .
And then they ’ ll have to shovel snow from the roofs , which is no easy task , believe me.
” There was a brief pause , and I jumped in .
“ So you can speak human language ?
” “ I can indeed , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was probably asked that a lot .
“ I was raised by humans from an early age , and before I knew it I was able to speak .
I lived for quite a long time in Tokyo , in Shinagawa .
”

I met that elderly monkey in a small Japanese-style inn in a hot-springs town in Gunma Prefecture, some five years ago. It was a rustic or, more precisely, decrepit inn, barely hanging on, where I just happened to spend a night.
I was travelling around, wherever the spirit led me, and it was already past 7 P.M. when I arrived at the hot-springs town and got off the train. Autumn was nearly over, the sun had long since set, and the place was enveloped in that special navy-blue darkness particular to mountainous areas. A cold, biting wind blew down from the peaks, sending fist-size leaves rustling along the street.
I walked through the center of the town in search of a place to stay, but none of the decent inns would take in guests after the dinner hour had passed. I stopped at five or six places, but they all turned me down flat. Finally, in a deserted area outside town, I came across an inn that would take me. It was a desolate-looking, ramshackle place, almost a flophouse. It had seen a lot of years go by, but it had none of the quaint appeal you might expect in an old inn. Fittings here and there were ever so slightly slanted, as if slapdash repairs had been made that didn’t mesh with the rest of the place. I doubted it would make it through the next earthquake, and I could only hope that no temblor would hit while I was there.
The inn didn’t serve dinner, but breakfast was included, and the rate for one night was incredibly cheap. Inside the entrance was a plain reception desk, behind which sat a completely hairless old man—devoid of even eyebrows—who took my payment for one night in advance. The lack of eyebrows made the old man’s largish eyes seem to glisten bizarrely, glaringly. On a cushion on the floor beside him, a big brown cat, equally ancient, was sacked out, sound asleep. Something must have been wrong with its nose, for it snored louder than any cat I’d ever heard. Occasionally the rhythm of its snores fitfully missed a beat. Everything in this inn seemed to be old and falling apart.
The room I was shown to was cramped, like the storage area where one keeps futon bedding; the ceiling light was dim, and the flooring under the tatami creaked ominously with each step. But it was too late to be particular. I told myself I should be happy to have a roof over my head and a futon to sleep on.
I put my one piece of luggage, a large shoulder bag, down on the floor and set off back to town. (This wasn’t exactly the type of room I wanted to lounge around in.) I went into a nearby soba-noodle shop and had a simple dinner. It was that or nothing, since there were no other restaurants open. I had a beer, some bar snacks, and some hot soba. The soba was mediocre, the soup lukewarm, but, again, I wasn’t about to complain. It beat going to bed on an empty stomach. After I left the soba shop, I thought I’d buy some snacks and a small bottle of whiskey, but I couldn’t find a convenience store. It was after eight, and the only places open were the shooting-gallery game centers typically found in hot-springs towns. So I hoofed it back to the inn, changed into a yukata robe, and went downstairs to take a bath.
Compared with the shabby building and facilities, the hot-springs bath at the inn was surprisingly wonderful. The steaming water was a thick green color, not diluted, the sulfur odor more pungent than anything I’d ever experienced, and I soaked there, warming myself to the bone. There were no other bathers (I had no idea if there were even any other guests at the inn), and I was able to enjoy a long, leisurely bath. After a while, I felt a little light-headed and got out to cool off, then got back into the tub. Maybe this decrepit-looking inn was a good choice after all, I thought. It was certainly more peaceful than bathing with some noisy tour group, the way you do in the larger inns.
I was soaking in the bath for the third time when the monkey slid the glass door open with a clatter and came inside. “Excuse me,” he said in a low voice. It took me a while to realize that he was a monkey. All the thick hot water had left me a bit dazed, and I’d never expected to hear a monkey speak, so I couldn’t immediately make the connection between what I was seeing and the fact that this was an actual monkey. The monkey closed the door behind him, straightened out the little buckets that lay strewn about, and stuck a thermometer into the bath to check the temperature. He gazed intently at the dial on the thermometer, his eyes narrowed, for all the world like a bacteriologist isolating some new strain of pathogen.
“How is the bath?” the monkey asked me.
“It’s very nice. Thank you,” I said. My voice reverberated densely, softly, in the steam. It sounded almost mythological, not like my own voice but, rather, like an echo from the past returning from deep in the forest. And that echo was . . . hold on a second. What was a monkey doing here? And why was he speaking my language?
“Shall I scrub your back for you?” the monkey asked, his voice still low. He had the clear, alluring voice of a baritone in a doo-wop group. Not at all what you would expect. But nothing was odd about his voice: if you closed your eyes and listened, you’d think it was an ordinary person speaking.
“Yes, thanks,” I replied. It wasn’t as if I’d been sitting there hoping that someone would come and scrub my back, but if I turned him down I was afraid he might think I was opposed to having a monkey do it. I figured it was a kind offer on his part, and I certainly didn’t want to hurt his feelings. So I slowly got up out of the tub and plunked myself down on a little wooden platform, with my back to the monkey.
The monkey didn’t have any clothes on. Which, of course, is usually the case for a monkey, so it didn’t strike me as odd. He seemed to be fairly old; he had a lot of white in his hair. He brought over a small towel, rubbed soap on it, and with a practiced hand gave my back a good scrubbing.
“It’s got very cold these days, hasn’t it?” the monkey remarked.
“That it has.”
“Before long this place will be covered in snow. And then they’ll have to shovel snow from the roofs, which is no easy task, believe me.”
There was a brief pause, and I jumped in. “So you can speak human language?”
“I can indeed,” the monkey replied briskly. He was probably asked that a lot. “I was raised by humans from an early age, and before I knew it I was able to speak. I lived for quite a long time in Tokyo, in Shinagawa.”
“What part of Shinagawa?”
“Around Gotenyama.”
“That’s a nice area.”
“Yes, as you know, it’s a very pleasant place to live. Nearby is the Gotenyama Garden, and I enjoyed the natural scenery there.”
Our conversation paused at this point. The monkey continued firmly scrubbing my back (which felt great), and all the while I tried to puzzle things out rationally. A monkey raised in Shinagawa? The Gotenyama Garden? And such a fluent speaker? How was that possible? This was a monkey, for goodness’ sake. A monkey, and nothing else.
“I live in Minato-ku,” I said, a basically meaningless statement.
“We were almost neighbors, then,” the monkey said in a friendly tone.
“What kind of person raised you in Shinagawa?” I asked.
“My master was a college professor. He specialized in physics, and held a chair at Tokyo Gakugei University.”
“Quite an intellectual, then.”
“He certainly was. He loved music more than anything, particularly the music of Bruckner and Richard Strauss. Thanks to which, I developed a fondness for that music myself. I heard it all the time. Picked up a knowledge of it without even realizing it, you could say.”
“You enjoy Bruckner?”
“Yes. His Seventh Symphony. I always find the third movement particularly uplifting.”
“I often listen to his Ninth Symphony,” I chimed in. Another pretty meaningless statement.


