Best New Yorker Articles of 1997
Explore 45 featured picks from The New Yorker's 1997 issues.
45 picks · 45 issues · Top author: David Remnick (5)
Most featured section: A Reporter at Large
Featured Picks
Five people found themselves in a run-down Nebraska farmhouse. John Gregory Dunne on how they got there—and why three of them, Teena Brandon, Phillip DeVine, and Lisa Lambert, died.
David Remnick on Katharine Graham, of the Washington Post, the most imposing woman in journalism.
It’s very unlikely that a major comet will crash into the Earth—but not so unlikely that leading scientists around the world haven’t begun to plot ways to make sure it doesn’t happen, Timothy Ferris wrote, in 1997.
Lucy spends summers with her great-aunt, Mrs. Charles Parch, in Connecticut, who likes Early English china and owns several rare pieces of Bow and Chelsea …
Fina and John Michael have grown up together in a small seashore village in Ireland, and plan to marry. John Michael's widowed mother dies; her son …
Claudia Roth Pierpont on the author of “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
A REPORTER AT LARGE about crime consultant Jack Maple... Tells about his early days as a member of the New York City transit police... He was the son of a …
David Remnick profiles the Long Island-raised star of “The Howard Stern Show,” whose bad taste and unruly id have invaded radio, television, bookshelves, and the big screen, including the film adaptation of his autobiography “Private Parts.”
Malcolm Gladwell’s 1997 report on the fashion-trend coolhunters DeeDee Gordon and Baysie Wightman: “What they have is what everybody seems to want these days, which is a window on the world of the street.”
Michael Sragow on Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film.
Adam Gopnik writes about Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect who helped to create the design for New York City‘s Central Park.
Daisy is forty-three, and teaches at a community college in New Haven. She makes a practice of sexual conquest: "I seem to believe that my center can be …
Nancy Franklin on the playwright: being funny has been Wasserstein’s bread and butter. But it has also been something of a bane.
At ninety-five, Brooke Astor is kicking up her heels—and moving on.
Signed comment about Europe... Suppose the world were an animal curled up into a ball, like a threatened armadillo, and you wanted to blow its brains out: …
ANNALS OF COMMUNICATIONS about Microsoft's Nathan Myhrvold. Nathan Myhrvold, 37, is Microsoft's chief technology officer, and Microsoft head Bill …
Mark Singer on Donald Trump and his divorce from Marla Maples.
REPORTER AT LARGE about Iran after the Islamic Revolution. The article is separated into 6 sections: "I--The Great War"; "II--"Salt Land"; "III--The …
Roger Angell’s 1997 Comment on a B-52 bomber pilot, an affair, and sexism in the Air Force.
A REPORTER AT LARGE about Texas businesswoman Nolanda Hill, fifty-two, and her relationship with the late Sec. Ron Brown... Describes the scandals …
A REPORTER AT LARGE about the discovery of an ancient skeleton in Kennewick, Washington... On Sunday, July 28, 1996, in the middle of the afternoon, two …
A REPORTER AT LARGE about the Indian National Army and its role in a World War II rebellion of Indian soldiers, backed by the Japanese, which eventually …
Connie Bruck on the life and death of the rapper Tupac Shakur.
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON about Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. On the morning of June 25th, Tom Daschle, of South Dakota, the Senate Minority Leader, …
When Ron Woods came out at Chrysler, he realized he would have to fight for his safety in an industry where being gay can prompt violence on the factory floor, or ruin your career.
Neil Yaniky is attending a seminar at the Hyatt put on by self-help guru Tom Rodgers. Everyone wears different-colored hats designating their levels. On a …
The author of “A Sport and a Pastime” on his years as a screenwriter.
LETTER FROM JERUSALEM about Israeli politician and former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky. In the Land of Israel, nothing is more telling than the hat on …
Three vignettes set in Russia: "The Vegetable Market," "The Doorkeeper of TASS," and "Border Controls." In "The Vegetable Market," the narrator, a visitor,…
The narrator receives a letter from his friend Albert, whom he hasn't heard from in nine years, saying that Albert has"taken a wife," and inviting him …
The Demings live in a split-level house with a picture window, a breezeway, and bright siding. Their story is interspersed with product-label warnings like…
David Remnick’s 1997 Profile of the reclusive author of “White Noise” and “Underworld,” novels about the power of the media in the modern world.
Signed comment about a protest against coed dorms at Yale University... As college students gather in the opening weeks of a new semester, there is, we …
Malcolm Gladwell on the Spanish-flu epidemic of 1918, which reached virtually every country, as the First World War came to an end, killing between twenty and forty million people.
The story takes place during the Civil War. Walt Whitman goes from Brooklyn to Washington to try to find his brother, George Washington Whitman. He finds …
Fiction by Annie Proulx, from 1997: “They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight.”
John Lahr on the singer who kept reinventing American music, in this Profile from 1997.
REPORTER AT LARGE about South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Nason Ndwandwe is searching for the truth about the murder of his daughter,…
John Lahr on the playwright: the dominating themes of his work—the sense of not belonging, the betrayal of authority—evolve out of his childhood.
After twenty years at the helm, Philippe de Montebello wants the Met to keep pulling in crowds—but not if it has to become a theme park.
A REPORTER AT LARGE about neo-Nazi youth gangs in Antelope Valley, California... With the completion of the Antelope Valley Freeway, it became possible to …
Arun Karan is twenty-four and ready to get married. A procession of fathers bearing photographs of their daughters visit Arun's father, Ram Karan, who …
Roger Angell on growing up in a black-and-white world of cocktail parties, psychiatrists, talking dogs, and the deeply other.
First of two parts. The narrator tells the story of the marriage of his Greek grandparents, who are brother and sister, in the early 20s. Their parents …