newyorker--2020-01-13--Robert Hass’s Inner History of the Decade

The American poet Robert Hass ’ s new book , his first since 2010 , is “ Summer Snow.
” Hass ’ s work is a fifty-year standoff between concentration and dispersal : part haiku , part road trip .
Hass , who served as the U.S .
Poet Laureate in the nineties , and for decades has taught English at the University of California , Berkeley , has published his volumes rather slowly , beginning in 1973 .
When his new poems turn up , they often embed , almost as an alibi , behind-the-scenes footage of how and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and bloopers .
They are shapes made in time , over time , like the mellow hikes and meandering conversations that they sometimes describe .
“ Summer Snow , ” with its patient count of tanagers , warblers , aspens , and gentian , its year-after-year audit of the dead , its tallies of everything from our country ’ s drone strikes to his friends ’ strokes , is Hass ’ s inner history of the decade .
It arrives right on time .
“ Nature Notes in the Morning , ” an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” distills Hass ’ s method : first , some short , almost neutral captions ( “ East sides of the trees / Are limned with light ” ) , followed by jotted ideas and judgments ( “ Just distribution theory : / Light ” ) , along with memories and associations ( “ What do I know from yesterday ?
” ) .
The effort is precise , not random , like a chef adjusting his seasonings .
The word “ notes ” has a double meaning , and , as often @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tune starts to form out of scattered impressions .
To render “ the way light looked on plums , ” Hass tells us , the eighteenth-century Japanese artist Itō Jakuchū “ smuggled Prussian blues from Europe.
” The poem starts to conflate its own colors with the names of painters ’ dyes ( “ Last streaks of sunset : alizarin ” ) and crests with an anecdote about “ the old art historian ” who told Hass to pick up a brush and paint “ small rectangular daubs so that they shimmer ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cézanne.
” Accuracy in painting , which may depend on whether your country has an embargo on the source of the perfect blue , seems to chasten Hass ’ s comparatively too easy art .
But the modest sketch that ends the poem depends on the thick weave of adage and anecdote that precedes it : Here Hass moves from vision to hearing .
Poets , after all , work primarily on the ear ; they must be trained to recognize a warbler not just by sight but also by sound .
Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , this , too , reflects the lifelong cultivation of skill : the least “ natural ” thing in nature is a poet peering into the bushes for material .
A Hass poem is a site of instruction , sometimes handed down from Hass ’ s own masters , like Eugenio Montale , Czesław Miłosz , and Stanley Kunitz .
But it ’ s equally a site of distraction .
Hass ’ s poems about his mentors are full of background , ambience , human overspill ; the nugget of inherited wisdom is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Three Old Men , ” Kunitz , having celebrated his hundredth birthday , reports , bluntly , “ I don ’ t recommend it.
” Equally terse is the second old man , a Wordsworthian gardener remembered for his runic talk about “ the names of plants.
” The third aging figure in this fable is Hass himself , his mentors all dead : “ We don ’ t live altogether in either opinions / Or sensations , ” Hass writes in “ Montale ’ s Notebooks , ” a poem about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” He slaloms from Montale to Cavafy to the emperor Nero , from a New England picnic in the seventies to a recent day when “ a friend came to the door ” with a proposition : “ Why don ’ t we get stoned and write a poem together ?
” What ’ s the word for a “ fast succession of scenes ” like this ?
Hass supplies the answer : “ For what that is / I think Husserl invented the term lebenswelt.
” The distinct Hass touch is that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which feels like a courtesy from another time , before people got out their phones and Googled such things .
( The term means “ life-world , ” and it ’ s one of the foundations of phenomenology . )
The finished poem is exquisitely unfinished , a making-of documentary for a scrapped film .
It ends with a list of provisional lines that Hass “ could have presented to my friend to remind her / Of how we had loved the very idea of the line ” —and now presents to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feature of Hass ’ s work , in my view : an Etch A Sketch method that allows the surface of the completed poem to be erased and revised , with traces of previous attempts , along with gaps for when the lightning strikes .
By my unscientific count , these gestures have only become more plentiful in the course of Hass ’ s career .
He sometimes describes his effects the way a critic might ( “ And now a trick-of-the-senses dissolve ” ) , or annotates them the way an editor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ performance notes for the reader .
In “ The Archaeology of Plenty , ” the word “ wound ” is followed by a helpful pronunciation guide— “ not ‘ eu ’ but ‘ ow ’ ” —which has the effect not of rigging the choice but of reminding us that two options exist .
Like that slightly stiff “ I think , ” these moments are meant to expand and share Hass ’ s authority , to include the reader in the collaborative vibe often depicted in the poems .
But they can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , wresting back from the reader the power to make his own mistakes .
When I teach Hass , I always ask my students what they think of these fill-in-the-blanks passages .
The response is a mixed bag ; people have different histories with performed modesty .
I love these moments and have learned from them how to do certain things in my own poems , but I ’ m also watchful , a little distrustful of that extended open hand .
The experience of reading Hass can not be isolated from his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ His poems are often plotted as developments within the larger , ongoing process of reading and translating his masters .
In “ Second Person , ” Hass wanders the streets of Paris , ducking into a café to work through a Neruda poem , a “ line at a time.
” A few poems later , we read the finished product , “ Pablo Neruda : Only Death.
” Hass is among the most demystified of great writers—in person , apparently , as well as on the page .
As a teacher , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and interlopers with attentiveness .
In a poem called “ What the Modernists Wrote About : An Informal Survey , ” he humbles that most formidably serious generation of stylistic innovators by reducing them to CliffsNotes versions .
T. S. Eliot is “ poor Tom ” ; Ezra Pound “ wrote about a number of subjects , as I recall , ” including “ Chinese history / And being imprisoned in a cage.
” Wallace Stevens , a most abstract and cerebral poet indeed , “ wrote about the Connecticut River ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his life.
” At times , Hass ’ s list is profoundly moving ( he ’ s right about Stevens ) ; at other times , it feels like a kind of irreverent joke , turning these stern eminences from the past into cozy Californian boomers .
Hass personalizes everything , warms everything up .
He ’ s an open book ; but he ’ s also someone whom readers should , in every sense of the phrase , keep their eye on .
♦

The American poet Robert Hass’s new book, his first since 2010, is “Summer Snow.” Hass’s work is a fifty-year standoff between concentration and dispersal: part haiku, part road trip. Hass, who served as the U.S. Poet Laureate in the nineties, and for decades has taught English at the University of California, Berkeley, has published his volumes rather slowly, beginning in 1973. When his new poems turn up, they often embed, almost as an alibi, behind-the-scenes footage of how and where they were written, including outtakes and bloopers. They are shapes made in time, over time, like the mellow hikes and meandering conversations that they sometimes describe. “Summer Snow,” with its patient count of tanagers, warblers, aspens, and gentian, its year-after-year audit of the dead, its tallies of everything from our country’s drone strikes to his friends’ strokes, is Hass’s inner history of the decade. It arrives right on time.
