As Bad as It Gets
When I was six, an aunt gave me a book of fairy tales in which I discovered Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Fir Tree.” The story, which...
The Illusion of Invincibility
People who have lived under the rule of a charismatic autocrat—caudillo may be the most precise word—have no trouble recognizing the nature of Donald Trump’s grip...
The Lie of American Asylum
At the beginning of August, as coronavirus cases continued to spike across the country, I interviewed a Mexican asylum seeker as part of a project to...
How the Awful Stuff Won
We all could have ignored the Westboro Baptist Church, theoretically, but the opportunity to be party to a morality play seemed unusual and interesting, back then....
Disorders of the Heart
In an essay about short story collections called “Only Collect,” Peter Ho Davies discusses two different ways a writer might put together such a book. There...
Thinking Outside the ‘Pico Box’
Learned men in the Renaissance loved oratory as deeply as politicians did in the nineteenth century, and they practiced it with skill and dedication. They wrote...
Why Was She So Hated?
Lock her up! In this case, they not only locked her up but also cut off her head. It is not often that a queen is...
Storm the Polls Like the Ones Before Us Stormed Pulpits
On May 4, 1969, James Forman, the former executive secretary of SNCC, stormed the pulpit at Riverside Church in New York City in the middle of...
Naples, Florida
A storm breathes—down our necks, yes, but also oxygenated by its warm air intake. As it knocks about the Bahamas, ours is bated; fresh water “flies...