newyorker--2020-06-01--Emma Cline on Fictionalizing a #MeToo Villain

In “ White Noise , ” your story in this week ’ s issue , a man named Harvey is camped out at a luxurious country house while waiting for the verdict in his trial .
The character is obviously Harvey Weinstein , though he ’ s not given a last name .
Why tell a story from the point of view of Weinstein—did you worry that you might inadvertently give his imagined self-justifications a forum ?
To put it another way , why extend fictional empathy to real-world predators ?
I ’ m not looking to fiction to reinforce @ @ @ @ @ @ @ function as any kind of moral performance .
At least from the point of conception through finishing a project , I ’ m not thinking much at all about the implications of the story .
I ’ m just following an image or a situation that , for whatever reason , has a pull for me .
This character , Harvey , is a predator , but he doesn ’ t see himself that way .
He ’ s also irritable , hungry , bored , self-pitying , scared .
I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the banality and self-delusion , the recognizable foibles .
Fictional Harvey is petty in the way we are all petty , he ’ s lonely and afraid .
If anything , this humanity makes his acts of predation more ominous , or underscores their deviance—it ’ s not as though he ’ s nothing more than an Evil Man .
It ’ s much more—frightening ?
disturbing ?
—to me that characters like the fictional Harvey might experience themselves as victims , pitiable and under attack , or that we can see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And it seems a bizarre ask of fiction to only spend time with characters who are moral exemplars or are ordinary and non-deviant .
Curiosity about a consciousness doesn ’ t translate into endorsement .
All those airport-book thrillers about sicko murderers , or TV shows about mobsters and assassins—it ’ s interesting .
We want to see the edge .
Zadie Smith wrote : Most of the details in the story are fictional , but some of the basics are true .
What were your considerations when deciding to invent or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Did you think you were representing the real person in any way ?
There was an article about the real-life Harvey waiting out the last days of the trial in a borrowed house in , I think , Connecticut .
And either I imagined or read in this article that he was watching a lot of Netflix and Googling himself obsessively .
Something about that was so piteous and human .
I wrote the majority of the novella going off whatever I already sort of knew , or vaguely knew , about Harvey @ @ @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t , for example , Google whether the real Harvey had children .
Any story or novel is an assertion of a world that is true—so the question is not , is this real , does this match up with real life , but , within the bounds of this story , does this detail or incident follow the narrative logic ?
It made narrative sense , as I was writing the novella , that this fictional version of Harvey had two adult children .
It made narrative sense that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harvey gets an infusion of ketamine .
It made narrative sense that Harvey mistakes his neighbor for the famous novelist Don DeLillo .
I don ’ t , in any way , think I ’ m representing the “ real ” Harvey—I don ’ t think fiction ’ s role is to furnish facts .
The crux of the story comes when Harvey comes to believe that his neighbor is Don DeLillo , which gives him the notion for a comeback : he ’ ll adapt “ White Noise ” as a movie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ White Noise ” ?
Don DeLillo often writes about conspiracies , the net of signs and symbols crisscrossing the culture , and I liked matching up that mind with Harvey , a man whose paranoia and desire for absolution makes him obsessed with omens and magical thinking , anything to keep at bay the very real and imminent possibility of his destruction .
“ White Noise , ” too , seems like an unfilmable book , but exactly the book that would appeal to an egomaniac with a glancing familiarity with contemporary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could Harvey tell you what happens in “ White Noise ” ?
No .
But he knows who Don DeLillo is , understands vaguely the cachet of Don DeLillo , and imagines being attached to a canonical writer as a form of social and professional protection , a tactical chess move .
This story is adapted from a novella .
You also have a book of stories , “ Daddy , ” coming out in September , which features some other objectionable men .
What are your favorite fictional portraits of odious men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those that don ’ t ?
“ American Psycho , ” “ Lolita , ” “ Tampa , ” about a female sexual deviant .
Oh , “ The End of Alice , ” by A. M. Homes .
There ’ s got to be a million others that my mushy quarantine brain is blanking on .
I think it ’ s pretty fun to drop into a consciousness that operates without the societal checks and balances .
And they all contain their own critiques , the moments where the narrator is revealed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the writer lets the reader see that the character ’ s twisted world view does not match up with reality , often by using an outsider as a stand-in for the reader .

Photograph by Jussi Nukari / Shutterstock
In “White Noise,” your story in this week’s issue, a man named Harvey is camped out at a luxurious country house while waiting for the verdict in his trial. The character is obviously Harvey Weinstein, though he’s not given a last name. Why tell a story from the point of view of Weinstein—did you worry that you might inadvertently give his imagined self-justifications a forum? To put it another way, why extend fictional empathy to real-world predators?
I’m not looking to fiction to reinforce political or social norms, or to function as any kind of moral performance. At least from the point of conception through finishing a project, I’m not thinking much at all about the implications of the story. I’m just following an image or a situation that, for whatever reason, has a pull for me. This character, Harvey, is a predator, but he doesn’t see himself that way. He’s also irritable, hungry, bored, self-pitying, scared. I’m interested in exploring those moments of humanity, the banality and self-delusion, the recognizable foibles. Fictional Harvey is petty in the way we are all petty, he’s lonely and afraid. If anything, this humanity makes his acts of predation more ominous, or underscores their deviance—it’s not as though he’s nothing more than an Evil Man. It’s much more—frightening? disturbing?—to me that characters like the fictional Harvey might experience themselves as victims, pitiable and under attack, or that we can see elements of ourselves in this fictional Harvey. And it seems a bizarre ask of fiction to only spend time with characters who are moral exemplars or are ordinary and non-deviant. Curiosity about a consciousness doesn’t translate into endorsement. All those airport-book thrillers about sicko murderers, or TV shows about mobsters and assassins—it’s interesting. We want to see the edge. Zadie Smith wrote:
A prominent component of the new philosophy is a performative display of non-interest, a great pride in not being interested in the other, which is sometimes characterized as revenge and sometimes as an act of self-preservation. (When you feel hatred coming from the other, it’s reasonable to turn from the other completely.) The expression of this pride usually comes in some version of I’ve had enough of, I just can’t with—fill in the blank. And the strange thing is that the people we now cast into this place of non-interest were once the very people fiction was most curious about. The conflicted, the liars, the self-deceiving, the willfully blind, the abject, the unresolved, the imperfect, the evil, the unwell, the lost and divided. Those were once fiction’s people.
Most of the details in the story are fictional, but some of the basics are true. What were your considerations when deciding to invent or to stick to the well-known facts? Did you think you were representing the real person in any way?
There was an article about the real-life Harvey waiting out the last days of the trial in a borrowed house in, I think, Connecticut. And either I imagined or read in this article that he was watching a lot of Netflix and Googling himself obsessively. Something about that was so piteous and human. I wrote the majority of the novella going off whatever I already sort of knew, or vaguely knew, about Harvey, the broad outlines. But I didn’t, for example, Google whether the real Harvey had children. Any story or novel is an assertion of a world that is true—so the question is not, is this real, does this match up with real life, but, within the bounds of this story, does this detail or incident follow the narrative logic? It made narrative sense, as I was writing the novella, that this fictional version of Harvey had two adult children. It made narrative sense that, in the world of the novella, Harvey gets an infusion of ketamine. It made narrative sense that Harvey mistakes his neighbor for the famous novelist Don DeLillo.
I don’t, in any way, think I’m representing the “real” Harvey—I don’t think fiction’s role is to furnish facts.
The crux of the story comes when Harvey comes to believe that his neighbor is Don DeLillo, which gives him the notion for a comeback: he’ll adapt “White Noise” as a movie. Why Don DeLillo, and why “White Noise”?
Don DeLillo often writes about conspiracies, the net of signs and symbols crisscrossing the culture, and I liked matching up that mind with Harvey, a man whose paranoia and desire for absolution makes him obsessed with omens and magical thinking, anything to keep at bay the very real and imminent possibility of his destruction.
“White Noise,” too, seems like an unfilmable book, but exactly the book that would appeal to an egomaniac with a glancing familiarity with contemporary fiction. Gun to his head, could Harvey tell you what happens in “White Noise”? No. But he knows who Don DeLillo is, understands vaguely the cachet of Don DeLillo, and imagines being attached to a canonical writer as a form of social and professional protection, a tactical chess move.
This story is adapted from a novella. You also have a book of stories, “Daddy,” coming out in September, which features some other objectionable men. What are your favorite fictional portraits of odious men? What separates those that work from those that don’t?
“American Psycho,” “Lolita,” “Tampa,” about a female sexual deviant. Oh, “The End of Alice,” by A. M. Homes. There’s got to be a million others that my mushy quarantine brain is blanking on. I think it’s pretty fun to drop into a consciousness that operates without the societal checks and balances. And they all contain their own critiques, the moments where the narrator is revealed as fallible or disturbed, places where the writer lets the reader see that the character’s twisted world view does not match up with reality, often by using an outsider as a stand-in for the reader.


