“If I had to pray to anyone, I’d choose Whoopi Goldberg’s character from Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” wrote Ottessa Moshfegh in a “letter” to Donald Trump in 2018. “She makes me laugh. She has a sense of humor.” It’s a good thing that Moshfegh, too, has a sense of humor. Her wit elevates the otherwise bleak […]
The Queen of the Aragon Ballroom
Mary left the farm in Bass Lake and went to Chicago to look for work when she was 16 years old. It was Depression then, 1934, and she charged right into the wind day after day to look for a job. Mary didn’t eat for days at a time. One day, on the point of […]
Youth, Interrupted
Richard Haines was five when he began drawing. Gardens, mostly, and wedding dresses. “The gay gene activated,” he says. “All the other kids were drawing World War II bombers on their notebooks. On mine were roses and gowns.” All gay boys have some version of this story, but the droll portrait of the young kid […]
Lunch with Dali, and a date with Princess Margaret
Paris. Wednesday, April 23, 1969 The Dalís came to lunch. Met in the Ritz bar. Salvador Dalí, a splendid figure with his joke mustache, his goldheaded cane (belonged to Victor Hugo), his diamond stickpin (Alfonso XIII’s), and his ruffles and velvets from the marché aux puces. Gala, his wife, demure and restrained at first. We […]
Ten Best from the Queen of Crime
Over the course of six novels, the writer Christopher Bollen has demonstrated a knack for writing moody, intelligent mysteries that never sacrifice character development on the altar of thrills (though thrills there are aplenty). “You want life to mean something, and you want it to hurt when someone dies and you want to feel the […]
Mrs. Diet Coke
ELLA WIPES SUGAR OFF HER LAP, wrinkling her black mini dress from Vetements. With a half-empty bag of sour gummies on the adjacent seat, she hopes to ward off new passengers boarding the busy train. The candy and a Diet Coke are lunch on this bright Tuesday. It’s been a sunny afternoon, but on her […]
Three poems by Casey Jarrin
The Vampyropod waits in a drawer her ten tentacles unnoticed by paleontologists distracted by the flash of prehistoric sharks all those teeth grand aunt octopussat twelve centimeters across the size of a postcardthe length of your heart ten tiny limbs encased in Bear Gulch limestone under shifting Montana skies a lazy hawk a fast moving cloud before Rex and […]
Intermission
Instead of going to see an old movie,We go for a ride. You emit a feelingThat makes anyone in your companyCertain we are all loved by someone.I have several memories of each placeWe have been. There is no reason youShould remind me of my father’s longSilences, but I miss them now, and notBecause of you—which […]
Edmund White’s Year in Books
The author of the classic queer trilogy, A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony wonders if writers still care enough about originality.
At Home with Beckett Rosset
I’m on the couch with Beckett Rosset watching a Giants game. He’s gifted me, like the thousands of guests he’s had in his home this year, the pleasure of chain smoking indoors. This afternoon, Beckett is getting ready for a reading he’ll perform in a few hours at Andy Maillet’s Room 2 salon series. He […]
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