“Nature Notes in the Morning,” an early poem in “Summer Snow,” distills Hass’s method: first, some short, almost neutral captions (“East sides of the trees / Are limned with light”), followed by jotted ideas and judgments (“Just distribution theory: / Light”), along with memories and associations (“What do I know from yesterday?”). The effort is precise, not random, like a chef adjusting his seasonings. The word “notes” has a double meaning, and, as often happens in a Hass poem, a tune starts to form out of scattered impressions. To render “the way light looked on plums,” Hass tells us, the eighteenth-century Japanese artist Itō Jakuchū “smuggled Prussian blues from Europe.” The poem starts to conflate its own colors with the names of painters’ dyes (“Last streaks of sunset: alizarin”) and crests with an anecdote about “the old art historian” who told Hass to pick up a brush and paint “small rectangular daubs so that they shimmer”—or else to “shut up about Cézanne.” Accuracy in painting, which may depend on whether your country has an embargo on the source of the perfect blue, seems to chasten Hass’s comparatively too easy art. But the modest sketch that ends the poem depends on the thick weave of adage and anecdote that precedes it:
Sierra morning.
Bright sun. No wind,
So that stirring in the cottonwood
Must be a warbler.
Here Hass moves from vision to hearing. Poets, after all, work primarily on the ear; they must be trained to recognize a warbler not just by sight but also by sound. Though distinct from the painter’s art, this, too, reflects the lifelong cultivation of skill: the least “natural” thing in nature is a poet peering into the bushes for material.
A Hass poem is a site of instruction, sometimes handed down from Hass’s own masters, like Eugenio Montale, Czesław Miłosz, and Stanley Kunitz. But it’s equally a site of distraction. Hass’s poems about his mentors are full of background, ambience, human overspill; the nugget of inherited wisdom is almost always ironized by circumstance. In “Three Old Men,” Kunitz, having celebrated his hundredth birthday, reports, bluntly, “I don’t recommend it.” Equally terse is the second old man, a Wordsworthian gardener remembered for his runic talk about “the names of plants.” The third aging figure in this fable is Hass himself, his mentors all dead:
Tomorrow I’m
Going to hike to the waterfall
And listen to the sound of it.
“We don’t live altogether in either opinions / Or sensations,” Hass writes in “Montale’s Notebooks,” a poem about “what you want / From poetry.” He slaloms from Montale to Cavafy to the emperor Nero, from a New England picnic in the seventies to a recent day when “a friend came to the door” with a proposition: “Why don’t we get stoned and write a poem together?” What’s the word for a “fast succession of scenes” like this? Hass supplies the answer: “For what that is / I think Husserl invented the term lebenswelt.” The distinct Hass touch is that rather quaint “I think,” which feels like a courtesy from another time, before people got out their phones and Googled such things. (The term means “life-world,” and it’s one of the foundations of phenomenology.)
The finished poem is exquisitely unfinished, a making-of documentary for a scrapped film. It ends with a list of provisional lines that Hass “could have presented to my friend to remind her / Of how we had loved the very idea of the line”—and now presents to the reader instead. This is the core feature of Hass’s work, in my view: an Etch A Sketch method that allows the surface of the completed poem to be erased and revised, with traces of previous attempts, along with gaps for when the lightning strikes. By my unscientific count, these gestures have only become more plentiful in the course of Hass’s career. He sometimes describes his effects the way a critic might (“And now a trick-of-the-senses dissolve”), or annotates them the way an editor might:
Lists of colors to ban from future kingdoms:
(Make list here.)
(Terre verte, alizarin.)
Still other asides function as performance notes for the reader. In “The Archaeology of Plenty,” the word “wound” is followed by a helpful pronunciation guide—“not ‘eu’ but ‘ow’ ”—which has the effect not of rigging the choice but of reminding us that two options exist. Like that slightly stiff “I think,” these moments are meant to expand and share Hass’s authority, to include the reader in the collaborative vibe often depicted in the poems. But they can also read as control by subtler means, wresting back from the reader the power to make his own mistakes.
When I teach Hass, I always ask my students what they think of these fill-in-the-blanks passages. The response is a mixed bag; people have different histories with performed modesty. I love these moments and have learned from them how to do certain things in my own poems, but I’m also watchful, a little distrustful of that extended open hand.
The experience of reading Hass cannot be isolated from his presentation of himself as a reader. His poems are often plotted as developments within the larger, ongoing process of reading and translating his masters. In “Second Person,” Hass wanders the streets of Paris, ducking into a café to work through a Neruda poem, a “line at a time.” A few poems later, we read the finished product, “Pablo Neruda: Only Death.” Hass is among the most demystified of great writers—in person, apparently, as well as on the page. As a teacher, he’s known to greet strays and interlopers with attentiveness.
In a poem called “What the Modernists Wrote About: An Informal Survey,” he humbles that most formidably serious generation of stylistic innovators by reducing them to CliffsNotes versions. T. S. Eliot is “poor Tom”; Ezra Pound “wrote about a number of subjects, as I recall,” including “Chinese history / And being imprisoned in a cage.” Wallace Stevens, a most abstract and cerebral poet indeed, “wrote about the Connecticut River” and “the way sexual magic dissipated in his life.” At times, Hass’s list is profoundly moving (he’s right about Stevens); at other times, it feels like a kind of irreverent joke, turning these stern eminences from the past into cozy Californian boomers. Hass personalizes everything, warms everything up. He’s an open book; but he’s also someone whom readers should, in every sense of the phrase, keep their eye on. ♦


newyorker--2020-01-13--How Far Can Abused Women Go to Protect Themselves?

Snow was falling in Stevenson , Alabama , when Brittany Smith and her brother , Chris McCallie , stopped at a McDonald ’ s .
It was January , 2018 , and Brittany felt happier than she had in a long time .
After years of working low-paying , menial jobs , she was coming from an interview at a flooring company .
She ’ d been hired on the spot , at a wage that would more than cover her expenses , including rent for her four-bedroom red brick house .
Brittany , who is now thirty-two , has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ she struggled with substance abuse , the state removed the eldest three , who eventually went to live with her uncle .
But a long period of good behavior meant that she ’ d soon get increased visitations , and then , she hoped , full custody .
“ I was just uplifted , ” she told me recently .
“ Like , everything is going right .
I have a job now , I ’ m going to get my babies back , and I have a home.
” This piece was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the drive back to her house , Brittany got a call from Todd Smith , an old acquaintance who bred pit bulls in Jasper , Tennessee , just over the state line .
She had visited his house the day before , and taken home a reddish-colored puppy with gray-blue eyes , like her own .
She named her Athena .
Now Todd , who was thirty-eight , asked if she would pick him up from a city park .
He said that he was stranded and freezing , and he had no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t tell her that his father had kicked him out of the house after a violent altercation that ended with Todd ’ s arrest .
Picking Todd up didn ’ t seem like a good idea—according to Brittany , he had expressed romantic interest in her , which she ’ d rejected—and Chris advised her not to .
“ I just had a gut feeling that something was going to happen , ” he said .
Still , the snow was coming down thick and fast .
Brittany told Todd that they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he could stay on the couch for the night ; she didn ’ t want him in the children ’ s beds .
After Chris dropped Brittany and Todd off at her house , they gave the puppy a bath and talked about the meth crisis that had engulfed the Tennessee Valley and derailed their lives .
Brittany had become hooked after losing her grandmother and a baby—to a rare congenital condition—within a year .
She ’ d grown alarmingly skinny , had been arrested for drug possession , and spent two @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was clean .
Todd , who had buzzed hair , flushed cheeks , and a disarming smile , said that he still struggled with drugs .
Brittany urged him to get “ his priorities together , ” telling him about the good job she ’ d just been offered and how her kids might soon come home .
According to her , as she spoke , Todd ’ s face hardened , and he asked if she thought she was better than him .
