Tag: The New Yorker

  • ODDS and ENDS: Boycott, Data, and the WAPO

    (Nothing really matters…)

    Today is the Economic Blackout, if you haven’t heard, and our household is taking part in it. Yesterday, I ran all around town and did all of our shopping, and even gassed up the car, just in case. It can be rather tough to not spend money in New York, as it feels like you spend $20 the second you step outside of your apartment. I am confident in the reasons we are doing this (corporate greed, wealth inequality, oligarchs, inflation, Elon, Trump…) and I also know that other people have their reasons as well. I also know that many people out there think that doing something like this is meaningless and more theatrics than action. But, I will say this; if you are upset with how things are going, then it’s time to do something, even a “little” something. I won’t sit on my hands any longer waiting for someone else to say or doing something. What’s the saying? If you want change, you have to make the change.

    And as long as we are talking about boycotts; when will there be a boycott against the largest greediest companies in America? Talking about Meta, Apple and Google. (I would think the Economic Blackout would affect Amazon, but what the hell, we can throw them in as well.) Do we need to stop using our phones and computers for a day? Delete their apps? How do we stop these companies from getting what they really want from us; our data. What does a data boycott look like?

    And finally, I’d like to take a swing at the Washington Post while I’m at it. This morning I received an email from the editors at The Drift with an essay written by James Woods, the staff writer and book critic at The New Yorker and not that other James Woods. The email/essay delved into the stupidity of Jeff Bezos’ letter announcing the change in policy to The Washington Post’s editorial page. Long story short, Bezos is ordering that there will only be one opinion on the WAPO Opinion Page, which will be to support Personal Liberty and Free Markets. Woods’ does an excellent job in pointing out the hypocrisy and illogic in Bezos statement, and to me, signals the end of what The Washington Post used to stand for under Graham/Bradlee. (I would post a link to the essay, but it seems to only be an email at this time. If a link becomes available, I’ll share it.) With all of that having been said, I have a fantastical idea! Bezos bought the Post for $250 million, which is roughly what Elon spent to get Trump elected, so what if all the liberal billionaires, and all the other billionaires who hate Bezos, pooled some money together, say $250 million, and started a new newspaper in D.C. Then hire the whole WAPO staff away, and leave Jeff with a worthless company. Right? Isn’t that the only way to fight the oligarchy, is with the oligarchy?

  • Short Story Review: “Keuka Lake” by Joseph O’Neill

    (The short story “Keuka Lake” by Joseph O’Neill appeared in the March 3rd, 2025 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Annie Collinge for The New Yorker

    I don’t know if you know this, but grief is a really popular theme for short stories. (That and bad relationships with parents, but that’s a story for another day.) Grief lends itself easily to the dramatic, and is also individualistic, and it can also be shocking as to what emotions and memories it will bring up. Everyone grieves differently, and maybe I was a little flippant at the start of this, because maybe my past grief still makes me uncomfortable.  Parts of “Keuka Lake” tapped on my past grief, but in the end Joseph O’Neill’s story meandered, leaving an unsteady feeling to the work.

    The story starts off with a banger of a first paragraph, letting us know that Nadia, the protagonist, has been involved with someone from a teenager to the day she became a widower at fifty-four. Her husband was killed in a car crash near a town in the Finger Lakes, and Nadia never knew why her husband was driving up there. And then the story just flutters about. We follow Nadia to a visit to her sister on Montreal, and then an early return to the States, where she gets a speeding ticket. She then looks up a former boyfriend, who is a lawyer, to take care of the ticket, and though she never sees the lawyer, Nadia engages his secretary to look into the reasons why her husband was in the Finger Lakes.

    I say that the story “meanders” and “flutters” because the story never feels like it takes anyone seriously. The tone that is taken towards everyone that isn’t Nadia is condescending and rather dismissive. I understand that Nadia is lost without her husband, and she isn’t sure how to react or behave normally, as everything has a level of annoyance to her. But at the end of the story, I can’t say conclusively that Nadia learned anything. There is no catharsis, or release, or even a realization of anything. I believe the last section of the story was to provide that, but it felt too random and disjointed, though I understood that Keuka Lake is near the town where Nadia’s husband was killed, and I guess we are all the fish in our grief.