newyorker--2020-06-01--Bel Powley Adds Staten Island to Her Accent Repertoire

A recent Tuesday found the English actress Bel Powley plunked down in an orange-and-navy-blue-patterned armchair in the corner of her bedroom , in the London house where she has been self-isolating with her boyfriend , the actor Douglas Booth .
Booth , who is known to American audiences for his role as the hair-metal bad boy Nikki Sixx , in last year ’ s Mötley Crüe bio-pic , “ The Dirt , ” had just bought a barbecue grill , and Powley was hiding out , hoping that she wouldn ’ t be asked to help assemble the contraption .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ I ’ m getting out , ’ ” she said cheerfully , over Zoom .
“ It looked like it was a million pieces , like a spaceship.
” ) The couple had bought the house toward the end of 2019 , and had only been in it for a few months when lockdown went into effect .
Powley bobbed from side to side in front of her laptop , attempting to align her head with a large square hole in the wall behind her , as if to conceal it .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ place up , can you tell ?
” she asked .
She turned the computer to shakily display another cavity cut out of the wall , meant to be a fireplace but temporarily housing a vase of delphiniums .
“ We ’ re getting a mantelpiece this week !
” she said .
Powley , who is twenty-eight , was born and raised in West London by an actor father and a casting-director mother , but the house is in Dalston , on the city ’ s eastern side .
“ In New @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” — she paused— “ I feel like I live in Carroll Gardens ?
” A big laugh .
Powley began her career when she was thirteen , on “ M.I .
High , ” a popular BBC kids ’ show about teen spies , but , in the decade and a half since , she has had relatively ample opportunity to familiarize herself with the metropolitan landscape of the American coasts .
She broke through in the U.S. in 2015 , by playing a sexually precocious girl in nineteen-seventies San Francisco , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Diary of a Teenage Girl , ” and in 2018 she starred on Broadway as a Queens cop in Kenneth Lonergan ’ s “ Lobby Hero.
” This summer , she appears in Judd Apatow ’ s film “ The King of Staten Island , ” which will be available on demand on June 12th .
Powley plays Kelsey , the sweet but exasperated friend-with-benefits of the traumatized stoner Scott , played by the comedian Pete Davidson , who also co-wrote the screenplay , which is based loosely on his own life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his fireman father when he was a child .
( Davidson ’ s father died in the Twin Towers on 9/11 ; in Apatow ’ s version , Scott ’ s dad is killed in a house fire . )
With her pale , bare face , relaxed ponytail , and oversized T-shirt bearing the words “ Beautiful Is Boring , ” Powley seemed like the laid-back British antithesis of the spray-tanned , dolled-up Kelsey .
( In one scene , in which Kelsey tries and fails to get Scott ’ s attention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ restaurant where he works , she yells , “ Look at me !
Look at my tits !
It ’ s literally the Eiffel Tower holding them up in here !
” ) “ Kelsey ’ s look is a lot , ” Powley said .
“ When I was preparing for the movie , I became obsessed with ‘ Made in Staten Island.
’ It ’ s a reality show basically about the children of the Staten Island Mob.
” She held up her phone , which displayed a Googled image of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ youngsters .
“ See ?
The girls were an inspiration for Kelsey ’ s look , and it was so much fun to put together : big lips , eyebrows , straight-straight hair , tiny outfits.
” But the role never descends into parody .
“ She has her feet on the ground , ” Powley said .
“ She loves Scott , but she also knows she can ’ t save him .
She ’ s strong enough to self-preserve.
” She went on , “ I think because , on a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with ‘ Diary , ’ I ’ ve been considered since then a lot for American roles .
People are always , like , ‘ Oh , she can do the accent.
’ ” Powley ’ s real-life accent , she says , is “ probably the most neutral London accent there is .
My dad ’ s family was very middle class.
” His father was a surgeon , and his mother was a nurse .
“ His accent is probably a little bit more posh than mine , ” she said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mum grew up in a working-class North London family.
” She became animated .
“ Actually , my great-grandparents on my mum ’ s side were Orthodox Jews from Russia , and when they were escaping from the pogroms on a boat , heading to New York with all the other Jews , they got off at the wrong stop.
” She paused .
“ Isn ’ t that insane ?
The boat docked to refuel in Dublin , and about ten Jewish families got off.
” Her grandmother , she says , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ On ‘ The King of Staten Island , ’ one of the makeup artists told me her family had done the same thing !
” she said .
“ So then they were all , like , ‘ Fuck , we ’ re in Dublin.
’ ” Another big laugh , and it was time to go and see if the barbecue grill was in one piece .
♦

Bel Powley Illustration by João Fazenda
A recent Tuesday found the English actress Bel Powley plunked down in an orange-and-navy-blue-patterned armchair in the corner of her bedroom, in the London house where she has been self-isolating with her boyfriend, the actor Douglas Booth. Booth, who is known to American audiences for his role as the hair-metal bad boy Nikki Sixx, in last year’s Mötley Crüe bio-pic, “The Dirt,” had just bought a barbecue grill, and Powley was hiding out, hoping that she wouldn’t be asked to help assemble the contraption. (“I was, like, ‘I’m getting out,’ ” she said cheerfully, over Zoom. “It looked like it was a million pieces, like a spaceship.”) The couple had bought the house toward the end of 2019, and had only been in it for a few months when lockdown went into effect. Powley bobbed from side to side in front of her laptop, attempting to align her head with a large square hole in the wall behind her, as if to conceal it. “We’re still fixing the place up, can you tell?” she asked. She turned the computer to shakily display another cavity cut out of the wall, meant to be a fireplace but temporarily housing a vase of delphiniums. “We’re getting a mantelpiece this week!” she said. Powley, who is twenty-eight, was born and raised in West London by an actor father and a casting-director mother, but the house is in Dalston, on the city’s eastern side. “In New York terms it would be, like”— she paused—“I feel like I live in Carroll Gardens?” A big laugh.
Powley began her career when she was thirteen, on “M.I. High,” a popular BBC kids’ show about teen spies, but, in the decade and a half since, she has had relatively ample opportunity to familiarize herself with the metropolitan landscape of the American coasts. She broke through in the U.S. in 2015, by playing a sexually precocious girl in nineteen-seventies San Francisco, in Marielle Heller’s movie “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” and in 2018 she starred on Broadway as a Queens cop in Kenneth Lonergan’s “Lobby Hero.” This summer, she appears in Judd Apatow’s film “The King of Staten Island,” which will be available on demand on June 12th. Powley plays Kelsey, the sweet but exasperated friend-with-benefits of the traumatized stoner Scott, played by the comedian Pete Davidson, who also co-wrote the screenplay, which is based loosely on his own life as a Staten Island native who lost his fireman father when he was a child. (Davidson’s father died in the Twin Towers on 9/11; in Apatow’s version, Scott’s dad is killed in a house fire.)
“Pains me to say it, but Greg is much more interesting as a book.” Cartoon by Avi Steinberg Copy link to cartoon Copy link to cartoon Shop Shop
With her pale, bare face, relaxed ponytail, and oversized T-shirt bearing the words “Beautiful Is Boring,” Powley seemed like the laid-back British antithesis of the spray-tanned, dolled-up Kelsey. (In one scene, in which Kelsey tries and fails to get Scott’s attention by bringing a Tinder date to the restaurant where he works, she yells, “Look at me! Look at my tits! It’s literally the Eiffel Tower holding them up in here!”) “Kelsey’s look is a lot,” Powley said. “When I was preparing for the movie, I became obsessed with ‘Made in Staten Island.’ It’s a reality show basically about the children of the Staten Island Mob.” She held up her phone, which displayed a Googled image of a group of unsmiling, elaborately groomed youngsters. “See? The girls were an inspiration for Kelsey’s look, and it was so much fun to put together: big lips, eyebrows, straight-straight hair, tiny outfits.” But the role never descends into parody. “She has her feet on the ground,” Powley said. “She loves Scott, but she also knows she can’t save him. She’s strong enough to self-preserve.”
She went on, “I think because, on a fluke, I started my movie career with ‘Diary,’ I’ve been considered since then a lot for American roles. People are always, like, ‘Oh, she can do the accent.’ ” Powley’s real-life accent, she says, is “probably the most neutral London accent there is. My dad’s family was very middle class.” His father was a surgeon, and his mother was a nurse. “His accent is probably a little bit more posh than mine,” she said. “And, then, my mum grew up in a working-class North London family.” She became animated. “Actually, my great-grandparents on my mum’s side were Orthodox Jews from Russia, and when they were escaping from the pogroms on a boat, heading to New York with all the other Jews, they got off at the wrong stop.” She paused. “Isn’t that insane? The boat docked to refuel in Dublin, and about ten Jewish families got off.” Her grandmother, she says, speaks Yiddish with a thick Irish accent. “On ‘The King of Staten Island,’ one of the makeup artists told me her family had done the same thing!” she said. “So then they were all, like, ‘Fuck, we’re in Dublin.’ ” Another big laugh, and it was time to go and see if the barbecue grill was in one piece. ♦