He then called her a bitch and head-butted her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bedroom and shut the door , but Todd broke through it .
He threw her on the bed and choked her until she passed out .
When she woke up , she was naked and had urinated on herself .
He was raping her , and his hands were tight around her throat .
“ We ’ re friends , ” she tried to say , but her voice sounded squeaky through his grip , like a cartoon character ’ s .
“ We ’ re friends , ” he replied , mocking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a fucking word or I ’ ll kill you.
” As he raped her , Brittany fought back , sobbing and clawing at him so hard that some of her fingernails ripped off .
He twisted her head against the side of the bed until she thought her neck would break .
They fell onto the floor , and again he choked her until she blacked out .
“ Then I woke back up , and let him finish what he was doing , ” Brittany told me .
“ And his whole @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Afterward , Todd said that if she told anyone what had happened he would kill her and everyone she loved—her mother , her brother , and her children .
He wanted cigarettes , and Brittany offered to call someone to take them to the store , since she didn ’ t have a car .
She called her mother , Ramona McCallie , who lived nearby .
Todd held the phone while Brittany talked , and she tried to subtly convey that something was wrong .
Ramona thought that her daughter sounded strange @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crying .
But Ramona was exhausted from a new job cleaning houses , and she sent Chris over .
At a local gas station , Brittany went in for cigarettes while Chris and Todd sat in the car .
In the fluorescent light , the cashier , Paige Painter , who regularly served Brittany , noticed her tangled hair , ripped nails , and scratched face .
“ What happened to you ?
” Painter asked .
In a low voice , Brittany asked for a piece of paper , wrote down “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he ’ d beaten and raped her .
She added that , if she was dead in the morning , he was the person who had done it .
But she made Painter promise not to call the police .
“ If the police were involved , I would be dead right now , ” Brittany said to me .
“ He told me that , and after what he put me through I believed him.
” When Chris again dropped off Brittany and Todd , Brittany told him to go see Painter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ said , he went “ blank.
” Then he drove back to Brittany ’ s house with a registered .22-calibre revolver that he kept in his car .
Meanwhile , Brittany had texted her mother .
“ Mom Todd has tried to kill me literally , ” she wrote .
“ Don ’ t act like anything is wrong .
.
.
He will kill me if he knows.
” Chris said that he found Todd in the kitchen .
“ You need to get your shit and leave , ” Chris told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into a cabinet .
When Todd refused to go , Chris set the gun down on the kitchen island and tried to wrestle him out of the house .
Chris was large but soft ; Todd was barrel-chested , and he had taken a combination of Xanax , amphetamines , alcohol , and meth .
According to Chris , Todd easily got him in a headlock and began choking him .
Brittany , who had been in the living room until hearing the shot , said she picked up the gun from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told Todd to let her brother go .
When he kept choking Chris , saying that he ’ d kill them both , Brittany fired a shot .
When Todd still didn ’ t let go , she fired two more rounds .
After he fell , she called 911 .
“ Someone just got shot at 211 Sharon Drive , ” Brittany told the operator .
“ He—he tried to kill me and— ” As the operator went through a series of questions , Brittany grew frantic .
“ Just have an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want this man to die.
” The operator told her how to do CPR , and Brittany performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Todd while Chris did chest compressions .
Police officers showed up nearly half an hour later , around the time that Todd died .
Brittany detailed how he had beaten and raped her and attacked Chris .
A rape kit showed bruises on her neck , breasts , arms , legs , and pelvis , evidence of strangulation , bite marks on her neck and chin , and secretions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Yet within forty-eight hours she had been charged with murder .
Initially , Chris and Brittany told the police that he had killed Todd .
Both of them believed that a woman who had defended herself against violence would never get a fair trial in Jackson County , where Stevenson is situated .
“ I hate to say this , but , Jackson County , they ’ re a little bit behind on the times , ” Chris told me , arguing that , if law enforcement had known that it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would not have taken her for a rape-kit examination until it was too late .
Women , he said , “ get the short end of the stick.
” Stevenson , once a lively railroad hub , is now riddled with vacant storefronts and empty lots .
A quarter of the town ’ s residents live below the poverty line , and well-paying jobs are scarce .
The town ’ s biggest annual event celebrates the now defunct train station and features lawnmower races and vintage cars .
Between 2015 and 2017 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state average of aggravated assaults per capita .
There were far fewer simple assaults , but the sheriff ’ s office told me that officials categorize some domestic-violence complaints—after , say , a woman has been slapped—as “ harassment , ” a lesser crime .
Nearly every woman I met in the county had a story of domestic violence .
Often , drugs played a role .
One woman , a single mother and a neighbor of the McCallies , told me that her husband of fourteen years , while on meth , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I passed out.
” Another woman told me that she ’ d been sexually assaulted as a child , and that her ex-husband had held her hostage at gunpoint .
On both occasions , she said , authorities made her feel as if she were to blame .
“ Instead of being treated like the victim , it was more like my fault , ” she said .
“ They said if I did anything to him , I would have been the one going to jail .
.
.
.
What am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ beat me and end up dead ?
” When I told the Jackson County sheriff , Chuck Phillips , about these conversations , he insisted that domestic violence and sexual abuse weren ’ t especially common in the county .
“ I don ’ t know who you talked to , but I don ’ t much believe that , ” he said .
“ I mean , our statistics are not outrageous.
” He told me , “ People get high , they get stupid.
” Some of the women said that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they did not have confidence in law enforcement .
Sandra Goodman , a local rape-victim advocate who took on Brittany ’ s case , told me that , when a woman makes a report , the police often “ don ’ t acknowledge it.
” In her role as an advocate , Goodman provides transportation and attends court hearings for women who have been sexually assaulted .
She is also the vice-president of Healing Bridge , a nonprofit in LaFayette , Georgia , which offers free counselling to victims of sexual abuse .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ clients from Jackson County , because resources there are few .
She described the violence in the county as an epidemic .
“ A lot of the time , they take the woman ’ s statement and that ’ s where it stops , ” she said , referring to the local police .
The sheriff ’ s office ’ s handling of the recent deaths of two women has not inspired much confidence .
In 2017 , a year after a woman ’ s body was found on the railroad tracks , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unsolved because of a long delay in receiving the forensic report .
( When I followed up , the sheriff ’ s office cited a lack of evidence . )
In October , 2018 , when another woman was found dead , police initially announced that she ’ d been stabbed ; later , they said that she had been hit by a car .
“ The women getting killed or almost getting killed is going up because they aren ’ t doing anything about it , ” one woman told me .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ waste their time.
” Throughout the two-thousands , Alabama was among the states where a woman was most likely to be murdered by a man , according to F.B.I .
data analyzed by the Violence Policy Center , a gun-crime-prevention group .
In 2011 , Alabama stopped submitting its homicide data to the Bureau , but Georgia and Tennessee , its neighbors , are still in the top ten .
Brittany believed that , if she had not shot Todd , he would have killed her and Chris .
“ I did what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what I did have to do , no doubt in my mind , ” she said .
In March , 2018 , a grand jury indicted Brittany for murder .
She said that she was given legal advice that the prosecution planned to argue that she and Todd had been in a relationship , a claim that she denies .
Her bond was set at a hundred thousand dollars , which her mother , who lived in Stevenson ’ s public housing , could not pay .
If convicted , Brittany faced a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ That month , an investigator for the sheriff ’ s office testified at a pretrial hearing that he didn ’ t believe Todd had tried to kill Brittany .
