Katy Waldman
Katy Waldman is a staff writer at The New Yorker, for which she writes about books, culture, and more. Previously, she was a staff writer at Slate and the host of the “Slate’s Audio Book Club” podcast. She won the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing in 2019 and the American Society of Magazine Editors’s award for journalists under thirty in 2018.
Is A.I. Making Mothers Obsolete?
Helen Phillips’s new novel takes place in a dystopian world where the environment has been devastated and humans have outsourced their best selves to tireless, empathetic robots.
“Weird” Is a Rebuke to Republican Dominance Politics
The Democrats’ new favorite attack line has less to do with their opponents’ distance from the norm than with their desired level of control.
The Duelling Incomprehensibility of Biden and Trump in the 2020 Presidential Debates
One of the many asymmetries of the Presidential race is that incoherence helps Trump and hurts Biden.
Is Hunter Biden a Scapegoat or a Favored Son?
The portrait that has cohered at his Wilmington trial is of a precious commodity, a man whom others conspire lovingly to shield.
What COVID Did to Fiction
The early pandemic was a painful, lonely, and disorienting era in American life. It was also a chance to get some writing done.
“The Idea of You” and the Notion of the Hot Mom
Anne Hathaway, as Solène, is a vision of relatability, self-sufficiency, and poise, in a film that proves the rom-com isn’t dead.
When the World Goes Quiet
“The Hearing Test” probes the inner life of a narrator stricken by sudden deafness.
Kelly Link Is Committed to the Fantastic
The MacArthur-winning author on the worthwhile frivolity of the fantasy genre, how magic is and is not like a credit card, and why she hates to write but does it anyway.
“Martyr!” Plays Its Subject for Laughs but Is Also Deadly Serious
In his first novel, the Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar asks whether our pain matters, and to whom, and how it might be made to matter more.
A Novelist of Privileged Youth Finds a New Subject
In “Help Wanted,” Adelle Waldman turns her lens from literary Brooklyn to retail work.
Kate Zambreno Collects Herself
The autofictionist has made the drama of finding and losing the self central to her work. Raising two children during the pandemic prompted a change in focus.
Justin Torres’s Art of Exposure and Concealment
The author, whose novel “Blackouts” won the National Book Award last month, talks about sex in fiction, censorship, and the pleasure of what goes on in the shadows.
The Year of the Female Creep
In novels from “The Guest” to “Biography of X,” vaguely menacing wallflowers took center stage.
The Surprising Sweetness of the Ayn Rand Fangirl Novel
Lexi Freiman’s “The Book of Ayn” paints an obsession with the godmother of libertarianism as a useful but transient phase.
Jeanette Winterson Has No Idea What Happens Next
The author and former enfant terrible on life after death, breaking the rules, and forging a self through fiction.
“The Bee Sting,” a Family Saga of Desperation and Denial
The protagonists of Paul Murray’s perspective-shifting novel struggle to conceal their unruly attachments beneath a conventional surface.
Trump’s Subdued Courtroom Appearance
At his arraignment on Thursday, the former President sat fragile and meek in the defendant’s seat.
Ann Patchett’s Pandemic Novel
In “Tom Lake,” Patchett returns to a familiar subject: the ambivalent interpersonal dynamics of closed groups.
Deborah Levy’s Search for a Major Female Character
The British writer, whose eighth novel, “August Blue,” was published this month, talks about mothers, lovers, and the drama of the split self.
The Perils and Potential of the Runaway Imagination
In “Owlish,” Dorothy Tse’s dreamlike début novel, a lonely professor falls in love with a mechanical ballerina.
Is A.I. Making Mothers Obsolete?
Helen Phillips’s new novel takes place in a dystopian world where the environment has been devastated and humans have outsourced their best selves to tireless, empathetic robots.
“Weird” Is a Rebuke to Republican Dominance Politics
The Democrats’ new favorite attack line has less to do with their opponents’ distance from the norm than with their desired level of control.
The Duelling Incomprehensibility of Biden and Trump in the 2020 Presidential Debates
One of the many asymmetries of the Presidential race is that incoherence helps Trump and hurts Biden.
Is Hunter Biden a Scapegoat or a Favored Son?
The portrait that has cohered at his Wilmington trial is of a precious commodity, a man whom others conspire lovingly to shield.
What COVID Did to Fiction
The early pandemic was a painful, lonely, and disorienting era in American life. It was also a chance to get some writing done.
“The Idea of You” and the Notion of the Hot Mom
Anne Hathaway, as Solène, is a vision of relatability, self-sufficiency, and poise, in a film that proves the rom-com isn’t dead.
When the World Goes Quiet
“The Hearing Test” probes the inner life of a narrator stricken by sudden deafness.
Kelly Link Is Committed to the Fantastic
The MacArthur-winning author on the worthwhile frivolity of the fantasy genre, how magic is and is not like a credit card, and why she hates to write but does it anyway.
“Martyr!” Plays Its Subject for Laughs but Is Also Deadly Serious
In his first novel, the Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar asks whether our pain matters, and to whom, and how it might be made to matter more.
A Novelist of Privileged Youth Finds a New Subject
In “Help Wanted,” Adelle Waldman turns her lens from literary Brooklyn to retail work.
Kate Zambreno Collects Herself
The autofictionist has made the drama of finding and losing the self central to her work. Raising two children during the pandemic prompted a change in focus.
Justin Torres’s Art of Exposure and Concealment
The author, whose novel “Blackouts” won the National Book Award last month, talks about sex in fiction, censorship, and the pleasure of what goes on in the shadows.
The Year of the Female Creep
In novels from “The Guest” to “Biography of X,” vaguely menacing wallflowers took center stage.
The Surprising Sweetness of the Ayn Rand Fangirl Novel
Lexi Freiman’s “The Book of Ayn” paints an obsession with the godmother of libertarianism as a useful but transient phase.
Jeanette Winterson Has No Idea What Happens Next
The author and former enfant terrible on life after death, breaking the rules, and forging a self through fiction.
“The Bee Sting,” a Family Saga of Desperation and Denial
The protagonists of Paul Murray’s perspective-shifting novel struggle to conceal their unruly attachments beneath a conventional surface.
Trump’s Subdued Courtroom Appearance
At his arraignment on Thursday, the former President sat fragile and meek in the defendant’s seat.
Ann Patchett’s Pandemic Novel
In “Tom Lake,” Patchett returns to a familiar subject: the ambivalent interpersonal dynamics of closed groups.
Deborah Levy’s Search for a Major Female Character
The British writer, whose eighth novel, “August Blue,” was published this month, talks about mothers, lovers, and the drama of the split self.
The Perils and Potential of the Runaway Imagination
In “Owlish,” Dorothy Tse’s dreamlike début novel, a lonely professor falls in love with a mechanical ballerina.