newyorker--2020-06-01--A Reminder of “Duck and Cover” in a New Jersey Front Yard

From the high ridge in West Orange , New Jersey , where David Mansfield lives , you can see the towers of lower Manhattan on the horizon .
Mansfield is a famous musician who plays violin , guitar , pedal steel guitar , mandolin , and Dobro , all of which he has in the basement studio of his ranch-style house on a quiet street .
When asked if he went to Juilliard , he replied , “ Well , I started touring with Bob Dylan ’ s Rolling Thunder Revue when I was nineteen , so .
.
.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ fiddling on roller skates in Michael Cimino ’ s “ Heaven ’ s Gate.
” ) He is soft-spoken and slim , with dark eyes and curly brown-and-gray hair .
Both Mansfield and his wife , Maggie , fell ill with Covid-19 in March .
She was sicker than he was , but neither needed to be hospitalized .
When they got better , he turned to long-neglected projects around the house .
She suggested he get rid of some dead yew trees in the front yard .
The yews surrounded a rusty @ @ @ @ @ @ @ half feet in diameter , with a round cover , set down vertically in the ground ; he assumed it was some kind of drainage pipe .
But the more he examined it , once the yews were gone , the odder it seemed .
He sent an inquiry to the offices of the Township of West Orange , and a woman there quickly called him back .
She had never come across such a thing before .
She said that a building permit issued for that address in 1961 allowed for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I looked through some rust holes in the top of the pipe and I saw a ladder , ” Mansfield told a recent visitor .
“ Two of my daughters joined me .
The oldest has a film degree , and she filmed me opening the hatch and going down .
A lot of vines had grown into the entry tube , and the underground room itself was full of cobwebs , and hundreds of crickets covered the floor and ceiling .
I brought in a Shop-Vac and vacuumed everything .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when I emptied them out into a patch of sunlight they came to life.
” For the visitor ’ s benefit he lifted the hatch and led the descent .
To use the ladder , you turn backward and feel for the rungs with your feet .
At the bottom , there ’ s a kind of entryway that you duck through , and then you ’ re in a chamber with an arched ceiling maybe seven feet high .
The space is about eight feet across by twelve feet long , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a metallic reverb .
“ Basically , it ’ s a David Bowie tin can , ” Mansfield said .
He pointed out a yellow-and-black “ Fallout Shelter ” sign , of the sort that the Office of Civil Defense used to post in school basements ; he bought it on Amazon and hung it on the wall to perk up the place .
The temperature was a few degrees cooler in the room than the warm spring afternoon aboveground .
On the floor in a corner was a small wooden crate , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Beverages ” on its side .
A short stay in the shelter gives a new appreciation for the birdsong and greenery and breezes up top , in unconfined New Jersey .
After climbing out , Mansfield and the visitor sat on the deck behind the house and looked through the trees at the distant new World Trade Center and its neighboring skyscrapers .
Maybe the person who installed the bomb shelter imagined escaping into it , staying for the recommended two weeks , and reëmerging to find Manhattan nuked and gone .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out and look to the east , and say , ‘ What have you done ?
’ ” Mansfield said , holding up his arms beseechingly .
“ I did some research , and I found that fallout shelters like this one sold for a hundred and fifty dollars—not a lot , even for the time , ” he went on .
“ Installing a shelter was a patriotic act , so that we Americans could survive a war with the Russians .
And then the Cuban missile crisis happened the year after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remember when nuclear war was what we worried about—all those drills , putting our heads under our desks in school .
It ’ s weird to be going through this pandemic and sheltering here for a different reason .
And nuclear war now seems maybe not so bad .
In the bigger picture , climate change will be worse.
” On the corner of the deck stood a wire plant stand .
Somewhat rusted , it , too , had been in the fallout shelter .
The plant stand ’ s design recalled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made of interestingly twisted wire .
“ That plant stand was the only other object in the fallout shelter , besides the beverage crate , ” Mansfield said .
“ I thought I ’ d bring it out and put it here.
” He and the visitor regarded the plant stand in silence .
After a few moments ’ mental sojourn in the sixties , Mansfield added , pensively , “ Eddie Haskell just died.
” ♦

David Mansfield Illustration by João Fazenda
From the high ridge in West Orange, New Jersey, where David Mansfield lives, you can see the towers of lower Manhattan on the horizon. Mansfield is a famous musician who plays violin, guitar, pedal steel guitar, mandolin, and Dobro, all of which he has in the basement studio of his ranch-style house on a quiet street. When asked if he went to Juilliard, he replied, “Well, I started touring with Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue when I was nineteen, so . . . ” (You can also see him fiddling on roller skates in Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate.”) He is soft-spoken and slim, with dark eyes and curly brown-and-gray hair.
Both Mansfield and his wife, Maggie, fell ill with Covid-19 in March. She was sicker than he was, but neither needed to be hospitalized. When they got better, he turned to long-neglected projects around the house. She suggested he get rid of some dead yew trees in the front yard. The yews surrounded a rusty iron pipe, about four and a half feet in diameter, with a round cover, set down vertically in the ground; he assumed it was some kind of drainage pipe. But the more he examined it, once the yews were gone, the odder it seemed. He sent an inquiry to the offices of the Township of West Orange, and a woman there quickly called him back. She had never come across such a thing before. She said that a building permit issued for that address in 1961 allowed for the construction of a steel fallout shelter.
“I looked through some rust holes in the top of the pipe and I saw a ladder,” Mansfield told a recent visitor. “Two of my daughters joined me. The oldest has a film degree, and she filmed me opening the hatch and going down. A lot of vines had grown into the entry tube, and the underground room itself was full of cobwebs, and hundreds of crickets covered the floor and ceiling. I brought in a Shop-Vac and vacuumed everything. The crickets were kind of sluggish, but when I emptied them out into a patch of sunlight they came to life.”
For the visitor’s benefit he lifted the hatch and led the descent. To use the ladder, you turn backward and feel for the rungs with your feet. At the bottom, there’s a kind of entryway that you duck through, and then you’re in a chamber with an arched ceiling maybe seven feet high. The space is about eight feet across by twelve feet long, and when you talk the sound echoes with a metallic reverb. “Basically, it’s a David Bowie tin can,” Mansfield said. He pointed out a yellow-and-black “Fallout Shelter” sign, of the sort that the Office of Civil Defense used to post in school basements; he bought it on Amazon and hung it on the wall to perk up the place. The temperature was a few degrees cooler in the room than the warm spring afternoon aboveground. On the floor in a corner was a small wooden crate, upside down, that said “Hoffman Beverages” on its side.
A short stay in the shelter gives a new appreciation for the birdsong and greenery and breezes up top, in unconfined New Jersey. After climbing out, Mansfield and the visitor sat on the deck behind the house and looked through the trees at the distant new World Trade Center and its neighboring skyscrapers. Maybe the person who installed the bomb shelter imagined escaping into it, staying for the recommended two weeks, and reëmerging to find Manhattan nuked and gone. “Like Charlton Heston, he would come out and look to the east, and say, ‘What have you done?’ ” Mansfield said, holding up his arms beseechingly.
“I did some research, and I found that fallout shelters like this one sold for a hundred and fifty dollars—not a lot, even for the time,” he went on. “Installing a shelter was a patriotic act, so that we Americans could survive a war with the Russians. And then the Cuban missile crisis happened the year after this shelter was installed. Funny to remember when nuclear war was what we worried about—all those drills, putting our heads under our desks in school. It’s weird to be going through this pandemic and sheltering here for a different reason. And nuclear war now seems maybe not so bad. In the bigger picture, climate change will be worse.”
On the corner of the deck stood a wire plant stand. Somewhat rusted, it, too, had been in the fallout shelter. The plant stand’s design recalled the era when objects began to be made of interestingly twisted wire. “That plant stand was the only other object in the fallout shelter, besides the beverage crate,” Mansfield said. “I thought I’d bring it out and put it here.”
He and the visitor regarded the plant stand in silence. After a few moments’ mental sojourn in the sixties, Mansfield added, pensively, “Eddie Haskell just died.” ♦