When asked about her injuries—the rape kit had counted thirty-three—he said , “ Honestly , I mean , I would have thought there would be more.
” In the past several decades , imprisonment of women in the United States has increased at a rate twice that of men ; there are now some two hundred and thirty thousand women incarcerated .
No national @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for violent crimes claim that they were acting in self-defense , but a 2004 study by the Department of Justice , which surveyed sixty female inmates at a maximum-security prison in the Southeast , found that nearly half of them said that they had acted in self-defense or retaliated in the wake of abuse .
“ The women acted in response to being pushed , slapped , punched , beaten , choked , raped , or threatened with a weapon , ” the study ’ s author wrote .
A review by researchers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Yale , in 2008 , which drew on dozens of previous studies , found that when women used violence against male partners it generally occurred after violence was done to them .
The review noted that women were more likely to be motivated by self-defense and by fear , while men ’ s use of violence was more often motivated by control .
“ I ’ ve been beaten in my head with hammers , I had my ear drum busted , I had my nose busted , I been hit in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one woman told researchers .
“ When I started fighting back he know what happens now , [ they ] got these laws where you both fight you go to jail .
So I got a jail record for assault .
.
.
.
God , what is the justice in this ?
” Courts frequently do not take evidence of abuse into account .
Sometimes this is because a woman ’ s lawyer fails to hire an expert witness to testify about the effects of sexual or domestic violence .
A prosecutor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s self-defense claim is invalid because she didn ’ t end a relationship with an abuser , didn ’ t call the police about the violence ( as Brittany didn ’ t ) , or allowed the abuser into her home ( as Brittany did ) .
Or a judge may not permit the evidence of abuse to be presented .
In 2014 , in Tuscaloosa , Alabama , Tracey Grissom was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for murder , for shooting her ex-husband , Hunter .
The judge did not allow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Hunter had been charged with rape and sodomy after allegedly assaulting Grissom .
Grissom said that he had knocked her to the ground , choked her with a drumstick , and sexually abused her until she lost consciousness .
She said the attack caused rectal-nerve damage and required surgery , and that she now used a colostomy bag .
The day of the shooting , she said , she ’ d feared for her life , but eyewitnesses said that she had begun shooting without provocation .
“ I didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , sobbing , after her conviction .
“ All I did was protect myself.
” One of the jurors later said that , if she ’ d been able to hear the details of the abuse , she would have voted to acquit .
Britnea Myers was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to twenty years in 2013 , after stabbing her husband , Timothy , outside Mobile .
She said that Timothy had been abusive since returning from Iraq , where he had served as a member of the Alabama National Guard .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ strangle her to death while she was holding their son .
After receiving her sentence , she told a local TV station , “ I guess in the state of Alabama it ’ s illegal to defend yourself.
” Myers later filed a petition for post-conviction relief , arguing that her counsel had been ineffective in failing to let her testify , and that the prosecution had neglected to hand over photographs of the injuries she had sustained before the stabbing , including wounds to her chest , throat , ankle , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News coverage of these cases largely focusses on the archetypes that the prosecution draws of the women— “ cold-blooded murderer , ” “ evil , ” and “ heartless ” are common descriptions .
The Alabama media , in reporting on Todd ’ s death , did not mention Brittany ’ s rape .
Researchers at nonprofits whom I spoke to were frustrated by a lack of statistics on how many women have been incarcerated for defending themselves .
In some cases , it was almost as if the violence against women didn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ F.B.I .
homicide data performed , at my request , by John Roman , a senior fellow at N.O.R.C .
at the University of Chicago , illuminates the differences in outcomes for women and men who claim self-defense .
Roman examined the number of justifiable homicides—a killing deemed to have been carried out without malicious or criminal intent—between 1976 and 2018 , and found that the likelihood of this ruling in cases in which men killed other men was ten per cent greater than when women killed men .
( Cases in which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are almost never found to be justified . )
In Alabama , the gender disparity was even greater .
Before the state stopped reporting such data to the F.B.I.
, women lost their cases twenty-five per cent more often than men did .
Joshua Todd Smith grew up in Jasper , Tennessee , the seat of Marion County .
His parents divorced when he was young .
According to Jeff Poe , a cousin of Todd ’ s , the two boys loved to explore the surrounding woods and mountains of the Tennessee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a good time when we was kids , ” Poe said .
“ Then we grew up and started experimenting.
” In high school , Poe said , they just drank .
But later Todd started taking opioids , benzodiazepines , and meth , among other drugs .
It was common for men in the valley to settle their differences by fighting , but “ Todd would take it to the next level , ” Poe said .
He almost never lost a fight , and if he did he went back for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they got older , he began to worry that Todd didn ’ t like to be sober ; when he was on something , his violence got worse .
When Todd took Xanax , Poe said , the neighborhood “ was on eggshells.
” Poe , who in 2018 was arrested for meth possession , compared the impact of meth on Todd to Jack Nicholson ’ s warning to Heath Ledger about playing the character of the Joker .
“ Like , don ’ t get too wrapped up in this character , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and it overtook his life.
” Poe has a tattoo on his arm of the Joker , and another of a pit bull , in memory of Todd .
He mostly dealt drugs instead of using them , and blamed himself for Todd ’ s addiction .
In the early two-thousands , Paige Parker was married to Todd .
“ Two weeks after I was married to him .
.
.
he had broke my nose , I couldn ’ t see straight , ” Parker told an online-radio host in early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ crying to myself for a second , and I ’ m , like , I am a strong person , but I was , like , Why was this happening ?
” After that , according to Parker and to arrest reports from the time , the violence escalated .
Todd broke her nose , ribs , and jaw , and bit her on the face .
“ I was also beaten and raped and sodomized for years by this man , ” she said .
“ I know what Brittany went through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it for years.
” While they were married , Todd was charged with domestic violence five times , but he never went to jail for those charges .
Even after Parker filed for divorce , in 2003 , the violence did not end .
She told the radio host that Todd had duct-taped her to a chair and threatened to throw her in the Tennessee River .
In 2004 , she got an order of protection .
“ How can I bench-press twice my weight when there are children in this world who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” After the divorce , Todd continued to be arrested on charges of domestic violence , including toward a woman with whom he had a child , but they were dismissed .
Local law enforcement told me that his accusers often didn ’ t show up in court , a common reason that batterers escape consequences .
Police officers remember Todd well , since they arrested him about eighty times .
A former dispatcher at the Stevenson Police Department said that , around 2009 , when she failed to respond to his flirtation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and tried to tear off her shirt .
“ Ever since he was a juvenile , it ’ s always been something , ” Billy Mason , the chief of the Jasper Police Department , told me .
Mason had responded to complaints about Todd ’ s domestic violence toward women and his father , and about mistreatment of his pit bulls .
( Todd ’ s father declined to comment . )
Of twelve assault charges brought against Todd , seven were dismissed or waived .
“ That ’ s the deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t stand , because nobody stays in jail as long as they need to , ” Mason told me .
He blamed the court system for not doing more to stop domestic abusers : “ We ’ re always the one getting the bad rap , and , you know , sometimes it ’ s a system in the hole.
” After Brittany was charged with Todd ’ s murder , she was placed in the Jackson County jail , in Scottsboro , a squat brick-and-concrete building with ads for bail-bond agents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inmates were there for drug offenses .
In jail , Brittany said , staff did not give her Xanax , which she had been prescribed for anxiety .
