Paul is Lily’s gay best friend and closest romantic confidant. Grating portmanteaus are a crucial part of their relationship.

The Pornographer, by John McGahern. New York Review Books. 272 pages. $17.95. If you were asked to name the finest Irish writer of the second half of the twentieth century, a strong case could be made ...

Before going up Millstone Hill the crowd waited in a field for darkness to fall. As the long summer day trailed on, they twirled colored ribbons and tossed devil sticks in the air, a jam band played, ...

Number of different forms of torture the Syrian government is suspected of having used during the country’s civil war : 72 Factor by which women are more likely than men… ...

From the Archive Timeless stories from our 175-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day.

Donald Trump’s second victory cannot be attributed to any unhappy accident of eighteenth-century constitutionalism. This time, he won not only the Electoral College, that antique curiosity, but the ...

From I’m Always Looking Up and You’re Jumping, which will be published next year by Random House.

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From the Archive Timeless stories from our 175-year archive handpicked to speak to the news of the day.

I can’t name the seven major types of plastic, but I’m pretty sure I’ve thrown them all away. Crumpled them up, peeled them off the bottom of my shoe, chucked them like basketballs after saying, “For ...

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