newyorker--2020-06-01--What Is There to Love About Longfellow?

What Is There to Love About Longfellow?

On March 26 , 1882 , Ralph Waldo Emerson went to a funeral .
As the elderly writer stared into the open casket , he grew perplexed .
He could not identify the body .
He seemed to know that the man had been a friend—indeed , he felt sad that the bearded stranger in the casket had predeceased him—but Emerson had no idea who he was .
“ Who is the sleeper ?
” he finally asked his daughter .
The answer was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow .
Emerson was in the throes of dementia .
Even so , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Longfellow ’ s disappearance from American culture .
He was , in his heyday , the most famous poet in the English-speaking world .
Perhaps T. S. Eliot , in his sports-arena-filling prime , would be a comparable figure .
But Eliot was lionized by many people who didn ’ t read his poetry , whereas Longfellow ’ s books were devoured not only by the literati but by ordinary readers .
When Longfellow was received by Queen Victoria , in 1868 , she noticed the servants scuffling to get a glimpse of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all knew his poetry .
No other visitor had provoked “ so peculiar an interest , ” she noted .
“ Such poets wear a crown that is imperishable.
” Yet Longfellow ’ s fame proved to be more perishable than expected .
How did he reach the summit , and what explains the century-old collapse of his literary reputation , which now shows some flickering signs of revival ?
Nicholas Basbanes tells the tale with diligence , affection , and an occasional note of special pleading in “ Cross of Snow : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Knopf ) .
The poet was born in 1807 to a distinguished New England family in Portland , a hundred miles or so north of Boston .
His father , Stephen Longfellow , served in both the state legislature and the U.S. Congress .
His mother , the culture-loving Zilpah Longfellow , discussed literature with young Henry , warning him away from the obscurity he so admired in Thomas Gray ’ s odes .
Poetry , she told him , must instruct and improve .
He should avoid poems that “ excite @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have taken too much to heart .
At the age of fifteen , Longfellow was packed off to Bowdoin College , in nearby Brunswick .
His family had considerable clout on campus : his grandfather had helped to found the school , and his father sat on its board of trustees .
But this otherwise dutiful son already had some ideas of his own .
“ I hardly think Nature designed me for the bar , or the pulpit , or the dissecting-room , ” he informed his father .
In a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature.
” This got a predictably lukewarm reception from the elder Longfellow , who had himself trained as a lawyer and doubted whether his son could make a living as a writer .
“ There is not wealth enough in this country to afford encouragement and patronage to merely literary men , ” he replied .
In the biographies of literary talents , the father is often viewed as the heavy , crushing the life out of his sensitive child .
But Stephen Longfellow happened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the self-sustaining American writer was a rare thing .
So a compromise was fashioned , presumably with familial help .
Longfellow , who had just graduated from Bowdoin at eighteen , was offered a chair at the college in modern European languages .
The fruits of nepotism did not end with the gig itself .
To prepare his son for the job , Stephen Longfellow stepped up to finance a lengthy trip to Europe .
Henry crossed the Atlantic in 1826 and made his way straight to Paris , where he procured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accessories .
From there he travelled to Spain , Italy , and Germany .
He spent more than three years abroad , assuring his increasingly skeptical parents that he was learning loads .
No doubt he treated some of this time as a lark—spring break in the Eternal City .
Yet he returned home in 1829 with a remarkable command of French , Italian , and Spanish .
This qualified him , in an after-the-fact manner , for his post at Bowdoin—and prepared the ground for his role as the first great internationalist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Bowdoin , where he taught for the next six years .
He cranked out textbooks on French and Italian grammar and despised his life in the sticks .
“ I suppose you think I am dead , ” he wrote to a friend .
“ But it is not so ; I am only buried—in Brunswick.
” Gradually , though , his spirits began to lift .
In 1831 he married Mary Potter , the cultivated daughter of a Portland judge , which took the edge off his rural isolation .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea , ” a hodgepodge travelogue in the vein of Washington Irving .
And then he was offered the escape he was hoping for—the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard .
There was only one stipulation : he would have to return to Europe to solidify his grasp of German .
Longfellow was jubilant .
He departed with Mary in April , 1835 , and after stops in England and Denmark they proceeded to the Netherlands .
As planned , he immersed himself in one language-learning adventure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Mary , who was pregnant , had a miscarriage , followed by an infection .
She died on November 29th , after issuing a final plea to her husband : “ Henry , do not forget me.
” A grieving widower adrift in Europe , Longfellow numbly went about his appointed task , vacuuming up more languages ( he came to know fifteen ) .
“ There are wounds which are never entirely healed , ” he wrote his sister-in-law .
He did not wish to let go of his sorrow—an honest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may have felt that he had little else .
But the central drama of his life , and certainly the narrative at the heart of Basbanes ’ s biography , was about to begin .
There would be another marriage , a beloved family , a steady ascent to fame and fortune as a poet .
Just not quite yet .
The agent of this transformation was Fanny Appleton , the eighteen-year-old daughter of a Boston textile magnate .
Brilliant , beautiful , as book-besotted as her future husband , she was clearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as infatuated with her as his subject was , putting Longfellow on the back burner for twenty pages while he narrates Fanny ’ s European sojourn of the mid-eighteen-thirties .
What Fanny sought in a suitor , the author tells us , was “ intellectual engagement above all else.
” She had already batted away numerous candidates , and when she first encountered Longfellow , in Interlaken , Switzerland , in the summer of 1836 , he did not strike her as a potential soul mate .
“ Mr L. very inquisitive , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ night , sounding a little fatigued .
She seems to have found him a harmless nerd , whose idea of a good time was to read aloud from his own journals or to translate German ballads on the fly ( with Fanny supplying some of the best lines ) .
When Longfellow left , in August , to take up his Harvard appointment , Fanny seemed almost surprised by her sense of loss .
But he was captivated by her .
After she returned to America with her family , in 1837 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , articles , and a pair of castanets—this last gift ushering in a long period of silence .
The strange fact is that Fanny kept Longfellow waiting for seven years .
He suffered bouts of depression , informing one friend that “ a leaden melancholy hangs over me : —and from this I pass at times into feverish excitement , bordering on madness.
” He took the bold step of publishing a novel , “ Hyperion , ” whose young lovers were plainly patterned on himself and Fanny , and made sure that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this four-hundred-and-thirty-nine-page billet-doux failed to move her .
( In a letter to a friend , she dismissed it as “ desultory , objectless , a thing of shreds and patches like the Author ’ s mind .
” )

