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Best New Yorker Articles of 1994

Explore 49 featured picks from The New Yorker's 1994 issues.

49 picks · 49 issues · Top author: John Seabrook (3)

Most featured section: A Reporter at Large

Featured Picks

E-Mail from Bill
John Seabrook · A Reporter at Large · January 10

Writing in 1994, John Seabrook profiles Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.

The Public Intellectual
Jervis Anderson · Life and Letters · January 17

West is trying to resurrect the role of the activist philosopher without completely shaking up the academy, Jervis Anderson wrote, in 1994.

A CHANGED VISION OF GOD
Alec Wilkinson · A Reporter at Large · January 24

A REPORTER AT LARGE about victims of a blindness apparently incurred during the Cambodian Holocaust as a psychological disfigurement. Writer tells about …

DOUBT
William Finnegan · A Reporter at Large · January 31

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the writer's experience on a jury for the trial of Martin Kaplan, 23, a petty thief who was convicted in a subway mugging. …

Getting Better
Hendrik Hertzberg · Comment · February 7

Comment about President Clinton's health care plan and about his State of the Union Address. Even conservatives have acknowledged that there has to be …

Promise Her the Moon
Ken Auletta · Annals of Communications · February 14

Ken Auletta on the anchor whose versatility and charisma made her a celebrity—and ignited a bidding war.

The Tonya Harding Fan Club
Susan Orlean · Popular Chronicles · February 21

After the attack on the ice skater Nancy Kerrigan, Susan Orlean reported on the knee-clubbing scandal that preceded the 1994 Winter Olympics and implicated Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and Shawn Eckhardt and Shane Stant.

SPENDER'S LIVES
Ian Hamilton · Profiles · February 28

PROFILE of Stephen Spender. Writer's first meeting with Spender was in 1960, when he was president, chief executive, and general mastermind of the …

Help For Sex Offenders
Lawrence Wright · Comment · March 7

Comment about a debate over whether sex criminals should be permitted to undergo castration. The argument began in 1992, when Steve Allen Butler, a …

Visible Man
David Remnick · Life and Letters · March 14

David Remnick’s 1994 Profile of the author of “Invisible Man.”

After the Party
Susan Orlean · Annals of Showtown · March 21

Susan Orlean’s profile of Sue Mengers, who was one of the most formidable agents in Hollywood.

The Mouthpiece and Handsomo
Alec Wilkinson · Annals of Friendship · March 28

Back in nineteen-forties Brooklyn, Alec Wilkinson writes, the media personality Larry King and the author Herb Cohen found fame in a junior-high-school stunt.

Along Racial Lines
Jeffrey Toobin · Comment · April 4

Comment about Shaw v. Reno, a Supreme Court case about the 12th congressional district of North Carolina and a related trial. A great national experiment …

Smoke Out
Malcolm Gladwell · Comment · April 11

Comment about regulating cigarettes & smoking. Last month Dr. David A. Kessler, the commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, told Congress he …

Conversations with a Killer
Alec Wilkinson · A Reporter at Large · April 18

Alec Wilkinson interviews one of America’s most notorious killers, John Wayne Gacy, who was convicted, in 1980, of murdering thirty-three boys.

Belfast Confetti
David Remnick · A Reporter at Large · April 25

To the many people in Northern Ireland living in fear, Gerry Adams is just another man who won't let an old war die.

MOI GOES TO WASHINGTON
Joe Kane · A Reporter at Large · May 2

A REPORTER AT LARGE about a visit by Moi, a Huaorani Indian from the Ecuadorian Amazon, to Washington, D.C., to present the case of his tribe to the U.S. …

The Ghost of the Glass House
Adam Gopnik · A Reporter at Large · May 9

Adam Gopnik on Pierre Chareau’s modernist Glass House, in nineteen-thirties Paris—and the dreams that still haunt it.

The Expert Who Convinced a Jury That Jeffrey Dahmer Was Sane
Joyce Johnson · Annals of Crime · May 16

Joyce Johnson on Dr. Park Dietz, the forensic psychologist who has testified in notorious homicide cases, including the prosecution of John Hinckley, Jr., Betty Broderick, Jeffrey Dahmer, Joel Rifkin, and Ted Kaczynski, known as the Unabomber.

The Political and Media Maelstrom of Paula Jones and President Clinton
Louis Menand · Comment · May 23

From 1994: In making a sexual-harassment charge against the President, Jones herself will be subjected to intense scrutiny.

Hillary the Pol
Connie Bruck · Profile · May 30

From Wellesley and Yale to the White House and health-care reform.

My First Flame
John Seabrook · Brave New World Dept. · June 6

Writing in 1994, John Seabrook describes the novel experience of being insulted by a stranger on the Internet.

Return of the Fugitive
Lucinda Franks · Annals of Crime · June 13

Lucinda Franks on Katherine Ann Power, the antiwar radical who left her life and family in Oregon to serve time for her role in an action that killed a Boston cop in 1970.

How Paula Jones Went from Tabloid Fodder to Right-Wing Saint
Sidney Blumenthal · Letter from Washington · June 20

Her sexual-harassment claims against President Clinton spawned a lurid scandal, Sidney Blumenthal writes. But for a disgruntled network of televangelists and anti-abortionists, she is more than a cause—she is an opportunity.

