Best New Yorker Articles of 1996

Martin Amis on how the English novelist Jane Austen has remained a phenomenon for more than two centuries.

From 1996: Susan Orlean on Centro Vasco, a restaurant in Miami founded by Cuban refugees, and one of the few businesses from the country that came to the U.S. virtually unchanged.

Fiction, from 1996: “Being overly certain, he was relatively sure, was what eventually made one a wacko.”

Teo is home from school, the narrator's mother tells him, but the narrator keeps on watching Spanish TV. Only when his mother goes to bed, does he …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about British Labour Party leader Tony Blair, 41... On Apr. 9, 1992, when the Labour Party lost its fourth successive election to the …

THE POLITICAL SCENE about Sen. Bob Dole's collapsing Presidential bid... Whatever the poll numbers, whatever the panicked advice from his handlers, …

BOOKS review of "Going Negative: How Political Advertisements Shrink and Polarize the Electorate."

In a piece written while Hillary Clinton was still the First Lady, Henry Louis Gates examined her life, her career, and her detractors.

David Remnick on the first—and last—President of the Soviet Union.

We all knew that we were privileged to be meeting the Queen, Paul Theroux writes. The idea was to remain upbeat.

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Juan Guerrero, 20, of Mexican decent living in Sunnyside, Washington, and about Hispanic youth gangs... He was born in Zacatecas,…

Signed comment about the insanity defense... "Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes," Nick Carraway observes in "The Great Gatsby," …

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., on what the critic and novelist Albert Murray inspired in generations of black intellectuals.

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Travelgate. The Clinton campaign in Little Rock, Arkansas, was one of the best-run campaigns in history, disciplined and tightly …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Kenneth Starr, the counsel on the Whitewater investigation... Critics were calling for an investigation into the propriety of …

What was a Ziegfeld girl about? Taking a hard life and turning it into a world of fun and glamour, John Lahr wrote about his mother, a former Broadway chorus dancer, in 1996.

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.

Signed Comment about Mayor Marion Barry's ineffective rule of Washington, D.C. & Sen. Robert Dole's resignation from the Senate in order to pursue …

A junior premed student, Sinedu Tadesse, took the life of her closest friend, Trang Ho, then her own. She left behind a shocked campus, unanswered questions, and her diary.

Frank McCourt on why his parents left Ireland—and returned—in a selection from the 1996 memoir, which won a Pulitzer Prize.

Fiction by Jeffrey Eugenides: “She thought about the children she never had, lined at the windows of a ghostly school bus, faces pressed against the glass.”

Suzannah Lessard’s 1996 profile of her great-grandfather Stanford White, the architect who designed Madison Square Garden and the Washington Square Arch and who was murdered in 1906.

Signed comment on Bosnia. ...The Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the fighting [in Bosnia] last November, was the product of vigorous American …

LETTER FROM RUSSIA about Boris Yeltsin's election in Russia. The writer met with Valdimir Kryuchkov, the last K.G.B. head, in the last days of the …

REPORTER AT LARGE about Atlanta, Georgia. Margaret Mitchell's house on Peachtree St. in midtown Atlanta was a burned-out shell of a three-story …

On a calm, clear day in 1994, USAir Flight 427, a Boeing 737 plane, suddenly nosedived and smashed into the earth, killing everyone on board, Jonathan Harr writes. A team of investigators quickly assembled to sift through the rubble.

Adam Gopnik reviews Joyce Milton’s “Tramp,” a biography of Charlie Chaplin, and reflects on the comedian’s grounding in British music-hall tradition, his leftist politics, and the childlike purity of his art.

REPORTER AT LARGE about Brian Lee Tomberlind, the child of a lower middle-class family. The writer followed Brian to school and home with his family for a …

Signed comment about musical influences... Something odd occurs toward the end of "Odelay," a new album by the young artist known simply as Beck. As …

THE POLITICAL SCENE about the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention... The news that President Clinton's chief …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about events surrounding the suicide last May of Admiral Jeremy Michael Boorda... The event brought new anguish to the navy, but also a…

Alan Paul on B. B. King, Buddy Guy, and musicians who trash their guitars.

Scientists were once content just to try to rid us of fatal diseases. Now, some of them are actually trying to extend the human life cycle. But will we be …

A REPORTER AT LARGE about Brett Coleman Kimberlin... Writer completed and published a story on the eve of the last Presidential election, in which …

Producers of the ABC sitcom "Ellen" are discussing plans to have the main character disclose that she is a lesbian. --The Times. SHOUTS & MURMURS casual …

James Carroll on how John McCain and John Kerry worked together to normalize diplomatic relations with Vietnam.

Matt and Jean, both fourteen years old, are lying under a porch, with a candle which is about to go out. It is after one o'clock in the morning, and …

The story takes place on a Sunday in July, 1925, in Stockholm. Anna, thirty-six, has been married to Henrik, the curate, for twelve years and they have …

Doug, the narrator, is gathered in the red library with ninety-eight of his ninety-nine brothers. They include a "caustic graphomaniac," a "recovering …

Calvin Tomkins on the artist’s life in his favorite city—the place where he felt freer and more at home than anywhere else.

Fresh out of rehab, Rick needs a sponsor and goes to live with his older brother, Philip, a doctor at an obstetrical clinic in Detroit. When they meet at …

John Lahr’s 1996 piece on the director Woody Allen. “Allen sees his extraordinary artistic freedom as a mixed blessing. ‘I’ve often said, the only thing standing between me and greatness is me.’ ”

A REPORTER AT LARGE about the late Mafia hit man Gregory Scarpa, Jr. and his relationship as informant with F.B.I. agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who was …

Truth be told, I'm not an easy man. I can be an entertaining one, though it's been my experience that most people don't want to be entertained.…