Jails can discontinue an inmate ’ s medication , sometimes because they do not have the drugs on hand or because they want an inmate to detox—particularly an inmate , like Brittany , who has a history of substance abuse .
But sudden withdrawal from benzodiazepines such as Xanax can lead to panic attacks and hallucinations , and , within days , Brittany had a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ images of Todd and of pit bulls .
Ramona , her mother , said that she received a call from Brittany in which “ she was talking crazy , and it freaked me out.
” Brittany said that two jailers taunted her , telling her she could push a button on an invisible elevator that would take her to see her children .
( The Jackson County Sheriff ’ s Office declined to comment on this allegation . )
A therapist who saw Brittany several times in jail wrote that she spoke “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ He added that she found it difficult to manage without her medication .
In April , 2018 , Ramona found two people in Jackson County to put up their houses as collateral for bail , and Brittany was released .
She moved into her mother ’ s home and started taking her anti-anxiety medication again , but she could not relax .
Neither could Chris , who was having nightmares and screaming in his sleep .
His name had been published in the local paper after Todd ’ s death , and now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People in Stevenson were gossiping about the rape and the shooting .
Stories circulated that Brittany had been watching porn with Todd before the rape , that Ramona had been at the shooting , that the killing was a drug deal gone wrong .
Jeff Poe , who had lived with Todd , wrote on Facebook that , two nights before the killing , he had seen Brittany naked with Todd .
“ I got up to piss and it looked like national geographic in the house , ” Poe wrote on Facebook @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own damn eyes what the whor did !
!
!
” ( Cindy Boldin Hicks , a friend of Brittany ’ s , said that Brittany was at her house that night , playing cards . )
Poe reiterated his claim to me , saying that , although he believed that Todd could have beaten Brittany , he didn ’ t think that he had raped her .
“ How can you rape the willin ’ ?
” Poe asked .
“ Can you ?
” Even Todd ’ s ex-wife , Paige @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protest in support of Brittany , later said that she didn ’ t want to be associated with the case .
She said that she believes Brittany is using Parker ’ s story of sexual violence as her own .
When I asked Parker if she ’ d seen the results of the rape kit detailing Brittany ’ s injuries , she replied , “ Yeah , well , that could be from rough sex.
” Chris found this absurd .
“ All these people out here saying , ‘ Oh , they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rough sex.
’ No .
I ’ m pretty sure we all know what rough sex is , ” he said .
“ I wouldn ’ t wish being raped on my worst enemy.
” Not long after Brittany ’ s release , she and her mother said , a man on a motorcycle began following her .
Once , he watched her while she ran laps at a local park .
Another time , he followed her to the gas station where she had bought cigarettes the night of the shooting .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , he told her that he was a relative of Todd ’ s , and that he was there because Todd had been shot by a “ white nigger.
” “ He was just letting me know that he knew , ” Brittany said .
“ And to let me know who he was.
” That June , Brittany stopped leaving Ramona ’ s apartment , a cramped but homey two-bedroom , except to visit her children .
Chris rarely left , either , other than to try to find work .
Summers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with mosquitoes .
At night , children chase one another on bikes , and adults smoke cigarettes on porches and talk until late .
Brittany joined them on the porch , but didn ’ t want to go with her mother to Walmart or the dollar store .
To distract herself from the upcoming trial , she made funny videos on TikTok with friends online or with children in the neighborhood .
In one video , Brittany performs “ Where Is the Love ?
, ” by the Black Eyed Peas , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sings , her tears are real .
The court appointed a local criminal-defense and personal-injury attorney named James Mick , a former police officer , to defend Brittany , because she could not afford to hire a lawyer .
There is no statewide public-defender system in Alabama , so courts often appoint private attorneys to provide defense for the indigent .
These attorneys are paid little for their time and have scant incentive to take a case to trial .
Mick typically handled low-level drug cases , burglaries , custody suits , divorces @ @ @ @ @ @ @ assigned to Brittany ’ s case , she said , he advised her to plead guilty to manslaughter .
The conviction would carry a sentence of between two and twenty years .
Brittany refused , telling him that it was clear she ’ d shot Todd in self-defense , and she asked him to enter a Stand Your Ground defense .
The statute , which was introduced in Alabama in 2006 , makes it legal to use lethal force to defend oneself against threats or perceived threats , with no duty to retreat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and advocates say that they empower people to protect themselves in grave situations .
As Wayne LaPierre , the head of the National Rifle Association and a proponent of Stand Your Ground laws , has said , “ The one thing a violent rapist deserves to face is a good woman with a gun.
” Victor Revill , an Alabama criminal-defense attorney who has handled many Stand Your Ground claims , reviewed Brittany ’ s case , at my request , and said that it was “ Stand Your Ground all day.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the charges against her would be dismissed .
Mick initially filed for a Stand Your Ground hearing , but in October , 2018 , he instead pursued a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity , a rare defense that is difficult to win .
He requested an evaluation from a state psychologist , which would assess Brittany ’ s competency to stand trial and her mental state at the time of the shooting .
Brittany said that Mick made this decision without consulting or informing her .
( Mick denies this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had not met in months , despite her frequent efforts to reach him .
Brittany said that their only contact in the weeks before the filing had been an argument over his representation .
Ramona forwarded me more than a dozen unanswered e-mails she had sent to Mick .
( Mick said that Ramona is not his client . )
“ I just don ’ t feel like he ’ s fighting for Brittany , ” she said .
I spoke to Mick in his office , and asked him about Ramona ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and said , “ You can leave.
” He refused to speak to me again .
Sandra Goodman , the rape-victim advocate , said that Brittany saw a psychiatrist from Healing Bridge several times , and that there was nothing that indicated mental illness .
“ Brittany has no mental-health issues other than P.T.S.D.
, ” Goodman said .
“ P.T.S.D .
from the rape—and the judicial system.
” After meeting with Brittany , the state psychologist wrote a report depicting her as upset and anxious .
He began by noting that Brittany @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the receptionist ’ s desk , which he described as unusual .
( Brittany told me that she hadn ’ t eaten that day , which was often the case , because of a lack of money . )
He wrote that she had cried so much that he ’ d had to get tissues for her .
Brittany told me that , when she described how Todd had mimicked her voice during the rape , the psychologist laughed .
Incensed , she started cursing .
The psychologist noted in the report @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ ill-at-ease.
” ( When reached by phone and e-mail , he at first said that he didn ’ t remember Brittany , then said that he doesn ’ t believe Brittany ’ s recollection is accurate . )
The psychologist suggested that Brittany suffered from paranoid thoughts .
He reported that she believed Todd Smith ’ s family was after her .
“ His family has a hit out on me , ” Brittany told him .
He wrote that Brittany had trouble differentiating fantasy from reality .
Yet Jeff Poe told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ death , he considered having Brittany killed .
“ I did pick up the phone after that happened and called a friend of mine , ” Poe told me .
“ I could have had something done , but I didn ’ t want the blood on my hands.
” The psychologist concluded that Brittany was showing symptoms of a psychotic disorder , which he wrote could be exacerbated or caused by substance abuse .
He said that she had told him she ’ d relapsed on meth earlier that fall .
Brittany @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the time of the interview .
In order to regain competency to stand trial , the psychologist wrote , she would need outpatient or inpatient treatment .