On March 26, 1882, Ralph Waldo Emerson went to a funeral. As the elderly writer stared into the open casket, he grew perplexed. He could not identify the body. He seemed to know that the man had been a friend—indeed, he felt sad that the bearded stranger in the casket had predeceased him—but Emerson had no idea who he was. “Who is the sleeper?” he finally asked his daughter. The answer was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Emerson was in the throes of dementia. Even so, the story seems like a small allegory of Longfellow’s disappearance from American culture. He was, in his heyday, the most famous poet in the English-speaking world. Perhaps T. S. Eliot, in his sports-arena-filling prime, would be a comparable figure. But Eliot was lionized by many people who didn’t read his poetry, whereas Longfellow’s books were devoured not only by the literati but by ordinary readers. When Longfellow was received by Queen Victoria, in 1868, she noticed the servants scuffling to get a glimpse of him. To her amazement, they all knew his poetry. No other visitor had provoked “so peculiar an interest,” she noted. “Such poets wear a crown that is imperishable.”
Yet Longfellow’s fame proved to be more perishable than expected. How did he reach the summit, and what explains the century-old collapse of his literary reputation, which now shows some flickering signs of revival? Nicholas Basbanes tells the tale with diligence, affection, and an occasional note of special pleading in “Cross of Snow: A Life of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow” (Knopf).
The poet was born in 1807 to a distinguished New England family in Portland, a hundred miles or so north of Boston. His father, Stephen Longfellow, served in both the state legislature and the U.S. Congress. His mother, the culture-loving Zilpah Longfellow, discussed literature with young Henry, warning him away from the obscurity he so admired in Thomas Gray’s odes. Poetry, she told him, must instruct and improve. He should avoid poems that “excite the imagination only”—a lesson he may have taken too much to heart.
At the age of fifteen, Longfellow was packed off to Bowdoin College, in nearby Brunswick. His family had considerable clout on campus: his grandfather had helped to found the school, and his father sat on its board of trustees. But this otherwise dutiful son already had some ideas of his own. “I hardly think Nature designed me for the bar, or the pulpit, or the dissecting-room,” he informed his father. In a subsequent letter, he added, “I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature.” This got a predictably lukewarm reception from the elder Longfellow, who had himself trained as a lawyer and doubted whether his son could make a living as a writer. “There is not wealth enough in this country to afford encouragement and patronage to merely literary men,” he replied.
In the biographies of literary talents, the father is often viewed as the heavy, crushing the life out of his sensitive child. But Stephen Longfellow happened to be right. At the time, the self-sustaining American writer was a rare thing. So a compromise was fashioned, presumably with familial help. Longfellow, who had just graduated from Bowdoin at eighteen, was offered a chair at the college in modern European languages.
The fruits of nepotism did not end with the gig itself. To prepare his son for the job, Stephen Longfellow stepped up to finance a lengthy trip to Europe. Henry crossed the Atlantic in 1826 and made his way straight to Paris, where he procured a claret-colored waistcoat and various other dandyish accessories. From there he travelled to Spain, Italy, and Germany. He spent more than three years abroad, assuring his increasingly skeptical parents that he was learning loads. No doubt he treated some of this time as a lark—spring break in the Eternal City. Yet he returned home in 1829 with a remarkable command of French, Italian, and Spanish. This qualified him, in an after-the-fact manner, for his post at Bowdoin—and prepared the ground for his role as the first great internationalist of American letters.
Longfellow was bored at Bowdoin, where he taught for the next six years. He cranked out textbooks on French and Italian grammar and despised his life in the sticks. “I suppose you think I am dead,” he wrote to a friend. “But it is not so; I am only buried—in Brunswick.”
Gradually, though, his spirits began to lift. In 1831 he married Mary Potter, the cultivated daughter of a Portland judge, which took the edge off his rural isolation. He reshuffled his European reminiscences into “Outre-Mer: A Pilgrimage Beyond the Sea,” a hodgepodge travelogue in the vein of Washington Irving. And then he was offered the escape he was hoping for—the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard. There was only one stipulation: he would have to return to Europe to solidify his grasp of German.
Longfellow was jubilant. He departed with Mary in April, 1835, and after stops in England and Denmark they proceeded to the Netherlands. As planned, he immersed himself in one language-learning adventure after another. But in early October, Mary, who was pregnant, had a miscarriage, followed by an infection. She died on November 29th, after issuing a final plea to her husband: “Henry, do not forget me.”
A grieving widower adrift in Europe, Longfellow numbly went about his appointed task, vacuuming up more languages (he came to know fifteen). “There are wounds which are never entirely healed,” he wrote his sister-in-law. He did not wish to let go of his sorrow—an honest admission from a ruined man, who may have felt that he had little else. But the central drama of his life, and certainly the narrative at the heart of Basbanes’s biography, was about to begin. There would be another marriage, a beloved family, a steady ascent to fame and fortune as a poet. Just not quite yet.
The agent of this transformation was Fanny Appleton, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a Boston textile magnate. Brilliant, beautiful, as book-besotted as her future husband, she was clearly hard to resist. Basbanes seems almost as infatuated with her as his subject was, putting Longfellow on the back burner for twenty pages while he narrates Fanny’s European sojourn of the mid-eighteen-thirties.
What Fanny sought in a suitor, the author tells us, was “intellectual engagement above all else.” She had already batted away numerous candidates, and when she first encountered Longfellow, in Interlaken, Switzerland, in the summer of 1836, he did not strike her as a potential soul mate. “Mr L. very inquisitive,” she wrote in her diary one night, sounding a little fatigued. She seems to have found him a harmless nerd, whose idea of a good time was to read aloud from his own journals or to translate German ballads on the fly (with Fanny supplying some of the best lines).


newyorker--2020-06-01--“More,” by Alex Dimitrov

“More,” by Alex Dimitrov

How again after months there is awe .
The most personal moment of the day appears unannounced .
People wear @ @ @ @ @ die .
There are strangers who look like they could know your name .
And @ @ @ @ @ on a cold night , or the sound of traffic as it follows you home @ @ @ @ @ How balconies hold us .
Whatever enough is , it hasn ’ t arrived .
@ @ @ @ @ when you ’ ll likely forget this , as you browse through the vintage again @ @ @ @ @ what everyone ’ s given up just to stay here .
Jewelled hairpins , scratched @ @ @ @ @ .
Everything they ’ ve given up to stay here and find more .