Several Birds
David Foster Wallace · Fiction · June 27

Poor Tony Krause is a homeless transvestite drug addict in twenty-first-century Massachusetts. Lengthy footnotes tell how he snatched a woman's …

Don’t Mean Diddly
Adam Gopnik · Comment · July 11

Adam Gopnik on how the search for what it all means became the search for what the coverage of it all means.

The Body Lies
Amy Bloom · A Reporter at Large · July 18

A REPORTER AT LARGE about female-to-male (F.T.M.) transsexuals. Two people in 100,000 are diagnosed as high-intensity transsexuals, requiring surgery. …

An Incendiary Defense
Jeffrey Toobin · Annals of Law · July 25

Jeffrey Toobin writes about the legal strategies in the O. J. Simpson trial.

Father Stories
John Edgar Wideman · Personal History · August 1

The author examines his family and its losses, six years after his son was convicted of murder.

War And Peace
Thomas McGuane · Fiction · August 8

They concluded that my attitude was from being by myself so much, so Karen arranged to bring the Indian to the house for a visit. It so happens that I know…

The Thrill Is Gone
Julie Hecht · Fiction · August 15

Short story about a woman photographer’s time on Nantucket while thinking about headache cures, natural remedies, Princess Diana, Coco Chanel, Ted …

Deep East Texas
William Finnegan · A Reporter at Large · August 22

A REPORTER AT LARGE about cocaine trafficking in east Texas, especially in the town and county of San Augustine; a drug bust there called Operation White …

THE NAKED CITADEL
Susan Faludi · A Reporter at Large · September 5

A REPORTER AT LARGE about The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina, and Shannon Faulkner, a woman who was recently the first female …

We Two Grownups
Alice Mattison · Fiction · September 12

Today was the happiest day of my life so far, even though it didn't include actual sex or the World Series. I live with my parents--to save …

Tou-Tou-Toukie, Hello
Hilton Als · The Talk of the Town · September 19

The former model Toukie Smith has a big voice, a big smile, and an unbridled enthusiasm for things quintessentially herself, Hilton Als writes—all of which she has poured into her restaurant venture.

MISSILE WARS
Seymour M. Hersh · A Reporter at Large · September 26
Will You Say Something, Monsieur Eliot?
Tom Paine · Fiction · October 3

After the eye passed over, the Concordia Yawl Bliss was picked up and tossed sideways. Eliot was catapulted from the cockpit and landed chin first on the …

Rocking in Shangri-La
John Seabrook · The World of Television · October 10

John Seabrook on the cultural influence of MTV and its music videos, which over time have moved from featuring musicians such as Culture Club and Madonna to Kurt Cobain and Snoop Doggy Dogg.

THE RANSOM OF RUSSIAN ART
John McPhee · A Reporter at Large · October 17

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Norton Townshend Dodge's collection of unofficial Soviet Russian art. Dodge was born in Oklahoma City in 1927, and first went…

Zombie
Joyce Carol Oates · Fiction · October 24

Fiction, from 1994: “The idea of creating a zombie for my own purposes came to me in a brainstorm five years ago.”

Juries on Trial
Jeffrey Toobin · Annals of Law · October 31

ANNALS OF LAW about jury trials, peremptory challenges, and two new books on juries; Jeffrey Abramson's "We, the Jury", and Stephen J. Adler's "The Jury.O …

Chloe’s Scene
Jay McInerney · Manhattan Diary · November 7

A Profile of the actress and It Girl Chloe Sevigny in 1994, written by Jay McInerney, when she was filming “Kids” and a muse for fashion designers.

Marrying Damian
William Trevor · Fiction · November 14

Joanna declared that she was going to marry Damian when she was five years old. Twenty years later, when he was in his sixties, Damian appeared at the home…

House Hunting
Michael Chabon · Fiction · November 21

Daniel Diamond and his wife Christy Kite knew that the house was all wrong for them. An ivy-covered Norman country manor with an eccentric roofline, a fat,…

Gore’s Dilemma
Peter J. Boyer · The Political Scene · November 28

Gore has spent his life preparing for the Presidency, only to find himself now cast as the Walter Mondale of the nineties, Peter J. Boyer writes. If it’s too late to save this Administration, is there still time to save his party and himself?

Artist in Exile
Lawrence Weschler · Profiles · December 5

Lawrence Weschler’s 1994 Profile of the director Roman Polanski at work on his film “Death and the Maiden,” a film whose themes eerily resonate with Polanski’s own story.

Closing the Books
David Remnick · Comment · December 12

Signed Comment about the aftermath of the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. Three years ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee with its televised …

The Lady and Tennessee
John Lahr · A Life in the Wings · December 19

Lady Maria St. Just’s talent for outrageous mythmaking charmed Tennessee Williams. John Lahr looks at their friendship.

Shakti
Vikram Chandra · Fiction · December 26

The beginning and end of everything is a marriage. Sheila Bijlani was always glamorous. After college, she became a hostess with Air France. Everyone …

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