In a pretrial hearing that followed , Jason Pierce , the district attorney of Jackson County , said , “ The most appropriate and perhaps the only placement for Ms. Smith would be at the Bryce Hospital , ” the state ’ s oldest inpatient facility , in Tuscaloosa , which houses the seriously mentally ill. Pierce went on to suggest that the shooting may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delusions ” Brittany suffered , and that , although she had passed a drug test the day before , she could have faked it .
( Pierce declined to talk to me . )
The judge sent her to Bryce .
Goodman was appalled .
“ There was nothing that should have caused her to go to Bryce , ” she said .
“ No reason , none at all.
” Mary Anne Franks , a professor at the University of Miami School of Law , who wrote a study of gender disparity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Advance , Real Women Retreat , ” argues that women have long been pathologized for acting in self-defense .
Battered-woman syndrome , a theory developed by a psychologist in the nineteen-seventies , has often been deployed as a defense in cases in which a woman has killed her abuser .
Franks writes that , although the argument has sometimes been successful , it is based on the idea of female irrationality .
Unlike Stand Your Ground laws , which offer justification for a defendant ’ s action , battered-woman syndrome proposes that a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is so defective in some significant sense that she can not be held accountable , ” Franks writes .
She told me that , even when battered-woman syndrome is not mentioned in court , women who fight back “ are treated pathologically , treated as if there is something wrong with their brains.
” Last June , I went to see Brittany at Bryce , once known as the Alabama State Hospital for the Insane .
Outside the hospital , a three-story brick building with imposing white columns , stands a statue of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , carrying ambrosia and nectar .
Opened in 1861 , Bryce was initially considered a progressive mental institution .
But , as the patient population increased , the quality of care sharply declined .
By 1971 , conditions had deteriorated so significantly that patients filed a class-action lawsuit against the state over their mistreatment .
The resulting settlement established the federal minimum standard of care for the mentally ill. Brittany was in an all-female ward , where one of her roommates told her that she had been institutionalized after skinning her sister ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Another patient regularly lay on the floor and played dead , which distressed Brittany , because it reminded her of Todd .
She had again been taken off her anti-anxiety medication .
In the cafeteria , a staff member watched as Brittany told me about the abuse of patients by staff .
She said that , after she refused to pick up another roommate ’ s feces , a male nurse had pushed her against the wall and twisted her arm behind her back .
( Another patient confirmed the incident .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ later taunted her and asked her to flash him .
( A call to Bryce ’ s patient advocate about these allegations was not returned ; I later learned that he had been arrested for possession of child pornography .
He has pleaded not guilty . )
Brittany kept a journal at Bryce , and had the pages mailed to her mother .
“ May 16 : injured elbow .
.
.
sexually assaulted in my sleep , ” Brittany wrote .
She had woken up to her roommate touching her .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ old Jaleria.
” The state psychologist had estimated that Brittany would regain competency within ninety days .
But after six months she was still at Bryce , despite attention brought to her case by a piece on the Web site the Appeal .
Staff members told me that she didn ’ t belong there .
Brittany said that the longer she stayed the more she feared she was going to crack , and then she ’ d be held longer .
“ There isn ’ t another person that can keep their composure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mother , then wept .
When Ramona called Bryce to find out why Brittany was still there , she was told there was a backlog of patients to evaluate for release .
( The Alabama Department of Mental Health declined to comment . )
Last September , Brittany was released from Bryce to jail , then home .
Ramona videotaped her reunion with her children at a local park .
Ramona told them that a surprise was waiting , and then Brittany jumped out from behind a tree .
Her children rushed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ boys began to cry .
As Brittany awaited trial , she tried to put her life back together .
She nervously picked at herself , developing small scabs on her arms and her hands .
She and Ramona barely ate .
Most of their money had gone toward getting Brittany out of jail after Bryce .
Chris had found a job , cleaning restaurants on overnight shifts .
But the family still hadn ’ t had enough to cover Brittany ’ s bond , so Ramona had given a bondswoman the titles to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wedding rings as collateral .
In October , the district attorney offered Brittany a deal : a sentence of twenty-five years if she pleaded guilty , less than she might expect if she were convicted of murder .
Brittany refused to consider it .
She was determined to claim self-defense , in part for her children .
“ I want them to know that Mommy ’ s not a murderer , that Mommy defended herself , and that you should always defend yourself , ” she said .
James Mick had filed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now had another court-appointed attorney , Ron Smith .
In December , once Smith had been briefed , Brittany tried to fire Mick , but later decided that it was too close to trial .
Her Stand Your Ground hearing was scheduled for January , 2020 .
Brittany wasn ’ t optimistic that she ’ d win .
It seemed to her like a law that applied only to white men .
When she was in Bryce , she noted the number of TV news stories about people who successfully argued Stand Your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In his analysis for The New Yorker , John Roman , the researcher from the University of Chicago , found that , over all , according to F.B.I .
data , Stand Your Ground laws have actually helped both women and men win justifiable-homicide defenses .
But in some states the laws have done little or nothing for women .
A statistical analysis of Stand Your Ground cases in Florida , conducted by the political scientist Justin Murphy , looked at two hundred and thirty-seven incidents between 2005 and 2013 .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Science Quarterly , in 2017 , found evidence of both racial and gender bias .
The gender bias applied to “ domestic ” cases—those which occurred on a defendant ’ s property .
The probability of conviction for a male defendant in such a case was about forty per cent ; for a woman , it was about eighty per cent .
The analysis suggests that , in domestic cases , Stand Your Ground works better for men than for women .
In Alabama , Roman found , no women received justifiable-homicide rulings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Stand Your Ground law was implemented , and 2010 , after which the state stopped reporting its data .
Since then , a handful of women in Alabama have won Stand Your Ground immunity .
But some women with persuasive self-defense claims continue to lose .
In 2017 , Deven Grey fatally shot her boyfriend , Barry Walsh , in Calera , south of Birmingham , during an alleged domestic dispute .
Her lawyer wrote in a court filing that Walsh had been abusive throughout the relationship , and that , on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ caused her substantial physical injuries , ” including hitting her , pistol-whipping her , and breaking bones in her face .
When the police arrived , she was bleeding from the head .
Walsh , with whom she had a child , had fired multiple shots in the home , her lawyer said .
Yet Grey ’ s Stand Your Ground claim was rejected , because the judge questioned whether the threat to her life had been immediate .

Snow was falling in Stevenson, Alabama, when Brittany Smith and her brother, Chris McCallie, stopped at a McDonald’s. It was January, 2018, and Brittany felt happier than she had in a long time. After years of working low-paying, menial jobs, she was coming from an interview at a flooring company. She’d been hired on the spot, at a wage that would more than cover her expenses, including rent for her four-bedroom red brick house. Brittany, who is now thirty-two, has four children. In 2013, after she struggled with substance abuse, the state removed the eldest three, who eventually went to live with her uncle. But a long period of good behavior meant that she’d soon get increased visitations, and then, she hoped, full custody. “I was just uplifted,” she told me recently. “Like, everything is going right. I have a job now, I’m going to get my babies back, and I have a home.”
This piece was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
On the drive back to her house, Brittany got a call from Todd Smith, an old acquaintance who bred pit bulls in Jasper, Tennessee, just over the state line. She had visited his house the day before, and taken home a reddish-colored puppy with gray-blue eyes, like her own. She named her Athena.