  • Best of 2024: Best Post of the Year – Short Story Review: “That Girl” by Addie Citchens

    (“That Girl” was the best story I read all of 2024; Hands down, no question. I am putting it up here, not for my feeble attempt at writing a review over it, but because I still think it’s an amazing story and you should read it.)

    (The short story “That Girl” by Addie Citchens appeared in the February 12th and 19th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Derek Abella

    Oh, it’s so much fun reading something that reminds you how powerful a short story can be. In a very deft, strong, subtle and powerful voice, Addie Citchens presents a complex and compelling narrative, as well as a fascinating character in Theo. “That Girl” is the type of story that, at the same time, inspires me to keep writing, and also reminds me how high that bar is to create something inspiring.

    I could say that this is a story about first love, but that description would be disservice to all the elements and themes in this story. Maybe not love, but it is about the discovery of passion and desire where it never existed before. Of kindness, and menace, and doing something that’s been deemed wrong but at the same time awakens the knowledge of the larger world around you, and how could that be wrong?

    Citchens’ takes us on Theo’s journey, which begins during her summer before she goes into ninth grade. One hot day she meets Shirlee, an older girl who should be going into eleventh grade but is still in ninth. This first section perfectly works at setting up the whole story, showing the desire, motivations, and direction of the characters. And the world these characters occupy is a place where violence is always just below the surface, and these girls are aware of it, and how powerless it can make them. It is easy to understand how and why Theo finds Shirlee’s kindness and understanding so intoxicating, especially for a girl who feels isolated in her loneliness.

    As I have been thinking about this story, and there are so many things to talk about, but I have been marveling at Citchens’ language, and her structuring of this story. Reading the piece, I never felt like a word was wasted. The language was pared down to the most essential and powerful. I was on Theo’s journey, and it would take time, but never did I feel like my time was wasted. (I can’t explain it, but I felt like Citchens respected the reader more than any writer I have read in a very long time.) And the structure of the story was in the mold of the “hero’s journey” but never for a second did it feel contrived or predictable. This was a brutal, at times, but honest journey that laid out it’s points so well, that when the story concluded, I knew the choice that Theo had to make, but I was still left heartbroken for her.

    And there are layers and layers to this story. I haven’t touched on half of them; mother’s and daughter, religion, sexual assault, growth and confidence, generational abuse… But also love, compassion, validation, and just listening… But I don’t to spoil this work, and ruin the magic spell that this story is. Addie Citchen’s “That Girl” is the best thing I have read in a long time. It is technically well crafted, beautifully written, and I love the character of Theo and wish I could learn more about her journey in this world.

  • Best of 2024: Most Viewed Post Written in 2024 – Short Story Review: “Neighbors” by Zach Williams

    (I’m a big fan of Zach Williams, and clearly, many people are as well. This was written back in March of 2024.)

    (The short story “Neighbors” by Zach Williams appeared in the March 25th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Photograph by Devin Oktar Yalkin

    A movie I love, just deeply admire, is Picnic on Hanging Rock by Peter Weir. For a movie that was a hit, and enormously influential, I have met very few people who have seen it. I won’t go into too much detail on it, but it’s a movie about the experience of being involved with a mystery. The characters in the film evolve and grow because of the mystery, and in a sense, the resolution of the mystery is not needed for the story. I can’t prove it, but Zach Williams might have seen this movie, and if he hasn’t, he should watch it, as I think he’d like it.

    “Neighbors” is the second story I have read by Williams, and it is 100% the opposite of “Wood Sorrel House,” yet both stories, just like Hanging Rock, revolve around mysteries that never get solved,  but aren’t really about the mysteries. “Neighbors” is about a man doing a favor and checks in on his elderly neighbor. And I am leaving it at that because I don’t want to ruin the fun of this story.

