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Best New Yorker Articles of 1992

Explore 52 featured picks from The New Yorker's 1992 issues.

52 picks · 52 issues · Top author: Lawrence Weschler (3)

Most featured section: Fiction

Featured Picks

ARCHITECTS AMID THE RUINS
Lawrence Weschler · Profiles · January 6

PROFILE of Iraqi architects Kanan & Mohamed Makiya; son & father. Mohamed thinks he was born in 1916. Since 1974 he has been based in London. His firm is …

A NATION OF CONTRADICTIONS
Stan Sesser · A Reporter at Large · January 13

REPORTER AT LARGE about Singapore where an economic miracle has been achieved. In not much more than a decade, Singaporeans passed from poverty to …

STARTING FROM SCRATCH
Fred C. Shapiro · A Reporter at Large · January 20

REPORTER AT LARGE about Mongolia. In 1921 the country embraced Communism, &, within 3 years became the unofficial "sixteenth Soviet republic". Eight years …

The Little Heart
Jean Thompson · Fiction · January 27

Benny, 44, a sculptor, and her lover Pete, 26, a graduate student in microbiology, are touring the South, driving from Wisconsin to New Orleans. Though …

OUTSIDER THE GIFT-I
Marshall Frady · Profiles · February 3

PROFILE of Jesse Jackson. He was born, illegitimate, in the most impoverished pocket of the black quarter of Greenville, South Carolina; it was when he …

OUTSIDER II--HISTORY IS UPON US
Marshall Frady · Profiles · February 10

PROFILE of Jesse Jackson. Jackson was born, illegitimate, in Greenville, S.C., in 1941. Tells about his early life. He tours Greenville with writer, …

OUTSIDER III-WITHOUT PORTFOLIO
Marshall Frady · Profiles · February 17

PROFILE of Jesse Jackson. After Martin Luther King's death, Jackson felt confined within King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and broke…

Early Innings
Roger Angell · Personal History · February 24

How it felt to be a young baseball fan in nineteen-thirties New York, with heroes like Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, and Babe Ruth.

The Mountains of Pi
Richard Preston · Profiles · March 2

Richard Preston profiles Gregory and David Chudnovsky, mathematician brothers who built a supercomputer out of mail-order parts in order to calculate pi.

The High Priest of Frivolity
George Konrad · Fiction · March 9

In the winter of 1944-45 the narrator was an 11-year-old Jew living in Budapest. The building in which his family lived with his Aunt Zsuzsa, a modern …

TAKING IT PERSONALLY
John Newhouse · Profiles · March 16

PROFILE of Sen. Alan K. Simpson, the assistant Republican leader, or whip, and junior U.S. Senator from Yoming. At 6'7", he is one of the funniest and …

Moscow, a Newspaper City
David Remnick · Letter from Moscow · March 23

David Remnick meets the city’s best-known newspaper editors, including the founder of Nezavisimaya Gazeta—“the closest thing Russia has ever had to a Western daily,” he wrote, in 1992.

FIGURING IT OUT
Kennedy Fraser · Profiles · March 30

PROFILE of classical guitarist Eliot Fisk. At 37, Fisk is a professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg; he keeps a pieda-terre on the Upper West Side of …

REGISSEUR
Whitney Balliett · Profiles · April 6

PROFILE of Julius Monk, 79, one of the most successful supper club impresarios who emerged after the end of Prohibition. Monk (no relation to Thelonius) …

Girl Games
Janet Kauffman · Fiction · April 13

About Angelina and Darlene, friends who live three miles from each other, outside of Detroit. Angelina calls Darlene to borrow her car so she can visit her…

Charades
Lorrie Moore · Fiction · April 20

Therese is with her family for Christmas in Bethesda, Maryland, where her parents have recently moved. Therese's younger brother Andrew and his wife …

SOCIALISM OR DEATH
John Newhouse · A Reporter at Large · April 27

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Cuba, the Cuban missle crisis, and the Cuban-American political community. Last September, Mikhail Gorbachev, then the President …

THE STORYTELLER
Harvey Sachs · Profiles · May 4

PROFILE of Glorgio Strehler, Italian theater director. The Piccolo Teatro, Strehler's compnay, is located in Milan. Describes his being stagestruck at …

DEFICIT
Lawrence Weschler · A Reporter at Large · May 11

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Poland's economic problems. Writer visits a market at Warsaw's Stadium of the Tenth Anniversary. Describes the wide …

Mrs. Box
Michael Chabon · Fiction · May 18

Eddie Zwang, a bankrupt optometrist headed for Mexico from Washington state in a Volvo filled with stolen optical equipment, decided to stop in Portland, …

Poltergeists
Jane Shapiro · Fiction · May 25

Story told mostly in a flashback to 1985 when the narrator's two children, Zack and Nora, were finishing high school and she was newly divorced and …

JUNGLE BOTANIST
E. J. Kahn · Profiles · June 1

PROFILE of Richard Evans Schultes, a Harvard botanist specializing in ethnobotany and jugle plants. Tells about his life as well as the various …

Saying Goodbye to “Marlene”
Robert Gottlieb · Comment · June 8

Robert Gottlieb on saying goodbye to “Marlene”; in Paris and Berlin, she was a symbol as well as a legend.

The Empty House
Scott B. Smith · Fiction · June 15

Three weeks after Arthur's ex-wife Kate moves in with her fiance Ted, their house burns down and Arthur lets them stay with him in his and Kate's …

Shopping at Sunshine
Susan Orlean · Our Local Correspondents · June 22

Susan Orlean on the people from all over the world who worked and shopped at Sunshine Market, a grocery store in Jackson Heights, in Queens.

