Best New Yorker A Critic at Large
A Critic at Large features wide-ranging cultural criticism and essays that examine art, literature, film, and ideas through an expansive lens.
37 picks · 1989–2024
Top authors: Adam Gopnik (4), Louis Menand (4), Jill Lepore (4)
Kathryn Schulz reviews Rebecca McCarthy’s biography of the author of “A River Runs Through It and Other Stories” and “Young Men and Fire.”
The partisan redistricting tactics of cracking and packing aren’t merely flaws in the system—they are the system. Louis Menand on Eric Holder’s “Our Unfinished March,” Nick Seabrook’s “One Person, One Vote,” and Jacob Grumbach’s “Laboratories Against Democracy.”
Sam Knight on Boris Johnson, who is expected to be Britain’s next Prime Minister and makes people in power appear ridiculous.
Casey Cep on Harper Lee’s beloved father figure, who became a talking point during the Kavanaugh hearings and is now coming to Broadway.
Jill Lepore on the history of an obscure Supreme Court ruling that sheds light on the ongoing debate over schooling and immigration.
His films are illuminated by what he saw when France was ruled by oppression and ordinary people had to decide what, or whom, they would obey.
Alex Ross on the actor-director of “Citizen Kane” fame, and on the biographies of him.
Margaret Talbot on Patricia Highsmith’s “The Price of Salt,” which turned an erotic obsession into literary art.
Joan Acocella on Scott Herring’s “The Hoarders,” a history of hoarding from Grey Gardens to the DSM-V.
Jill Lepore writes about the trend of marriage therapy and couples counselling, and examines how the practice started, in 1930, with Paul Popenoe’s marriage clinic.
Since the Karen Ann Quinlan case, in 1975, the right to life and the right to die have become central to policy debates from abortion to health care. Jill Lepore examines the consequences.
Scientific management started as a way to work. How did it become a way of life?
Should creative writing be taught?
American art and the Cold War.
Or, The Man Who Came to Broadway.
The strange case of Kyril Bonfiglioli.
The not so merry soul of Cole Porter.
What happened to German music?
Anthony Lane breaks down the actress’s appeal—she is more lovable than desirable, and, even when love is off the menu, she cannot not be liked.
Hilton Als writes about Flannery O’Connor’s portrayal of race and religion in the unreconstructed South.
Cruelty and compassion mingle in the short stories of a master.
Edna O’Brien on the labors of “Ulysses.”
Cynthia Ozick writes about the difficulties of translating the work of the writer Franz Kafka, who possessed a mind so elusive that it escaped even the comprehension of its own sensibility.
Adam Gopnik on the literary structure of Kenneth Starr’s report on President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.
Daphne Merkin on Courtney Love, the leader of the band Hole, the widow of Kurt Cobain, the star of “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” and the subject of Nick Broomfield’s documentary “Kurt & Courtney.”
Hilton Als on the private and public lives of the author of “The Fire Next Time” and “Giovanni’s Room.”
Adam Gopnik writes about Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who helped to create the design for New York City‘s Central Park.
Claudia Roth Pierpont on the author of “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Ann Hulbert on the “Baby and Child Care” author, Dr. Benjamin Spock, who offered children and parents a welcome end to scolding and strictures. “Trust yourself,” he told parents in the famous opening paragraphs of his classic 1946 book.
Martin Amis on how the English novelist Jane Austen has remained a phenomenon for more than two centuries.
Will Crutchfield on the opera star, who, according to legend, ruined her own voice for the sake of vanity and café society. But what she really sacrificed herself to, he writes, was the music.
Adam Gopnik on the controversial author of “Alice in Wonderland.”
The Nazis tried to destroy their death camps so that there would be no evidence of their atrocities. Fifty years later, Auschwitz and the terrible relics …
A reëvaluation of Allen’s comic opus as a writer, filmmaker, and monologuist shows that a clash between the humorist and his culture was an artistic inevitability, Adam Gopnik writes.
Judith Thurman reads the many biographies of Charlotte Brontë and her family, from Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1857 book to Rebecca Fraser’s in 1988.
A CRITIC AT LARGE about the life & career of cartoonist Ralph Barton, who committed suicide at age 39, in 1931. Barton's drawings, like his signature, …