This Week’s Issue: Life on Lockdown in China

Plus: the trials of a Never Trump Republican, contagion fables, and what we’re watching under quarantine. View in browser | Update your preferences Letter from Chengdu Life on Lockdown in China Forty-five days of avoiding the coronavirus. By Peter Hessler Annals of Culture What Our Contagion Fables Are Really About In the literature of pestilence, the greatest threat isn’t the loss of human life but the loss of what makes us human. By Jill Lepore The Political Scene The Trials of a Never Trump Republican The lifelong conservative Sarah Longwell has been hoping for the President’s downfall, but he has proved immune to every scandal. Will the coronavirus pandemic be any different? By Susan B. Glasser Comment How the Coronavirus Shattered Trump’s Serene Confidence COVID-19 is unimpressed and unimpeded by the President’s bluster. And the prolonged process of his humbling has put untold numbers of Americans at risk. By David Remnick Comic Strip Self-Isolating: A Pandemic Special “Thirty years of avoiding other human beings . . . validated!” By Chris Ware Our Local Correspondents The Coronavirus Crisis Reveals New York at Its Best and Worst In a time of containment, the city searches for a way forward. By Adam Gopnik On Television What We’re Watching Under Quarantine In our self-isolation, video has replaced social life, and television is grappling with a new reality. By Doreen St. Félix A Critic at Large Harry Houdini and the Art of Escape Why do the magician’s tricks and triumphs still fascinate us? By David Denby Humor from The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs Some Coronavirus Guidelines The good news is that if you continue worrying you can avoid contracting the virus entirely by dying of a premature heart attack. By John Kenney Cartoons From The Issue Cartoons from the Issue Drawings and drollery from this week’s magazine. Sign up for more newsletters from The New Yorker. Visit The New Yorker shop. Question about your subscription? Contact Customer Care. New Yorker digital subscribers get unlimited access to everything on newyorker.com. Log in to your account here. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please send your thoughts and suggestions to TNYinbox@newyorker.com. This e-mail was sent to you by The New Yorker. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, NewYorker@newsletters.newyorker.com, to your address book. View our Privacy Policy Unsubscribe Copyright © Condé Nast 2020. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.