Going to the Core
David Blum · Profiles · June 29

PROFILE of pianist Richard Goode, 49, who has only in the past few years become known as a solo pianist, after many years as a chamber musician. Born in …

Also Available
Louis Menand · Fiction · July 6

Black and white cartoon spread. Six panels describing other presidential candidates: e.g., Harvey "Rust" Perrault, Elvis Presley.

A White Horse
Thom Jones · Fiction · July 13

Ad Magic, an American "ad writer," is on a tour bus in Bombay when it is rear-ended by a truck; the impact throws him down the aisle and causes a lozenge …

The Hammer and the Nail
Louis Menand · Books · July 20

Louis Menand on the novel that rewrote our understanding of race in America.

Comment
Charles McGrath · Comment · July 27

Comment about the Democratic Convention's lack of spontaneity, its silliness, its polictical oration, its simple-mindedness, but finally its spirit of …

THE HEART, THE HEAD, AND THE PIPES
Whitney Balliett · Profiles · August 3

PROFILE of singer Rosemary Clooney, that traces the peaks and valleys of her personal life and career, from 1945 when she began at an Ohio radio station, …

GIVING GOOD VALUE
Holly Brubach · Profiles · August 10

PROFILE of john Loring, who is the design director of Tiffany and company. He is tall, handsome, with a broad high forehead and a rugged, prominent nose. …

Bruce Springsteen’s Family Values
Elizabeth Wurtzel · Popular Music · August 17

Elizabeth Wurtzel reviews the rocker’s lackluster 1992 albums “Human Touch” and “Lucky Town” and considers the trajectory of his career.

Playing Doc’s Games—I
William Finnegan · The Sporting Scene · August 24

Part 1 of William Finnegan's personal essay about his surfing days in San Francisco and his friendship with Dr. Mark Renneker.

Playing Doc’s Games—II
William Finnegan · The Sporting Scene · August 31

The second part of William Finnegan’s personal essay about his surfing days in San Francisco and his friendship with Dr. Mark Renneker.

Assembling California—I
John McPhee · Annals of the Former World · September 7

John McPhee explores the geology of the Golden State.

RAGING BULLS
Jane Stern · A Reporter at Large · September 14

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the sport of bull-riding. Tells about the disasterous ride of Wacey Cathey, who was put in the hospital after one of his rides, …

How to Give the Wrong Impression
Katherine Heiny · Fiction · September 21

Gwen (in the 2nd person voice) and Boris, graduate students, are roommates, but Gwen pretends and lets people infer that they are romantically involved. On…

ALWAYS REMEMBER
Raymond Bonner · A Reporter at Large · September 28

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Kurds, and the Iraqi governments war against them. If a genocide case is ever filed against the Iraq of Saddam Hussein and his …

Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz
George Saunders · Fiction · October 5

A short story by George Saunders, from 1992.

Actor from the Shadows
Joan Juliet Buck · Onward and Upward with the Arts · October 12

Joan Juliet Buck’s 1992 profile of Daniel Day-Lewis: “The impression he gives is of transition, flux.”

THE VELVET PURGE: THE TRIALS OF JAN KAVAN
Lawrence Weschler · A Reporter at Large · October 19

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Jan Kavan, a Czech dissident, who was accused of collaborating with the Czech secret police or StB, and was "lustrated" or purged…

Crisis in the Hot Zone
Richard Preston · A Reporter at Large · October 26

Richard Preston reports on the emergence of the Ebola Reston virus in Central Africa, and its sudden spread to the suburbs of Washington, D.C.

Barn Burning
Haruki Murakami · Fiction · November 2

The narrator, a married Japanese writer, meets a woman at a friends wedding in Tokyo, and proceeds to tell the story of their bizarre relationship. …

Jay Leno’s Loyalty Test in the Battle for the “Tonight Show”
Peter J. Boyer · Letter from Burbank · November 9

To land the biggest gig in late night, Leno had to make an enemy of David Letterman, Peter J. Boyer writes—and abandon the manager and longtime friend who’d brought him to TV in the first place.

A Win for Bill Clinton, the Candidate of Change
Elizabeth Drew · Letter from Washington · November 16

Elizabeth Drew on how the “nothing to lose” candidate from Arkansas beat George Bush and Ross Perot in the 1992 Presidential election, in his first campaign.

Beyond Nelly
John Lahr · The Theatre · November 23

John Lahr on the pioneering playwright Tony Kushner.

Tony Kushner’s Paradise Lost
Arthur Lubow · Onward and Upward with the Arts · November 30

Arthur Lubow on the playwright haunted by unconditional love, guilt of survival, and Roy Cohn.

What He Was Like
William Maxwell · Fiction · December 7

The story is about a man, a father, who lived a completely different life in his diaries than he did in reality. He kept his diary for his own pleasure. He…

NIXON'S LAST COVER-UP: THE TAPES HE WANTS THE ARCHIVES TO SUPPRESS
Seymour M. Hersh · A Reporter at Large · December 14

A REPORTER AT LARGE is about President Richard Nixon, the White House Tapes that were made during his presidency, and the over ten year struggle Nixon has …

Whose Art Is It?
Jane Kramer · In the South Bronx · December 21

Jane Kramer’s classic 1992 story about the sculptor John Ahearn, whose statues of his Bronx neighbors launched a debate over political correctness and who has the right to make art for the city.

Nativity
Christopher Hope · Fiction · December 28

The narrator, Martin, tells the story of Nathan Swirsky moving into his subdivision outside of Johannesburg in the Christmas week of 1950. Swirsky had a …

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