Takes
The New Yorker’s writers, editors, and supporters revisit notable works from the archive.
Margaret Atwood on Mavis Gallant’s “Orphans’ Progress”
Gallant observed with the “cold eye” that Yeats recommended for writers, even when drawing on her own life in fiction.
Elizabeth Kolbert on John McPhee’s “Encounters with the Archdruid”
The nominal subject was the Sierra Club leader David Brower, but McPhee allowed a mining expert named Charles Park to share the stage.
Richard Brody on Pauline Kael’s “Notes on Heart and Mind”
The movie critic’s informal manifesto reflects both her brilliance and her blind spots during a revolutionary period in Hollywood.
Naomi Fry on Jay McInerney’s “Chloe’s Scene”
In McInerney’s telling, Chloë Sevigny, then a young It Girl, was the font from which absolute cool flowed. She was New York.
Louisa Thomas on John Updike’s “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu”
The article, about Ted Williams’s final game, was described as the best piece about baseball The New Yorker ever printed—which, Updike later allowed, was small praise.
Ian Frazier on George W. S. Trow’s “Eclectic, Reminiscent, Amused, Fickle, Perverse”
The writer and his great subject—Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records—shared a deeply American restlessness.
Michael Cunningham on Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain”
I don’t expect ever to fully understand my desire to hold on to those two doomed cowboys in the most literal way possible.
Roz Chast on George Booth’s Cartoons
Every object is lovingly drawn, in a way that only Booth could draw them. Every detail enhances the scene.
Kevin Young on James Baldwin’s “Letter from a Region in My Mind”
The essay served as a definitive diagnosis of American race relations. Events soon gave it the force of prophecy.
Rachel Aviv on Janet Malcolm’s “Trouble in the Archives”
Malcolm’s letters to a source reveal the intimate relationship behind one of her most influential pieces.