Audio: Read by the author.
How again after months there is awe.
The most personal moment of the day
appears unannounced. People wear leather.
People refuse to die. There are strangers
who look like they could know your name.
And the smell of a bar on a cold night,
or the sound of traffic as it follows you home.
Sirens. Parties. How balconies hold us.
Whatever enough is, it hasn’t arrived.
And on some dead afternoon
when you’ll likely forget this,
as you browse through the vintage
again and again—there it is,
what everyone’s given up
just to stay here. Jewelled hairpins,
scratched records, their fast youth.
Everything they’ve given up
to stay here and find more.


newyorker--2020-06-01--Let’s Get Small, by Matthew Klam

Let’s Get Small, by Matthew Klam

Nineteen seventy-eight , eighth grade : I ’ m five feet nine , a hundred and three pounds , and am often mistaken for a girl .
Dave , a kid in my homeroom , same height , blond like me , is somehow fat and skinny at the same time .
We both know “ Let ’ s Get Small , ” the Steve Martin album ( “ We ’ re basically into the intellectual scene ” ) , and , although we use it to transfix girls and keep cretins off balance , there ’ s something else @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you turn inward , but friendships put you shoulder to shoulder to take on the world .
Ninth grade : We drink vodka at Martha Cedarholm ’ s and throw up in the street .
I sleep over at Dave ’ s house , and it ’ s comfortable .
Our mothers like the same kind of pottery .
My father , who ’ s sometimes fun , is prone to rages and tantrums , like a child , while Dave ’ s father , also fun , is a child psychiatrist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at breakfast .
His three older sisters have been known to sit on him and put his hair in doll curlers , but they ’ ve also taught him how to have a conversation .
Tenth grade : We ’ re in high school now , still no girlfriends , so , for prom , we rent a limo with four other boys , dressed , by our fathers , in blazers and loafers .
We ’ re not cool , and it ’ s almost beside the point that two of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and one of them is a dwarf .
For someone who feels anxious in a group , it ’ s good to belong anywhere , with anyone , with Dave .
Eleventh grade : We have busboy jobs at Le Château , a big , corny restaurant run by a mean French family , in a stone mansion overlooking the Hudson Valley .
The maître d ’ is not so sure about us ; neither are the waiters , the captains , the wine guys , or Joseph , who hired us @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Individually , we do a capable job of clearing , hauling trays and dish tubs , but as a team we ’ re incompetent and despised .
The grandmother catches us eating food off people ’ s plates , we ’ re blamed for breaking the ice machine , and the staff generates a growing list of insulting nicknames for us .
But there ’ s a wonderful smell of baguettes in paper bags , and on the drive home we own the road , dissecting the strangeness of a menacing world .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ humor class .
I memorize Steve Martin ’ s “ The Gospel Maniacs , ” a bit about a corrupt TV minister , and perform it , because religion is horseshit and comedy is a protest against small-mindedness .
It doesn ’ t go over with my classmates , and Dave is the only one laughing—for the entire four and a half minutes .
College : Even though ours is a bond based on achieving nothing , Dave gets into a very good college .
I enroll at an underfunded state school , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ let me in .
This isn ’ t the first time that one of us breaks stride and inadvertently wounds the other , and it won ’ t be the last .
But the summer after freshman year we work together doing pool construction , and on the way to work he plays a tape of the radio show he d.j.
’ s , so that I can hear him dedicate a song to me— “ Cherry Tree , ” by 10,000 Maniacs—about a guy so dumb he can ’ t read , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months when I barely know what he ’ s up to .
I send him short stories , and he sends me TV scripts and tapes of his band .
At some point , I realize I ’ ve been imitating his laugh since ninth grade , and make myself stop .
Our twenties : In Minneapolis , I meet his first serious girlfriend , and he doesn ’ t confide sexual details to me , doesn ’ t treat her like an obstacle to our friendship , and we all get along @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everything in our lives is terrible—I ’ ve been living on a waiter ’ s salary for a decade , he hates writing ad copy—we sound so sure of ourselves and are so good at mirroring , listening to , and inspiring each other that we tape an hour of our drunken jabbering .
That tape later lands in my mother ’ s car , and she plays it until it breaks .
Our thirties : Dave moves to L.A. to try to get a TV show on the air .
We settle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re crashing at my aunt ’ s house in Montauk , he points out that , in a short story I recently published , a character named Dave is the obnoxious older brother .
About this act of inexplicable hostility I say almost nothing , and we never mention it again .
Marriage , children , knee surgeries .
Work triumphs and disasters .
In New York City , I see ads on taxis for a TV show he ’ s created , but after two seasons it ’ s gone .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sporadic .
We tell each other the good things .
The bad things we keep to ourselves .
Eventually we don ’ t even share the good news .
Sometimes I wonder if the friendship is merely commemorative , but then I see him , we assess the changes , throw a Frisbee , talk all night , drink and smoke a few disgusting cigarettes , and he ’ s the same , a ramblin ’ guy , an overgrown eighth grader .
He visited in January and left behind a jar of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
That may be all I see of him for a while .
♦

Nineteen seventy-eight, eighth grade: I’m five feet nine, a hundred and three pounds, and am often mistaken for a girl. Dave, a kid in my homeroom, same height, blond like me, is somehow fat and skinny at the same time. We both know “Let’s Get Small,” the Steve Martin album (“We’re basically into the intellectual scene”), and, although we use it to transfix girls and keep cretins off balance, there’s something else going on. In a romantic coupling, you turn inward, but friendships put you shoulder to shoulder to take on the world.
Ninth grade: We drink vodka at Martha Cedarholm’s and throw up in the street. I sleep over at Dave’s house, and it’s comfortable. Our mothers like the same kind of pottery. My father, who’s sometimes fun, is prone to rages and tantrums, like a child, while Dave’s father, also fun, is a child psychiatrist. His parents casually slip into French at breakfast. His three older sisters have been known to sit on him and put his hair in doll curlers, but they’ve also taught him how to have a conversation.
Tenth grade: We’re in high school now, still no girlfriends, so, for prom, we rent a limo with four other boys, dressed, by our fathers, in blazers and loafers. We’re not cool, and it’s almost beside the point that two of the guys in the limo are on acid, and one of them is a dwarf. For someone who feels anxious in a group, it’s good to belong anywhere, with anyone, with Dave.
Eleventh grade: We have busboy jobs at Le Château, a big, corny restaurant run by a mean French family, in a stone mansion overlooking the Hudson Valley. The maître d’ is not so sure about us; neither are the waiters, the captains, the wine guys, or Joseph, who hired us, or his lieutenant, Koos. Individually, we do a capable job of clearing, hauling trays and dish tubs, but as a team we’re incompetent and despised. The grandmother catches us eating food off people’s plates, we’re blamed for breaking the ice machine, and the staff generates a growing list of insulting nicknames for us. But there’s a wonderful smell of baguettes in paper bags, and on the drive home we own the road, dissecting the strangeness of a menacing world.
Twelfth grade: Mr. Henriquez’s humor class. I memorize Steve Martin’s “The Gospel Maniacs,” a bit about a corrupt TV minister, and perform it, because religion is horseshit and comedy is a protest against small-mindedness. It doesn’t go over with my classmates, and Dave is the only one laughing—for the entire four and a half minutes.
College: Even though ours is a bond based on achieving nothing, Dave gets into a very good college. I enroll at an underfunded state school, because it’s the place that let me in. This isn’t the first time that one of us breaks stride and inadvertently wounds the other, and it won’t be the last. But the summer after freshman year we work together doing pool construction, and on the way to work he plays a tape of the radio show he d.j.’s, so that I can hear him dedicate a song to me—“Cherry Tree,” by 10,000 Maniacs—about a guy so dumb he can’t read, and I feel honored.
There are months when I barely know what he’s up to. I send him short stories, and he sends me TV scripts and tapes of his band. At some point, I realize I’ve been imitating his laugh since ninth grade, and make myself stop.
Our twenties: In Minneapolis, I meet his first serious girlfriend, and he doesn’t confide sexual details to me, doesn’t treat her like an obstacle to our friendship, and we all get along. That night, even though almost everything in our lives is terrible—I’ve been living on a waiter’s salary for a decade, he hates writing ad copy—we sound so sure of ourselves and are so good at mirroring, listening to, and inspiring each other that we tape an hour of our drunken jabbering. That tape later lands in my mother’s car, and she plays it until it breaks.
Our thirties: Dave moves to L.A. to try to get a TV show on the air. We settle into a cross-country thing. While we’re crashing at my aunt’s house in Montauk, he points out that, in a short story I recently published, a character named Dave is the obnoxious older brother. About this act of inexplicable hostility I say almost nothing, and we never mention it again.
Marriage, children, knee surgeries. Work triumphs and disasters. In New York City, I see ads on taxis for a TV show he’s created, but after two seasons it’s gone. Our friendship becomes superfluous, voluntary, sporadic. We tell each other the good things. The bad things we keep to ourselves. Eventually we don’t even share the good news. Sometimes I wonder if the friendship is merely commemorative, but then I see him, we assess the changes, throw a Frisbee, talk all night, drink and smoke a few disgusting cigarettes, and he’s the same, a ramblin’ guy, an overgrown eighth grader. He visited in January and left behind a jar of peanut butter and a bottle of vermouth. That may be all I see of him for a while. ♦