Now Todd, who was thirty-eight, asked if she would pick him up from a city park. He said that he was stranded and freezing, and he had no one else to call. He didn’t tell her that his father had kicked him out of the house after a violent altercation that ended with Todd’s arrest. Picking Todd up didn’t seem like a good idea—according to Brittany, he had expressed romantic interest in her, which she’d rejected—and Chris advised her not to. “I just had a gut feeling that something was going to happen,” he said.
Still, the snow was coming down thick and fast. Brittany told Todd that they’d pick him up, and that he could stay on the couch for the night; she didn’t want him in the children’s beds.
After Chris dropped Brittany and Todd off at her house, they gave the puppy a bath and talked about the meth crisis that had engulfed the Tennessee Valley and derailed their lives. Brittany had become hooked after losing her grandmother and a baby—to a rare congenital condition—within a year. She’d grown alarmingly skinny, had been arrested for drug possession, and spent two weeks in jail. But now she was clean. Todd, who had buzzed hair, flushed cheeks, and a disarming smile, said that he still struggled with drugs. Brittany urged him to get “his priorities together,” telling him about the good job she’d just been offered and how her kids might soon come home.
According to her, as she spoke, Todd’s face hardened, and he asked if she thought she was better than him. He then called her a bitch and head-butted her. Terrified, she ran into her bedroom and shut the door, but Todd broke through it. He threw her on the bed and choked her until she passed out. When she woke up, she was naked and had urinated on herself. He was raping her, and his hands were tight around her throat. “We’re friends,” she tried to say, but her voice sounded squeaky through his grip, like a cartoon character’s. “We’re friends,” he replied, mocking her. “Don’t say a fucking word or I’ll kill you.”
As he raped her, Brittany fought back, sobbing and clawing at him so hard that some of her fingernails ripped off. He twisted her head against the side of the bed until she thought her neck would break. They fell onto the floor, and again he choked her until she blacked out. “Then I woke back up, and let him finish what he was doing,” Brittany told me. “And his whole face changed, he was normal.”
Afterward, Todd said that if she told anyone what had happened he would kill her and everyone she loved—her mother, her brother, and her children. He wanted cigarettes, and Brittany offered to call someone to take them to the store, since she didn’t have a car.
She called her mother, Ramona McCallie, who lived nearby. Todd held the phone while Brittany talked, and she tried to subtly convey that something was wrong. Ramona thought that her daughter sounded strange, as if she’d been crying. But Ramona was exhausted from a new job cleaning houses, and she sent Chris over.
At a local gas station, Brittany went in for cigarettes while Chris and Todd sat in the car. In the fluorescent light, the cashier, Paige Painter, who regularly served Brittany, noticed her tangled hair, ripped nails, and scratched face. “What happened to you?” Painter asked.
In a low voice, Brittany asked for a piece of paper, wrote down “Todd Smith,” and said that he’d beaten and raped her. She added that, if she was dead in the morning, he was the person who had done it. But she made Painter promise not to call the police. “If the police were involved, I would be dead right now,” Brittany said to me. “He told me that, and after what he put me through I believed him.”
When Chris again dropped off Brittany and Todd, Brittany told him to go see Painter. At the gas station, Chris said, he went “blank.” Then he drove back to Brittany’s house with a registered .22-calibre revolver that he kept in his car. Meanwhile, Brittany had texted her mother. “Mom Todd has tried to kill me literally,” she wrote. “Don’t act like anything is wrong . . . He will kill me if he knows.”
Chris said that he found Todd in the kitchen. “You need to get your shit and leave,” Chris told him, and accidentally fired a shot into a cabinet. When Todd refused to go, Chris set the gun down on the kitchen island and tried to wrestle him out of the house. Chris was large but soft; Todd was barrel-chested, and he had taken a combination of Xanax, amphetamines, alcohol, and meth. According to Chris, Todd easily got him in a headlock and began choking him.
Brittany, who had been in the living room until hearing the shot, said she picked up the gun from the counter. Sobbing and screaming, she told Todd to let her brother go. When he kept choking Chris, saying that he’d kill them both, Brittany fired a shot. When Todd still didn’t let go, she fired two more rounds. After he fell, she called 911.
“Someone just got shot at 211 Sharon Drive,” Brittany told the operator. “He—he tried to kill me and—” As the operator went through a series of questions, Brittany grew frantic. “Just have an ambulance come, please, because I don’t want this man to die.” The operator told her how to do CPR, and Brittany performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Todd while Chris did chest compressions.
Police officers showed up nearly half an hour later, around the time that Todd died. Brittany detailed how he had beaten and raped her and attacked Chris. A rape kit showed bruises on her neck, breasts, arms, legs, and pelvis, evidence of strangulation, bite marks on her neck and chin, and secretions on her neck and in her vagina. Yet within forty-eight hours she had been charged with murder.
Initially, Chris and Brittany told the police that he had killed Todd. Both of them believed that a woman who had defended herself against violence would never get a fair trial in Jackson County, where Stevenson is situated. “I hate to say this, but, Jackson County, they’re a little bit behind on the times,” Chris told me, arguing that, if law enforcement had known that it was Brittany who fired the gun, they would not have taken her for a rape-kit examination until it was too late. Women, he said, “get the short end of the stick.”
Stevenson, once a lively railroad hub, is now riddled with vacant storefronts and empty lots. A quarter of the town’s residents live below the poverty line, and well-paying jobs are scarce. The town’s biggest annual event celebrates the now defunct train station and features lawnmower races and vintage cars.
Between 2015 and 2017, Jackson County had more than double the state average of aggravated assaults per capita. There were far fewer simple assaults, but the sheriff’s office told me that officials categorize some domestic-violence complaints—after, say, a woman has been slapped—as “harassment,” a lesser crime.
Nearly every woman I met in the county had a story of domestic violence. Often, drugs played a role. One woman, a single mother and a neighbor of the McCallies, told me that her husband of fourteen years, while on meth, had “stomped my head in until I passed out.” Another woman told me that she’d been sexually assaulted as a child, and that her ex-husband had held her hostage at gunpoint. On both occasions, she said, authorities made her feel as if she were to blame. “Instead of being treated like the victim, it was more like my fault,” she said. “They said if I did anything to him, I would have been the one going to jail. . . . What am I supposed to do, let him beat me and end up dead?”
Fighting back against rapists and abusers is a valid legal defense. But women with persuasive self-defense claims continue to be charged with murder.
When I told the Jackson County sheriff, Chuck Phillips, about these conversations, he insisted that domestic violence and sexual abuse weren’t especially common in the county. “I don’t know who you talked to, but I don’t much believe that,” he said. “I mean, our statistics are not outrageous.” He told me, “People get high, they get stupid.”


The Mail

I am grateful to Peter Schjeldahl for his beautiful , brave , honest essay about confronting the end of his life ( “ 77 Sunset Me , ” December 23rd ) .
I don ’ t usually cry while reading The New Yorker .
But I have so enjoyed Schjeldahl ’ s encounters with art—the experience , the conversation , the writing .
I don ’ t feel as if I am losing a friend , exactly ; it ’ s more like losing someone I used to run into regularly , who always had thoughtful things to say and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of me expected this critic ’ s voice to remain ever present .
Oracles are not supposed to die .
They are supposed to go on spouting wisdom eternally .
I wish Mr. Schjeldahl and his family the best .
Schjeldahl , reflecting on forty-six years with his wife , Brooke , writes , “ I am so glad we stayed together that , for once in my verbose life , words to express it fail me.
