This Week’s Issue: The Unlikely Rise of the French Tacos

Plus: a campus suicide mystery, how an indigenous language came to be owned by a white man, and a Personal History by John McPhee. View in browser | Update your preferences Annals of Gastronomy The Unlikely Rise of the French Tacos How an upstart fast food became essential dining in the home of haute cuisine. By Lauren Collins A Reporter at Large A Mysterious Suicide Cluster Young people in a Missouri college town kept killing themselves. A parent of one victim is convinced that her son’s friend encouraged the deaths. By D. T. Max Letter from Maine A Language Saved—or Stolen? The Penobscot language was spoken by almost no one when Frank Siebert set about trying to preserve it. The people of Indian Island are still reckoning with his legacy. By Alice Gregory Personal History Tabula Rasa: Volume Two I thought once of writing about what happens to some books. I had in mind my own. By John McPhee Artifacts Ancient Greece’s Army of Lovers Comprising a hundred and fifty male couples, Thebes’s Sacred Band was undefeated until it was wiped out in 338 B.C. In the nineteenth century, the mass grave of the men was found. By Daniel Mendelsohn Comment The G.O.P.’s Matt Gaetz Problem It’s tempting to see the Gaetz affair as the last shudder of the era of Donald Trump, but the political culture that the two men represent won’t easily be swept away. By Amy Davidson Sorkin Books A Family at Odds Reveals a Nation in the Throes Damon Galgut’s novel “The Promise” explores the betrayals of South Africa through a perfectly pitched domestic drama. By James Wood Books The Repressive Politics of Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman’s pop-psychology blockbuster, now twenty-five years old, turned self-control into a corporate management tool. By Merve Emre The Theatre Off Broadway Returns, with “Blindness” Simon Stephens’s adaptation of José Saramago’s dystopian novel is up—in person—at the Daryl Roth Theatre. By Vinson Cunningham Humor from The New Yorker Shouts & Murmurs The First Chapter of My Proposed Novel Brent Foxfire was a killing machine and a lovemaking machine, and after a long day he would become a sleeping machine. By Jack Handey Cartoons From The Issue Cartoons from the Issue Drawings and drollery from this week’s magazine. You're receiving this e-mail because you signed up for This Week's Issue from The New Yorker. Was this e-mail forwarded to you? Sign up. Unsubscribe | Manage your e-mail preferences | Send newsletter feedback | View our Privacy Policy Copyright © Condé Nast 2021. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.