CATEGORIES

Poor Houdini

Four very thin trees stand above their own reflections and hesitate, as cold girls do. She thinks of rhymes for girls do. Whirls through. Pearls anew. Use it in a sonnet? Eddy's mother lives by a lake. It is a gray: and glassy evening. Supper was all reminiscences, Eddy recalling slow white mists drifting over the schoolyard each day at five, when the chemical plant incinerated its Styrofoam, and how he broke his collarbone and no one believed him for three days, his mother at the head of the table smiling and continuing with her fruit cup, his brother sitting opposite with his head down, a man tall and thin as a door, closed like a door. He ate as if expecting more. Four, chore, whore, underscore ran through her mind perkily. She mumbled something, got up from the table, and left. Now, at the lake, no one swimming, she watches the water slide from slate to black.

ANNALS OF POLITICS: RULING-CLASS RULES

How to thrive in the power élite—while declaring it your enemy.

DOUBLE VISION

The mystique of twins.

TONE CONTROL

The sane genius of Emily Mason.

CRÈME DE LA CRÈME

Sofia Coppola’ path to filming gilded adolescence.

GOODYEAR

On tires, toenails, and walks with an old friend.

CAVE WOMAN

Beatriz Flamini liked solitude so much that she decided to live underground for five hundred days.

ACID REFLUX

When America first went tripping.

THE TALK OF THE TOWN

As a way of launching the race for the Republican Presidential nomination, the Iowa and New Hampshire contests offer a neat thematic juxtaposition: in the Midwest, candidates fight for the social-conservative vote; in New England, for the support of small-business owners.

NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD

The heroine of \"Tótem,\" a new film from the Mexican director Lila Avilés, is a girl by the name of Solecito (Naíma Sentíes), or Sol for short. We are never told her age: seven or eight, perhaps, though she's one of those naturally grave children who seem a little older and wiser than they ought-or would choose to be.

Personal History – A New Life

Becoming a parent, ending a marriage.

EXIT, VOICE, AND LOYALTY

A Libyan can't quit London in Hisham Matar's \"My Friends.\"

WITCHY WOMEN

The surprising persistence of the witch trial.

CHANCE THE CAT: DAVID MEANS

Does it matter that a cat story resides solely in the body of a cat, remaining neutral as the creature moves through the landscape, operating on pure instinct, and, no matter what, embodying the projected will of the human?

IS A.I. THE DEATH OF I.P.?

The copyright wars, revised and expanded.

DETAIL ORIENTED

The precision comedy of Jacqueline Novak.

DO NO HARM

Oregon tried a more humane way to address addiction. Then came the backlash.

HOSTAGES

As Benjamin Netanyahu clings to power, his country pays a price.

MILLENNIAL FABLE

Once upon a time, around 2010 or so, there lived a hardworking ant and a carefree grasshopper. The grasshopper was hopping to his heart’s content one sunny morning when the ant trudged by, bearing a large load.

IMPASSE

\"Prayer for the French Republic\" comes to Broadway.

GHOST TOWN

The return of \"True Detective,\" on HBO.

Broken and Rebuilt

Bijayini Satpathy and a new understanding of Indian classical dance.

Shamelessly Dramatic

In the plays of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, ugly feelings find sophisticated forms.

The Life of the Mother

A high-risk pregnancy in a climate of fear about abortion.

MAKE IT HURT

Amid the ebbing of empire, Frantz Fanon and Ian Fleming agreed on one thing.

FRESH DIRECT

A passion-fruit devotee's pilgrimage west.

THE LONG WAY

Adventures of a teen-age world traveller.

SHOWING UP

Has school attendance become optional?

THE BEACH HOUSE

She was hoping he would leave her the beach house, counting on this actually, though he had told her he wasn’t going to.

MIND IN FLUX

The viscerally complex music of George Lewis.