” I was so moved , reading his funny , sad , fascinating essay , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I can say is that I wish I knew him .
Actually , thanks to this affecting piece of writing , I feel as if I do .
And , as a matter of fact , I consider him a friend—one I ’ ll miss when he moves on .
Schjeldahl is the best art writer of our era , and one of the best critics ever .
His comments on painters from Velázquez to Warhol ring as true now as they did the day they were written .
His autobiographical essay shows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to teach us about dying , courage , addiction , authenticity , being lost , and the possibility of finding oneself late in life .
Thank you , Peter .
Schjeldahl ’ s farewell essay is both a gut punch and a gift .
It is a testament to his genius that I both laughed and cried while reading the piece .
Peter—may I call him Peter ?
for he seems like a personal acquaintance , after all these years—has , time after time , delivered astute articles on the full spectrum of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have fallen outside my range of interests , he has often convinced me that the limitation is all mine—teaching openness , in other words , by beautiful example .
He is an enricher of lives , of life ; he is a true poet .
I hope he knows how much his work and words have meant , and will continue to mean , to his readers .
Tyler Foggatt ’ s piece about the film adaptation of “ Cats ” mentions that some people criticize the musical for having no plot ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 23rd ) .
I was a member of the West End cast in 1989 and 1996 , and I can tell you that “ Cats ” didn ’ t make sense to anyone then , either .
It wasn ’ t supposed to .
Trevor Nunn , the director , was more interested in exploring what connects human beings to felines .
He asked us to improvise physically in rehearsal , approximating , as closely as possible , the “ effanineffable ” —that slippery concept invented by T. S. Eliot in “ The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sung near the beginning of the show .
Like Eliot , Nunn was trying to capture the inscrutability of those beloved , furniture-destroying beasts .
That ’ s the whole story—and , with Eliot ’ s charming observations about British society , a fine one it is , plot or no plot .
Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and may be published in any medium @ @ @ @ @ @ @ volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

Notes on Endings
I am grateful to Peter Schjeldahl for his beautiful, brave, honest essay about confronting the end of his life (“77 Sunset Me,” December 23rd). I don’t usually cry while reading The New Yorker. But I have so enjoyed Schjeldahl’s encounters with art—the experience, the conversation, the writing. I don’t feel as if I am losing a friend, exactly; it’s more like losing someone I used to run into regularly, who always had thoughtful things to say and opinions to share. A childish part of me expected this critic’s voice to remain ever present. Oracles are not supposed to die. They are supposed to go on spouting wisdom eternally. I wish Mr. Schjeldahl and his family the best.
Michele Rabkin
Oakland, Calif.
Schjeldahl, reflecting on forty-six years with his wife, Brooke, writes, “I am so glad we stayed together that, for once in my verbose life, words to express it fail me.” I was so moved, reading his funny, sad, fascinating essay, that words almost fail me now. All I can say is that I wish I knew him. Actually, thanks to this affecting piece of writing, I feel as if I do. And, as a matter of fact, I consider him a friend—one I’ll miss when he moves on.
Russell Patrick
Santa Barbara, Calif.
Schjeldahl is the best art writer of our era, and one of the best critics ever. His comments on painters from Velázquez to Warhol ring as true now as they did the day they were written. His autobiographical essay shows that he also has a great deal to teach us about dying, courage, addiction, authenticity, being lost, and the possibility of finding oneself late in life. Thank you, Peter.
Theodore E. Stebbins
Curator of American Art, Emeritus
Fogg Museum, Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.
Schjeldahl’s farewell essay is both a gut punch and a gift. It is a testament to his genius that I both laughed and cried while reading the piece. Peter—may I call him Peter? for he seems like a personal acquaintance, after all these years—has, time after time, delivered astute articles on the full spectrum of art. When the exhibitions under review have fallen outside my range of interests, he has often convinced me that the limitation is all mine—teaching openness, in other words, by beautiful example. He is an enricher of lives, of life; he is a true poet. I hope he knows how much his work and words have meant, and will continue to mean, to his readers.
Karen Smythe
Guelph, Ont.
The Nature of “Cats”
Tyler Foggatt’s piece about the film adaptation of “Cats” mentions that some people criticize the musical for having no plot (The Talk of the Town, December 23rd). I was a member of the West End cast in 1989 and 1996, and I can tell you that “Cats” didn’t make sense to anyone then, either. It wasn’t supposed to. Trevor Nunn, the director, was more interested in exploring what connects human beings to felines. He asked us to improvise physically in rehearsal, approximating, as closely as possible, the “effanineffable”—that slippery concept invented by T. S. Eliot in “The Naming of Cats,” which is sung near the beginning of the show. Like Eliot, Nunn was trying to capture the inscrutability of those beloved, furniture-destroying beasts. That’s the whole story—and, with Eliot’s charming observations about British society, a fine one it is, plot or no plot.
Betsy Marrion
New York City
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newyorker--2020-01-13--Slide Show: New Yorker Cartoons January 20, 2020

“ How can I bench-press twice my weight when there are children in this world who don ’ t even @ @ @ @

“How can I bench-press twice my weight when there are children in this world who don’t even have weights?”
Cartoon by P. C. Vey


newyorker--2020-01-13--A Psychiatrist and an Artist Walk Into a New York Bar

If it seems like everyone you pass on the sidewalk is either a psychiatrist or an artist , you might @ @ @ @ @ .
An analysis of nationwide labor surveys turned up twenty-four occupations that are way more @ @ @ @ @ in the rest of the country .
Row 1 ( from top ) : photographers @ @ @ @ @ in N.Y.C .
; fitness trainers : 1.4x ; writers : 2.5x ; taxi-drivers and @ @ @ @ @ health aides : 3.9x .
Row 2 : lawyers : 1.9x ; laundry and dry-cleaning @ @ @ @ @ collectors : 1.3x ; fine artists : 1.8x ; jewellers : 2.8x .
Row 3 @ @ @ @ @ crossing guards : 2.6x ; architects : 1.7x ; manicurists : 3.7x .
Row 4 @ @ @ @ @ ; psychiatrists : 2.3x ; financial analysts : 2.8x ; bailiffs : 2.3x ; art @ @ @ @ @ 5 : janitors and cleaners : 1.3x ; hairdressers and cosmetologists : 1.2x ; clergy @ @ @ @ @ and flight engineers : 1.7x ; flight attendants : 2.0x .

If it seems like everyone you pass on the sidewalk is either a psychiatrist or an artist, you might be in New York City. An analysis of nationwide labor surveys turned up twenty-four occupations that are way more common here than they are in the rest of the country.
Row 1 (from top): photographers: 1.4 times more common in N.Y.C.; fitness trainers: 1.4x; writers: 2.5x; taxi-drivers and chauffeurs: 1.3x; home health aides: 3.9x. Row 2: lawyers: 1.9x; laundry and dry-cleaning workers: 1.3x; refuse collectors: 1.3x; fine artists: 1.8x; jewellers: 2.8x. Row 3: bussers: 1.3x; crossing guards: 2.6x; architects: 1.7x; manicurists: 3.7x. Row 4: fashion designers: 5.9x; psychiatrists: 2.3x; financial analysts: 2.8x; bailiffs: 2.3x; art directors: 3.3x. Row 5: janitors and cleaners: 1.3x; hairdressers and cosmetologists: 1.2x; clergy: 1.6x; airline pilots and flight engineers: 1.7x; flight attendants: 2.0x.