    Just like in “Wood Sorrel House,” “Neighbors” just got stuck in my head, and wouldn’t go away. The story kept poking at me, asking me to reflect on some of the experiences that I have had, how I reacted in the moment, and how I processed them after. I wish I could point to the one thing, phrase or moment in the story where I got captured by it, but that “thing” remains elusive, unable to be grasped. The closest I can come to is the narrator talking to his wife on the beach about his experience, as that moment felt very honest and true, but I also feel like I was swept up in this story at that point.

    If I had Zach Williams in front of me, and besides asking him if he’s seen Hanging Rock, I might ask him what this story was about, and I’m pretty sure he’d answer with asking me, what did I think the story was about? Except, I don’t think he’s being a smart aleck if he did that. Williams is a very capable writer, who is in control of his craft and is purposefully creating a story that lives in the gray arears that populate most people’s lives. So, if you’re asking what the story was about, then you’re focusing on the mystery, and not what the experience was.

  • BEST of 2024: Most Read Post over 2024 – Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid

    ( This post was written back in May of 2022, but for some reason, and I am not complaining, Mohsin Hamid’s short story review had the highest view count for 2024. It’s a very good story so I understand why people are still talking about it.)

    Short Story Review: “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid

    (The short story “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid appeared in the May 16th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (This story will be Spoiled!)

    I didn’t know I had been waiting for a story, but “The Face in the Mirror” by Mohsin Hamid was the story I had been waiting for. I thought I knew what I was getting, then I was surprised, then I felt ashamed that I had judged it, only to again think I knew where this story was going, only to arrive at an ending that was conclusive, but also left me pleasantly wondering what all of this meant. I love that feeling. It reminds me of being in a college English class, and we have just finished reading a story that we are all jazzed up about, and we can’t wait to discuss it, to see if someone else saw it the same way that I did.

    The story is about a white man, Anders, who wakes up one day to find that his skin color has changed to brown. Right off the bat, I thought I was about to get a modern retelling of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” Anders soon learns that this change is affecting other people in his city. Slowly, tensions start growing in this city. Anders goes to see his father, who has not changed and is still white. We learn that the father and Anders have a strained relationship, neither really coming to understand the other. Where the father was a construction foreman, a physically tough man, Anders never lived up to that standard. Though the father doesn’t understand or recognize his son, the father still loves and attempts to protect his child, by giving Anders a rifle to protect himself. Soon, society begins to break apart; militias form, people who have changed are now evicted, violence is everywhere. Anders has a confrontation at his apartment, an attempt to evict him, and though he stands his ground, he knows he has to leave. The only safe place is his father’s home, where he goes, and the two of them hole up together. Soon, it is clear that the father is dying, and Anders sees to it that he takes care of his father to the end. And at the funeral, the father is the only white person left, as all of the people attending are now brown skinned.

    First of all, much respect to Hamid for writing a story that was not easy to predict where it was going. Always a good sign. Second, there is so much to unpack. Was this a story about race? Clearly it was. Was this a story about how the paternal generation comes to not recognize and understand their children’s generation? Yes, that is also true. I think it was also about loving unconditionally. It was all of that, and it was great. I also like that after Anders goes through this change, society comes out on the other side, and everything starts to return back to normal. There was a menace in this story, a tension that I felt was going to explode, but the fact that it didn’t played well into the theme of the story. There were all of these things happening, which was bringing up questions in my mind, asking if this is how society would react to a change like that, or is our current society reacting this way because a great change is under way?

    I don’t know, but it is fun and challenging to ask and ponder these questions.

    But all of it was pulled together and held tightly by Hamid’s writing. His word choice, the flow of the sentences, and the use of repetition of a phrase in a sentence; it was enjoyable just to read this prose. I am now a fan of Mohsin Hamid. I feel like he was a friend, gently nudging me to ask questions, and look a little closer at the world around me.

    (Say, don’t forget to like this post, or share it, or leave a comment. I got bills to pay, you know.)