newyorker--2020-06-01--The Smell of Doughnuts, by Ottessa Moshfegh

In the late fall of 2006 , I went out for what I knew would be my last night of drinking .
I remember stopping at Kellogg ’ s Diner to buy some Advil and a SlimFast , which I chugged on my way to the bar where I was meeting a girlfriend and a guy she was dating .
There was something ceremonious about drinking that SlimFast , like putting on war paint .
I thought it would protect my stomach from all the alcohol I was about to pour into it .
I had never cared to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ few rounds of drinks were unremarkable , and I was bored with my girlfriend and her guy .
Then we went to another bar , which I think was on Graham Avenue .
I remember that the bartender was an old Polish woman who could see that I was up to no good .
I had probably had ten drinks by then .
I turned to the man next to me .
“ Why do you smell so strongly of doughnuts ?
” was my opening line .
To me , he did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smelled like doughnuts .
“ Am I hallucinating ?
” I asked the man .
“ Let me buy you a drink , ” I told him .
“ Let me buy this whole bar a drink !
” But I didn ’ t .
The bartender deliberately ignored me .
I was broke , sloppy , depressed , angry , bloated , desperate , and addicted .
Apart from the SlimFast , this night , so far , was like any other night .
Whether I was drinking at a bar or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me .
I couldn ’ t really get drunk anymore .
I barely slept .
I liked to drink sake instead of coffee in the mornings .
Somehow I had held down a job , but I was always hungover , cranky , and rude , insensitive to everything but my own bad mood .
It was probably already three in the morning when I left my friends on Graham to go and “ get into some trouble.
” The smell of doughnuts followed me .
I figured my olfactory nerve was on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was working on me in mysterious ways .
I wandered in and out of bars , looking for someone or something to turn the night into an adventure , but all I found were a few more drinks .
I knew I had a bottle of vodka at my apartment .
Maybe there was enough left to obliterate me .
I kept thinking , If I can just drink enough tonight , I won ’ t need to drink again for the rest of my life .
I told myself , Go out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ waiting for the subway at the Lorimer Street station .
I don ’ t know what the G train has been like since—I haven ’ t taken it in a decade—but back then you could wait an hour for a train at night .
I paced along the edge of the platform , peering into the tunnel for lights .
The station was pretty empty .
I was impatient to get home to that vodka .
I kept leaning out over the tracks to look for the train coming .
Darkness .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long .
I kind of spaced out with my feet half over the edge of the platform , playing with my balance .
I turned and saw an angel .
He was seven feet tall , wore brown pants and a blue puffy coat , and smiled as if the sight of me actually made him happy .
I stepped toward him , away from the platform edge , right as the train arrived .
I felt the breeze at my back .
I understood that this man had appeared just in time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ doors opened .
He went inside and gestured for me to follow him , as though he were a maître d ’ .
He smiled continuously and sat a few seats away from me .
I don ’ t recall what we talked about during the ride , but I remember that he was very calm , very polite , asked me simple questions that I tried to answer without slurring .
The doughnut smell was even more powerful at that point .
“ I ’ m getting off here , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Myrtle-Willoughby station .
It was still dark out , but I could feel the sun readying to break .
The angel walked me to my door , quietly , dutifully , as if he had been sent there just to return me to safety .
Before I went inside , I asked him , “ Do you smell doughnuts ?
” He looked a little embarrassed , and laughed , and said , “ I work the graveyard shift at Dunkin ’ Donuts.
” I shook his hand and thanked him , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the morning , I poured out the vodka .
♦

In the late fall of 2006, I went out for what I knew would be my last night of drinking. I remember stopping at Kellogg’s Diner to buy some Advil and a SlimFast, which I chugged on my way to the bar where I was meeting a girlfriend and a guy she was dating. There was something ceremonious about drinking that SlimFast, like putting on war paint. I thought it would protect my stomach from all the alcohol I was about to pour into it. I had never cared to do such a thing before.
The first few rounds of drinks were unremarkable, and I was bored with my girlfriend and her guy. Then we went to another bar, which I think was on Graham Avenue. I remember that the bartender was an old Polish woman who could see that I was up to no good. I had probably had ten drinks by then.
I turned to the man next to me. “Why do you smell so strongly of doughnuts?” was my opening line.
“I don’t smell like doughnuts.”
To me, he did. In fact, the whole bar smelled like doughnuts. “Am I hallucinating?” I asked the man.
“I don’t care,” he said.
“Let me buy you a drink,” I told him. “Let me buy this whole bar a drink!” But I didn’t. The bartender deliberately ignored me.
I was broke, sloppy, depressed, angry, bloated, desperate, and addicted. Apart from the SlimFast, this night, so far, was like any other night. Whether I was drinking at a bar or alone at home, self-centered dissatisfaction plagued me. I couldn’t really get drunk anymore. I barely slept. I liked to drink sake instead of coffee in the mornings. Somehow I had held down a job, but I was always hungover, cranky, and rude, insensitive to everything but my own bad mood.
It was probably already three in the morning when I left my friends on Graham to go and “get into some trouble.”
The smell of doughnuts followed me. I figured my olfactory nerve was on the fritz, or maybe that SlimFast was working on me in mysterious ways. I wandered in and out of bars, looking for someone or something to turn the night into an adventure, but all I found were a few more drinks. I knew I had a bottle of vodka at my apartment. Maybe there was enough left to obliterate me. I kept thinking, If I can just drink enough tonight, I won’t need to drink again for the rest of my life. I told myself, Go out with a bang.
I was impatient waiting for the subway at the Lorimer Street station. I don’t know what the G train has been like since—I haven’t taken it in a decade—but back then you could wait an hour for a train at night. I paced along the edge of the platform, peering into the tunnel for lights. The station was pretty empty. I was impatient to get home to that vodka. I kept leaning out over the tracks to look for the train coming. Darkness. It was driving me crazy to wait so long. I kind of spaced out with my feet half over the edge of the platform, playing with my balance.
“Hello.”
I turned and saw an angel. He was seven feet tall, wore brown pants and a blue puffy coat, and smiled as if the sight of me actually made him happy.
“Hi,” I said.
I stepped toward him, away from the platform edge, right as the train arrived. I felt the breeze at my back. I understood that this man had appeared just in time to save my life.
The train doors opened. He went inside and gestured for me to follow him, as though he were a maître d’. He smiled continuously and sat a few seats away from me. I don’t recall what we talked about during the ride, but I remember that he was very calm, very polite, asked me simple questions that I tried to answer without slurring. The doughnut smell was even more powerful at that point.
“I’m getting off here,” he said, as the train pulled into the Myrtle-Willoughby station.
“Me, too.” I lived a block and a half away.
It was still dark out, but I could feel the sun readying to break. The angel walked me to my door, quietly, dutifully, as if he had been sent there just to return me to safety.
Before I went inside, I asked him, “Do you smell doughnuts?”
He looked a little embarrassed, and laughed, and said, “I work the graveyard shift at Dunkin’ Donuts.”
I shook his hand and thanked him, went inside, and got into bed. In the morning, I poured out the vodka. ♦